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It is possible to slay 4 10th level characters with a single 1st level spell.
It began with a very powerful group of characters, a 10th lvl Dwarven Fighter (fond of demon-slaying), an 11th level Rogue Nomad (has per Serpentus mount), a 10th level Dark Elf Nightblade (unpleasant), and a 12th lvl Gnome Arch-mage.
This group proceeded to corner and track down an extremely powerful necromancer/demonologist with enough demon blood in his background to make him truely dangerous. After many adventures thay tracked him to his mountain fortress equiped with every magic item they could buy, steal, borrow, or barter for. They pawned everything they had and spent months scrounging for every single advantage they could get. Their items where chosen with this necromancers abilities in mind. I was sure that their careful planning and detection of his strengths and weaknesses would result in a quick and messy battle whose end was in little doubt.
I could not have been more correct and yet so wrong. The party managed to gain entrance to the keep through a long abandoned sewer system and attack the necromancer from an unanticipated direction, his quarters. The necromancer was caught almost completely by surprise. He saw them coming at full charge and elected to retreat, at the last minute he cast Leaping* to put distance between himself and the party...
-356 was the ending result of that roll. I was horrified, as I was positive my powerful necromancer had just lobotomized himself. The party laughed I flipped to the arcane spell failure chart and the laughter died as I began to chuckle. It was the end of the campaign anyway...I began to read. "Caster and everything within 10'r is violently absorbed into the Essence." I am sure at least 1 persons jaw was dislocated immediately after the completion of that sentence.
My next statement was "Congratulations you have slain the Necromancer and saved the Kingdom of Aladea now hand me the Character Law..." They started talking to me again about an hour later. Maybe I should roll dice in secret from now on.
I, and my whole role-playing group, are Rolemaster junkies, and myself since 1987. We were playing a marathon session during our summer break from college, and I ran a knight named Caelar. On the fifth day I had to leave as the adventure was nearing its climax. Nonetheless, I let the GM run me as an NPC, and as Caelar was somewhere between 50th and 60th levels, I felt the GM knew the character well enough to play him (besides, the other players would keep him honest).
Our GM was a magic-stingy type of guy, and although Caelar had exceptional armor, shield and sword, there was only one magical thing on him: his left hand had been sheared off by a dragon, and—after a long adventure by itself—had been replaced by a magical and animated mithril hand. He had learned how to use his hand as a mace, but he was not nearly as effective as he was with his sword. On to the adventure…
The adventure consisted of discovering a huge gathering of monsters, then warning and ultimately evacuating a city. Eventually, the party was delaying a monstrous (literally: composed of orcs, ogres, goblins and such) army long enough to evacuate the city (there was no way to defeat the army, only delay). The city—well the women and children at least—were evacuated and our group of characters was playing the rear guard. This is the point where I left to go on my trip, and Caelar was now an NPC.
The vanguard of the monster army approached and the refugees needed more time. Caelar (true to form, even though I wasn’t there) and another fighter, Beorn, stayed behind. Caelar and Beorn had fought together since the earliest stages of the campaign, and were close friends, as well as deadly fighters, especially to 5th level orcs. We found some reasonably defensible terrain, and stalled the vanguard of about 150 orcs.
Orcs were dying left and right, Beorn and Caelar were both parrying and attacking, but the battle began to wear on, and hits were mounting. Beorn took a stun critical – nearly certain death—and so Caelar wheeled, parried the attack coming his way, and took a stun critical. Beorn recovered from his stun, and did the same, and again took a stun critical. The situation was looking a bit grim, despite the fact that nearly half the enemy had perished.
But lo! Reinforcements, requested some weeks ago, appeared over the rise of a nearby hill and were within perhaps a minute of arriving.
Caelar then rolled magnificently for initiative. Rather than continue the deadly cycle of swapping stuns, he dropped his shield and sword, picked up Beorn (another very hard maneuver) over his right shoulder, and started to run. By the time the orcs hit their initiative, Caelar had cleared all but the last rank of orcs. Despite a series of phenomenal rolls, Caelar’s luck ran out. With no sword to parry with, he was hit in the back, and took a critical that resulted in stun/unable to parry, die in 5 rounds. Well, Beorn survived, the reinforcements destroyed the enemy vanguard, but Caelar died.
Of course, the footnote, as you may have already guessed? When I returned, I had no qualms with the way Caelar was played. I would have made exactly the same decisions (though I can’t vouch for my luck with the dice), with but one exception. Since Caelar had a mace in hand, or more correctly, a mace for a hand, he could have full parried the last blow and run out the enemy vanguard.
Alas, but the event happened and there was no going back.
I've played Rolemaster for many years now, but that is the only time that I wished I had played that summer for just one more day.
My name is Nimdoriel and I'm a dark elf archer and fighter. This is my story of seeking fame and glory.
As a young dyar, I sometimes felt myself like a rebel. It was hard for me to accept moral values of the dyar community. I thought that the feeling would go off when I grow up, but it didn't. I heard stories of similar races fleeing to the surface in other worlds; to survive and fight against evil forces. That was my destiny too. My mother was a well respected enchantress with great skill. She created a magical mask to hide my true identity. After days of enchanting I became a wood elf from outside hiding my dyar heritage.
I could easily write here my whole biography, but it would be boring to read; so I selected one particular incident which changed my whole life and almost got me killed.
We were travelling from the mountains after killing some evil cultists and their leader. The weather was fine, and we were travelling through the woods. "Surprisingly" we encountered some orcs, and planned to chop their heads off. Other party members drew their swords and I drew my longbow. I just love these easy fights. I reached for an arrow, then I put it into place. After that I pulled the string, ready to fire my deadly missile towards these foul creatures. After releasing the string comes pain. My ear drops down and my head starts to bleede. I feel my magical mask fading away. Then I pass out. When I wake up, I see people staring at me. I don´t remember chopping my own ear off and the mask fading away, I just ask: "Is this the first time you´ve seen a wood elf?"
My name is Tim and I get together with my friends about once a year since—we live in different places. Here is a story from the last time we got together that gives a perfect picture of what our party is like.
Turan, the Exiled Warrior Prince of Dulath and Jahlol, the Warrior Monk from the Order of Light left the witch's shack seeing bright shades of red. Lord Darius had given a cursed sword to a peasant in exchange for his wife. Turan learned of the exchange, but not about the curse, and purchased the cursed sword from the peasant.
The witch told them that on the next full moon, only days away, the curse of the sword would call a demon to stalk and kill the owner of the weapon. Turan and Jahlol, having killed their share of demons, didn't really care about the curse and made no immediate attempts to ditch the sword. They REALLY don't like being tricked and lied to, though. So instead, they casually packed it up with their belongings and made off towards Lord Darius's Keep.
It was here, just out of bow range that the 2 - yes...2 - set up their siege. The first day the guards on the wall just laughed and joked, until one of their messengers attempted to return and break the well-laid siege. After Jahlol snapped his neck with no effort and Turan hung him on a pole as a warning by hammering a tent stake through his forehead, the guards didn't laugh anymore. The next day, Lord Darius came out under a white flag and attempted a peace offering:"you guy's are starting to spook my guards, and personally, I find this 2 man siege a little unsettling, not to mention embarrassing. What can we do to end this now". Turan, the outspoken, sarcastic of the group replied, "That's easy, since we're not ones to hold a grudge, your life will be payment enough". Lord Darius, shaking and stuttering now, turned and headed back into his Keep muttering to himself all the way, "it was just a stupid sword".
Around mid-day, Turan was cooking a stew in his pot and Jahlol was meditating in the shade of the tent when they heard an explosion. As they looked up to the near wall of the Keep, they saw a plume of black smoke rising and heard the shouts of "fire, put it out, dump some water on him". A few minutes later, the gate opens and one of the guards comes out. He stopped 50 paces from the siege army of 2, terrified to step any closer, and yells, "Lord Darius is dead, he miscast his fireball spell that was intended for you, and blew himself up. Good day".
Turan and Jahlol cast a quick glance at each other, packed up the camp and headed for the dock where their ship was waiting for them. The Bards tells the story of an Exiled Warrior Prince named Turan who led an army of 2 to lay siege to a Keep. The Lord could stand it no more, his magic would even the score. He began to cast, but then oh crap...the Lord is now no more.
And what of the sword? Turan sold it to an acquaintance who in turn sold it to his brother-in-law. Before Turan had time to say anything, the full moon was upon them and the acquaintance now has a smaller family. He's not very distraught, either.
First, you have to understand who Gort was. Gort was a fighter, probably half-dwarf, half-troll, but no one could really be sure. Gort was quite possibly the strongest character to have ever existed (ST: 167), but was not particularly bright. He was known to go into combat flailing wildly for three rounds, look down at his hand, and mumble to himself, "Oh yeah! Weapon!". The party liked to use Gort to bash down doors, but the process was hampered by Gort waving his arms and shouting "Weeeee!".
The Demise of Gort—Gort's party had agreed to assist in a siege of a castle, and were sitting outside, planning their entrance. Gort, obviously too stupid to assist in planning, sat down in the convienently located popasan chair (a Japanese chair shaped like a cereal bowl), and pulled the footrest lever. This is when Gort discovered catapults. He launched himself up and landed on the roof of a tower, but survived due to a ridiculously high HP count. He proceeded to roll down two more levels, barely surviving each time, and finally landing in the courtyard, and was finished off by the rather confused guards standing below. The party never recovered the body.
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