Official ICE Forums
Iron Crown Enterprises => Order of the Iron Crown => Topic started by: Thom @ ICE on August 06, 2012, 09:57:25 PM
-
Our first category is… Arms Law
We’ve all had some amazing experiences using Rolemaster’s incredible combat system with open ended rolls, lifesaving criticals, and unexpected fumbles. Tell us about one of these memorable experiences and share the thrill.
First Award to be given on Monday, August 13th...
-
Back at high school, and wanting to raise money for the Red Cross, some pals and I organised a 24-hour roleplaying session. The GM picked Rolemaster as the system and decided to use the Moria supplement (from Middle-earth). Being largely new to Rolemaster, I was completely in awe of the system's detail.
Enter Goriel Swiftfoot, a halfling thief with skill in Short Bow and Short Sword. Through many of the encounters, most of which have faded from memory (perhaps due to the length of the session), one story has endured for some 30 years.
At the climax of the tale, as the party encountered the Balrog of Moria, the critical system of Rolemaster came into play. Goriel was the hero who, armed with his trusty sword and having climbed to a position where he could strike at the Balrog's head, swung... and scored the E Crit of his life. The GM described the severing of the Balrog's head and the crash of the body back into the foul depths from which it flew.
To be honest, looking back as an adult, we almost certainly played it "wrong" by the rules... but the story has never been forgotten. As a fresh-faced newbie to Rolemaster I remember feeling amazed and elated as my hero saved the party from certain death. With some incredibly unlikely fluke of the dice and a generous GM, I was hooked. This one encounter probably fuelled 30 years of GMing for others. And Rolemaster's Arms Law still makes me shiver with excitement when I grab it off the shelf.
In many ways, the encounter was way less important than what Rolemaster came to mean to me. It's a talisman of the hobby, plain and simple. None other has that honour.
Game on!
-
I love to remember the situation where a friend created a new character for RM2. After 2 hours of creation he came into our round.
We met his character on our way to the next city. Only 30 mins (RL) later we had the first random encounter: a cold undead hand, crawling through the grass.
The first attack hit him with an acid/vaporisation* critical ... 99 and his chest was vaporized.
We hadn't changed 10 words with him, yet, we even didn't know his name after this short peroid. We looted him ::) and decided that it is too expensive to resurrect him.
So, our friend started to create a new character ...
[* don't know the english translation excactly]
-
Well the moment that sprung into my mind was a very comedic and silly moment and didn't happen to long ago but will be forever burned into our minds. It was also one of the first adventures with a group completely new to Rolemaster. And they where looking for something different after that horrible 4th Edition of a certain game had just been released. After this event they where completely sold on Rolemaster. The incident is now days called "The Kamikaze Spider".
Well the adventurers where heading down to explore a cavern system underneath the local lords fortress. The module itself was a converted Forgotten Realms adventure. Either way at the beginning from the cavern system at the end of a path leading down along the wall of a big cavern was giant spider luring in hiding waiting for some easy prey that would come by. The adventurers slowly descended the path expecting trouble but of course neither of them noticed the camouflaged spider. When the adventurers reached the end of the path the spider sprung it's trap and jump towards the adventurers and completely failed it's attack resulting in the spider missing the jump and sailed over the players into the cave wall behind them and completely crushing it's head. The adventures just looked at the spectacle in awe, completely surprised by the ambush. Then they just looked at each other laughed, shrugged their shoulders and continued their journey onwards (little did they know the entire group would meet their end in those caverns). This was just one of those moments that never seem to happen in any other role playing game than Rolemaster.
One of the players also made the joke that he has never played an RPG with such short, entertaining and gritty battles. I would hardly call it a battle though. :laugh3:
-
We've always interpreted Rolemaster dragons as having incredible senses: If you're invisible, they'll hear you moving about; if you're silent, they'll feel your feet touching the ground; etc.
So, the party was ecstatic when they finally arranged a flawless ambush. The rogue had the Background Option that ensured he had no discernible odor. He was both Invisible and Silent. He was Flying, drifting on a magically summoned breeze. The dragon could not smell, see, hear, or even feel the rogue's presence. The party even arranged a distraction so that the dragon was busy casting counter-spells and could not spend a round casting Presence.
The rogue had maneuvered into a perfect position, floating above the dragon's back, a dwarven axe in hand. His ambush maneuver was flawless, and with forty-plus ranks of ambush, an open-ended critical was not unlikely. Given his OB, positional modifiers, and surprise, he couldn't fail to max the chart.
Until.
He fumbled. Somehow, despite his improbable position, he stumbled over an unseen, imaginary, deceased turtle and (this was probably pure malice on the GM's part) dropped his axe.
The next session was spent plotting a way to recover enough of the poor rogue's body to restore him to life.
-
My story is a GMs nightmare. The group was pretty high level (15th) and they were King and knights of their realm. They were happy to run domestic skills and role play the courts for a few levels. I kept hinting, implying and out right telling them that they were starting to look weak as they were not flexing any military might. The people respected this but they didn't care.
So they angered the Ice Queen in the neighboring kingdom so I decided to bring a white dragon down on them. I foreshadowed all of it so they knew a dragon was coming. When the battle ensued, they got initiative and the first knight charged in with his lance and hit him with an E writ, 100 on crit table dead.
I was so pissed as a GM they looked at me with all smiles and said, no problem. I admit I sent the white dragons mate out of spite, but they killed that one as well in round 3 as I fumbled the dragons resistance roll.
-
Our was somewhat the opposite of Peter's:
A crew of low level adventurers are going fra A to B in Middle Earth, somewhere in Arnor. There's the mage, the Paladin, the Rogue, the Fighter and the drunken, useless, underpowered Bard. The latter is the only non-powerplayer.
Unfortunatly the group stumbles upon a land drake - a wingless dragon. The dragon, however, does no attack on sight, but simply follows the group from out of range position. The group decides combat is the only way out, but we are very scared, as we were at low levels and we have no idea of the beasts power level. However, when pressing the attack, the dragon pulls away and starts taunting us and saying it will wait until we fall asleep. This goes on for hours...
Now we are beginning to get frustrated. We have a rule that says “no sleeping in armor†and thus we are going to need to get this fight going before bedtime. So we start taunting the dragon. “You sorry excuse for an overgrown serpentâ€. “Ya mama was a snake, raped by a real dragon†etc etc. Finally, the dragon charges! I remember the GM saying something like “Well, you are not CERTAIN to die….†a wicked smile on his face…
Now, the Fighter raises his sword and looks for a good position, the Mage starts to prepare shock bolt (bah…), the Rouge loads his bow and aims, the Paladin throws some defensive spell and the Bard…. The bard decides to fire his composite bow right away. He’s out of range and gets penalties for loading etc etc, all this on top of his missile skill of forty-something. Fat chance he’s gonna save the day… well..
First he rolls an open ended and gets the hit. Players go crazy, shouting the Bards praise. Then the critical. He lands it at 99!! Dragon dies from an arrow through his lungs. We are stunned! Players and GM alike agrees to go over the math and rules several times, to make sure no err was made. Then we celebrate and the Bard is forever known as The Dragon Slayer.
ARMS LAW FTW!!!!
-
This one goes back about 18 years. The act of open ending around our table is called a "schmenke." Rolling a second in a row, however rare, is called a double schmenke.
Gravit, a dwarven ranger, typical drinking problem, but highly manueverable, takes an ill advised bow shot at a passing giant the rest of the party was doing their best to hide from. Totally breaking role play, screams erupted from around the table in anguish anticipating Total party kill.... Quadruple Schmenke large or superlarge table..... i forget now.
Giant falls dead. Dwarf uncorks flask. So whats the big deal??????
-
Some of you have heard references to one of my faves before. It dates back to one of my first sessions of RM1, so it had to have been '81 or '82...
The party has been investigating an abandoned mine. They've been down there two days, have found several monsters of various stripes and at least a bit of treasure. Two days of going farther and farther in, they come to a shaft and ladder leading upward, and see daylight at the top. Figuring that it's better than a two day trip back, they decide to check it out.
It turns out they've gone all the way through the mountain, to a spot where the mines had connected to an old cave system. For some reason the Mentalist went up the ladder first, with the Rogue behind him. The shaft is 130' tall.
At the top, they find that they've connected to a cave system. Moreover, there are half a dozen small giants asleep in the cave. The Mentalist creeps away from the top of the ladder, trying to get by without waking the giants, and the Rogue follows.
I honestly don't remember who fumbled a maneuver enough to wake the giants, but it happened before the next person (a Fighter) got to the top of the ladder. So suddenly it's a Mentalist and a Rogue against six giants, and they have to hold them long enough for the two Fighters, the Magician and the Healer to get off the ladder.
Anyway, the Rogue takes a swing at the first giant up and moving, does a bit of damage but nothing major. The giant gets in his return shot and not only does damage but knocks the Rogue down and stuns him.
The GM lets the Rogue make a maneuver to stay upright and, since he's just "had his bell rung", to stay aware enough not to step in the shaft down to the mines. Roll a Stunned Maneuver....
-101 / -150 in the Stunned column: "Fall. +10 hits. You break your leg. You are at -75%. You are out 6 rounds."
Well the GM was "nice" and didn't demand that he fall to his death down the mineshaft. Instead, he spent the battle hanging at the top of the ladder, upside down by a broken leg, while the two Fighters, the Magician and the Healer all scrambled over him. At one point he had a stunned giant fall down the hole and nearly take him with him. The only thing that kept him up was his broken leg, hooked upside down into the ladder.
This is #1 of the sessions that made new players believe me when I said, "This is not like D&D."
-
The #2 session that made players believe "This is not D&D" was thought up specifically for that purpose. I had a few new players, long time D&D players, who wanted to "kill some orcs". I told them that these are not D&D orcs, but apparently they didn't realize just how much difference there was.
So a party of 5 went out "orc hunting". Levels ranged from about 5 to 9 (I think, this was another session from decades ago). Off they go into the wild lands, hoping to find some orcs. They found one.
But since the one they found was a 13th level orc Rogue, they hardly needed any more.
The first to die was shot off the back of his horse while they were riding through 5'-6' high scrub oak in a mountain valley. The second to die was shot in the face from out of the darkness that night while they were camping. Luckily they had decided to set a double watch, otherwise none of them would have lived until morning.
They finally managed to drive the orc into a corner, where he couldn't ambush them from cover and their still superior numbers could be brought to bear, and thus managed to kill him.
The final tally was 1 remaining party member still alive, conscious and "walking wounded". 1 other party member critically injured, but stable and would probably live if he could be gotten back to town.
3 dead, 1 critically but not mortally wounded, taking down one orc.
Note: I dunno from advertising, copyright issues, etc. Feel free to insert "typical RPG orc" for "D&D orc" anywhere you like.
-
My tale goes back nearly 30 years to my high-school days. My friends and I have primarily played a different fantasy RPG (it had "basic" and "advanced" types at the time), with a smattering of other systems and genres. At our local game store, we encountered Keith.
Keith had a milk crate filled with rulebooks we've never seen before, accompanied by some spiral notebooks, a cardboard box crammed with unpainted miniatures, and a pair of ten-sided dice. He was wandering the store, looking for a group of open-minded players to introduce to a unique RPG system.
You guessed it: Rolemaster.
Keith played things fast and loose. He didn't bother dragging us through three hours of character-creation; rather, he just handed out pre-generated characters, explained the important bits, and turned us loose. Before the sun has set, we've had a tavern brawl, a run-in with an angry boar, and a knock-down drag-out with about a dozen orcs.
You can bet we showed up next week for more.
Keith kept things moving. We never worried much about encumbrance, or counting ammunition. The only thing we really counted carefully were our coins. When we gained a level, he would take up our character sheets, and the next week he'd hand them back with updated stats. We took this in stride, and didn't give the rules much of a critical eye.
Memory fades after a couple decades, so I can't tell you what the other players had for characters. All I remember was my own: a cleric. I came into this with the preconceptions of the unnamed RPG above, so I had to learn a lot of new things with this character.
The good news? I could wield a sword. My skill with it didn't compare to the fighter and the rogue, but I was competent at it.
The bad news? No heavy armor. I accepted this as the Cost of Doing Business and focused on smiting the bad guy and keeping my friends intact.
For all that my cleric was competent with a blade, the dice didn't care. He only hit about one time in six. I remember one of my friends remarking that he couldn't hit the right side of a fat cow. This bad luck stayed consistent over several months of play. I was pretty quiet about it -- I was having fun, after all -- but frustration was gradually building.
About the time we were 6th, maybe 7th level, we ended up having to fight off a young dragon of some sort. (The type isn't important.) We had the front-line types in its face, keeping it busy; the rogue was looking for spots that were amenable to a knifing; the mage was pelting it with blasts of fire and lightning and such. My hapless cleric was off to one side, futilely swinging his sword at its flank and doing no good whatsoever.
My frustration finally gave me an idea: perhaps it was my dice? I had the usual dice superstitions that all gamers naturally develop. So I ran to the front of the store and bought a brand new pair of ten-siders. I get back to the table just in time for my turn.
The new dice rolled, in order, a 96, a 98, and a 90.
Keith tapped these into his calculator, along with the dragon's Defensive Bonus. He asked me, "What's your OB?"
I stood up, slammed my hands on the table, and cried, "Does it matter?! I HIT HIM!"
It turned out to be a middling strike -- I think, maybe, a 'C' critical. The dragon managed to paralyze my character with a tail-slap to the neck, so that was the only real contribution I made to that fight. That didn't stop it from etching itself into my memory, and I always think about it when I crack open a copy of Arms Law.
-
My example comes after I'd been playing RM2 for about 12 years. Since I'd come to RM through games other than D&D (Top Secret, original Recon, and Boot Hill), the deadliness of the combat system didn't phase me much, so I don't have any good AL experiences from that time. Mine came as a GM.
The party in question had been together for some time (starting as 1st level and were about 10th level average when they had this encounter) It was, as my group tended to be, a non- and semi-spell user heavy collection. We had a Bard (the NPC...a drunken Fartrekker who had been with the group since the start and was practically a PC), a Nightblade from one of the larger Mystallian cities, a Dwarven fighter, a Steppelander rogue, and a Rystallian rogue. The guy who played the Rystallian rogue made a living out of picking off other people's kills. He'd hold back in a fight and then try to run in and deliver the killing blow. Effective from an XP standpoint, but annoying to the other players.
Over time the party had evolved from a ragtag band of caravan guards into a mercenary company that was fairly respected and in decent demand in their base region. They had also attracted the attention of some less-than noble folks who would be happy to see them shuffle off this mortal coil. Their foes, tired of being foiled by the group time and again, laid a trap for them in the shape of rumors of a rich and abandoned temple in the wilderness a few days' journey north of their base town. Excepting to be opposed by a scattering of bandits or possibly Orc raiders, the group loaded up and set out.
Once at the temple, they were ambushed by a group of chaos warriors led by a single chaos commander. If you have RoCo I, you understand that this is a pretty stiff challenge, especially the commander. In the ensuing melee our "XP vulture" held back until the moment the party's main fighter (the Dwarf) managed to disarm the chaos commander with a lucky blow. But the commander's return strike left the Dwarf staggered for a round. Sensing a quick kill, our guy ran into the fight and attacked, missing the fact that the commander had just stunned the party's best fighter with a single blow. For those of you who haven't seen the RMC I chaos commander, that NPC has a nasty OB in martial arts. So the chaos commander turns to the vulture rogue, smiles, and grabs him! I did a random roll to determine which unarmed attack the commander would use, and ended up with MA Sweeps&Throws. His OB of around 100 delivered a C critical, and a crit roll of 98 resulted in a throw that cracked the rogue's skull. He was wearing a helmet, so he ended up in a coma! When the player complained, I pointed out that the commander could have used his MA Strikes skill, which would have resulted in a D crit that would have killed him with the same roll. So much for the best-laid plans...
After that, poor plans tended to be mocked by comments like "Yeah...let's just disarm that chaos commander. It'll be SOOOOO much easier." That's my AL moment because it points out with great clarity that simply disarming someone doesn't guarantee that they'll be an easy target and that you can kill or be killed with anything that comes to hand (including just hands).
-
My story is a GMs nightmare. The group was pretty high level (15th) and they were King and knights of their realm. They were happy to run domestic skills and role play the courts for a few levels. I kept hinting, implying and out right telling them that they were starting to look weak as they were not flexing any military might. The people respected this but they didn't care.
So they angered the Ice Queen in the neighboring kingdom so I decided to bring a white dragon down on them. I foreshadowed all of it so they knew a dragon was coming. When the battle ensued, they got initiative and the first knight charged in with his lance and hit him with an E writ, 100 on crit table dead.
I was so pissed as a GM they looked at me with all smiles and said, no problem. I admit I sent the white dragons mate out of spite, but they killed that one as well in round 3 as I fumbled the dragons resistance roll.
Guess you didn't use the Large/Super Large crit tables eh?
Less likely for such a big creature to die instantly on a natural 100.
-
My favourite Arms Law moment has to be from a session I ran back in the early nineties. I was a 17 year old GM running my second campaign using the rolemaster rules. We were running an oriental setting and one of the player characters was a Samurai by the name of Yasamoto Yamoto.
The campaign had ran for about 5 sessions and the players were involved in an intense running battle under a Citadel of Necromancers. A group of soldiers attacked the party from a side corridor and our brave Yasamoto moved to engage the enemy.
Yasamoto stepped up to the enemy and having won the initiative attacked the lead soldier. He fumbled his katana and rolled 82 on the one-handed fumble table. The fumble reads "you lose your "wind" and realise that you should not swing for 2 round".
Being relatively new to the tables I read this as the character lost control of his bowel and soiled himself. The player in charge of Yasamoto gave me a strange look and the round moved on. We come to the following round and get to Yasamoto's action so what does he do? Drives his sword through his stomach for the shame that he has caused his house and family...
Oops (but great roleplaying from Yasamotos player). Unfortunately another player called him the the Yellow Ninja as he died and the brave (well played) Yasamoto was forever remembered as the Yellow Ninja, the warrior who stained his pants in combat.
-
My own moment isn't strictly Arms Law, as it was in a Space master game, but it does involve critical tables which is why I'm putting it in :)
I was playing an Anarchist, and another player a Con Artist in a game of sub-legality. We were level 7 or 8 or so. My character was a schemer for sure, an explosives expert, yes, but also pretty darn good with a stun pistol - although in that entire game I had always rolled really poorly with it, so no one believed she was any good.
My character had something (I forget what) that the con artist wanted, and decided that to pass the time on the long hyperspace journey that he would try and steal it from her cabin while she was asleep. He managed to get the cabin door open, but as a paranoid schemer I had previously stipulated to the GM that I would get the computer set up to sound an alarm if the door was opened, and that she always slept with a stun pistol under her pillow.
So my character woke up, the GM gave me penalties for being groggy, and also because I said I didn't bother really opening mty eyes, i'd just shoot towards that bright glare, but I rolled open ended high, and with my OB it was enough to max out even after penalties. Only a mk 2 weapon so it maxes at 110, did a few hits and an A stun critical. Other player doesn't look too worried. A stun results are not too bad on the grand scale of critical results.
Then I roll a 97, and his character got knocked back out of the room, and was down and stunned for a significant number of rounds. My character just muttered "I *said* I didn't want to be disturbed!", ordered the computer to relock the door and went back to sleep.
She wasn't bothered again :)
That incident is what sparked the realisation that stunners were awesome weapons for that game - not only are they much more legal than other weapons, they do critical results early, and stun criticals are, shockingly, really good for delivering stun results. In a game where even a big combat rarely lasts more than 3 (very bloody) rounds, first stun usually means the side that lands it, wins.
-
After spending years wading through D&D and only dabbling with other game systems, a new guy to the group suggested we try Rolemaster due to its realist combat system. As we were currently between campaigns, we decided to give it a try. After struggling for the better part of a week to create a character, I finally finished my human mage and we started our first excursion into Middle Earth. The game started slow but, as we were all experience gamers, the combat rules seemed to make sense and the tempo of the story increased. This is when the fun began. We had just walked into an ambush by giant spiders and were fighting our way to safety; all of us badly wounded as we were greatly outclassed. While defending myself, I fumbled and fell to the ground. The spider seeing an opening, leaped from a nearby tree where it was perched intending to crush me beneath its weight. In a last ditch effort, I thrust my sword upward and cowered beneath it hoping for a miracle. When the spider landed, it also fumbled and the GM ruled that I should roll a counter-attack. I rolled an open-ended critical and followed it with a 66 on the table; killing the spider instantly. The bad news is that the sheer mass of the spider falling on me crushed my body and killed me. Fortunately the rest of my party escaped and momentarily mourned my death while I began the process of making a new character.
-
The Intrepid party I shall draw this telling from was small for an adventuring group; a Druid, a Mage and a Cavalier, all with materials drawn heavily from RMCI and II.
Characters in RM are already uniquely memorable. Our adventures had already become more story and character driven than combat, but Arms Law guarantees no GM will ever want to fully remove combat. Arms Law is for players and Gm's who enjoy tension. Massive combat bonuses are not required to cause tension or excitement. Arms Law critical tables insure just picking up the dice will cause instant tension. This simple fact makes combat in RM always enjoyable and not a tedious exercise.
I have been a GM a long time. A PC must be or do something extraordinary for me to recall their Name. This episode did that in spades. A combination of roleplaying and that magic Arms Law can bring.
After a successful information gathering expedition, the group was heading home. A striken elven NPC begged aid from the party, requesting they cross the border into the cursed elven city to complete the task he had failed at. Now I expected the players to say no. The Cursed city of Elven Undead was a place to avoid, as ordered by their commanded, and as was very clear to a group of experienced gammers with 4th to 7th level PC's. The 4th lvl Cavalier would have none of it. He swore aid, to seek this dark vessel placed on this ancient high kings alter and shatter it, "...though it be my death me of." Burton Hubbard, the player, through mutual laughter informed us that since ending a sentence with a prepositional phrase was wrong, the Cavalier redused to do it.
So to certain death the Cavalier went, alone, because the druid and mage believed the definition of party did not include commitment to certain death. After two battles with lesser wights that were quite tense and spetacular in their own right, the fallen Elven Paladins ring brought our lone hero through trap and twisting streets to the kings tomb. Within was the Major Guardian Wight cursed to haunt the kings rest, protect the perversion of the tomb and guard it against intruding Cavaliers. So the wight advances, easily winning initiative, and strikes at this 4th level albeit Platemail clad mortal with his +30 eog sword of cold, a foe already stunned by the intense cold radiating from its undead bulk...and fumbles, resulting in dropping the blade, including requiring two rounds to recover.
Our hero weilded a mighty blade: a +10 two hand sword of superior design, which he tossed aside without a thought and almost screamed, "I'm going for its blade!" As picking up an object from the floor is a most routine mnv, yet being in combat is anything but routine, also considering the wight HAD already had its action, I demanded an easy manuever to grab it, which our hero did even with stuns stiff penalty to mnv.
Next round, I anounce that the wight will either blast with magic, physical attack, or try to dominate the Cavalier through the power of ITS sword. The d10 roll demanded everyones attention and resulted in mental domination. After a brief discussion if the wight should have 1/2 its will because the sword is tied to it but it is not holding the blade. we compromised with a -30 to its will, enough to swing the contest it turned out, as both the high mental stats and solid die roll of Burton prove out by winning the contest by 30+ points, well over the 25 needed to allow him to attack freely.
Breaking the shadow filled lock of the wights cold gaze, an "over head crush" was declared, a house rull of mine were all Qu DB is sacrificed to gain a set +25 to OB and x1 1/2 hits. Burton scored a D crit, so a critical was rolled, and one of the rarest events in Arms Law combat occred right there. Burton, rolling under the Mythrel column on the SL critical table, rolled a 96, followed by an 01. The Cavaliers mighty blow crashed down on the wight, splitting its skull, causeing it to instantly fall, shrieking, dieing a wights death in one round, which meant flashy pyrotechnics as its bulky form was sucked into darkfire, and was gone.
The hero did it. Several Co points lower, maybe lucky he escaped the last rounds cold crit, definitely LUCKY: Right there Arms Law shined. Many systems do not have the built in mechanic to display luck at work. Foes do not fall until beaten down. RM's Arms Law manages to not just allow lucky strikes, but in no small part because of them, keeps every battle full of tension. Just pick up your dice GMs and ask "What's your DB?" to see for yourself.
-
Guess you didn't use the Large/Super Large crit tables eh?
Less likely for such a big creature to die instantly on a natural 100.
[/quote]
Yes we used the Super Large/Large and he rolled open ended again. I just didn't add that.
-
I was introduced to Rolemaster while on exchange in college in England (possibly Cornwall if you were unlucky enough to get cornered by a Cornish Nationalist who still didn't recognize the outcome of the English Civil War, but I digress). Joking around with national stereotypes I decided to play a self-righteous, overly muscled paladin who
1. Didn't realize that much of the rest of the party were basically amoral highway men.
2. Expected everyone to live up to his standards of "morality" and would thump them if they didn't.
The thief in the party (who was a really nasty, greedy coward) figured the way to get rid of the paladin was to put a few arrows in his back towards the end of a battle in hopes of making it look like an accident. So, on four occassions the paladin went roaring into battle, got beat up pretty good while righteously slaughtering people who happened to be in his way and then was shot at by the thief. Every time the thief, who had several ranks in archery managed to fail to harm the paladin (rolls on the table for all to see).
First time he misses and hits the enemy who had been stunned in the initial collision and was now back up and trying to stab the paladin in the back.
The second time his bow breaks, the arrow goes up in the air and bounces off the paladin's helm (no harm done).
Third time the arrow hits, but fails to penetrate the plate mail the paladin is wearing. The paladin then proceeds to really annoy the thief by giving him a long lecture about being careful about selecting his targets, and then "forgiving" him in a self-righteous manner.
Soon afterwards the rest of the party was tired of the thief getting chased out of towns (everyone but my boneheaded paladin had realized that the "misunderstandings" weren't really misunderstandings), having treasure going missing when the thief was around and so on. When another combat developed the thief tried murder again and again he fumbled -- this time hitting and disabling a fighter who was his main ally. As the paladin, who was half dead and bleeding heavily launched into another longwinded lecture, the thief decides to knife him -- acheiving a critical fumble and dropping his knife. The paladin swings, rolls a natural 100 and then a 98 on the uproll -- and cuts off the thief's head before passing out -- much to the delight of the rest of the party.
-
Our intrepid ~ 6th level party of a bounty hunter, magus, warrior mage, and nightblade (me) had decided to ...explore.. the castle that was supposed to be the home of an evil mage. We found small groups of orcs and goblins, and then found a foursome of hobgoblins.
Knowing that these guys were tougher looking than anything else we had seen, so having some distance, we ran.
We got a good lead, then commenced to prepare our ambush.
Initiatives are rolled, and I go 2nd after the bounty hunter. I had been preparing Adrenal Move Speed for some haste. The hobgoblins come thundering through door straight into our impromptu ambush as we were waiting on either side of the doorway, and the battle begins.
The bounty hunter rolls his attack! A solid hit with a good crit.. good roll on the crit.. 1 hobgoblin down..
OK.. great start to our fight!!
My turn comes around, and I succeed in AM Speed, barely... (We simply allowed you to go twice during your action if you were hasted/Speed/etc, so I had 2 attacks).
First attack, poor roll.. a few hits, an "A" crit, which was also a bad roll, and the hobgoblin resisted my poison.
Ok.. so I shake off the bad rolls, and commence my 2nd attack.. Much better roll.. Some decent damage and an "E" Krush crit.. ok sweet..
I roll the crit... I roll... 99!!! I crush his skull, get +20 to my next attack, AND have a half round left to act.
GM decides since the hobgoblins were running through the doorway, I was still within melee range of the 3rd hobgoblin and I could make an attack at 1/2 my OB... another good roll.. some decent damage and another "E" Krush.. nice..
I roll the crit... 96!!! The exact same crit!! I crush his skull, get +20 to my next attack, AND have a half round left to act.
At this point, the GM is hesitant to let me keep going, but given the odds of rolling the exact same crit, he says you can attack the 4th hobgoblin, but you have half of a half round, so you get 1/4 OB..
I roll another good hit.. some decent hits, and a third "E Krush...
I roll the dice, and see the first number is a 6.. well.. no big hits, but still respectable.. then I see the other die.. which is.. also on a 6..
66!!!! Instant Death crit!!!
So in one round, the nightblade takes out 3 hobgoblins solo... It was an awesome ending to the fight!!
-
My story happened when I was introduced to Arms Law. We were using it to run through a certain famous module series in That Other Game involving giants. We get to the end fight with two hill giants, and they win initiative. First giant swings and fumbles. Roll for fumble: 100 "Worst move anyone has seen in ages. You are out 2 days with pulled groin. 50% chance foes out 2 rounds laughing." Well, I don't remember if our characters were out laughing, but certainly the players were. And then the next giant attacked, and did the exact same thing. So we ended the encounter looting the caves of two maimed giants, putting them out of their misery at the end just so we could have their heads as proof.
-
This is going back over 12 years so the details are a little sketchy, but when the question was asked jumped right into my head.
So there was this group of 3 or 4 of us, me playing the tank as usual, as i was pretty new to RM and the magic system at the time was a little over my head. Our GM had us travelling all over Middle Earth (MERP campaign material using RM rules) and we found our selves in the deep south, Harad lands.
So we were about mid way through the evening, being led by a local guide travelling by Ollyphant across the desert. Recently leveled one of my companions (if that's the right description!) decided to try out a new ability, some of shout or loud explosive noise, just being a bit of a show off really, because he could. There were a few comments of don't be a fool, ect ect, the GM even asked if he was sure he wanted to go though with it.
So this particular player (lets call him Mick), true to form pushes the point and fires off the ability making a large noise.
Well.........
The Olyphant we were on, was on startled by the noise, reared upon two legs,
DM..... Roll agility
Mick.....total 120
DM...you hold on
Me..... 02
Group..... *Laughter*
DM..... you fall off the back, roll an A crush crit,
Me..... 66
Group....... *Loud laughter*
DM...... *Shakes his head with an evil smile spreading to laughter as he begins to read the crit*
"You fall and land on your back, the impact breaking a rib that penetrates your heart, instant death take a bazillion hits stunned for eternity bleed 20 hits per round ".
Im not sure of the exact numbers, they were meaningless next to the instant death effect.
Me... Nice one Mick!
Group..... *LOUD Laughter*
At this point began my desperate search of the character sheet looking for some small item or ability to avoid the inevitable 2 hour character re roll. As it was late, the hopelessness of knowing that by the time i was ready everyone would be ready to crash for the night made my desperate search even more frantic.
Just when I had all but given up hope a two word note at the on the back side of a well worn character sheet jumped off the page "Eog Heart"
Earlier in our adventuring my character had been affected by some strange random magical effect that turned his beating heart to Eog, making him immune to heart criticals.
The Roller coaster of emotions that can be experienced in such a short space of time is indeed amazing.
Me.........AHAH im immune......
Group....What?!?
Me....... Eog Heart, immune to heart crits.
DM.......*frowning* Show me that character sheet
DM...... Ok your fine. You dust yourself off.
Me...... Im attacking Mick.
-
My story is quite simple.
Ages back, when Mythic Greece came out, we played a campaign for greek heroes. I was GM.
One of my characters was king over some island. While he was out adventuring, a usurper had taken his throne. The PC came back to his island, learned about the usurper and went straight to the palace. He ran into the throne room, drew his sword, confronted the would-be-king and – beheaded him with his very first swing. He then took his place on the throne and had the corpse cleaned away. There were no more doubts as to who the rightful king was.
:)
-
These are GREAT stories. every one makes me want to pick up dice and start rolling.
I'm probably violating Thom's rules to the contest, by I think the Bard that killed the land drake and the Yellow Ninja are my tops for comedic value ;D.
Outright coolness 8) goes to the Cavalier who destroyed the wights!
But everyone is entertaining!
-
I've been around the periphery of the entertainment industry all my life, and I'm glad to see that the entries are meeting my personal standard of competitions in entertainment:
Want to win? Then show me a performance I'd be proud to lose to. ;)
It's not as if I have any say in who wins and who loses, but I still love the quality of the competition.
-
This tale takes place far on eastern sea where paladin Zadur arrives to a small island in search of a demon he has have tracked all the way over the ocean.
The natives of the island don't recall any demon, but they speak about a rumour about some kind of evil creature that haunts a village on the other part of the island. Zadur decide to investigate and form a landing party as the ship crew is busy restocking he ship.
At the village the group learns it is false trail not connected to the demon, but the villagers seems to be in real trouble since they live in mortal fear for the creature of the red thread. Zadur can not ignores there pleas for help and goes to the nearby temple to investigate.
Inside the temple they are challenged by a voice that demand sacrifice, when the heroes refuse the curse of the red thread are cast on Zadur. Moments later a wooden golem arrives with a red thread tied to it...it is just that it is one foot tall. The player around the gaming table break laughing and then slaughters the little bugger.
Returning to the village they learn the monster will return each night and be stronger each time. The warning turns true and at the following night the heroes face the returning wooden golem that by now is human sized large. After some trouble they dispatch it, but the spell users of the group can verify the curse is still active.
Inquires to the villagers the next day reveal that the monster has previously tracked victims to other islands and the group realize escaping by ship is no solution.
The next night the wooden golem returns and it is by now is four meters high and leaves a bloody trail behind it before the group finally are able to dispatch it by a combination of magic and weapon.
The group manage to heal the wounded but the next day Zadur assemble the group and point out that he doubt the heroes can continue to prevail if the monster keep growing more powerful. Calling the soldiers from the ship is an option, but they are of lower level and will probably be slaughtered in high numbers if they must fight the golem.
The group decide to dismantle the temple where they suffered the curse to try to find a way to break the curse. The more fight inclined group members build barricades to buy the magic users more time while the magic users work hard at understanding the magics of the temple.
As dusk sets there is still no solution finished but the spell users think they found the source of curse in some kind seal below the altar. Unfortunately they have not been able to undo the seal when the wooden golem arrive, by now the wooden golem is six meters tall.
The golem start to pull down the barricades as the heroes tremble inside. Suddenly there is cry of success from the spell users. They have finally manage to break the seal and put it at fire. The golem start to burn at the same time.
As gamemaster I in this moment expected some fun gaming as the golem put the barricades flaming and the group desperately must escape the death trap they just created.
Zadur's players think otherwise and ask "So the golem will be dead with within a few rounds, right?"
"Correct, it is burning like crazy," I answer.
"Okay I charge," Zadur's player says. I think...why not..there are plenty of healing power in group so they can fix him afterwards...probably.
Zadur jumps down from the barricade and the burning wooden golem comes charging to smash him. Fortunately for Zadur he somehow manage to win initiative despite his plate mail.
He swings his holy two handed sword and barely manage to get a D critical. I ask him to roll an attack on the Super Large table. He rolls 99 on the dice and there is great cheering around the gaming table. I feel like a criminal when I remind them that super large attacks are open-ended. He rolls again and get 01...thus the final result 100. Strike through the heart, enemy dies instantly with +20 in damage.
In truth the critical result also include that you get stuck below the body of the enemy...but in the general cheering around the gaming table I decide you can't top the evening entertainment and let the players celebrate their great victory.
-
This tale takes place far on eastern sea where paladin Zadur arrives to a small island in search of a demon he has have tracked all the way over the ocean.
The natives of the island don't recall any demon, but they speak about a rumour about some kind of evil creature that haunts a village on the other part of the island. Zadur decide to investigate and form a landing party as the ship crew is busy restocking he ship.
...
In truth the critical result also include that you get stuck below the body of the enemy...but in the general cheering around the gaming table I decide you can't top the evening entertainment and let the players celebrate their great victory.
Another great story! And a very kind GM...
-
Roleplaying Pays
We were playing a motley band of orcs rampaging through civilised lands. My brother's character was a Greater Orc with the 'Tusked' talent. We were in combat with some righteous paladin types. My brother's character ("Maw") was using his broadsword and scored a good crit on his opponent - stunned and unable to parry for a few rounds. The next round he declares his action: "Deliberate full Bite....Any chance an orc gets to bite someone....".He picks up the bones and rolls...03....not a fumble on the Bite table (but it would have been on the broadsword table, which was his higher OB), and with his Bite OB plus the bonus for a stunned opponent, he manages a crit to end the guy's evil fighting career.
-
Unexpected Response
Back in the days when I could convince my wife to play Rolemaster, she was playing a 'noble' (and someone psychotic) half-elf called Sir Mel. She was new to the game, so each crit result was new and interesting to her (and sometimes elicited an interesting response). In one memorable battle with some evil humaoid or other, she scored a 95 D puncture "...spills his guts on the floor...". Having finished this ooponent off, she declares that she feeds the intestines to her horse.
-
Know your tables
Our band of hapless Dwarves was cruising the Underdark/Depths of the Earth when we spotted a bridge. I jokingly asked the GM if there were any Trolls under it. His response was "Yes _ three!". Having survived the shower of thrown boulders we closed with them. One of the party ("Gnolste") had been carrying around a Dagger of Troll-Slaying for ages. He remembered this fact and in a flash (quickdraw) it was in his hand. The GM added plenty of flavour saying "You feel the dagger hum with power, and the blade turns a lustrous blue as it senses a Troll". With that Gnolste dived into the fray, spurning his +15 morningstar with 140 or so OB in favour of his 70 or so OB in dagger (but not any dagger - this was a dagger of troll slaying! whaaahahahahahah!). Gnolste was a little injured from the barrage of stones, so he managed a total attack of 121 - YES! Unfortunately no. A Stone Troll has AT 11 and two levels of crit reduction....so in order to hit and score a roll on the Slaying Critical table Gnolste needed to roll somewhat higher. That combat ended in a victory for us, but with much pain.
What kind of lunatic constructs a Troll slaying dagger!!!!!!
-
A story from a brand new session last month.
The group of heroes was visiting a foreign city, where a grand tournament was being held in celebration of the local ruler. Naturally, all of them decided to take part and try their luck in several categories ranging from martial arts, bow and arrow proficiency and free style weapon combat.
First round was pretty uneventful - all but one of the characters won their 'qualification' fight. Semi-finals came and went, with close-fought but well earned victories. Then, the final battles.
First up was bow and arrow, which was a very close call, with both contestants engaging difficult to hit targets at long range. The hero won, thanks to some last minute addition of a metal bowstring (from Arms Companion).
Then, martial arts, fought on a wooden contraption, with ladders, bridges, slopes and a narrow walkway. The hero fought valiantly, managing multiple times to use the momentum of her opponent to manoeuvre into an advantageous position. In the end, it was a ring-out that decided the match.
Now, all fight up to then were a long, drawn out affair, with neither fighter wanting to give way to a lucky hit, carefully preserving their defense and parrying each blow, waiting for a fumble from the opponent.
Still, the last match was the grandest final of them all, on the same stage as the martial artists, one-handed weapons. The hero, who had secured himself a boon from a lady of the court, outfitted in foppish clothes and brandishing two falchions - against a battle-scarred war veteran, himself champion of many battles. The veteran charged before the announcer had even finished his speech, rushing towards the hero. The hero, keeping in tune with his appearances, somersaulted on the walkway, and met the veteran head-on with a blow from one of his falchions. It was a critical hit. The veteran wore no helmet. He was out cold, sliding down the wooden slope and would awake from his coma several weeks later.
The fight was supposed to be the culmination of a (in-game) three day tournament that had taken us the better part of a whole day to play out. It was over with two rolls of the dice. It was also one of the most memorable moments in my 15 years of GM'ing Rolemaster.
-
This is a story that now, some 20 years later, we still talk about in our gaming group.
Background:
THE WATCHTOWER
Our heroes were on a scouting mission in Angmar during winter time.
The Heroes (lvl 10-15):
Balin, dwarf warrior.
Carwelan, Noldor fighter.
Janevik, human thief.
The group had been ploughing through snow and cold for over two months and Balin had been craving for some action to "warm up his limbs".
One evening they stumbled upon an orc watchtower and somehow Balin managed to convince the others that it was a great idea "to check it out more closely"...
Our heroes cautiously approached the tower. Balin made some amazing stalk & hide skill rolls and they managed to silently take care of the two guards outside the entrance, but needless to say their good fortune wasn´t going to last very long.
They entered the tower and almost immediately the heroes spotted a throng of around 15-20 orcs in the tower´s lower main area. To his companions dismay Balin roared his battle-cry and charged the orcs.
This caused a heated debate in the gaming group as it was a reckless move, to say the least.
A long and brutal fight ensued and when the smoke cleared our heroes were victorious. Everyone but the dwarf was in bad shape.
Just as they thought everything was over Carwelan spotted a lone orc hiding on top of the staircase leading to the second level of the tower. Without hesitation he brandished his bow to take care of him. "NO!" Balin Roared, "He´s mine!".
Balin slowly went up the stairs with a bloodthirsty look on his face. He then gets the brilliant idea to make this a more interesting fight and decides to first, throw down his shield and then his axe... Armed With only a dagger and lots of confidence he closes in on the orc.
Balin acts first, saving none of his AB for DB and... Fumbles (he stumbled over an unseen, imaginary, deceased turtle)!
Then the orc attacks and gets an open ended roll and lands an E-critical on Balin with the result that his shield arm is now useless and he bleeds like a pig.
Janevik hides his face in his hands, shaking his head in disbelief. Meanwhile Carwelan sighs and casually aims his bow, gets an open ended roll and shoots the orc in the throat!
We had to quit the gaming session after this event as none of us were able to stop laughing!
-
This is not a story so much about how humorous the critical tables are, as how humor of the tables can appear in unexpected locations.
We were playing a low level party, all 3rd level or less. It was your standard group, a fighter, a mage, and a cleric. We entered town looking for trouble. Er adventure. We learned that a handmaiden to the queen had recently gone missing. Adventurers assemble.
After some investigation we determined that the handmaiden was kidnapped by a vampire and his henchman. We tracked them to an abandoned farmhouse just outside the city. It was getting late in the day, so we knew we had to move fast.
Exploring the cellar, we discovered a coffin. We opened it. (Drum roll) It was the handmaiden, freshly bitten, but not yet a vampire. We decided to lock her in and drag the coffin back to the city. However, we were not getting out of there that easily. The vampire sent a pack of rats against us.
Rats, ok not that bad of a fight. First round, the party kills a couple of rats. The cleric gets bitten. Not too badly just an A Tiny. Roll the critical on the cleric. 100! Foe loses one of his eyes. An easy fight just got a lot tougher. Several rounds later, there were lots of dead rats, a fighter and mage with a few nicks and cuts. But the cleric was a mess. His face was covered in blood, bleeding from a pair of bites. His eye was torn from its socket, barely attached with a few strands of flesh.
The party staggered from the farm house, dragging the coffin up the stairs. It was mere minutes from sunset. So they quickly set fire to the buildings to keep the vampire busy. We then started back to the city, dragging the coffin with the handmaiden inside. About halfway back the mage asked is we should keep an eye out for the henchman. So the cleric picks up his eye and asks, "How about this one?"
-
Back in the early '90s, I was playing a campaign with my buddies. One thing you can depend on... physics grad school students are NOT cowed by RM tables and modifiers!
Yag was a Nightblade (5th level or so? Definitely not double-digits yet), and doing a little scouting for the party. Down the ladder in an old well, out along the passageway (with a spell to see in the dark, IIRC). TOTALLY misses his Perception roll (I can't remember if it was open-ended DOWN, but was certainly a failure), and so comes face-to-face with a group of orcs (no specific number... which part of "You Failed your Perception roll" are you having trouble with? :D).
I run back down the passageway. They run after me, of course.
I try to outrun them. Don't make the roll completely successfully, but at least I don't fumble... I gain a little ground, but they're still on my tail.
Get to the bottom of the old well, realizing there is no way that I'll be able to climb the ladder ahead of them. I quick turn, and decide that, if I'm going to go out, I'll do it with style... Martial Arts style.
As the first one comes out, I take a Martial Arts Sweeps and Throws... and get a crit! I no longer have the books, and so can't quote it exactly, but the result was basically, "Kill your opponent and throw him 10' in any direction."
The referee looks at me expectantly, and I quickly say, "Right back up the corridor!"
Ref smiles, makes a roll or two, says I threw the dead Orc right into the face of the next couple of orcs, who decided suddenly that perhaps discretion was the better part of valor, and followed the immortal words of King Arthur: "Run Away!"
-
After been reading through what they where looking for in this weeks submission I realized that the Kamikaze Spider was more appropiate as a submission for week 2 & 3. The a typical famous comedic fumble we see now and again in Rolemaster.
This is more of a straightforward event taken from running the adventure The Stone of Seven Souls (http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=17194). Well after struggling and fighting their way through the caverns below the Church of Skull Hill they came up into the actual Church. The adventurers where very worn out from all the fighting and where really not up for another fight. But of course they couldn't resist a little more exploring before they made camp and recovered before continuing their quest. When they opened a door in the temple a Ghoul leaped out attacking them. All the players made a run for it and was not in the mood to fight a ghoul. But they forgot about one of the players who was so injured he could only limp after the other runners. One of the other players noticed the player left behind and started to run back and hopefully distract the ghoul long enough for the other one to make his escape. But before he managed to get there the ghoul caught up with the injured player and he turned to face the ghoul and make his last stand expecting to perish. But he swung his sword and I remember he had a penalty of -90 or something because of all his injuries. But despite this he managed to roll one of those desired opened ended rolls followed by another high roll after that and managed to land a a very nice C critical. Chop the top of foe's thigh. Sever foe's leg. Foe drops immediately and dies in 6 rounds due to shock and blood loss.
You can imagine the awe of the other adventurers when they later see the injured player supported by his friend came slowly limping out of the church. They had all expected them to perish against the ghoul. These are just the moments you love when playing Rolemaster!
-
These are two stories about fumbles that took place in our Space Master campaign nearly 20 years ago. Both take place in a shabby neighbourhood where the adventurers got into trouble with the local gang. (Which, btw, had nothing to do with the main plot line) After being chased off by the gang the adventurers plotted their revenge.
In the first story the armsman of the group wanted to drive round the area until he spotted the bad guys and take them out with his assault rifle. He hid in the back of an SUV and was driven around by the entertainer of the group. After some cruising they found three of their enemies standing in front of a wall, clearly carrying guns, but not suspecting anything. Seeing the weapons the entertainer tried to talk the armsman out of this attack, as anything could go wrong. But the armsman wanted to press on, because with his good OB, point blank range and extended magazines what could happen? So, still in the car, they silently approached the wall expecting to mow down the guys and full throttle out of there.
And then of course it went wrong, the armsman pointed his assault rifle out of the car, rolled the dice and broke his finger when the recoil of the gun crushed his hand against the door. Needless to say he missed completely and they again had to flee under a hail of bullets.
The second story is about one of the criminologists of the group. He had spent a background option getting an MLA pistol, with insane range and stopping power. However in all his time he only ever succeeded once in hitting someone with it. In this case two of his friends were stuck in a house besieged by gangmembers. His job was to make sure no one was coming to the aid of the besiegers. He positioned himself so that he could take out anyone approaching the house with his MLA pistol. He was standing a good distance away behind his car. Then he saw one of the enemy running to the scene with wat clearly looked like grenades, so he had to stop him. The criminologist aimed his MLA-pistol, pulled the trigger and rolled a fumble. His MLA pistol was out of power! And there was no second chance to shoot as he did not bring an extra power pack. With his friends in danger the player desperately looked for options until someone pointed out his car. He reluctantly jumped in and ran down the guy using his combat driving skill and the vehicular attack chart. That was also the day he almost threw away his MLA pistol as it always failed him.
-
That actually reminds me about a fumble story, also from Spacemaster. This was the same party as the stun pistol one earlier, but a bit earlier in their career, before we had joined up with the con artist. It was my character, the anarchist, along with the other player - I forget which class he was playing, but he had developed a reputation already as a cop killer (not nice people).
Anyway, we had just pulled off a terroist attack and were on the run, needing a vehicle to get away. We spotted a police car in which a regular beat cop was sitting, eating his donut and minding his own business. Max (the other player) pulled open the passenger door and fired a burst from his machine pistol... and scored a minor hit, nothing special on the critical. Fire phase B came round, the cop was about to floor it and get away, when Max fired again... and fumbled. I forget the exact result but the gun jammed on full auto, the result being that the entire clip was emptied. Which normally would have been bad, but he was using high explosive rounds.
The GM ruled that there was nowhere really else for the bullets to go, and that mincemeat had been made of the cop, as well as the seat he was sitting in and damage to the structure of the car. We were going to look for another vehicle, but then our main pursuers can screaming round the corner and we had no choice but to use that vehicle to escape in, even though the interior was essentially painted with policeman and to drive it you'd have to sit... right in the middle of the mess.
My character made Max do the driving even though she was better at driving and had a higher combat pilot skill...
-
Our best fumble was actually a series of fumbles that happened to the same character in non-combat situations during the same game session.
This was the same party that faced the chaos commander in my previous tale. The rogue, much quieter than before, had recovered from his concussion by this time and rejoined the group. They were exploring a mountain range to the north of their base town, following up on reports of ruins in the area. They'd been moving through thick pine forest for three days, and were attacked twice by wolves and once by an Orc scouting party. So they were a bit nervous...
In the van was the dwarf. Since they were moving into mountains he was in all his glory, playing the character to the hilt and making much of how his background would save them. Even though he was a fighter, he'd managed to spot one group of wolves before the Steppelander rogue and the Orcs (which allowed the party to actually ambush them), so he was really confident about his perception skills.
It was an overcast day, and the party moved out in their now-standard formation (the dwarf up front with his crossbow ready, followed by the Steppelander with her composite bow and the rest ranged behind with the hungover bard NPC bringing up the rear). The dwarf moves out in high spirits, making Perception checks every so often (when the faint trail they were following made a switchback, or if there was a particularly large outcropping to the front...things like that). So far, so good...except for the roll he made when checking a particularly large pile of deadfall. He rolls..."crap"...the dreaded 01. Rolls again...94. Absolute Failure. Peering into the darkness at the center of the pile of dead trees (the result of a wind storm decades gone), he sees two glittering eyes....it's... "A bear!" The dwarf shouts, fires his crossbow blindly into the dead trees, turns, and runs. "It's a big 'un! Get clear!"
The party freaks out, gets bows ready, and the hungover bard falls from his horse. The dwarf streaks past the Steppelander, who brings her bow to full draw and shouts for the other rogue to come up. The dead wood shifts, branches fall, and a very bewildered possum staggers out and peers around. The dwarf, back by the now-standing bard, continues to insist that there was a bear back there, and his shot must have scared it away.
Once the possum ambled away, the party composed itself and moved on, with the somewhat subdued dwarf continuing in the lead. Soon the trees began to fall away as they moved higher into the mountains. The landscape changes worried the party for some reason (possibly because they'd been attacked before in similar terrain), so they asked the dwarf to check the composition of the nearby rocks. They'd also heard rumors of "gold in them thar hills," and wanted to see if there was any chance of such. The dwarf swaggered up to an outcropping, dropped to one knee, and...02! The second roll...92. The dwarf looks closely at the rock, rubs it with a hand, sniffs some of the bits, and turns back to the party. "Obsidian," he announces with total confidence. "Pure obsidian."
After that, the dwarf was constantly getting obsidian shards in his bedroll, or drawings of bears tucked into his gear. Any perception roll was met with cries of "It's an obsidian bear!" or "Have the dwarf check." We also had some spectacular combat and spell fumbles over the years, but no sequence of fumbles had the same impact on the group as those two failed perception rolls.
-
I have found out that since I have no financial dealingswith ICE that I can enter the contest.
Instead of justlisting some of my most memorable moments with Arms Law in a random fashion Idecided to relate an example from each system that I have played in using ArmsLaw. But first I will say how difficult it was. As a GM I tend to roll veryhigh or very low on my rolls, so there were numerous times that a player fumbledand then the creature/opponent also then decided to; throw away his weapon,damage himself, damage his comrades or something worse.
Before I jump in tostory mode though I want to tell you why I love Arms Law. I was watching UFC150 Prelim’s, if I remember the number correctly, last weekend and during afight between a local Colorado man and a Dutch something sort of brutalhappened. The Dutch fighter using his right foot brought it up and sharply hithis opponent in the left leg just above or below the knee. The shock of theblow could be immediately seen as the Colorado man’s left leg buckled, knockedhim back, but he regained his balance. The round ended shortly after that kick.But you could see the kicks effect on the fighter as he went to put his weighton his leg to go back to his corner and he just about collapsed. Spike TV brokeaway to a commercial so you could not see any more after that, but uponreturning the commentator said that he thought the Dutch fighters kick did someserious muscle damage to the Colorado fighter. He was right as the Coloradofighter put up a spirited defense the next round but you could see that seriousdamage had been done. After he had lost you could see the pain on his face andthe fact that he did not want to put any weight on his left leg at all. That devastatingkick is what Arms Law criticals represent to me. The ability in my game torepresent a verity of types of wounds besides simple “hits†or “pipsâ€. Themuscle wounds, the broken bones and severity of the breaks, organ damage aswell as nerve damage after healing the wounds. That in my humble opinion iswhere Arms Law truly shines.
House Rules Game Arms Law:
In a house rules game we used Arms Law for itscritical and fumble tables. The funniest thing I remember was related to meafter a game I missed. Another player inthe group had rolled a fumble and dropped his most prized and powerful magicitem in the game, a magic sword. But it was no big deal all he had to do wasroll under his Luck score of 17 on a D20 and he could pick it up. The firstround after dropping the magic sword my friend rolled a 19 and kicked it in arandom direction 1d6 feet. Unfortunately he rolled 6 feet and then he rolledthe direction. The sword went toward the edge of the rock ledge they werefighting on. Not just toward the edge but right to the edge according to themap. And just to make matters worse over the edge was a river of lava. Buteveryone laughed and sighed and said how lucky he was as he had a luck score of17 and he would pick it up next round no problem. As I was told the round wenton with the tension slowly building as it got to the next round and the playersturn to retrieve his pride and joy, and some said his characters reason forliving, from the edge. He rolled a 19 for his luck roll. Everyone at the tableheld their breath. Which direction would it go? How far would it go? What wouldhappen if he did not retrieve his magic sword? He rolled d6 for feet again andthen rolled direction. The die gave the direction as over the edge. Everyonewas shocked, wide eyed and holding their breath. The GM broke the tension and beginningsof lots of loud laughter as he said “I will let you reduce you Luck Stat permanentlyby 1 to roll again and retrieve your sword.†The player shook his head and saidok. He rolled a 17. Which would have been good enough the first time but sincehis Luck Stat had be reduced by 1 to 16 it was not good enough. The sword waskicked into the river of lava never to be seen again. Except by the othermembers of the party as they watched the sword sink. The laughter was loud andlong by the other players. But it was such a big event in the story that the GMdecided to end the game there for the week. The next week when we all showed upthe player had a new character as he could not get over the loss of his sword.We all were a little shocked … but then the laughter grew until the rest of uswere laughing so hard we were crying. Of course the player who lost his sworddid not think it was that funny and left the room. And that set off anotherround of crying laughter.
I will relate theothers in separate posts as I am trying to hold back laughing just rememberingwhat happened.
MDC
-
RoleMaster 2:
I was lucky to be introduced to RM2 in the late 1990’s, in a game world that had been in development since the 80’s. The detail was amazing and the fact that the GM aided you in creating your PC was the best in my humble opinion as he explained why this or that skill would be better because your character was from this region or was that race. It really opened my eyes to just what character generation should be.
Another player and I decided during the game session that our characters were going to spar. And the GM had a table for critical’s for that. My character a mentalist ranger decided that he should spar just like he would fight for real. So no helmet, being a mentalism caster. First up we always learned from our combat practice before the game began to put most of your OB into DB to get a feel about how good your opponent was. I did that and roll d100. I rolled a 01 followed by a large number for the fumble critical, and dropped my weapon. My fellow player did the opposite and rolled open ended high to get an E crit. Then rolled somewhere in the range of 96-100 for the E crit. The critical gave two results. One result was if you were wearing a helmet and the other was if you did not have a helm.As stated above I did not wear a helm and so I was in a coma for 2 months. Which was reduced to 1 month and a penalty after some herbs and good doctoring.
After that of course everyone kept on asking me if I wanted to spar ... and if I had my herbs and a bed ready.
MDC
-
Zam the Evil sorcerer participating in a battle within a war helping defend the stronghold he is in.
Zam "I will cast vacuum into the battle at the enemy. Paying extra and making some rolls to make it larger effect"
GM "you will catch some of your own troops no matter how you do that"
Zam "Thats fine its only B crits I just want to toss some confusion and panic around"
GM "ok successful casting roll crit result for enemy troupes"
Zam "hmm leg wounds cool that should mess up that group"
GM "ok roll crit for the few of your troupes in the area"
Zam "01! sweet nothing on them"
GM "and lastly roll crit result on lester"
Zam "whow Lester is in there?"
Lester "frick I slipped the gm a note 5 mins ago about sneaking in there"
Zam "ok lets see here *roll* double zero?" O.o
GM "Ok Less part of your skull flies through your brain pan. Here's a blank character sheet"
Zam "Damn.... Sure glad I am evil already"
-
Hi guys, my first post so hope i'm doing this right. Realise the competition is over but just happy to share some of my memories. The first time I ever played Rolemaster was at Barnsley Sixth Form college in England back in around 1987. I was blown away by the system and was glad someone else was running it at the time. I was invited in to the role-play group there and created my first character. A barbarian type using all of the tools at our disposal, basic rules plus companion 1, those were the days! I created a barbarian type and everything was going well until the second encounter at which time we came first to face with a giant troll! Yes, a normal troll was not enough for our DM, it had to be giant. ( Damn those Creatures & Treasures extra rules! ). He swung and almost killed 2 of the party in the first couple of turns before I decided I might as well give it a go or die trying. Rolled my attack, a very open-ended roll for the first time. Then came the crit. What do I need to do? Roll D100 and tell me what you get. You need a high roll. Blast! 66. What does that mean? 8)
The rest is history. Glad to see things going well with the system and looking forward to getting back in to this wonderful game. All the very best guys.
going to Essen this year. Will anyone be there?
-
imagine1,
Welcome to the ICE Forums and you did it right. ;D
MDC
-
I have been using Iron Crown Enterprises products since they first came out over 30 years ago. I still have my original Arms Law with the parchment cards. One of the most amazing Arms Law moments, we have ever had happened over 10 years ago, but it is still clear to me today as if it happened yesterday.
I was running an epic Rolemaster campaign in a post apocalyptic fantasy setting. The characters were travelling through a dangerous forest of giant trees, much, much larger than Sequoias. They had already been attacked by Giant Beetles, Giant Spiders, and Giant Poisonous Snakes, who had bitten everyone in the party except for an Elven Magent who nursed the rest back to health while guarding their bodies. The party consisted of a Wood Elven Ranger, a Half Elven Female Bard, a Dwarven Fighter, a Dwarven Cleric, a Grey Elven Rogue, and a Wood Elven Magent. They were noticeably cautious as they had paid the price earlier for being bold.
As they travelled carefully through the forest, I rolled up a random encounter, which came up to be a mundane creature, just a little critter that couldn't hurt anyone. However, I decided to have a little fun with the party since they were so nervous. I told the Ranger that he heard something rustling in a bush just ahead. The party stopped, and the Ranger slowly stalked his way forward to the bush, but nothing was visible, the bush was just too big, and thick to see into. So he took his scimitar and swung it at the bush. When he rolled, he fumbled, and the fumble result was Swallow your tongue in the excitement of the moment, you spend the next 3 rounds choking. So the player playing the Ranger begins to act out his character choking. The rest of the party is torn between laughing at him, and being concerned for his safety. So the Dwarven Cleric steps forward and swings his mace at the bush. He fumbles, and when he rolls for his fumble, he rolls the exact same result, so he starts choking as well. Now two of the players are acting out their characters choking, and the rest of the players were doing their best not to laugh. In the excitement, the cute furry bunny runs away, and none of the characters notice. it. When the Ranger finally stops choking, he backs away from the bush a goodly distance, and when the Cleric stops choking he joins the Ranger, with the rest of the party a little further back, eyeing the bush nervously. The entire gaming group was arguing about why the bush was causing everyone that attacks it to choke. (This was one of the best examples I have ever seen of keeping player knowledge, and character knowledge separate) I thought the encounter was over; then, the player playing the Ranger, pipes up and says.
"What kind of bush is it?"
At first, I was thinking, crap, I have no idea what kind of bush this is, then I had a moment of inspiration, and without missing a beat, I said ...
"It's a chokecherry bush!"
Needless to say, we couldn't play for the next 5 to 10 minutes as every one of the players and myself were laughing uncontrollably. Some of us fell out of our chairs, and everytime we stopped laughing, somebody would say something to start us up again.
To this day, this was one of the greatest moments of our Rolemaster gaming, and it had me hooked on Rolemaster with no chance of a Resistance Roll.
I hope you enjoyed this Rolemaster moment, I know we did.
Get Real, Get Rolemaster
Realm Master K
-
SpaceMaster Privateer’s Arms Law:
I hope this is nottoo late to enter as my back was killing me yesterday do to gaming Saturdaynight and I took some medication for my bad back. It put me to sleep for mostof the day. Good for my back bad for Arms Law submission.
I was GM’ing a SM:Pgame in which it was fairly low weapon technology outside of the main coresystems. The PC’s could carry modern weapons (lasers, blasters, plasma weapons)but it was very likely that they would be confiscated if (and when) they werefound by the star port inspection teams. So it was a basically firearm andstunner game with the PC’s having older design looking advanced stunners. Sothey looked like Mk III stunners by all accounts but could be upped in power toMk V with some simple actions. I also ruled that stunners from advancedtechnological societies could be tuned to defeat lower technology anti-stunnerear devices, and the technology level the PC’s stunners were from the earpieces of the local military and police would provide no protection.
The PC’s were on thetrail of Imperial Diamonds, which are diamonds formed under special conditionsin space. The Imperial Diamonds appear as black diamonds until worn by andImperial Noble or come into contact with an Imperial Nobles blood. After whichthey lose their black color, become clear and shine with a remarkable innerlight. The degree to which the gems black opacity fades and the magnitude ofthe sine is related to the station and pedigree of the person or blood it comesinto contact with. Imperial Diamonds are also psioniclly active or psionic in theirown nature and their power is related to their size and composition and clarityduring the diamonds growth. The Imperial Diamond the PC’s were chasing down wasbelieved to be fairly good sized and had some powers of domination. Which iswhy the Imperial Authorities wanted the gem for themselves and out of the FrontierWorlds where whoever had it could cause a lot of trouble.
The party was in anunderground military/government complex and had used their stunners to greateffect on a number of guards. They had some good advantages as the psionic PCcould use clairvoyance, clairaudience and a scanner to help determine where theguards were and come in with stunners blaring. One PC said “Boy I love stunners!No killing. And we can tie the stunned up so they cannot worn anyone, even ifthey do wake up after I administer the sleeping drugs.†One of the players said“Well just to be careful and to help one of use look like a guard I will dressup as one and take his AK-47 type weaponâ€
Then the partyenters a large fairly empty hanger section and see a group dressed in robes (ofcourse right? They are cultists) listening to a man speak. The party notices thatthere is no way to really sneak up upon the group so they just walk casuallytowards them. The speaker notices them about 100 yards away and is notexpecting anyone for several hours (He has used the domination powers of theImperial Diamond to influence the minds of the guards). The speaker tells theenslaved nobles to “Defend me, by taking down that group at all costs†The 20or so cultist charge the group. Now the PC’s know that their stunners do nothave a great range so they decide to use suppression fire from the AK to slowthe cultists down and then maneuver and use the stunners to stun people as theygo. The suppressing fire PC’s skill is not great only in the 50’s so he doesnot really think he will do a lot of damage and there are only 20 rounds in theclip. He rolled an average number with a decent critical, and the cultists wereall in the suppressed area. I looked at the rules and it said make an attack oneach person in the suppressed area. Well there were 25 in the area and only 20rounds in the AK with some rounds lost to the area covered. But the rules saideveryone. I made a quick decision and said ok, today this is how I am going torule but in the future it may change. Since the cultists are in a tight areayou will affect every one of them with your suppression fire but I may change therule after consulting the ICE Forums at a later date.
He rolled a 100 for the critical and thecultist all died. Every one of the group just sat there stunned. They hadworked so hard to no kill anyone for 6 hours and now one firearm had ruined allof that. After a short time it sunk in just how powerful firearms and suppressionfire is in the game and could be in real life. They also realized that it isvery wise to wear kinetic armor to nullify critical’s from firearms and paidgenerous amounts to have custom tailor made kinetic armor garments.
MDC
-
When Week 4's topic of something completely different was announced, I immediately thought of a wonderful encounter my players had with a Wight. Let me explain...
The party consisted of
1) Wood Elven Ranger
2) Grey Elven Rogue (Horse Master)
3) Half Elven Mentalist
4) Dwarven Fighter
5) Dwarven Cleric
6) Arachnin Shao Lin Monk (Ninja)
7) Idiyva Magent
8) Wood Elven Archer (Weapons Master)
9) High Elven Paladin
While searching for a lost temple in a jungle/swamp, they came upon some obviously cut stones covered in vegetation. The Ranger stalked his way forward and took a closer look at the stones, noting that they looked about the same size and shape as tombstones might. He began to clear away the vines and that was when the Wight came up from the grave and struck him directly in the center of his chest. He missed his resistance roll, and was paralyzed. I told the party that the Ranger gave out a little cry and slumped to the ground unconscious or dead. The party instantly sprang into action, with the Monk acting first.
The Monk's primary weapon is a Kusari-gama, a chain weapon with an attached sickle, so he made the decision to use the chain end to grapple the Ranger's body, and pull him from danger. Unfortunately, he fumbled which resulted in this description
You begin juggling your weapon because of a bad grip. Your lack of control stuns you for 3 rounds.
I decided that this meant he had lost his grip on the chain. I had him make a roll to see if he could recover, and he failed which resulted in the chain wrapping around him, completely binding his arms to his side. According to his fumble result he is now stunned for 3 rounds, which I determined represented the time it would take to free himself. Now the Paladin casts an Aura spell.
At this point the Wight used his natural Fear aura, and all but the Dwarven Fighter, Dwarven Cleric, Grey Elven Rogue (Mounted on his horse), High Elven Paladin, the Magent, and the now thoroughly entangled Monk/Ninja failed their resistance rolls. They all fled to the minimum distance that the fear aura extended, and stood watching in utter horror at the comedy of errors being played out before them. The Magent rushes forward and drags the Monk away from the Wight.
The Mounted Rogue was next to act, and he stabbed at the Wight with his spear, but the spear went right through the Wight. Oops, you need magic weapons to hit a Wight and your Boar Spear isn't magical. The only character that has a magical weapon that hasn't run away is the Paladin who has a magical Falchion. He attacks and does a few hits of damage.
Now the Cleric is prepared and begins to cast Repuslions V. Watch out Wight, your'e going down. He fumbles the spell, creating a power backlash and stunning himself for 8 rounds. So much for Repulsions.
The Dwarven fighter, and the Rogue both try to think of something to help since they have no magic weapons. The Paladin casts Holy Attack and does a few more points of damage. The Magent helps to free the Monk, getting him about 48% detangled.
Now things are looking pretty bad for the party, when the Dwarven fighter calls out to the Rogue. "Have your horse attack the Wight, his horseshoes are magical!"
Now let me explain, his horse is wearing magical horseshoes, but they are a Daily Magical Item, that casts the spell Run. It was such an inspired idea, that I let it ride in the interest of making a wonderful Rolemaster Moment.
The Paladin backs away to make room for the Rogue and his horse. The Monk once again fails to free himself. The Magent gets the Monks legs free of the chain, now only his arms and upper body are entangled. The Rogue charges his horse into the Wight distracting it and preventing it from using its Fear spell. The archer uses Quickdraw and fires a magic arrow, which does a few hits of damage. The Dwarven Fighter misses his agility maneuver and is knocked down by the Rogue's horse. He decides to stay down and crawls to the Ranger to check for a pulse.
The Rogue has his horse kick backwards at the Wight, (he is a horse master after all) but misses. The Wight casts another Fear spell. Now the Magent and the Monk run away in fear. The Archer draws a magic bow that can cast Well Aimed Attack. The Dwarven Fighter drags the still breathing Ranger back to the "safety?" of the group.
The Rogue again has his horse kick backwards, but misses again. the Archer activates the magic of his bow. The Wight casts another Fear spell. The Dwarven fighter tries to rouse the Ranger, but to no avail. The Monk stops fleeing and attempts to free himself, and rolls another failure, causing him to fall to the ground giving himself a few hits, and stunning himself.
The Rogue spins his horse around and has it rear up at the Wight, although it misses the Wight it distracts it enough that it turns its back to the Archer who fires and get a Critical. The roll for the Critical is open ended on the Large Creature Critical Table under the Magic column. The result is
Strike foe in the side of his head. Foe stumbles back a few feet before he falls to the ground. He is out for 3 hours.
As the Wight slumps to the ground the Paladin advances and gives it the Coup de Grace with his magic Falchion, beheading the fiend. The Wight dissolves into nothingness as it sinks back into the ground.
The Monk finally frees himself, and walks away mumbling something about not being very monkly, or Ninja-like. And many rounds later the Cleric begins to come around with a very bad headache.
I chose this encounter for my submission as it was so unusual. It had fumbles, criticals, failed resistance rolls, spell failure, and the most unique improvised weapon I have ever had my players use, a set of magical horsehoes (Not weaponized) to attack a Wight. I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed running that session for my players.
Realm Master K
-
Going way back, to RM1 when only RMCI and C&T were out with a bunch of MERP modules. We had switched from MERP to RM when the PC's finally got around to hitting level 10 in MERP. There was Alashieve, a Noldo fighter; Fee, a Sindarin mage; Solon, a Rohirrim fighter; Thorid Zad II, NPC fighter; and our first successful RMCI profession, a nightblade whose name I have forgoten (so I shall refer to as NB). The NB was around level 9-12, everyone else was in the mid teens, with only Fee over level 20 (23 or 24th if I recall).
As a final piece of info, the NB was Jesses PC and replaced his beloved hobbit scout that had been killed by a wight when he climbed a tree to hide in a battle after robbing a noble human tomb. Jesse had horrible luck with the dice and went through quite a few characters. He tended to streak on good rolls, then flame out with horrible results. It would prove true that afternoon and begin a long line of nightblade characters for Jesse.
Alashieve was the defacto leader of the group, with Fee proving the limited moral compass such a party possesses. Al despised the waning of the elves to what he saw as truely inferior beings, with far to few Adain left to offer salvation. Fee understood the fate of the eldar was already sung in the song and did his best to keep Al on the straight and narrow, channeling the dispair and frustration of his good friend to more positive results (Al raided human tombs, Fee saw some of the gear went the fight against the Great Enemy). Solon was a minor noble who joined Al to recover a legendary sword of his ancestors. Thorid Zad II was a clone of the first Thorid Zad that died 10 minutes after being created with a Hillmans arrow through the heart, reeling to a suitable spot for dieing. NB was one of a long list of sad case PC's that would die under the torture of Jesses horrible die rolls. As a group that played RQ before switching to MERP/RM, we prefered grit and pain over fluff and romance, and Jesse was use to rolling low.
Back then I rolled encounter checks every 4 hours of travel with a base 15% chance of encounter modified by population density. Much of our gaming stemmed from these encounters, and we enjoyed a very organic adventure style. Traveling over the Misty Mountains, I rolled Mountain Giants. d100 determined the size of the group (moderate result, a small hunting outpost then...), d10 determined the number (6, with four adults and two youths). I decided they had a cave, the giants were two husband/wife teams with their young adult children.
The group saw the giants gathered on a cliff face 90 feet or so above them at about 1/4 mile out (350m or so). Mike, who played Solon, was very happy. He had recovered his family sword and it was giant slaying, delivering additional electric crits versus giants too (so a weapon slaying crit AND a spell slaying crit). Note: back then we rolled each critical seperately, and Alashieves cold sword dominated many a battle. NOW it was Solons turn.
They charged on their horses to the cliff base while the giants had two melees to hurl bolders. Round three had Fee casting fly, Al starting to climb, the NB teleporting halfway up the cliff face and starting to climb and Solon getting hit and critted by a rock. Thorid failed his riding mnv and couldn't get his war pony to move faster than 1/2 normal walking pace and lagged far behind. The rock blow did little damage but fell Solon from his horse at the base of the cliff and the fall broke his leg, badly, leaving him at a serious penalty to activity (-70 I believe, indicating a compound fracture says I the GM).
Fee starts attacking, using his 1xday chains of binding to wrap the biggest giant up (the giant would eventually slay itself trying to escape them), Al finishes his climb, NB teleports again, ending up behind a giant with a puff of smoke and attacks, not doing much more than hits. Solon screams in rage and declares he WILL climb the cliff, going hand over hand if his leg injury should slow him down. Mike rolls almost 300 on his climb check, inspiring all his allies and covering over 70 feet in one round. The giants retaliate; Al is unscathed while Fee gets hit by a rock, knocked out of the sky and stunned several rounds, the NB avoids damage and the rock thrown at Solon contacts for some hits, but Solon easily makes his St mnv to hold on (Solon placed ALL bg options into St, thus he had a 108).
What followed was several melee rounds of pure chaos. Al and the NB were fending off four giants while a mother giant hurled rock after rock. Solon reached the top and with huge penalties to melee, waded in, slaying the first giant on his third round of combat and getting beat half to death in the process. Fee recovered and rushed with healing herb in hand to aid Solon, having seen to his own wounds while stunned and invisible (arcane spell trigger for the invisibility spell). Thorid Zad II showed up but couldn't climb the cliff face in his armor (total climb skill was around 6). That was when NB UM fumbled a spell, allowing a giant to then open end on the NB and crushed his hip into powder, in addition to knocking him out from hit loss. I will always recall how quietly yet emphatically Jesse tossed his dice over his sholder. The look on his face said all. Solon slew ANOTHER giant and Al managed to drop one on hits. The round ended though with Fee being stomped so hard he was stun no parry for 3rnds.
This left two giants, a youth and his angry as hell mother, who I happily anounced had just exploded into frenzy. Solon and Al were alone to face it as Fee was still stunned and NB was in the hands of the youth now fleeing back to the giants cave for protection, were he would arrive and roll the bolder door shut in six rounds, so said the d10+2 roll made in the open for all to see.
Solon and Al were hard pressed against a bezerk Mountain Giant with an OB now over 200 and a throw weight bonus that canceled out most of their parry with NO magical support from Fee, which they were quite accustomed to I might add. Eventually Fee got up and adding Haste with Bladeturn, Solon was able to drop the beast after 12-14 rounds of combat and a string of awful crit rolls against the giant. Several rounds of healing followed, with about 3 minutes passing before all herbs had full effect.
The group raced up the mountain trail to the blocked cave entrance were Fee crumbled a large portion of the bolder away so they could enter. In the fire light of the cave they heard horrible screams turn to worse gargles of pain and blood, then silence as they witnessed the last giant thrusting NB on a spit and placing him on a craddle to slowly roast. Outraged, the three lept forward and slew the young giant, but to late to save their friend, who over the blazing fire was already medium rare on one side.
The loot rolls were average to poor, more copper than they could carry (all dwarven), but I did include a naked prisoner in the very rear of the cave, an apprentice Nightblade captured by the giants and hiding under a daily unseen spell. After a short rest in the cave, the remains of the NB were consumed in the fire, and Alashieve swore revenge for the death of his elven brother. Solon wouldn't shut up how niether Al nor Fee killed more than he did and Jesse...well, he erased his character sheet and reused it because it was still fairly new.
The party went back to the cliff face were they found a weezing (and, err, forgotton) Thorid Zad II cresting the cliff, only to have Fee cast landing spells on everone else and jump off, leaving Thorid to climb back down on his own (with more than a few $&^% that NPC cpmments from the peanut gallery).
-
I've just been mentally reminiscing and thought of two Space master stories which I'm not sure are really Arms Law, but at the time entertained me :)
Story one is about the demise of an overly-cocky opponent (not that the PCs are EVER cocky of course). The background is that these were quite high level characters, level 25 or so. They (two of us) were ... well, I want to say infiltrating, but that implies some stealth... invading an enemy military base. My character was an armsman, and had been involved in some weapon research and modification, and had a custom gun - a fully-automatic grenade rifle. We had been at it for quite a while and had made it through to the commander guy. He had obviously seen us coming, and was already dressed up in his AT 20 and a shield up - boasting that the shield was enhanced with all sorts of Sianetic Harbinger technology and was the best in the galaxy.
He fired on my character, but she had a pretty decent DB and he missed. She used the maneuver phase to do an Adrenal Leap (I think the only time I ever used that skill) to get right next to him - there had been a lot of soldiers and she was low on ammunition so had been using martial arts which he must have seen. Clearly the GM had 'seen' me doing this and shock horror, the guy was a skilled martial artist as well, and did not move away. However... that was not my tactic this time. And it proved to be the moment of glory for a cheap piece of utility equipment, often forgotten about - a disipator.
These little devices are fitted to your gun muzzles and prevent your energy shield from closing over the end, so you don't have to shoot through your own shield. I rammed the muzzle of my gun through his super shield, and in fire phase B, let rip with a fully automatic clip of grenades. I had the clips already designated for the load and it was a mixture of plasma, shrapnel, phosphorus... all the nice ones.
Cue a pretty lights show and a swearing GM - since the blasts had to get through this super shield and my own enhanced barrier shield, and my own enhanced AT20 powered armour, I took no damage even at ground zero range, but the commander was ... inconvenienced.
I'm sure the GM was being vindictive when he said that the shield generator was delicate technology and had been destroyed by the grenades.
The second story involves the same characters, not that long after that incident. Essentially, they were in it for revenge, and in the words of Inigo Mantoya (The Princess Bride), revenge doesn't pay the bills. So we figured what we could do would be set up a production company, and put together an action movie. We acquired (bought or had designed, I forget which) some micro-cameras that flew around us on gravitics while we were in combat, capturing the action. Then we used some image capturing and substitution software (like in the film of The Running Man where they pretend some poor schmuck is Arnie to get beaten for the cameras) to amend the images so we were doing it in the proper action movie clothing (bandana, dirty and torn white T-shirt, etc) and definitely *not* the powered armour previously mentioned. We hired a writer to string together the footage into some kind of story, shot some filler scenes (having spent two or three levels skilling up Acting specially for that) and put it out on release.
The GM had rolled in secret to see how good a job the writer had done (open ended high, he told us later) and also in the open for how well-received it was (not OE but it did hit 93)... instant fame and fortune. And chat show appearances and a whole bunch of unwelcome attention from the groups we had portrayed as the enemy (House Colos, we were Devonian citizens). So it moved the plot along and also helped us immerse ourselves more in the characters. (edit - I just remembered that we also got an Oscar-type award for "the most awesomely realistic special effects" - <snicker > 8))
The best part was that in all my SM character histories after that there were oblique references to the movie (and it's increasingly inferior yet still popular sequels of course) - JimiSue (after whom this account is named) had a brother with a fixation on my previous character, at one point he performs some "self harm" to a production poster of the third film in which the bikini-wearing warrior is emerging from the sea, guns blazing; I had another character who went to a posh public school, and it was the same school that my previous character had sent her daughter to in secret; and so on. Even the GM got in on it by throwing in the occasional billboard advertising the latest release, or having a TV on in the background of the scene where one or other of the PCs were being interviewed. All in all, it made a nice addition to the gaming universe and personalised it for all of us in that group.
-
The specifics of this tale escape me. The morale of the tale will ring true none the less.
The mission was right out of a SM module, I recall that much. The party had to intercept a message at a tachon relay station and insert a fake message. Simple enough.
Scott, Pat and Brett were the players, the characters are forgotton. When they arrived on the station, they tried the direct assualt approach, but the inhabitants fell back to the communications room and had plasmatic repeaters to defend with. The plasma crits were so nasty, they group fled after one round of melee. Unwilling to try and rush the room, they placed explosives around it and came up with another plan.
Much less dangerous, they decided to hack the life support and evac all the air in the station. I recall I made the mnv absurd, but they got it done and, to my horror, killed everyone on the station by sucking all the air out. They then entered the room, waited for the message and replaced it with their own.
Of course, they had no way of knowing a distress signal had been sent, and after intercepting their ship, the local govt forces blew them and their ship straight to hell. When the party send an offer to surrender, I said all they heard was a play back of the 23 souls on the outpost station screaming and begging to be spared.
We started another SM game a while later, and everyone wanted a plasmatic repeater.
-
Here's your chance.... the last week of Arms Law Submissions and we're adding one more post to the list of winners!
But in addition to calling for more posts from you all, I'd like to hear if there are posts that haven't won yet but have struck you as special and worthy of recognition. Feel free to highlight your favorites for me so they don't get left behind.
-
Ah, yes, I remember that SM module, we played the same one and I just have to share the tale, although we did not roll an actual attack in the whole adventure.
We were on our way with three players using 1st level characters, an armsman, an electrotech and an electrotech/telepath and we accompanied another electrotech who would take over the relay station and insert the message. We had canisters with sleeping gas and a thermo-nuclear device with us as a last resort.
We touched down and made our way to the station that for the most part was underground if I remember well. First with a open-ended low roll the electrotech managed to completely destroy the lock of the main entry tunnel, jamming the door shut. We were frightend that we were noticed, but all remained quiet. Next we pried open a maintenance hatch, completely forgetting to use the gas in the airconditioning system. The armsman, who was carrying the bomb slowly climb down the ladder and was zapped by a trap taking ten electricity criticals and falling six meters to the ground taking more damage. Amazingly he was only unconscious and severly injured, but not dead. He would be if we moved him. The electrotech disabled the trap and the whole group climbed down. Then we thought of the bomb and the DM rolled and decided that the bomb had been triggered by the trap and the fall. It took about five seconds to make decision to flip the armsman, killing him, and reach for the bomb. Disarming the bomb was a medium electrotech maneuver. With a reasonable skill the electrotech was convinced it would work, but he failed. Next was the NPC electrotech, she rolled the same miserable low number and failed as well. Final hope was the electrotech/telepath and he nearly made it, but his total remained below 100 so it was time to flee. The electrotech threw the bomb down a corridor and the surviving characters climbed up the ladder trying to outrun the blast.
At the same time the two guards on the station were approaching carefully after the trap had gone off. They entered the hallway just at the time the nuclear bomb was thrown in their direction. Both were electrotechs and had fair skill totals, but our DM continued the row of dismal throws and neither of them succeeded in disarming the device. They ran to their vehicle and speeded along the tunnel to the main entrance. They crashed into it with high speed and were instantly killed as the door was jammed shut.
Amazingly both the electrotechs survived the ensuing nuclear blast. As they were both androids, it turned out that, after some hefty calculations that they themselves could do in milliseconds they could jog just long enough to stay clear of the blast, diving in the sand at the same time seconds before the blast. The human electrotech/telepath was not so lucky and was incinerated in the blast.