Author Topic: Looking for professions?  (Read 3198 times)

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Offline thrud

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Looking for professions?
« on: June 03, 2017, 04:58:55 AM »
Hi.
I'm trying to remember what some of the professions are that we've seen over the years in Rolemaster.
More than anything I'm trying to find some structure in the semi spellusers.
I'm looking for combinations including
Arms/Essence, Arms/Mentalism, Discipline/Channeling, Discipline/Essence, Subterfuge/Channeling.

Warrior mage is arms/essence, Arms Master is arms/mentalism I believe and there have been examples of monks from all three realms. But beside these, I'm drawing a blank. Sitting down and manually flipping through all the old books seem pretty daunting, lol.

Offline Peter R

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Re: Looking for professions?
« Reply #1 on: June 03, 2017, 06:46:04 AM »
Noble warrior was another arms/mentalism.
Elemental Warrior was another arms/essence.
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Offline Sable Wyvern

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Re: Looking for professions?
« Reply #2 on: June 03, 2017, 09:30:48 AM »
Channeling/Arms
Paladin (RoCo II, RMSS)
Ranger
Chaotic Lord (RoCo III)

Channeling/Subterfuge
Mythic (RMSS Channeling Companion)
Sleuth (RoCo III)

Channeling/Monk
Dervish (RoCo II)

Essence/Arms
Warrior Mage (RMSS Ess Co, RoCo II)
Elemental Champion (RMSS Fire and Ice)
Beastmaster (RoCo II)

Essence/Subterfuge
Dabbler (RMSS)
Delver (RoCo I)

Essence/Monk
Monk
Taoist Monk (RMSS MAC)

Mentalism/Arms
Armsmaster (RMSS Men Co)/Noble Warrior (RoCo III)

Mentalism/Subterfuge
Magent (RMSS)/Nightblade (RoCo I)
Montebanc (RoCo III)

Mentalism/Monk
Zen Monk (RMSS MAC)


Offline Hurin

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Re: Looking for professions?
« Reply #3 on: June 03, 2017, 10:37:40 AM »
There is also a full list of all RM2 professions here, if you want to search them all, though I think Sable Wyvern's list is more what you need:

https://www.scribd.com/doc/236244400/List-of-All-Rolemaster-Professions-May-2014

I believe there was also the option in RM2 to make the monk Mentalism, and the Bard Essence, but I can't find a reference at the moment.
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Offline Peter R

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Re: Looking for professions?
« Reply #4 on: June 03, 2017, 11:00:07 AM »
I believe there was also the option in RM2 to make the monk Mentalism, and the Bard Essence, but I can't find a reference at the moment.

In RMC this option is Optional Rule #5 on page 41 of Character Law. I am not sure where it is in RM2.
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Offline thrud

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Re: Looking for professions?
« Reply #5 on: June 03, 2017, 11:32:16 AM »
Thank you, I'll have a look through and see what I find. :)

Offline Cory Magel

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Re: Looking for professions?
« Reply #6 on: June 03, 2017, 12:29:47 PM »
A couple I've created...

RMQ 1 & 2 have an Arms/Essence profession "The Elementalist"

If by 'Discpline' you mean Martial Arts there is a Channeling Monk published in 'The Guild Companion'.
http://www.guildcompanion.com/scrolls/1999/mar/chanmonk.html
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Offline thrud

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Looking for professions?
« Reply #7 on: June 03, 2017, 01:00:30 PM »
Yeah, I'm looking at arms as being divided into combat, discipline and subterfuge. The Monk is a peculiar profession, you can make an argument for any of the three realms. But if you go that route, should you not also have different base lists?

P.S. I like the Monk profession but hate their spell lists. Go figure...

Offline jdale

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Re: Looking for professions?
« Reply #8 on: June 03, 2017, 05:41:33 PM »
The Martial Arts Companion for RMSS introduced the Taoist Monk and Zen Monk (both on Sable Wyvern's list), in essence and mentalism respectively, each with their own spell lists so, while there is some overlap, they do feel different.

Cory's Shao-Lin Monk in the Guild Companion (linked in his post) rounds out the set with Channeling, and likewise includes its own spell lists.

With regard to the placement of the original Monk profession, I understand there was some debate about it. Personally I think the lists fit mentalism better than essence.
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Offline Hurin

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Re: Looking for professions?
« Reply #9 on: June 03, 2017, 10:19:38 PM »

With regard to the placement of the original Monk profession, I understand there was some debate about it. Personally I think the lists fit mentalism better than essence.

I do too, though I can see the appeal of a jedi-like Essence monk -- or even a Channeling Western-style monk, like a Benedictine. All the monks seem to be eastern style rather than Friar Tuck.
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Offline jdale

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Re: Looking for professions?
« Reply #10 on: June 04, 2017, 09:32:20 AM »
Essence is a natural fit for martial arts. The unarmored, minimal equipment approach to combat is perfect for the realm that most heavily restricts armor. It's just that the spells are inward-facing, and healing (even self-healing) in particular doesn't fit essence, if you want to distinguish the realms (and if you don't, the realm is irrelevant). Personally I would have gone farther than the MAC and given the Taoist Monk combat illusions and elemental attacks, while taking away self-healing and making the nature's forms list more overt -- the monk actually changes rather than merely receiving the bonuses.
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Offline Hurin

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Re: Looking for professions?
« Reply #11 on: June 04, 2017, 10:45:55 AM »
That sounds pretty awesome. I would love to see that option offered one day.
'Last of all, Húrin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed'. --J.R.R. Tolkien

'Every party needs at least one insane person.'  --Aspen of the Jade Isle

Offline thrud

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Re: Looking for professions?
« Reply #12 on: June 04, 2017, 10:53:14 AM »
Good ideas, I'll put this to good use. :)

Offline Arioch

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Re: Looking for professions?
« Reply #13 on: June 04, 2017, 04:10:55 PM »
RM2 Elemental Companion and Combat Companion also had some semi-users. Mostly variants of existing professions, however.
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Offline Hurin

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Re: Looking for professions?
« Reply #14 on: June 04, 2017, 10:36:23 PM »
I liked Cory's take on the monk, and am thinking it might be fun to do more of a western-style monk variant (a kind of Friar Tuck variant). There's a lot of fun medieval saints lives that have monks fighting demons and monsters, working miracles, etc.

Might be fun then to have a monk that is good at:
--Music (they invented Gregorian chanting, and sang at regular hours of the day, every day)
--Culinary Crafting (European beers would be very impoverished if all the ones created by monks disappeared)
--Runes (European monks were central to manuscript production and preservation)
--Religion/Philosophy
--Herbalism and Medicine (or healing spells)
--Magical Ritual (they participated in rituals every day)

As for their spells, medieval saints' lives have them frequently working healing miracles and banishing demons. You could give them a bit more ability to heal others if they are from the channeling realm. They could also have blessings and things like that to help their allies.

'Last of all, Húrin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed'. --J.R.R. Tolkien

'Every party needs at least one insane person.'  --Aspen of the Jade Isle

Offline thrud

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Re: Looking for professions?
« Reply #15 on: June 05, 2017, 02:57:08 AM »
Awesome, great ideas. :D

Offline thrud

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Re: Looking for professions?
« Reply #16 on: June 05, 2017, 05:07:04 AM »
Should the skill costs be adjusted due to the different realms or would it be reasonable to just use the costs associated with the Monk in the core rules? We're working towards getting a new campaign up and running, using RMU (beta rules).

Offline jdale

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Re: Looking for professions?
« Reply #17 on: June 05, 2017, 09:50:28 AM »
Should the skill costs be adjusted due to the different realms or would it be reasonable to just use the costs associated with the Monk in the core rules? We're working towards getting a new campaign up and running, using RMU (beta rules).

You could easily tweak the costs if you wanted one version to be better at X and another to be better at Y. Monk is a bit more martial than some of the other semi professions (paladin is too), so if you wanted a slightly more magic-focused monk you could bump the combat training costs up (same as Ranger or Magent) while bumping the spellcasting costs down (again, same as Ranger or Magent). If you wanted your monks to serve more of a missionary role you could drop medical, social, and perhaps performance art a notch while raising something else. Etc. Likewise you could tweak the professional skills, e.g. it would make sense for a channeling monk to have religion lore as a professional skill.

I don't think any adjustment is required though. Personally, I would look more at what you want the role of each type of monk to be in your setting. What are the origins, purposes, and focuses of their orders? You can use the stats to reinforce those things.
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Offline Hurin

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Re: Looking for professions?
« Reply #18 on: June 05, 2017, 11:41:05 AM »
JDale and I have a little different philosophies on that, as I think that it is hard to tweak costs for professions using the existing RMU category system. I would want for example to be able to reduce the western monk's cost for runes but not attunement, culinary but not metalcraft, music but not stage magic, religion/philosophy but not racial or creature lore, and ritual but not core spellcasting. You could of course use my variant option to tweak those costs to produce a more specific class of monk:

http://www.guildcompanion.com/scrolls/2017/mar/individualskillcostoptionsforrmu.html

Overall, though, the monk is one case where his costs are reasonably well tuned to the profession, so you could probably stick just with the generic monk and not have too many problems.
'Last of all, Húrin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed'. --J.R.R. Tolkien

'Every party needs at least one insane person.'  --Aspen of the Jade Isle

Offline thrud

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Looking for professions?
« Reply #19 on: June 05, 2017, 12:30:35 PM »
I'm trying to work within the framework offered in RAW, individual skill costs are not in the cards. Not because I am against it but I'd rather not tweak everything at once. :)
I started looking at the numbers earlier and it looked pretty straight forward. Since I'm looking at creating half a dozen professions  of so, I might tweak the costs a little when I'm up to speed.
I can't help myself though, always had a soft spot for arcane users. There might be a "triple" hybrid showing up as well. 0:)