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Any fantasy RPG inevitibly invites comparisons to D&D, and that will happen here, but I also want to discuss the game on its own merits. Chronicles of Ramlar is a solid game system that bears similarities to D&D, and also to other games such as Runequest, and the Hero System. The game world itself is fairly standard Tolkienesque fantasy with things that are similar in concept to ideas found in, say, the Forgotten Realms. None of these things are copied directly, rather they seem influenced by them, in the way that one musician might be influenced by another.
Character creation involves using percentile dice to generate eight attributes: Charisma, Endurance, Intelligence, Nimbleness, Perception, Strength, Tenacity and Wisdom. These attributes form the basis of secondary attributes such as Attack Rating, Defense Rating, Contact Rating, Subterfuge Rating and Life Points. Not all characters will have all of these; only spellcasters have Contact Rating, for example. The next step is to choose a Race. All of the standard races are represented, although some of the subraces have interesting twists to them. As an example, the world's major historians are the Hethmarkyn Dwarves. Each race has attribute modifiers and plenty of notes on roleplaying.
Paths are the next choice. Your Path gives you a cost break on Path Skills and a list of Path Talents that you can take along with the list of General Talents that anyone can choose from. Some Paths also give free Talents, such as Warriors getting Martial Weaspons Proficiency. Later on you can choose to "multiclass" into an Elite Path or a Master Path. Master paths tend to require higher skill levels than Elite paths, but you can go to a Master path without having to take an Elite one first. The Paths are: Merthwarg (druid), Rogue, Sevar (cleric), Warrior and Wizard. One bit of clairification I received from the game's lead designer; while the Elite and Master paths are arranged according to the basic paths they are associated with, any character from any path can qualify for any Elite or Master path if they can meet the prerequisites. This would have been nice to have explained in the book, but is fairly easy to figure out and leads to some potentially interesting character ideas down the line.
Skills are rated by a percentile score. You get a number of skill points equal to the total of your attribute scores. path skills cost 1 point for each 1% in the skill, non-Path skills cost 2 points for 1%. Each skill (except for Expertise) is connected with an Attribute, which determines how high that skill can be. Expertise is the professions skill, and has no limit on how high it can be.
Talents immediatley bring to mind feats in the D&D system, and serve the same function; they give characters cool abilities they can use. The spellcasting feats are most interesting; they give access to higher difficulty level spells, which means that a character can fairly quickly acquire pretty impressive spell ability if they concentrate solely on these talents; of course, they will suffer in other areas. Characters receivt two talents at each level.
The Demeanor/Theme system uses the large circles on the character sheets and is the experience system for the game. Each circle is surrounded by 10 small circles, and contains a space to write what that circle is dedicated to. The only constant is the Participation circle. When the character does something towards accomplishing whatever the goal of that circles is, a dot is given. When all ten dots are filled, the goal is acheived. When Participation is filled, for example, the character advances a level, which gives more path skill points or talents. If the character chooses a different path as his goal (say, a Sevar who decides to get training as a Warrior), when his dots are filled he can then take that path when he gets his next level. Goals can also be roleplaying oriented; the character may wish to find a mate, or save up enough money to buy his own tavern, or find the Orc who killed his brother. This is a great way for the characters to influence campaign events and grow in ways that simple level advancement can't convey.
Combat actions, spellcasting and subterfuge activities are done by comparing the characters appropriate rating to the Difficulty level of the action involved and finding the percentile dice score required to succeed. You want to roll JUST enough to succeed (this will be explained when I discuss Momentum). The table is actually fairly easy to use, as the same table is used for all of these actions. There are 20 levels of difficulty, which correspond to 20 levels of ability. If the difficulty matches the ability, it will always be a 46% chance of success. Each higher difficulty subtracts 3%, and each easier difficulty adds 3%. My group, after this was explained to them, became quite adept at calculating what they needed to roll without even looking at the table. There is a space on the sheet to write these figures for attack, and for contact or subterfuge, so they are easy to look up.
Life points are divided between the various body areas. if an area loses all its points, that part is rendered useless, which can be a drag if it happens to be your head or chest...not so bad if its your left foot, although walking then becomes an issue. Armor simply adds extra points to that area. Hit location for humans and similar shaped creatures has 12 areas. Some creatures have less, some may have more. I will say here that the name "A/B system" doesn't sound all that great, since there is far more to this system than just the way hit location is done. We found that the hit location system, while interesting and amusing at times (such as when my friend Ted's character caught an errant fire orb to location 6...)can slow the game down somewhat.
The combat system itself is fairly straight forward, with a small list of combat tactics that can be used and rules that pretty much cover the needed activities. We did feel that combats against creatures with lots of life points seemed to go on for awhile. We were playing the sample dungeon that was given out at Gen Con and some of those critters were pretty nasty:) But I would say it doesn't take any longer than GURPS or Hero.
The magic system uses the same chart as Attack or Subterfuge. Spellcasters have a Contact Rating and Mana points. Spells have a difficulty level, which is also the mana cost. The spellcaster rolls to see if the spell is cast successfully.
Critical success happens on any successful roll that ends in 0. Critical failure is any roll ending in 0 that is not a success. Critical hits in combat double your damage and critical successes also double the SVs you receive (see below). There is amechanic that allows anyone to fail even if they have really high skills, and likewise a chance to succeed even if your chance is below 0%.
Momentum is a very cool mechanic that in some ways remsembles Action Points, Hero Points or other mechanics like that. When you roll, for every 10 points you get while still making the roll, you get a Success Value Point (or SV). At the beginning of the following round, you can use those SVs to purchase special benefits for that round. This can range from a +1 attack bonus for yourself to bonuses for your entire party, special types of attacks, seizing the initiative, and the like. The more successful you are, the more successful you're likely to be. SVs do not carry over from one encounter to the next. In our game, spellcasters tended to generate more SV's at the start of an encounter, but it evened out as the encounter went along. My group tended to be very egalitarian when it came to use of Momentum, and it really encouraged teamwork. This is the shining jewel of this game.
A considerable amount of space in the book is given to explaining the history of the world. This is interesting stuff although the game could also be used for your own settings. It occured to me that this game might make a good Middle-earth system, for example. The fact that the game doesn't tie the setting too closely to the mechanics means its adaptable.
The art in the book is pretty good and the Larry Elmore cover is very nice. Judging art is not really my strong suit, as I don't really pay that much attention to it. I can say that there was no art in the book that made me wince, so that probably means its pretty good.
My group enjoyed the game as a nice change of pace from D&D and we do intend to play more of it. I look forward to supplements that will add more detail, more monsters (always a good thing) and hopefully some modules. There are novels being made for the setting as well; I'd tell you about those but my wife has glommed onto them and I can't pry them loose!
