unbalanced

a critical says "Foe is unbalanced."

is that an actual condition because i can't find it. if so, what is the effect?

If it is a thing, any idea what book it's in so i can read it for myself?

thanks.

I do remember that in one of the editions you'd get a +10 OB when attacking a unbalanced or disoriented enemy, or something like that.

I thought it was just descriptive, as it's usually accompanied by losing initiative, forced to parry or similar effects.

I should caveat that by pointing out that I've not played in 20 years though!

I interpreted it the same way as QuirkyBirky. I haven't used any additional effects for unbalanced.

It's one of the ambiguities being nicely addressed in Role Master Unified. My group always equated it with "must parry", but that's just a house interpretation.

It sounds like it ought to be an effect of its own, but every instance of it that I've seen has it accompanied with another effect (usually stun, must parry or losing initiative). Curiously (or not) it only appears twice in the Unbalancing Critical table, and neither time is accompanied with a stun, initiative or must parry effect (just an action penalty and extra hits) - in 2nd Ed/Classic at least.

your mention of rolemaster unity reminded me. will that ruleset be supported by fantasy grounds or just not enough people to support the effort?

it is my understanding that RMU will kind of smooth out a lot of wrinkles from the various game iterations over the years but that is just from what i have gleaned off of the internet.

I know the Devs at Ironcrown want RMU supported by FG.
I've done beta testing on RMU and such. They have simplified it where possible, reworked combat to reduce the number of charts, reworked spell casting so there is no BAR table to check. Standardized spells and spell lists, and generally solved many of the clunky or confusing aspects of Rolemaster by taking what people liked from various editions of the game and getting rid of what didn't work well. I've enjoyed the changes and am looking forward to publication.

‘Unbalanced’ was only ever a way of describing the critical.
It might come with a modifier attached in the crit description but that mod would be the reflection of it.

Just flavour text, babee! :rv:

In my game I see these coming from Monks and other creatures that use strikes and sweeps attacks. The benefit is in the adjustments/penalties applied as a result.