Topic: Skill most in need for PC's

[intothatdarkness]

The skill my players tend to overlook is movement in armor.  Then when they try to climb, tumble, swim or jump they are shocked at how big their penalties are.  I do not apply the penalty against combat as I know some have said that is a maneuvering skill also.

Yep. That's another one that's easy to miss.

[yammahoper]

It must have been almost two years playing RM before using the armor mnv rules, and then I dropped them again.

Armor has a set penalty.  Full Plate is -30.  St mod can negate it (thus a +10 St mod means no penalty in any armor for mnv'ing).  I do use speed limits (plate is limited to run for example).  Spell users already suffer extreme penalties for wearing armor and I feel the original rule set is just awful.  Running and Sprinting however are excellent skills to develop.

[intothatdarkness]

It must have been almost two years playing RM before using the armor mnv rules, and then I dropped them again.

Armor has a set penalty.  Full Plate is -30.  St mod can negate it (thus a +10 St mod means no penalty in any armor for mnv'ing).  I do use speed limits (plate is limited to run for example).  Spell users already suffer extreme penalties for wearing armor and I feel the original rule set is just awful.  Running and Sprinting however are excellent skills to develop.

And that's where game style comes into play. I never saw much point in either Running or Sprinting in my games, so developing them would have been wasted DPs for players. Same for Awareness and some of the other fuzzy sub-sets of Perception.

GMs should either develop stock skillsets based on cultural origin or give players a list of "essential skills" for their games. Because once you leave the "core" things (Body Development, for example, and a weapon skill and/or spell list) it all becomes a matter of game style.

[mtpnj]

The str mod offsetting moving penalty is that a house rule or rmss rule I missed?

[yammahoper]

House rule (except of course as stat mod to the skill).

St mod offsets Qu penalty.  I do not use a Qu penalty.  Nor a missile penalty.  Armor is not designed to limit attack, mnv'erbility nor defense.  RM has it's short comings.

[intothatdarkness]

House rule (except of course as stat mod to the skill).

St mod offsets Qu penalty.  I do not use a Qu penalty.  Nor a missile penalty.  Armor is not designed to limit attack, mnv'erbility nor defense.  RM has it's short comings.

Armor is designed to provide protection. Protection certainly can limit these things. I never had a problem with the armor penalties.

[DavidKlecker]

I remember when I was GMing the one thing players never bothered to rank up were their outdoor skills. Sure they ranked riding, but they forgot things like navigation or orienteering. I was way too nice of a GM since I pretty much ignored these skills. In the end I wish I didn't but I did want the game to continue. Hard to keep things going when all you want them to do is get to a city, but they keep walking around in circles to get there.

[markc]

 Yes Animal Handling Horse is one everyone forgets as well as Cooking. Which IMHO Cooking is almost as important as fighting if you have ever been backpacking for a week or two or in the military.
MDC

[arakish]

Yes Animal Handling Horse is one everyone forgets as well as Cooking. Which IMHO Cooking is almost as important as fighting if you have ever been backpacking for a week or two or in the military.
MDC

And that is why General Cooking, Hunting, and Foraging is taught to field soldiers.  You never know when you will have to actually hunt and forage for food when the MREs run out.

rmfr

[Theros]

Every player from my group (they have just started) have forgotten to take Observation and they don't develop Alertness 

[Ynglaur]

Survival: (which includes finding or building shelter imo and foraging limited to just enough food to live on).  I think this skill is seriously over looked.

Basic Math: addition, subtraction and multiplication, essential skills for the educated.

Mingling: I use the skill to move and deal with a crowd without "finding trouble."  Obviously, a skill only required by urban types.

Swimming: 70% of your fantasy world is probably water too. 

Religion: pretty obvious.  Philosophy could replace this.

First Aid: as previously stated.

Body Dev: hits DO kill.

Culture Lore (own):  covered in every adolescent table, so no biggie.

Languages: Literacy is not necessary.

Alertness (and Detect Ambush) strike me as redundant.  I have stricken them from my game and measure default alertness with number of ranks in observation (providing a bonus of +1 per rank instead of +3).

This requires an idea point. I really like the solution of combining Alertness/Observation. I have been looking for ways to get rid of skill bloat.

I believe this is how RMU is handling it.  If not, it's how I intend to handle it - it's a great way to make the mechanic easier to use without losing the difference between actively looking (Rank Bonus) and passively noticing (Ranks = Bonus)

[choc]

Alertness (and followups)

We handle it like this (houserule?)

Ranks in Alertness >= Observation >= Senses (See, Hear, Smell, Feel, Taste etc)
Ranks in Alertness  >= Situational Awareness (urban, wilderness, camp, sleep, combat etc)

Alertness doesn't give a lot in return (and is often much more expensive than the other Awareness categories) but you need it.

In our Campaigns, the GM rolls all passive Awareness and RR (what you don't notice, you don't notice. Keep up to level your Awareness skills!)

[Nortti]

These things really depend heavily on your gaming style. RM GMs have a wide variation of ways to use rules and master their game. There are a lot of things you can/have to decide for your own game. I guess thats why its called RoleMaster

I also do my best to avoid skill bloat. As a GM I use observation for all situations that might call for awareness, ambush sense or something similar. I handle observation as the one skill that covers all or these. When your skill in it is high then you are more likely to detect ambushes, you are more aware of your surroundings etc. And yes, observation is very important skill in my game.

At the moment I run quite a magic-item heavy campaign and attunement would be very important for the characters. Players did not know it when game started so no-one has the skill so far. Now they are completely dependent on NPC to find out magical properties of the items they have.

With the armors and their penalties I use the missile penalties. For example some plates can be more for melee and others are more suitable for using bows. I use maneuver penalties for climbing, swimming etc but not fighting. Thinking of it, it actually makes sense that if you dont have any skill in maneuvering in armor your fighting ability should suffer. All my players develop armor skill so it has not been an issue. If I would use penalty for not having armor skill I would probably divide that normal penalty by 3 or 4. Having any skill would quickly negate that.     

[choc]

These things really depend heavily on your gaming style. RM GMs have a wide variation of ways to use rules and master their game. There are a lot of things you can/have to decide for your own game. I guess thats why its called RoleMaster

nice.
Anyways, the classes are balanced. As soon as you skip some class-related skills (sprinting, swimming, tumbling, climbing, jumping, trading, armor (wearing armor w/o skill and penalties), alertness (passive) [awareness - senses are mainly replacements for alertness], observation (active), attunement (to be able to use ANY kind of magic items), survival, foraging, animal handling you unbalance the classes.
For the all-the-same-cost skills like  tech-trade, science-analytics, communications (ok, there is a small difference in costs) or lore it's not that big deal. (i.e. use prepared herbs skill to take one potion is not class related, only TP related, ergo doesn't effect the game balance if you demand it in your game as GM or don't)

[providence13]

Other than weapons and Spell Lists..

My players would say, Stun Removal/Maneuvering (whatever you use), Situational Awareness: Combat and Spell Mastery, in that order.

Stun = dead.

Horses don't last long, so they use Teleports as often as possible. Arriving into a combat situation after a T-port requires a SitAwar:Combat roll. The total number is %Act remaining for them in that round (SoHK pg110). Leaving, Longdoor, Teleport, all have progressively difficult rolls (-10 to -70 for our Heroic games).

Now that they are getting sufficient lvl, Spell Mastery is becoming their favorite. Spell Fumble chart is becoming mine.

My players have almost refused to Rank up their Lore skills. "We need such and such to fight this creature", or "this Theocracy is known for hating Essence users.." I got tired of saying, "roll for that" and watching them fail again and again. I finally caved and gave them a few Ranks is basic Lores. I made it common knowledge that low lvl undead must dismembered and burned and if they openly cast a spell in that town, they'll wind up in jail. My rules layer dropped and I don't want to take his place.

[KacyCrawford]

I agree Locate Shelter is one of the most important thing