3.5 vs Rolemaster

[Thandren]

Hi,

We are playing D&D (D20) version 3.5 at the moment and I am happy with it. One of the guys in our group however is always saying 3.5 is too much about "power gaming" and he want us all to switch to rolemaster instead for more realism.

My question is how does rolemaster compare and is it really more realistic and is it a good balanced and playable system up to the high levels?

 

[Nightchilde-2]

I have a soft spot in my heart for Rolemaster.

That said, Rolemaster is perhaps too far on the other side of things. It's extremely chart-heavy. Extremely. As in "every weapon has its own chart and every different type of critical has its own chart."

A good mix might be HARP, which is based off of Rolemaster. It's still too chart-heavy for my tastes, though.

 

[Voadam]

Rolemaster has a lot of similarities to 3.5. It is sometimes referred to as chartmaster for the massive amount of charts used to resolve actions. It uses a percentile die resolution mechanism instead of d20 but still has classes, races, complicated class skills, divine, arcane, and mental magic, and hp. Its combat has a ton of crit charts that always make combat potentially deadly and can take some time to get used to, particularly with multiple die rolls and modifiers going on.

Both are high fantasy class and level based games with a lot of combat emphasis. Crits are just more dangerous and debilitating to high hp characters in rolemaster. You could easily port over stuff from one to the other, and I used a bunch of RM stuff in my game back when it was still 2e D&D. I also made some spell charts into domains in 3e.

 

[Henry]

Paging Rasyr and Rel!

(Rel spent many years playing and gaming Rolemaster, even co-wrote a supplement, and Rasyr is the guy who built HARP as sort of a lighter and friendlier Rolemaster. They could definitely give you some perspective.)

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I believe Monte Cook worked on some of the older Rolemaster material (I seem to remember seeing his name on the RM version of Oriental Adventures, and possibly others). So if you're a Monte fan RM may be worth looking into.

I've always seen D&D 3.* as being based on a fusion of D&D memes with Rolemaster mechanics -- although it's obviously evolved since then.

I suppose what I'm saying is, you'd probably find a lot that's familiar in RM.

Edited to answer the actual question (oops) -- Yes, RM's a good and balanced system that works well in play from about level 1 to about level 50. No, it isn't particularly realistic -- for combat realism, try Mongoose RQ.

 

[Ron]

Hi,

We are playing D&D (D20) version 3.5 at the moment and I am happy with it. One of the guys in our group however is always saying 3.5 is too much about "power gaming" and he want us all to switch to rolemaster instead for more realism.

My question is how does rolemaster compare and is it really more realistic and is it a good balanced and playable system up to the high levels?

I've GMed a Mystara campaign with the current rules of Rolemaster that brought the characters up to the 12-14th level. Before reading my answers, let me tell you that I disliked the system. I would pretty much recommed the first or second edition version of the game -- easily found at e-Bay or as a pdf from the publisher Iron Crown -- but sans any of the Companion supplements, which were kind of a semiperiodical magazine full of optional rules, some good, most not, that were later selected to the current edition. The current edition is very detailed, I would say that the writer was very anal about it. There are something like 600 skills and the character sheet takes five pages. I spent a lot of time trimming down the system and I definitely wasted my time, as it would be much better to play 2nd edition and take a few real upgrades from the current edition.

Now, the questions:

Is it more realistic?
Yes, as far as a fantasy game can be. Rolemaster includes critical wounds tables that make ombat far more gritty than D&D. A high level character can be really killed by a common orc. It would be an unlikely event, but I've seen it a few times during my Rolemaster years.

Is it balanced at higher levels?
I would say much more than D&D but still lacking. Unlike D&D, power advancement is not linear and at higher levels, each increase of level would give significantly less advantages than it was at lower levels.

Another alternative, is looking for Harp, at Iron Crown web site (see above). It is a lighter game than Rolemaster although been designed with similar features. There is an excellent preview available that will help you to decide if this is the game you are looking for.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Rolemaster can be fun.

Less powergamey than D&D? I would argue no.

But really, it's all about personal preferences. Rolemaster is a perfectly fine game and the charts are easy to use once you get the hang of them and make some photocopies.

 

[awayfarer]

I'm in the opposite situation. I started gaming two years ago with two different groups. One uses 3.5 D&D and the other RM. I've been trying to convince the RM group to switch over to d20 for a while.

RM isn't exactly more realistic than d20. Admittedly there are rulles for pretty much EVERYTHING.This can be a bit problematic though, as games can come screeching to a halt while someone looks up rule X about how the Hygiene skill applies in situation Y. If you can think of a skill it probably exists in RM. For instance, in 3.5 D&D, Sleight of Hand woud let you pick-pocket, juggle and do card tricks. in RM, you would take each of those skills seperately. Is it mroe realistic to say that a master pick-pocket might not know how to juggle? Yes. Does it matter? I don't think so. Frankly who gives a ****? Certain skills are just so useless that no one would waste the ink to write them on a character sheet. Who is really going to waste skill points on Hygiene?

Combat also takes this approach. In RM, a 1st level goblin armed with a salad fork could potentially take out Fragdor the Smasher, 20th level Fighter. The reason for this is critical hits. It's been my experience that HP damage is rarely the deciding factor in RM fights. More often, you roll high enough to get a critical and then if you (or a foe) are lucky enough, that crit is an instant kill. The criticals are rolled on d100 chart with a severity rating from A through E. It is realistic, that goblin could get lucky and jam his fork right into Fragdors jugular and kill him instantly. Is this a good thing? Depends on what side of things you're on. It is nice to take out a high level foe with a lucky shot, on the other hand, it sucks to be killed in the same circumstances. I could go on at length on the combat system but I'll try and sum it up.

1: Realistically being killed by a lucky foe sucks. The combat system adds a high degree of randomness and that works in favor of weaker characters/enemies. I should add too that having a significant chance of dying in every encounter is a bad idea when the character creation system is so time consuming.
2: Stuns. Some critical hits lead to stuns (Can move 25%. No attacks. Possibly no parrying) and frankly, this is an enormously bad idea. Stunning can throw the fight heavily in either direction and it sucks to have to sit out most of a fight, again, because someone got lucky on their critical roll. More randomness.
3: Experience. The bulk of XP is earned by actually being the one to bring down a foe. Who cares if someone else spent the entire fight working it down? If you get the last hit, you get the XP. There are other ways to earn XP but they don't make up for this. My group had a long discussion on this and we moved away from the kill-based XP system when we realized that nobody was willing to heal or play a support character as they would be losing out on XP.
4: Injuries. yes it is unrealistic in D&D when you someone with 1 HP out of 100 fights as well as someone at full. Yes it is unrealistic that with all that damage, nothing vital has been hit and you take no penalties. On the other hand, having specific injuries (These are also obtained on the critical table) such as tendon damage, severed leg muscles or broken bones means you have lots more to keep track of. Furthermore, healing for such injuries is almost never available. Better learn to live with that missing nose.

This is turning into a bit of a rant so maybe I should just sum it up. If you want realism go with RM, if you want a well balanced and easy to play system stick with D&D.

 

[Khairn]

I have GM'ed Rolemaster since the mid 80's, and 3E since it was published. As such, I think I have enough experience with both systems to add my voice to the general clatter ..

Is it more realistic?
Ron was right on target with his opinion. Considering the very nature of "fantasy RPG's" ... Rolemaster is much more gritty and does bring a level of "realistic danger" to the game that is missing from standard D&D.

Is it more balanced at higher levels?
Yes. It's not perfect at those levels, but it does have a better internal balance than D&D, especially at higher levels. This has much to do with the DP's in Rolemaster (skill points) that are used for increasing skills, magical and melee abilities, in addition to the overall power creep in D&D which is not as dramatic as in RM.

My own opinion is that 3E has many Rolemaster elements to it, and personally I've never found a problem converting adventures back and forth between the 2, although I've found 3E more rules centric than RM.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Who is really going to waste skill points on Hygiene?

Spoken like a true gamer!