# Remember these MERP/Rolemaster critical hit tables?



## dragoner (Jan 27, 2019)

Oh how I loved MERP, had the ICE poster of Middle Earth on my wall above the bed as a teen. The crit tables were cool, though the setting we used to joke stood for "Magic Everywhere" Role Playing, in comparison to Greyhawk.


----------



## SkidAce (Jan 27, 2019)

Ahhh, those wild and crazy days of our youth....


----------



## Dioltach (Jan 27, 2019)

"Shot through heart. Reels 10 feet to a spot suitable for dying. Weapon stuck in spinning victim for at least 3 rounds."


----------



## SMHWorlds (Jan 27, 2019)

Ah.. the good ole days.


----------



## Cherno (Jan 27, 2019)

Those tables were great just for reading. I remember some quite cleary:

From the archery table, "Worst shot ever. Ear of attacker shot off."
From the plasma damage table "Torso liquified".
I think one has also an added effect that has all watchers being unable to do anything for a few rounds because they are laughing their butts off after witnessing a particularly embarrassing performance by one attacker.


----------



## Quartz (Jan 27, 2019)

Oh yes. Fun times. 

As for the plasma crit tables, didn't a number of entries have comments like, "Get a mop."?


----------



## EthanSental (Jan 27, 2019)

Glad I still have mine! Fun times


----------



## Alexander Kalinowski (Jan 27, 2019)

Oh, most definitely - I love all things d100! I also remember depression criticals, LOL. And my _freshly inducted_ Rider of Rohan - who got vaporized by a random demon encounter. Grrrr! (Didn't Tolkien Enterprises help ruin ICE to get the license back in time for the movies? I seem to remember reading something to that effect in Designers & Dragons.)

For anyone who loved the games, there's a dark fantasy game in development called Against the Darkmaster which looks a bit like a revamped and modernized version of the game(s).


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone (Jan 27, 2019)

Ah, Rolemaster!

There are dark rumors of a roleplaying system more complex ...


----------



## Mercule (Jan 28, 2019)

I remember those. There was a critical hits article in Dragon (one of many, and something that would be fun to see Mearls take a hand at in UA) that I was able to adapt to have a chance at inflicting these on AD&D characters. I don't remember the exact math, but it was rare enough to not be omnipresent, but common enough to pucker a couple sphincters.


----------



## Guest 6801328 (Jan 28, 2019)

The part that amazes me is that people look back on that crap with fondness/nostalgia.  I always hated it.  And I hated how un-Tolkienesque it all was in the context of MERP.

Sure, their lore/fluff was awesome.  The system sucked.


----------



## Yardiff (Jan 28, 2019)

Elfcrusher said:


> The part that amazes me is that people look back on that crap with fondness/nostalgia.  I always hated it.  And I hated how un-Tolkienesque it all was in the context of MERP.
> 
> Sure, their lore/fluff was awesome.  The system sucked.




Any particular part of the system you hated most or just all of it?


----------



## jmucchiello (Jan 28, 2019)

A friend of mine always quoted a critical hit table where the big result was. "Foe cleaved in half. +10 on next roll. Universe is no longer a grape." No idea if these are the source but I always wondered what the universe was now that it's grapeness has been shattered.


----------



## Eirikrautha (Jan 28, 2019)

Rolemaster had a chart labeled "Ram/Butt/Bash/Knockdown/Slug."  The game was golden, just for the chart hilarity alone.


----------



## Hurin88 (Jan 28, 2019)

The new ICE just announced that they are planning to publish the new version of Rolemaster later this year. It has been a long beta process, but it sounds like we will have the new version -- with new critical charts -- in our hands by the end of 2019: 

http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=18956.0


----------



## barasawa (Jan 28, 2019)

Cherno said:


> Those tables were great just for reading. I remember some quite cleary:
> 
> ...
> I think one has also an added effect that has all watchers being unable to do anything for a few rounds because they are laughing their butts off after witnessing a particularly embarrassing performance by one attacker.




Worst move ever, All opponents out (some number) rounds laughing, pulled groin (some penalty until muscle repair done). 
Yeah, my warrior did that fumble. Though it was so embarrassing and painful for him, the foes laughing at him was enough of an edge to let the party win the combat. We also had a healer in the group, so 10 minutes later he was walking normal again.

Ever notice that on the crits (except for the special tables for the really big opponents), the higher the result, the more deadly it is, EXCEPT for results of 66, which tend to be instant kills.

Had another situation where the group still pulled through and won despite things going wrong.  One of our semi-casters got nailed with something that destroyed his heart and did a massive amount of bleeding per round.  This would normally be an instant kill because of the heart being trashed, but when he was created he'd actually rolled up that he had a second heart! 
This was trouble for him, but he was still active. He was able to surprise the enemy because of this and we won the battle, and healed him before he ran out of hits.  Of course an organ repair later, and he was good to go. Again, don't underestimate the value of having someone that can heal the rough stuff around, especially in Rolemaster. 

The most extreme thing that I ever saw happen in RM though was when one of our groups was below level 10, and we encountered a guy (don't remember if he was human or elven or what) that went to attack us.  We had no idea who he was, but our short guy (dwarf or some other short race) actually won initiative and threw his boomerang at him. Got an unbelievable result due to open ending. Then when it went to the crits, he also open ended multiple times. This was rather odd, but our GM used the Super Large crits for some reason.  Got an instant kill, and his boomerang broke. (Don't know if that was in the crit or just the GM getting a bit of petty revenge or dramatic emphasis.)  He cussed a bit, and then he started with the calculator.  He then gave us each an insane amount of xp. We were floored. 
Then he explained it and showed up. We had just killed one of the Dragon Lords !  So much lower level characters, first time encountering a dragon (much less a dragon lord), etc.  It was flat out crazy!  
Apparently we weren't supposed to be able to kill him (duh), as he was so much more powerful than we could imagine, but he was statted as an encounter, not as an event, so the GM went with the rules and adventure as written.  
As a side note, that particular character retired, built himself an inn, and had the pieces of the boomerang mounted for everyone to see. 

There are a lot more stories about playing and running RM, but those were some of the crazier things that came up.


----------



## Topramesk (Jan 28, 2019)

Alexander Kalinowski said:


> Oh, most definitely - I love all things d100! I also remember depression criticals, LOL. And my _freshly inducted_ Rider of Rohan - who got vaporized by a random demon encounter. Grrrr! (Didn't Tolkien Enterprises help ruin ICE to get the license back in time for the movies? I seem to remember reading something to that effect in Designers & Dragons.)
> 
> For anyone who loved the games, there's a dark fantasy game in development called Against the Darkmaster which looks a bit like a revamped and modernized version of the game(s).




Indeed! I'm one of the Against the Darkmaster authors and I remember those charts very well (actually, I might be cheating a bit, since last time I've played MERP was less than a year ago...), and they were one of the things that pushed us into making our own game.

I still remember my first character, a wose ranger, having his eye destroyed by a uruk-hai in the first round of combat. Then the halfling in the company, in that same round, managed to score an insane roll against the same uruk and disembowled him, killing him instantly.
We were coming from ad&d 2e, and just amazed that something like that could happen. We were immediately sold on the game and ended up playing it for many years, eventually switching to RM.
I could go on rambling for hours about epic stuff and funny things that happened thanks to those tables.



Hurin88 said:


> The new ICE just announced that they are planning to publish the new version of Rolemaster later this year. It has been a long beta process, but it sounds like we will have the new version -- with new critical charts -- in our hands by the end of 2019:
> 
> http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=18956.0




That's great, I'm so happy to hear it! I've been waiting a long time for it. I'm definitely gonna buy it!


----------



## Morrus (Jan 28, 2019)

Hurin88 said:


> The new ICE just announced that they are planning to publish the new version of Rolemaster later this year. It has been a long beta process, but it sounds like we will have the new version -- with new critical charts -- in our hands by the end of 2019:
> 
> http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=18956.0




Wasn't that announced about 5 years ago?


----------



## Philosopher X (Jan 28, 2019)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> Ah, Rolemaster!
> 
> There are dark rumors of a roleplaying system more complex ...




Yup, I know that one. It's called "real life".

Somewhere buried deep in my dung... erm, basement, I must still have several cubic meters of RM stuff ... should look around for it some time ...


----------



## dwayne (Jan 28, 2019)

I loved those kind of tables made players less like to rush into something and be like we take cover and use our brains. I always used a house rule that if you had 50% or more cover you could neg a crit and just be normal damage, but the object would also take the damage too. Served well for sold things not so much for wood tables and chairs and the fighter if the thief used him as a shield lol


----------



## Hurin88 (Jan 28, 2019)

Morrus said:


> Wasn't that announced about 5 years ago?




It has been a long process, and the goal has been to get it right rather than just get it out. Beta1 was 2012; beta2 was 2015. They decided against doing a third beta, and have most of Character/Arms, and Spell Law where they want it. The sticking point recently has been Creature Law, since the original draft had so many creatures that it was unprintably long. They've since decided to tone it down to mostly just the creatures that were in the original Creatures and Treasures book, saving the more exotic creatures for a later supplement. 

So yes, you're right -- they initially announced the game years ago. But it does look like they are close to the 'Rolemaster singularity' (the point at which everything is sufficiently polished that they can move towards the release).


----------



## Hurin88 (Jan 28, 2019)

barasawa said:


> Worst move ever, All opponents out (some number) rounds laughing,
> Then he explained it and showed up. We had just killed one of the Dragon Lords !  So much lower level characters, first time encountering a dragon (much less a dragon lord), etc.  It was flat out crazy!
> Apparently we weren't supposed to be able to kill him (duh), as he was so much more powerful than we could imagine, but he was statted as an encounter, not as an event, so the GM went with the rules and adventure as written.
> As a side note, that particular character retired, built himself an inn, and had the pieces of the boomerang mounted for everyone to see.




That is awesome!

Just to put that in context for anyone who hasn't played in Shadow World (the main RM fantasy world, other than Middle Earth): The Dragonlords are usually around level 60. In terms of their stats, they are virtually gods.


----------



## Kannik (Jan 28, 2019)

Forever shall the text for Blast Type E critical, 100, be seared into my mind:  "Blast annihilates foes' entire skeleton. Foe is reduced to a gelatinous pulp.  Try a spatula."  

(Technically that was from Space Master, the sci-fi version of Rolemaster, but I bet the same existed somewhere within the Rolemaster crit tables)


----------



## billd91 (Jan 28, 2019)

We had a DM who used these tables in his 1e AD&D game. If you hit with a natural 20 or scored at least 5 over what you needed to hit, you got to roll on the crit tables. You could add +5% for every point by which you exceeded the target's AC. Wearing armor would reduce the severity of any crits against your character. You subtracted 5% for every step of AC you had better than 10. So wearing plate mail (AC 3) allowed you to subtract 35% from the enemy's crit roll.
I don't remember what he allowed for specific repair of crit damage. Cure wounds spells might have been directly dumpable into crit repair for some effects.

I don't recall the body count being that much higher than any other AD&D game I played despite the use of those tables - but I seem to recall more odd permanent scarring.


----------



## Alexander Kalinowski (Jan 28, 2019)

Well, Rolemaster is of course not for those who hate tables. That much is obvious. (Personally, I think anyone who considers himself a self-respecting nerd should not be afraid of tables but that's just me.) But I don't think that was the cumbersome part. What I could do without was the calculating of how much percentage of my round a certain action took. That dragged down the speed greatly at times.

Table lookups can be fairly speedy if they're at hand (and you should have the most common tables at hand in RM).


----------



## trancejeremy (Jan 28, 2019)

While fun, the thing with critical hits/fumbles is that player characters are going to be on the receiving end of more of them in the long run (since they are the ones in every combat) and with the unforgiving nature of the RM crits, they end up dying from them eventually. I think 3rd level was the highest we ever got in RM because of this. 

And this was specially annoying since RM took a lot of work to make. Not only did you roll for a lot more stats, you had to roll potential stats. And skills were confusing.


----------



## Hurin88 (Jan 29, 2019)

Alexander Kalinowski said:


> What I could do without was the calculating of how much percentage of my round a certain action took. That dragged down the speed greatly at times.




The new version of RMU is going with an action point system, where you get 4 action points to spend each turn and different actions cost different amounts. I think it will speed the round up quite a bit.


----------



## pemerton (Jan 29, 2019)

Alexander Kalinowski said:


> I also remember depression criticals, LOL.



These came up quite a bit in our games - if something emotionally shocking happened to a PC then that player might call for a roll on the Depression crit table, or the GM might instead make the call.

I prefer a game in which PCs are vulnerable emotionally/mentally (and not just to magic) as well as physically.


----------



## Mercule (Jan 30, 2019)

Kannik said:


> Forever shall the text for Blast Type E critical, 100, be seared into my mind:  "Blast annihilates foes' entire skeleton. Foe is reduced to a gelatinous pulp.  Try a spatula."
> 
> (Technically that was from Space Master, the sci-fi version of Rolemaster, but I bet the same existed somewhere within the Rolemaster crit tables)



I never played, or even read, Space Master, but that result sounds extremely familiar. So, I'd say it's in Rolemaster, somewhere. Probably one whatever table would be appropriate for something like Bigby's Crushing Hand.


----------



## GrahamWills (Jan 30, 2019)

I remember reading the MERP critical tables for the first time and thinking: "I will always wear a helmet from now on. Always always always".


----------



## Cherno (Jan 30, 2019)

Another fun crit is from Arms Law, critical damage from tiny creatures, E-100: Felled by virtually impossible hit against neck. Carotid artery severed.
I assume that this is a reference to the Rabbit of Caerbannog from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where it pounces from knight to knight, biting their necks.


----------



## beholdsa (Jan 31, 2019)

I loved these tables!


----------



## jshauber (Jan 31, 2019)

AH YES, back in the days before challenge ratings and nearly un-killable PCs with uber maxed stats and skills.

Being a GM was more fun with RM, anyone could die at any time and that always made combat feel more tense.  Now you just hope it lasts more than a couple rounds of expertly choreographed moves and that the players actually have to think a bit about how to overcome the latest speed bump.


----------



## sstacks (Jan 31, 2019)

The long dead imaginary unseen turtle result has been my favorite crit result since the 80s


----------



## Cthulad (Jan 31, 2019)

As a question, and someone not familiar with this table, or the books, what kind of reference can I use for this book, if I was looking for the reference or the books?


----------



## Warren LaFrance (Feb 1, 2019)

The only system where you tried to parlay with orcs first...


----------



## hawkwind58 (Feb 1, 2019)

Alexander Kalinowski said:


> Oh, most definitely - I love all things d100! I also remember depression criticals, LOL. And my _freshly inducted_ Rider of Rohan - who got vaporized by a random demon encounter. Grrrr! (Didn't Tolkien Enterprises help ruin ICE to get the license back in time for the movies? I seem to remember reading something to that effect in Designers & Dragons.)




I don't think so. My understanding was that whoever brought out the next rpg for Middle Earth (Decipher Games?) had managed to convince Tolkien Enterprises that the rpg rights for Middle Earth were a cash cow just waiting to be milked. Spoiler - they were wrong, ICE got better market penetration than any subsequent attempt has. Even Cubicle 7, with The One Ring and their 5e version, Adventures in Middle Earth, haven't been as popular as MERP was.


----------



## rbsandkms (Feb 1, 2019)

Great times in college with Rulemaster ... er, Rolemaster/MERP/Space Master. I fondly remember my dwarven tank that kept getting blasted in the chest, so wore an extra set of chest chain, which the GM ruled reduced damage that said it was to the chest area.


----------



## Cherno (Feb 1, 2019)

Cthulad said:


> As a question, and someone not familiar with this table, or the books, what kind of reference can I use for this book, if I was looking for the reference or the books?




Arms Law and Spell Law of Channeling, maybe other Spell Law books as well.


----------



## Dour-n-Taciturn (Feb 1, 2019)

We used them in 3rd edition D&D on criticals/natural 20's as well.  Good times.  The d100 system is a little tedious to do arithmetic with, so we usually avoided the base Rolemaster system/s.  Reminds me a little of HARN.


----------



## drl2 (Feb 1, 2019)

I owned a few of the MERP books but never actually got around to playing the game.  Reading through them, the system struck me as a standard fantasy game sprinkled with a light dusting of artificial Tolkien flavor crystals.

(Not sure what ever happened to those books, but last week while rummaging in my basement I found something called "The Lord of the Rings Adventure Game" which I don't remember buying, but it seems to have a pristine rulebook, punch-out minis, and a starter adventure for a slimmed-down LotR RPG...)


----------



## Alexander Kalinowski (Feb 3, 2019)

drl2 said:


> I owned a few of the MERP books but never actually got around to playing the game.  Reading through them, the system struck me as a standard fantasy game sprinkled with a light dusting of artificial Tolkien flavor crystals.




I think that is what a lot of us want: standard fantasy gaming but in the world of Bilbo and Aragorn.


----------

