This was one that bit me last night, and this is some of that invaluable "new user experience" feedback my team used to pay people to give back when I was in software development. The question is as follows:
In Rolemaster, how many skill levels can you buy when you level up?
I was reading through the two character creation examples in the chapter for creating characters, and I saw some of the examples buy four levels of a skill, two levels, or just one. The first question that came into my mind was, can I buy as many levels as I want when I level up? Then I felt that familiar sense of panic I felt when I know I don't know something for sure.
The answer is surprisingly easy, and thankfully very consistent across both leveling-up, and the first two skill increases you have during character creation. Let's look at the skill chart:
For every class, there is an entry with either a single number (such as "9", two or three numbers separated by a slash (such as "2/7"), or a number-slash-asterisk (such as "1/*").
If there is one number, you can buy only ONE level of that skill during a level-up. Check the green circle, there is just a "9" there, so that means we can buy one level of the skill for 9 points and that is all for the level-up.
If there are two or three numbers, you can buy the first level at the first cost, the second at the next cost, and if there is a third, a third at the next cost. If there are only two, you can buy up to two. Check the blue circle above, this is a "1/5" which means you could buy one level for one point, or two levels with the second level costing 5 points - for a total of 6 points to raise the skill two during this level-up.
If there is a number-slash-asterisk, you can buy ANY NUMBER of levels of the skill during this level-up, at a cost of the number before the slash per level purchased. So above, in our red circle, you could buy any number of these skill levels for one point each, say you wanted seven levels of this skill, pay 7 x 1 = 7 points to get 7 levels.
During Character Creation
Here is where I got confused. I wanted to rush and buy everything at once, and when I checked out the example character sheets given, I saw levels of skills all over the place. I assumed you could buy any amount at any level - and then I discovered I was wrong.
One level-up is the adolescence level up when you first begin, and these rules apply.
Then you get a potential ability score increase. I would recalculate your development points after this in case you are owed an extra point or two, because you will be doing another level-up shortly.
The final level-up happens for apprenticeship skill development and you buy skills again.
Each time you level-up, the same rules explained above apply. When your character starts, some skills will be capped at 2 points (if you bought a level each time and you were only allowed one increase for this skill per level), some will be capped at 4 or 6 points (2 increases per level and three, respectively), and some will not have any cap (the asterisked ones). You do not have to buy them to the cap, but the cap exists.
Game Design Reasons
I am guessing Rolemaster's designers use their level and skill increase system to cap skills important to classes and to control player ability. If I am a fighter and could buy 16 levels of sword-fighting at level 1, that would give me a huge advantage and put me on a skill level (for that skill) comparable to a level 8 fighter (since 16 potential levels is the cap for level 8 with what I am assuming is the character's primary 1/5 weapon skill).
Knowing these caps also lets you GM the game a little better, since if you are estimating the power of a NPC bad guy, you can figure their capped skill levels petty easily given their class.
Well, that wasn't too hard, but it caused some confusion for me so I thought I would mention it, and I hope I got this right. Now to figure out this spell system...
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