Arms Law (Rolemaster Companion)

 (4 customer reviews)

First of all, anyone purchasing the Role Master Standard Rules should make this a concurrent purchase, or at least the next purchase. The standard rule book has almost no information on the stastistics and use of weapons in game. It has no critical tables either. All that is in this book. That makes it the quentissential book to accompany the Rolemaster standard rules.
I was looking for this book to be the Rolemaster equivent of the old AD&D Player's Option: Combat and Tactics book. It is not. It is a book full of tables. If you thought the standard rule book had tables in it, nearly every page of this book is a table. This book details something like 29 weapons commonly found in typical fantasy middle ages role playing adventures. There is no colorful weapon descriptions etc., just raw stats for the Rolemaster game.
For each weapon, you get this: the weapon name, how long it is, how much it weighs, how likely it is to "fumble" the weapon in combat, how likely...Read more

Rolemaster is gaming grown up. Far more intricate and subtle than D&D. The system uses d100, and makes use of all the possibilities that entails. You'll need substantial intellect to make use of it, but the reallism compared to other systems is worth the effort to master it. As an example similar severity strikes in D&D and RM would yield, respectively, 14 hp damage compared to 14 concussion hits and a c slash yielding "slash muscles and tendons in foes shield arm, +9 hits, foe bleeds at 4 hits per round, stunned for 6 rounds, arm is useless". Once mastered, the game flows well. It's nickname of "chartmaster" is well earned, but the charts provide depth, not needless encumberance. Each component, such as "arms law & claw law" is designed to be used as part of an entire system, or as an adjunct to other game systems to add to their reallism. I believe you will get out of rolemaster what you put into it, modified by your memory and reason stat bonuses.

It's essential to play Rolemaster, for it contains details and tables for the combat sequance. If you wish to play Rolemaster it is a must buy.