There has been some discussion about resetting the Shadow World setting with the start of the “4th Era”. The purpose is two fold: first, to respect the canon work that Terry has built and second to create a starting point for new Shadow World material with a clean slate (more or less).
There is no dispute that Terry’s work in the Master Atlas’s, Emer books, Loremaster Legacy, Grand Campaign and other supporting material was building towards a finale. The converging narratives were built around the loss of the Northern Eye, growing influence of the Unlife, and world spanning cults. Similar to the end of the 1st Era, and to a lesser extent, the Wars of Dominion at the end of the 2nd Era, the current 3rd Era was going to end, and likely messily!
Clashes of great powers, meddling of Gods both noble and malign, key and notable NPC’s and the players themselves could result in seismic events. Perhaps this grand battle would not result in world-wide destruction, but it could certainly lead to triggers that would then unleash secondary destruction. Floods, tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions could be as destructive or more so than cataclysmic releases of the Essaence.
I see 4 major categories of change:
Geographic impacts. This could be destruction of coastal areas, loss of land mass due to a rise in sea levels, subsidence of continental shelves, massive volcanic activity.
Changes in the Essaence. Would major Essaence flows change in scope or power? Would flows reroute or diverge from current paths? Would the ambient level of Essaence change, become more or less volatile?
Political. If major population centers and/or empires were dramatically impacted would new powers emerge? Which major powers, NPC’s or historical figures survive?
Gods. IF the gods were involved with the end of the 3rd Era, what is the end result? A shift of the current pantheon? A change in the hierarchy of the gods? Do the Gods of Charon benefit or lose from these events?
I think this is an exciting pivot point for Shadow World! Terry’s setting up to this point, becomes history– a time of legend and mystery! Functionally, this reset could coincide with the new RMU ruleset and some of the changes built into the 4th Era could better engage with Rolemaster rules.
As I work on this I’ll post some updates, but curious if anyone else has some thoughts?
I’ve put together a more detailed history of the Elves and posted it on the forums a decade ago. In the subsequent years I’ve fine tuned and expanded upon it as part of our definitive Master Atlas and now in the SW: Book of Essaence I’m working on. I feel that most of my material is well within Canon, but there is one significant change I made: I demoted the Dyari to a cultural group.
The Dyari are a more philosophical issue for me. First and foremost, I have no interest in strict racially dictated moral and cultural traits: i.e. Orcs are “evil”, Gnomes are good with tech or devices, Dwarves like to work with stone and metal. These monolithic ideas that beings were born into specific abilities, attitudes and predilections were simple and appealing 40 years ago. IIt allowed us to easily drop races into convenient trait and identity buckets for game play. And, it gave free reign for player groups to attack and kill any person or being inherently “evil”. Per the MA:
The Dark Elves instead gained their name because of an earned reputation for associating with the powers of darkness. It is true that many of their kind have been seduced by the lure of the Unlife (many of the Priests Arnak are Dyar, for instance), but most Dyari are merely what one might call “mercenary.” They embody the worst traits of the Loari but to the extreme: they are vain and arrogant, considering all other races (including other Elves) to be inferior. They have a lust for power: political, magical, physical, and spiritual.
I am uncomfortable with an entire race, male, female and children being painted in such broad strokes, I feel that the origins of the Elves lends themselves to worship or alliance with the Lords of Orhan, but ultimately there should be a role of self-determination. For me, the solution was to have Elves that withdrew from the Lords of Orhan, become inherently “outcasts” from the collective Elven community. That is not to say that they would become evil, or automatically follow the Charonic pantheon. This solution allows for a variety of motivations: moral independence, agnosticism, allegiance to a local god, atheism etc. This of course introduces aspects of religious indoctrination, complicated cultural forces, and player choice.
It’s important to note that SW Dyari are not DnD Drow with black skin and white hair. That is a powerful image used throughout fantasy pop culture and VERY popular with players. Instead Terry wrote this:
The Dyari (Iy: “Delvers”) are, despite their nickname of “Dark Elves,” no darker in skin pigmentation than their brethren; in fact they are very fair-skinned. While most have raven hair, a few are born with pure white locks. Their ears frequently have more pronounced points than the other Elves; their eyes are grey, black, or sometimes amber. Often, however, they are so similar to their Loar cousins that it is difficult—at least for mortals— to tell the difference.
For me and my campaign, that was the opening to retcon Dyari and provide a more nuanced approach to “fallen” Elves. Notably, during gameplay, I’ve framed Ilyar to be more intolerable, insufferable and judgmental in their approach to mortals and other lesser beings, while Dyari tend towards libertarianism. Certainly some contemporary parallels!
A final point, and one that I’ve also written about extensively. I don’t see the Charonic gods to be inherently evil or part of the Unlife. Certainly some of the gods of Charon embrace less celebrated behaviors and personality traits, but these aspects are all inherent to the human condition. I’ll have more on this in the upcoming SW: Book of Essaence!
For many, or even most GM’s, this is probably too much of a retcon, but I’m happy to hear everyone’s thoughts!
I’m already falling off on my blog schedule, but time of year, work, RL and Shadow World projects take priority! I have a number of pending blog topics, but I use these Random Musings as a way to organize my thoughts through writing. Hopefully they add value for reader(s), but it also creates a record of my creative development. I was reading back through my posts from 10 years ago, and I was surprised by how my perspectives have changed or my approaches to the game have progressed.
Rolemasterblog.com. Clearly the RMBlog activity has really whimpered out over the last few years. Peter isn’t actively playing, we’ve covered A LOT of topics over the last 10 years and you sort of run out of things to discuss. Additional, sites like discord have become the primary place for roleplaying discussions. We are pondering the future of this blog and hopefully we can come up with a long term solution to keep things going. Other ideas are porting over to substack; this seems to be the new alternative to long form discussions.
AI. I heard there was some discussions on Discord regarding AI. I’m dealing with significant industry disruptions from AI in my own professional practice, and it’s no surprise that roleplaying, and publishing, are also coming to grips with new technologies. As a hobbyist, AI can be a great aid for organizing sessions, generating quick content during gameplay (battlemaps, NPC’s etc). As a content creator, I certainly feel defensive about AI generated material. I just don’t see how it goes away and we aren’t far from AI run games…exciting or scary?
RMU. Based on a relatively small data set, RMU continues to be a crowd pleaser! I think that’s fantastic. I will reiterate that there will always be a base of gamers that are seeking out “crunchy” systems. That was true in the 80’s and still true now.
Shadow World. Not sure what to say about Shadow World. I’m going to keep pushing out material.
Verisimilitude vs Simulation. I’ve been reflecting on this a lot. I would argue that Rolemaster provides verisimilitude: the appearance of realism and complexity. Despite it’s reputation, RM mechanics are a simple probability system. Culturally, we are programmed for probability and deterministic outcomes, so the d100 system is appropriate for modelling virtually any action. I also have a background in early wargames (Squad Leader) and RPG’s were birthed from wargaming. These games arose out of battle field analysis and tactics. Rules were specific, inflexible and were designed to simulate reality: line of site, facing, weather effects, morale, RoF, etc. To finish this thought off, I feel like there is a streak of simulation design driving RMU right now. Endless debates on rule wording, the appropriate penalty, conflicting effects. For me the goal is the appearance of complexity with tactical options without the need for over engineering.
Trends. LitRPG/Progression Fantasy/Challenge Zones/Level Matching. I’m probably late to the topic, but fantasy literature is being parsed into all sorts of sub genres. Two that keep cropping up is LITRPG and Progression fantasy. Both are fiction that emulate a game system mechanics and seem quite popular. Adjacent to these fantasy genres is the concept of level matching. Whether it’s difficulty zones in Everquest, or a progression of challenges starting in the village, moving into the wilderness capped with increasing difficulty as one goes deeper into a dungeon. This is the norm in many RPG’s and now in fantasy fiction as well but I’m not a fan. The reason I like Shadow World as a setting and Malazan as a book series is it’s lack of progression. Shadow World has a deserved reputation for being dangerous and perhaps high level. As a mixed genre setting, dangers can be mundane, magical or even technological. Power is not distributed evenly or uniformly and the Rolemaster system can be the “great leveler” with it’s open ended rolls and critical charts.
I’m not sure I fully thought through any of these! But I wanted to get it down in words and reflect upon it further.
Between my work with BASiL and my current project, Shadow World: Book of Essaence, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the rolemaster magic system and the Shadow World setting. Perhaps an unhealthy amount of time!
For those that follow my BASiL musings, my final conclusions and work product are driven by the setting. What does Shadow World imply about the hows and whys of the magic system? This is contrast to forcing RM Spell Law RAW into the setting. Both approaches have merit, but I made my choice. Certainly Terry was not wholly interested in RM RAW; Shadow World takes many liberties with professions, skills and other RM mechanics. In short, BASiL also attempted to create mechanical differences in how different realms and magics were utilized and cast. Essence, Channeling and Mentalism all used different mechanics than just the standard RM SCR.
I was either reading or watching something and I had a thought. Probably not one I’ll test out in my current campaign/testing game but I wanted to think it through here on the blog. Given that Essaence is manifest and present throughout Kulthea, why couldn’t it just be tapped to use it (Channeling skill) rather than holding Power Points in a personal reservoir?
Taking it a step further for clarification of the current 3 realms:
Essence. Casters using the Essence Realm draw from area or surrounding sources to power their spells. That also means that the level of ambient Essaence would impact casting. Areas with low Essaence, or inhibited would stifle the caster. Areas of high Essaence (Flows or Foci) would enable more powerful casting. Instead of PP’s, the limitations would be around burnout and overcasting or perhaps just exhaustion based on channeled energy.
Mentalism. Mentalism would be more akin to the current system. The caster carries their own power points and replenishes PP’s as normal. Therefore Mentalists are independent of ambient Essaence levels; self-sufficient as it were.
Channeling. Channeling is basically a mix of the two, Channelers could either use their own stored PP’s or draw power from the Gods/patrons.
I always like tradeoffs in gaming mechanics, so clearer differentials on spellcasting mechanics in addition to spell power distinctions is of interest to me. As equally important, it still fits the Shadow World setting. Again, probably not something I’d test or flesh out, but when thinking about how to make Shadow World a unique setting or an updated one, it’s always helpful to think outside the box!
A lot of the frequenters of this blog have diverse approaches to their concepts of RPG magic. As we wait for RMU to become a finished product, I continue to struggle with the spell list approach to magic. Brian has written about the balance between thematic and mechanistic concepts in list design, so the model I’m currently reworking borrows heavily from HARP’s scaling system, using Rolemaster’s traditional spells.
Here’s a simple modification that can clean up what I consider to be a bloated, repetitive list system with something a little more streamlined.
Experimental character sheet using the Spell Tree model.
A player spends DP to purchase ranks in a “tree”. A player’s skill in this tree determines their overall power in this particular branch of magic.
A player then spends DP to purchase spells. Each spell on a tree has two numbers (X/Y) associated with them:
X is both the number of ranks required in the tree to cast the spell as well as the PP cost. It also determines how much a spell can be scaled. For example, if a Firebolt costs 6 PP to cast, and increasing the range costs an additional 3 PP, in order to cast a range-scaled Firebolt, the player needs 9 ranks in the spell tree to do so.
Y is the DP cost to purchase the spell. As currently designed, this number is half of X, rounded down.
Several spells on each list have become Cantrips, which can be cast without a PP cost. The first two cantrips on a tree are free, but any cantrips after that cost 1 DP to learn. Many of these effects are relatively minor spells such as Heat Material, Ignite, and Projected Light. Here are some of the classics, with scaling options that essentially match the levels a traditional spell list would allow the effects:
These spell trees I’m using are a little broader in scope than lists, but players can pick and choose which spells they wish to purchase. For example, the Mage lists have been combined into three spell trees unified by concept: Energy Law (Fire & Light Law), Fluid Law (Air & Water Law), and Solid Law (Earth & Ice Law). Between the cost of developing ranks in the tree and purchasing spells, the cost of mastering all the spells is comparable to the traditional RM system.
None of this is particularly innovative if you are familiar with HARP, but I feel like this helps streamline the whole concept of spells. I have always felt that the RM system is a little “forced” in places and, even with the new RMU Spell Law, many (not all) of the spells that have been added to certain lists are simply fillers. Where am I going with this? In theory these trees can be expanded as needed. If you come up with a new spell, simply add it to the tree and assign it a level and cost.
I should note, that in using this system, I am also essentially “squishing” levels a bit in RMU. If you look at the spells from level 20-50, most of them are repeat versions of lower level spells: Mass, Lord, or True versions which essentially just add targets or range — this is now covered in the scaling options. Many of upper level effects I either omitted, or re-leveled down to 25th (I’m treating 25 as a new “soft” level cap, similar to the old level 50). I personally don’t feel like getting a level-50 spell like the ranger’s Dolphin Speed is a game-breaker at 25th level. Once characters hit level 25, they are pretty powerful already.
One side effect of this system is that if a character chooses to put two ranks into a tree each level, he can access higher level spells faster. However, this comes at the cost of ignoring other spell trees or areas where the character should be spending DP.
Any thoughts? I’m not sure if the explanations do the concept justice, but the more I look at the traditional layout of Spell Law some of the carryovers from the old system, the more this appeals to me.
—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—
Note: This revamped magic system also goes hand in hand with another modification I’m working on: Generalized and Specialty ranks. Characters can develop 1-2 ranks each level in a general skill set (such as Social) for a +3 bonus each rank which apply to all of the specialties with a skill, and then 1 rank each level into each specialty (Influence, Leadership, etc) for a +5 bonus. This makes characters more skilled in a general, but specializing is more cost-intensive.
More on this last concept in later posts, but I wanted to include it for the sake of seeing the direction I’m going in altering the core rules.
One consequence of my BASiL project is a critical, and hopefully objective, review of the spell mechanics found in Spell Law. I’ve blogged on “deconstructing spell law” under a number of topics here on the Rolemasterblog; perhaps too many times to provide relevant links. But today’s blog is related to my previous posts on Resistance Rolls (HERE and HERE) and might be helpful to review when reading this entry.
Spell Law establishes some basic classes of spells: Healing, Informational, Elemental, Force etc. It feels like the foundation of a consistent set of principles that covers various spell effects, but unfortunately falls short. I dropped this entirely in BASiL for now, but I’m in a review process and may reinsert spell types again. {I haven’t reviewed RMU enough to see how they might have address this issue}. At issue is the varying classifications of spells compared to the spell resolution.
Three Types of Fire Attacks.
As an example let’s review the differences between Firebolt, Wall of Fire and Call Flame. All are classified as “Elemental” spells. Firebolt has it’s own attack table and Directed spell skill to resolve attacks like a traditional weapon. A target’s defense is determined by AC and defensive bonus. Wall of Fire is a fixed effect that delivers a Heat Critical and specifically states that there is no RR. Call Flame doesn’t specify a resolution, but based on RAW, I believe a BAR is rolled and the initial target is given a RR. One could argue that the missile style of the Firebolt lends itself to a weapon attack resolution, the Wall of Fire is in a fixed position and thus has a unavoidable effect if walked through or touched. Call Flame is a bit of a hybrid. It could be considered a targeted spell (like the Firebolt) when manifesting (takes 1 rnd to form) and then a fixed unmoving effect (like Wall of Flame) for it’s duration of 1 rnd/lvl.
I’ve got no problem with Firebolt and Wall of Flame resolution, but does Call of Flame require more thought? Perhaps a better resolution is to treat the manifestation as a Fireball for attack purposes and then a Wall of Flame for the spells duration. Why am I parsing this?
I don’t think a physical attack, whether Elemental or Force, should be resolved using a magic realm resistance roll. Essence RR’s are modified by the Empathy stat. If Call Fire was imaginary or a nerve attack then ok, I might buy that argument. But Call Fire is actual flames–any defense against that should be physically based: quickness, a “dodge” or maybe even an intuitive reflexive flinch.
Let’s use a more apt comparison: Fireball vs Vacuum. Both are aimed, area spells but neither have a directed spell skill. Fireball is an explosive burst of fire and is resolved on a attack table using physical parameters: range, area of effect, defenders DB etc. Vacuum is a “Force” spell, but still an implosive burst of air. It’s a real, physical manifestation and yet, a target makes a v. Essence resistance roll.
There are numerous examples of similar spells that are physical attacks, don’t have their own attack table but are treated like intangible magical effects that can be mitigated by a magical resistance. It just doesn’t work for me. So what are some options?
Generate individual attack tables for any applicable spells. That sounds like a lot of work, and more tables.
Have the spells use existing established attack tables to save the extra work, but to model physical attacks and physical defenses.
Establish a Resistance Roll that is based on physical stats. Qu/Qu/Int for example? This is the metaphorical Dodge; a slight twist of the body, a ducking of the head or similar that avoids the spell damage.
Allow a targeting process that if successful, inflicts a mandatory result. Basically a Wall of Fire but with a accuracy roll.
Use the “Dodge” skill with these types of spells (physical attacks that don’t have it’s own attack table).
If you’ve followed my BASiL project you know that I generally opted for #2. Plant attacks use the Grappling Attack Table, Wave Attacks utilize the Ram/Butt/Bash Table etc. Since these have attack tables I do allow for directed spell that models a casters mastery and increasing efficiency of the spell.
However, I’ve also experimented with a physical resistance roll that is used for reaction times: ambushes, physical spells etc. Like many of you, I will continually tinker with my house rules, but one thing is certain: I don’t believe that using magical resistance against a physical attack (magic or otherwise) is a good resolution rule.
This isn’t the first time I’ve discussed this; one of my first blog posts went into way more depth and complexity on this subject; you can find it HERE.
The elegance of splitting the offensive bonus (OB) into attack and defense has been a hallmark of RM since it’s first publication. It’s intuitive and hands more agency to players during combat. However, I’ve always felt there was 1 piece missing that took this a step further: allowing OB to be split into 3 parts. Attack/Defense/Initiative. This also feels intuitive and we’ve been using this system for years (if not decades now). I’ve played around with the conversion figures depending on the initiative system I was using and testing, but it’s always felt “right”.
Not only does it create 3-dimensionality to combat decisions, but it brings in weapon type choices that go beyond their ability to deal damage or inflict a critical. As we all know, striking first can be the real advantage in Rolemaster!
A topic came up on the ICE Discord server recently that I feel deserves some discussion: The leveling curve in Rolemaster.
As a frame of reference, the initial commentary was that a 2nd level HARP character was equal to a 9th level character in the RM framework. Without having a real knowledge of HARP, this got me thinking about other systems and the relative curve of power as characters level. Consider that D&D has historically had a system based on levels 1-18, or more recently levels 1-20. By comparison, RM has a highly bloated (at least at first glance) system of leveling from 1-50.
Before we delve further, let’s look at the advantages of such a spread out system of leveling. Bear in mind that these are generalizations:
🔸 Levels 1-10 seem to be where the most progress is made, with characters mastering their core skills. Consider that during these levels, the character is maximizing the 5/3/2/1 rank progression, and by roughly 10th level is starting to see diminishing returns on these skills.
🔸 Levels 11-20 are where we see some real diversification of skills. At this point a fighter may have some decent bonuses in skills like fighting styles and periphery combat talents (disarm, protect, etc). Spellcasters have some talents in extraneous skills like Spell Mastery, applicable lores, maybe some rituals. Semis at this point now have a chance to spread out some development since they are typically DP-starved at lower levels. Characters in general have more DP available to sink into skills like lores, trades, leadership, and the things that make them unique.
🔸 Levels 20+ is a bit of an enigma. Rank progression at this point slows to a halt in all core skills, so this really becomes the point in the game where class lines begins to blur the most. Looking at old MERP supplements, Aragorn is depicted as Level 27 at the outset of the War of the Ring, and 36 at the end. So rangers can pick up some magical expertise and leadership skills to become party leaders, mages like Gandalf develop some skill at arms, other classes distinctions are blurred since most people inclined to learn magic have picked up many of the same spell lists, and so on and so on. At the same time, this is where classes gain some of their biggest power boosts and distinctions as spells 20th level and above are typically game-changing. While a Bard may be able to cast some elemental attacks at this high a level, the mage reigns supreme with Triad Bolts and the like.
More nutrition, in a smaller package?
This notion that level 20+ is where characters can break out of their class-limitations is not a bad thing. At this level of play, characters are supposed to be special and transcend some of these limitations. However, I wonder if this is actually conducive in the long run to a good gaming system. With RMU on the horizon (somewhere… we hope…) the idea of selling this system is limited by a few of the disadvantages:
🔻So many other systems have a faster, smoother inherent progression. While GMs can certainly increase XP awards to compensate, the fact that HARP seems to scale better, and that D&D has more delineated thresholds makes these systems seem to have more tangible rewards.
🔻A slow climb seems to be the accepted fate in Rolemaster in general. A number of articles have been written here, on the forums, and in Discord about the perils of low-level gaming in RM and the grind to survivability. Consider that the RAW in RMU suggest starting characters at 3rd level or above simply so they have enough skills to make gaming fun. I don’t think this is a design flaw, so much as a design choice that I don’t necessarily agree with, but it’s an issue that many have been vocal about in discussions.
🔻High-level gaming seems like the crawl is even more profound. When a character is only learning new spells every 5th level, that has a profound effect on player investment, as does reduced rank progression.
I know that a lot of what I’ve said here has multiple perspectives, and I’m not trying to be overly critical of a system that I see as a truly enjoyable one, but perhaps there’s some ways to make RM a bit more… fluid? I have two starting suggestions:
🔹Squish levels 20 through 50 so that there isn’t a 30-level gap in power development. By retooling some of the 20+ level spells and making them available at lower levels (even if the new level “cap” was 30th) that might create a smoother progression overall. Drop some of the repetition on lower level spells and move the higher level ones down so they are available from around level 15 onward.
🔹Retool magic at the starting levels so that it functions more like cantrips. One contributor on Discord suggested making all spells from 1st-5th level cantrips that can be cast at will (with normal restrictions, just no PPs). Even if you took only 2-3 spells per list and made them cantrips, and then scaled all of the other spells down accordingly, this would make early levels more palatable, especially for magic users. I see it as giving Semis a boost since they struggle to find a role early on in the game.
Any thoughts from the elders on these concepts? The goal is not to make RM more like D&D or even HARP, but to create a system that sees a more linear progression rather than an asymptotic one. Admittedly, these are just quick thoughts about some very large, complex concepts and I’m not suggesting a full-scale redesign, but this seems like a project that might be on the horizon.
Today I’m looking at the ‘problem’ of skills in RM: consolidated skills (of which RMFRP is the paradigmatic version, and which appears to be a certainty in the new version, although with far less skills) or individual skills, each with their own development cost, as was the case in RM2. Let me nail my flag to the mast: I am rather more in favour of individual skill costs, primarily for the tremendous variety and granularity they offer. You simply can’t get that under the skill category system (although the RMFRP rules do allow a certain amount of tweaking, and my rather freewheeling interpretation of the talent rules enabled more).
Further to this is the issue of the dreaded skill bloat. It seems that many folks object – quite reasonably, I feel – to the tremendous explosion in increasingly fine-grained skills introduced by the RM2 companions (and carried over to RMFRP, although restrained and managed by the category system). I understand the objections: if you have, say, 300 skills and 50 professions, that’s a lot of trawling through tables in order to generate a character, and a lot of skills to study up on, in order to decide whether your Burglar is better off taking Defensive Manoeuvre, Feinting or Tumbling Attack, or just ignoring it all and retiring to a farm after buying ranks in Horticulture, Herding, Animal Handling, Animal Healing and Weather-watching.
I only wanted to play Rolemaster!
But, and here’s the thing, I love having that range of options – ridiculous though that may seem – simply because of the ways in which, as a GM, I can fine-tune races, cultures, professions and NPCs. I can understand how you might justify having a Prepare Herbs, Herb Lore and Using Prepared Herbs skill, or a Using/Removing Poison, Poison Perception and Poison Lore skill. I can imagine a rough-and-ready soldier who knows nothing of herbs, but has grown used to applying unguents to wounds. I can equally imagine a scholarly-type who has learned a bit about poison but has never handled it – or even considered using it! That argument makes sense to me, although there is, conceivably, a limit beyond which realism need go.
There are ways of managing skill bloat without consolidating or eliminating skills. The last RM2 campaign I ran I divided skills into Core, Professional and Extra-Professional skills. Everyone, regardless of profession, race or whatever had instant and permanent access to the Core skills. Then, each profession had 25 professional skills to which they had access. All skills outside that group of Core + Professional were restricted, requiring the expenditure of Character Points (which accumulated as the character reached Prime Levels, of which more on another occasion).
I’m including a link to a table showing an example of what I did in my attempts to manage skill bloat whilst maintaining breadth and diversity. This is the RM2 Hunter from the Arms Companion. I’ve not included the development point costs for copyright reasons, but the table is hopefully sufficient to demonstrate the idea. The listed skills show those available to the Hunter at level 1. They can’t consider new skills until reaching their next Prime Level (i.e. level 3). At each Prime Level, a character gains Character Points equivalent to 3 + the modifier derived from their Prime Statistic (the first appearing of their Prime Requisites, in this case Quickness), as if it were a Power Point stat, rounded down. (For example, if Bhorg the Hunter has a Qu stat of 95, he’d gain an extra 2 Character Points, giving him 5 in total. Bhorg could then spend his Character Points unlocking access to an Extra-Professional skill, or buying talents, or saving them for later).
I thought it a reasonably elegant solution, although like all my solutions, it generated a fair amount of work to get it up and running. I’d be interested in your thoughts on possible futures for this approach, any problems you locate and any possible fixes.
