More detailed Critical tables

I have been thinking of a much more detailed way of doing criticals, and make it a little less random and more appropriate to the creature you are facing.

So first of all you have different classes of creatures, humanoid, quadroped, insectoid, flying and "blob" and different attack types, melee or missile. Each creature has a different area to hit and a percentage chance for each area, for example: Head, Torso, Back,Right Arm, Left Arm, Right leg, left Leg and Wing (for flying). For Large and super large creatures in melee head shots are almost impossible (unless the creature has a bite attack), the majority being torso or legs. Each area has a percentage change of being hit depending on the creature type, for example for Humanoid, head shot would be about 5 percent, torso probably around 20 percent etc. Shields adjust this, making head and leg shots more likely and torso and left arm shots less likely. "Blob" creatures only get torso hits, creatures immune to stun and bleeding only get rolls on Extra hits and Death.

A character can "aim" for a certain area to increase the chances of hitting by deducting OB to increase the chances. Each critical then has 5 random roll tables based on the current criticals; Stun/Parry, extra hits, Bleeding, Penalty and Death. So there is a 1-100 table divided up similar to current criticals of increasing amounts for each effect (death would only occur above 80). Different areas of the body hit adjust these rolls. For example, a head shot adds a bonus the stun and death roll. A torso adds a bonus the Bleeding and extra hits, leg shots increase Bleeding and Penalty etc.

A,B,C,D,E criticals work more like the MERP way, i.e. they mere adjust these rolls up or down (-20 for A, -10 for B, +0 for C, +10 for D, +20 for E).

Combats are great in RM, but these would make them even more interesting!

This seems more like homebrew to be honest.

The tables in FG are exactly as they are in the Rolemaster books.

You'd want to have ICE take on the responsibility to change the way the tables are worded or how they work mechanically, then the ruleset in FG could be updated to match.

Though to be honest, I am not sure how much ICE would be interested, especially with RMU on the horizon.


I think there are aiming rules on one of the Rolemaster Companions, but it's been a while since I've looked at those.

I posted on the ICE forums too. I think I might be able to do some of it by creating my own custom tables. Just trying to avoid things like hitting a water elemental in the leg, or hitting a giant in the head with a sword.