Why do spells go 1-20, then jump by 5? Is there any hope of having a spell like 21 or 33 added?
Magarven the Mad
SOLFE
KRAKII
Re: Dumb question about spells
03/17/2021 05:59 AM CDT
Holdover from RoleMaster. In that game system you learned blocks of spells in a list upon a successful Spell Research (each rank of SR gave you a 5% chance when you next made level, so "put 20 ranks into SR" guaranteed learning spells)...
...but if you succeeded, you got more than one spell.
There were also approximately eight hundred sixty four billion different spell lists, in RM. (With an entire crapton of duplicated effects.)
My recollection is that you learned 1-10 as a single Research, 11-15 as one, and 16-20 as one. Consider "1-20" as your bachelor's degree.
Then for serious work--consider it an advanced degree, like a Masters (25th or 30th) or Doctorate (40th or 50th)--you would "shoot a spell gap"; I think they had 25th, 30th, and 50th spells, each of which was an additional block of successful Spell Research.
So you knew "every spell in the list" after successfully training spells six (6) times, but you may have needed to pay those points out over several levels (get 3 ranks/15% chance, fail; get 2 more ranks/+10% == 25% chance, fail; get 2 more ranks/+10% more == 35% chance & succeed).
.
The GMs who started the game didn't have the time to code in all of the spell lists, so "one per success" is how it wound up.
...but if you succeeded, you got more than one spell.
There were also approximately eight hundred sixty four billion different spell lists, in RM. (With an entire crapton of duplicated effects.)
My recollection is that you learned 1-10 as a single Research, 11-15 as one, and 16-20 as one. Consider "1-20" as your bachelor's degree.
Then for serious work--consider it an advanced degree, like a Masters (25th or 30th) or Doctorate (40th or 50th)--you would "shoot a spell gap"; I think they had 25th, 30th, and 50th spells, each of which was an additional block of successful Spell Research.
So you knew "every spell in the list" after successfully training spells six (6) times, but you may have needed to pay those points out over several levels (get 3 ranks/15% chance, fail; get 2 more ranks/+10% == 25% chance, fail; get 2 more ranks/+10% more == 35% chance & succeed).
.
The GMs who started the game didn't have the time to code in all of the spell lists, so "one per success" is how it wound up.
SOLFE
Re: Dumb question about spells
03/17/2021 10:24 AM CDT
Thanks! I did not know that. I've always wondered about Rolemaster's effect on the game. I came onboard during the AOL days, so I missed all of the ICE stuff. I recall the conversion chambers and such, but those were there for a good long time afterwards.
Magarven the Mad
Magarven the Mad
KRAKII
Re: Dumb question about spells
03/17/2021 12:00 PM CDT
Many/much/most of RoleMaster is available on the web for free download nowadays, either just by searching for a PDF of a book name--Arms Law/Claw Law, Spell Law, Character Law, including the RoleMaster Companion [base & II, III, IV, V], Creatures & Treasures [plain & II], Elemental Companion, and so on--or by finding Terry Amthor's site and reading his stuff (he created Shadow World, what Elanthia is pretty much based on).
I know that I have several of the PDFs that I've pulled down onto my work computer for one reason or another.
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I also like the MERP (Middle-Earth RolePlaying) sourcebooks, especially the really GOOD stuff--like "Treasures of Middle-Earth", where things like the equipment for Finwe [essentially head-to-toe gifts from the Valar] or the mace 'Grond' that Morgoth (Sauron's boss) used when dueling Fingolfin--since ICE was clever enough to make the systems similar, & use similar skills.
Two of my character names are drawn from Treasures of Middle-Earth, even. :)
Of course, that all dates to pre-1988, when ICE lost the worldwide gaming license to the Tolkien Estate's IP. (Which was pretty obviously looking forward to the release of Jackson's trilogy, and the big cash influx from Decipher's CCG. ICE's version of a card game--while a superior product--& the game books, just wasn't popular enough.)
I know that I have several of the PDFs that I've pulled down onto my work computer for one reason or another.
.
I also like the MERP (Middle-Earth RolePlaying) sourcebooks, especially the really GOOD stuff--like "Treasures of Middle-Earth", where things like the equipment for Finwe [essentially head-to-toe gifts from the Valar] or the mace 'Grond' that Morgoth (Sauron's boss) used when dueling Fingolfin--since ICE was clever enough to make the systems similar, & use similar skills.
Two of my character names are drawn from Treasures of Middle-Earth, even. :)
Of course, that all dates to pre-1988, when ICE lost the worldwide gaming license to the Tolkien Estate's IP. (Which was pretty obviously looking forward to the release of Jackson's trilogy, and the big cash influx from Decipher's CCG. ICE's version of a card game--while a superior product--& the game books, just wasn't popular enough.)
