A recent post at rolemasterblog.com has triggered me to reflect on the findings of the dungeon crawler rule set.
While I think it is a neat system it definitely doesn’t feel like rolemaster. Well, let’s walk through it step by step.
Dice range
The d100 to d20 conversion seems to be no problem what do ever. The players really liked it that they didn’t need a pocket calculator.
Situational bonuses
Replacing situational bonuses with advantage/disadvantage mechanism seems to be ok. It quickened combat dramatically.
Combat skills
Pre-adding combat skill and weapon modifiers to get only one bonus for combat is fine. We will stick with this even in our regular campaign.
Damage resolution
Now let’s focus on weapon combat.
Letting the players resolve their damage was a great move. They did not have any problem with the slide rule I designed. The system itself is quite swift. But to be frank the system lacks in diversity of weapons and weapons-Armor combinations. I am not quite satisfied.
Critical hits
As you may know I decided to opt out random resolution and let players decide from a bunch of effects. This ranges from additional damage to the chance of deliver a killing blow. While this definitely had a positive impact on player involvement, it is too determined for me. I lost the opportunity for this memorable strikes, that are sung even decades later.
Spell casting
To allow spell casters to act each round was a great deal. Since they can cast any learned spell immediately (one round) for the costs of resolving it with disadvantage. I think this had a great impact. Hence I will take mechanism over into our regular campaign.
These are my conclusions and findings. I have learned a lot about during this journey. Thanks for sticking with me.