Topic: 12 Days of Rolemaster

[Peter R]

Just for fun BHanson and I have done a 12 days of Rolemaster starting tomorrow on our blog. (http://www.rolemasterblog.com

We are posting each day at 4pm GMT on the following topics. Feel free to chip in with your own answers.

25th    What was your first experience of Rolemaster?

26th    Your favourite Rolemaster profession (and why)?

27th    Best NPC? created or in a module.

28th    Have you ever regretted allowing an optional rule or house rule into the game?

29th     The most useful piece of technology (hardware or software) for Rolemaster?

30th     Your Rolemaster favourite spell (from any list)?

31st     Best “cool bit” from a RM product.?

1st        Is there any cunning plan you can share that you are hoping to spring on your players this year? If you don’t want to spoil it then what was the best cunning plan from the last 12 months?

2nd      Best layout/structure in a RM product?

3rd       Of all the companions and ‘laws’ which book could you not be without?

4th       In my opinion the best bit of RMU is…?

5th       Excepting Perception, Stalk & Hide and Body Development, of all the skills in all the books which one would you say is the single most important for a player to take?

[Hurin]

Sounds fun! I look forward to it.

By the way, on the Rolemaster blog you note in the article about rolling up your first RMU character, that he has a starting OB of +48 in Martial Arts. Assuming he is a 1st level character, I am just wondering how he got his OB so high. The most you could get from ranks and professional bonus is 12, so that means you got +36 from stats? Or did you pick a knack as well? Even with a knack, those stats seem rather high, given that you were doing the 'roll percentile dice and take the lower number as temp and higher number as potential' method of stat generation.

[Peter R]

Gao is 3rd level.

The stats were straight up legitimate rolls as I saw the dice. I am normally a fan of point buy systems as the ensure that a lucky roll on day one does not give a character a life long advantage over someone with poor rolls on the same day but as this is one GM/one player that made no difference.

[Hurin]

Ah, if he was third level, then the numbers make sense. I was assuming he was level 1, but if he was third, everything is good.

I'm a fan of point buy too, because I don't like big discrepancies in character stats. But in my last game I allowed players to roll stats and then gave additional development points to those who rolled worse than the highest roller. We just rolled for stat bonuses directly (3d10 - 15). So if the highest roller got a total of +27 for all his stats added, then the guy who only had +18 got 9 additional dev points to start the game, and the guy who only had a +7 got 14 additional points. It seemed to even out the worst discrepancies while still making rolling high stats an exciting thing.