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Rolemaster Moments for July 2002 - page 2
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Anyone who has read the critical tables for Rolemaster knows that characters don't tend to remain whole very long. My players enjoy hearing the critical results; unless of course, they are on the receiving end! Here is a story of one character's very quick entrance and exit through our party.
Through a rather unusual series of events rolled up by the Gamemaster, the Fighter known as Kendawri was raised by a Dragon that was missing an arm. When the Dragon was slain by a Cavalier, Kendawri was able to get away with a VERY sizable portion of the Dragon's hoard.
With the proceeds from this hoard, he purchased a fine suit of rigid leather armor (+10 quality) and a +15 quality foil. Compared to the rest of the party, Kendawri practically sparkled. We were especially amused by his choice of weapon, until we saw how rapidly this weapon hits and does critical damage. He approached the party as they were telling tales around the tavern table. Since they had recently lost a member of the party, beefing up the offensive power with a Fighter was gladly received.
He went along with the party as they returned to their base, however the homebase was located across the desert, a two week trip. On the first night into the desert, the party set up watches as usual, and desert-bred Denroth took the watch with Kendawri.
During this watch, two desert lions decide to investigate the party. It wasn't until they were right at the perimeter of the firelight that Kendawri saw them. Denroth was on the opposite side of the firepit and couldn't see the approaching danger. Since Kendawri was the "weaker" looking of the two, he was attacked.
The first lion swatted at the Fighter but missed, Kendawri had his trusty, bejeweled, quality, never-before-used-in-combat foil in hand. He then poked the lion in the shoulder. Despite the fact that a foil is quick, it doesn't do a whole lot of damage. The poke did nothing more than piss off the lion, who got initiative the next round.
Denroth made it around the firepit in time to see the lion roll a lethal critical followed by an open ended raking of the rear claws. As the Gamemaster put it, "Kendawri has been reduced to three roughly even meaty chunks on the desert floor."
The lions were easily dispatched a few rounds later, and it was discovered just how rich this newbie warrior was! So now every time this player rolls up a character, the others tell the GM (who creates the backgrounds), "Make this guy rich too! We need the money!"
Some time ago you asked people to write in and tell about their favourite magical item. I didn't get around to it then, but I reckon it makes a good Rolemaster Moment:
One long running campaign had seen the characters become extremly powerful. They had vanquished scores of fiends and villains, looted hoards and laid the world for their feet; they thought they had it all.
But when they were looking for new challenges, hints in ancient manuscripts and whispers among demented seers spoke of a magical item that bestowed upon the wielder such power that the gods would be like dust for him or her to wipe away. When they became sure this item existed, they went to the ends of the earth to find it. Many, many months later, the final clue fell into their hands and it was only a strenous trip and a grueling dungeon crawl between them and the object they sought: The Master Staff.
It looked simple, of wood, leaning against a giant piece of crystal - or maybe diamond; nobody bothered to check. The players looked at each other, and one said "I pick it up," without protest from the others; if he was not the right for it, the dice would surely fail him. "Roll Attuning," I said; he passed with flying colours.
At this point, I had already stacked my books in a neat pile. I reached into my bag and pulled out a character sheet. Then I picked up the GM screen, placed it in front of him and asked "...So, what happens now?"
I was running a Spacemaster one-shot. One player (my wife) was playing an actually empathic Falanar. However, soon into the session a mercenary they had brought along appeared to be possesed by some Architect artifact and seemed desperately interested in picking a fight with the Falanar, who did not kill him right away, as many Falanar would have, especially since he was well overmatched.
As the words flew back and forth the Falanar finally lost his patience.
"I cut off his arm with my Hazzok," the Falanar said, rolled and, being quite skilled, sure enough lopped off an arm. The mercenary gave a gasp and collapsed back in shock.
"I do first aid to stop the bleeding," the Falanar continues, picks up her dice and rolls a -56.
"I rolled a -56," the player said, "I use duct tape."
I got hooked into Rolemaster some 16 years ago. Ah I remember it fondly,
one of the most memorable moments in my Rolemaster records. It was all about
4 years after I discovered Rolemaster....
I looked across the table, my eyes steeling at the task at hand. The prodigious
group of 13 players was on the other side of the screen, I was but the lone
GM and it was gonna be combat. Tensions had been rising in the party as the
storyline had been having it's way with the PCs, they were chasing ghosts
of the real story.
Ragnor was a fighter who specialized in frenzy. He should have been a bashkar,
but it hadn't been invented when the character was created. He was the longest
lived character I have ever seen. He also had a short sword of swiftness (Could
do a haste spell thrice a day--It was very scary a frenzied guy with haste,
his biggest danger was bleeding out) and a set of Rigid Leather that served
him well even though it was completely unmagical. Even though he would get
the snot knocked out of him, he always had someone there to take care of things.
The party had convinced two people to play a Healer and a Lay-Healer respectively.
They were getting to be about 4-5 level after 6 months of play, so they were
pretty good at putting ol' Rangor back together again.
The fight went well, they were battling a small group of forest trolls (3
of them) as they had been playing heck on the trade routes. Two party members
were down but Ragnor was fairly fresh. But he missed his control rolls to
come out of the Frenzy, he also missed the rolls to recognize friend from
foe. This was not very good, Rags had recently hit level 6 and he was standing
close to the mages when the combat ended, or at least seemed to. He had killed
2 of the 5 mages before anyone knew what was happening. They were all down
before a single spell could be levied against their, until now, valued super
fighter. I cringed from behind the screen at the fumbles on the defender's
side and quivered at the effectiveness of a frenzied-hasted PC on other PCs.
I allowed rolls to recognize friends every round as a final Orientation, even
gave bonuses when the party started trying to climb trees instead of knock
him out.
Two hours later the party was decimated, Rangnor stood alone while of the
12 other PCs only 4 were alive, but unconscious. It was at this point that
the fourth forest troll showed up from his hunting expedition, to find the
destruction, Ragnor didn't have enough exhaustion points to take care of one
round of combat, so he looked up at the troll slowly, when the club came down....
Memories of fight after fight float through my memory, but this one has always
stood out. It taught everyone a valuable lesson about how to create new characters
that is.. :P
We were chased into a lobby, so we decided to head upstairs to get a height advantage. Unknown to the party at the time, was that the building we chose to run into was controlled by the same guys chasing us...
First up the stairs charged the little fiery red-headed dwarf known as Kanker Soreone (he is as the name implies). I followed up next-- I was a high elf mage and the dwarf did not fancy me at all. Then came up the 2 high men bretheren (if these 2 could stop fighting each other long enough, they would make a truly powerful team). As always, the dwarf was cussing the human-made steps (he had a short stride and anything higher than sand was a mountain to him), as he took position at the top of the stairs. I went past the dwarf, to take the position directly across from him.
The two brothers drew out their bows and took position across from the front entrance, and started pushing each other. As I started preperations to cast a spell the dwarf heard me and started another long line of curses (not that good in dwarf there was alot of words I'm pretty sure that was not nice towards me). The brothers stopped pushing each other long enough to laugh, and they started mocking my abilities again, for reasons we will not discuss.
In charged twelve of the ugliest human-type people I have ever seen. They yelled out in an unknown language, the doors from upstairs opened and out charged six more. I knew at this moment we were in trouble for the odds had gotten much worse. The dwarf started a new line of curses and leaped from the balcony to the chandelier in the middle of the room. He swung across on it and dropped into the middle of the twelve drawing his battle axe as he descended.
Chopping off an arm of one of the humans he let out a mighty whoop. But upon drawing back he got his axe stuck in another's chest (poor fellow), and naturally he started another cascade of curses. The high men were fast to recover and shoot, and I heard a window break and a solid thud. Then I heard the dwarf laugh and say "well you have killed the window and wall try hitting the humans". Then they drew out their swords and charged the six upstairs.
I was ready to try my new spell I had picked up on our last adventure. So I prayed that it would work, unleashed the power and to my surprise the bottom of the stairs (to close to the dwarf) erupted a huge ball of flames. Maybe I put to much into it for the blast knocked me and the two brothers down. I could not see the dwarf for all the flames spilling about (but could hear him that was for sure).The two brothers grabbed me and helped me out a window. So around to the front we went, and out came the dwarf rolling, stomping and cursing. A hardy one he was for sure.
He managed to wrest his axe free, but he no longer had any hair upon his body. I started to look for a place to hide because the words "elf" and "dead" were in that last line of curses (more than once I might add). The dwarf was blinded from the blast, so we went to the local healer and only time was gonna' help him. So we got him on a pony (first time ever for him), and proceeded towards the next town. We did not hang around that one seeing how we burnt part of it down. The brothers kept smiling at me when the looked at the bald dwarf. This really made me nervous, because he was too silent for one that lived off curses.
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