The first of these, most commonly used by Lykos, stuns the target should they fail to resist it. Mind Attack includes three great spells for combat: Jolts I, Hesitation, and Minor Pain. In combat, however, Lykos has been standing back and using his Mind Attack spell list (which he has 3 Ranks in). Lykos (the Mentalist) is absolutely dreadful in a stand-up fight: as the son of a merchant family with minimal interest in the matters martial, the character can barely manage a Short Sword with a +10 bonus. Magic in Rolemaster augments the abilities of the heroes, so it is sometimes a minor benefit… but any benefit is precious, especially at low-level. There has not been a single session so far in which each spellcaster has not opted to use their Spell Lists at least once. So, how useful is the magic proving? In short, very useful. It’s important to realise, however, that each Spell List must be developed in the same way as any other skill: by spending precious Development Points as you ascend the Levels this increasing your Rank in each Spell List can be expensive, especially for professions like the Ranger or Paladin who pay more than, for example, the Mentalist per Rank. Casting spells above your character level is harder but possible, so some of the heroes have taken advantage of this. Thus, at Level 2, our heroes can potentially know each Spell List up to the 4 th Level Spell. In Rolemaster you can have a maximum number of Ranks in a Spell List equal to twice your current character Level. This means that the spells available to our heroes are relatively limited in power. We’re playing at Level 2 right now, having taken the heroes quite quickly up from Level 1. In our campaign we have five heroes, four of whom have access to spells the Ranger and Paladin are both of the Realm of Channelling, the Dabbler is of Essence, and the Mentalist is (unsurprisingly!) of Mentalism. These are the Essence, Channelling and Mentalism realms. Spell Law, as described in the earlier article, presents magic through three distinct yet interconnected Realms of Magic.

Having played a few sessions with the new Rolemaster playtest rules it’s probably time to tell you a little about how the new system’s magic has been working out.

The post below is written by UbiquitousRat, a guest blogger for The Iron Tavern.

Rolemaster character law pdf free