Topic: Tweaks for HARP Martial Law?

[Zhaleskra]

As much as casual (in "casual gaming") can have a variety of meanings, HARP is intended to be the entry-level, casual game. Leave the advanced, hard core stuff to RM.

[GMLovlie]

Well that's the point, isn't it? If you want to make an acceptable product, and you plan to put out an "omnibus volume" concerning various ways of doing combat, shouldn't all the options presented be things that are thoroughly playtested, proven to be balanced and able to work well with whatever other "canonical" rules options the GM decides to use, before you declare it to be part of the "canon" as well?

Declaring it to be "canonical" is pretty much what they'd be doing by including it in ML, no?

"Thoroughly" playtested and "proven to be balanced" why sure…? why not… 

Much, perhaps all of the HB stuff was untested as I remember correctly, although I tested a lot of it, can't remember having problems with the stuff, but then I ran a low- to non-magic setting at the time, so scaling spells wasn't really encountered using H&S… and my players, for some reason, where more interested in other stuff than game-mecanic-crunch, so I didn't really get into it since they where happy campers trying to survive by doing stupid stuff and succeeding brilliantly… *grumble*open-ended-rolls*grumble* 

I don't remember any solutions though.

So, yes, this is a problem… hehe, I never needed those solutions though, considering…

I get the impression that HARP is supposed to be the fast-moving, comparatively simple, streamlined part of ICE games. So in order for something to be included as canonical HARP, I'd expect the game designers to not only need to have found a solution, but to have found a solution that's comparatively simple and elegant. If it's too fiddly, too much housekeeping, the solution itself will be just as much of a jarring note in the flow of the game as the lack of it was.

Well, supposed to be… I know its by far not the most long-winded, but I wouldn't call it particularly fast, even though the combat rounds are 2 seconds in-game time… the actual game time needed to play through a round is comparatively, in my experience at least, longer than many other games… but it is very fun and those critical tables are pretty much unique (to the ICE games). But you are right in your main points of course, my pedantic antics aside.

If it was in HB11, doubtless some people thought it was a good idea. When the solutions for its problems reach the stage outlined above, I suspect you'll see a variation on it again.

The HB11 combat system was basically a "re-invention" of an old ICE system used in MERP, more or less, and MERP was fun, still would be I guess if I could find someone I would dare to let loose in Middle Earth…
The system was good though, it adds a random element to combat, as in RM with rolled crits and armours no longer give as much + to DB as protection against damage and less severe crits… of the two this is the one I would've liked to include anyway. H&S is fun, but not as good, in my opinion.

As much as casual (in "casual gaming") can have a variety of meanings, HARP is intended to be the entry-level, casual game. Leave the advanced, hard core stuff to RM.

Entry-level? Since when? (what do you mean by "entry-level"?)  I came to this system, not because its entry-level and basic (many people would disagree that it is, with "all the math skills" required to play it…), but because it gave me an alternative to RM that involved less, but still rewarded in copious amounts… its a different philosophy behind it in my opinion. Its still complex, but a lot more flexible. I played and GMed HARP for years. I am one of those (few?) that don't see HARP as a RM-light or entry into the RM world of gaming. I came from that end. They are in my mind two separate games.

[Mando]

Entry-level? Since when? (what do you mean by "entry-level"?)  I came to this system, not because its entry-level and basic (many people would disagree that it is, with "all the math skills" required to play it…), but because it gave me an alternative to RM that involved less, but still rewarded in copious amounts… its a different philosophy behind it in my opinion. Its still complex, but a lot more flexible. I played and GMed HARP for years. I am one of those (few?) that don't see HARP as a RM-light or entry into the RM world of gaming. I came from that end. They are in my mind two separate games.

You are not alone

I GMed HARP with passion for years without any idea of switching to RM any day.

But I had to customize HARP a lot to make its system fit to our playing style and setting, and although I have to say that the system was perfect for that, it required a good amount of work to get all this working up to the small details.

Going through all published spells, talents and other combat related data to see if they still fitted a new combat system was a major pain for me, that's why I always hoped the publisher would pay somenone to do it for me

[GrumpyOldFart]

I came to HARP from RM as well, and had been playing RM since 1981-82. I went to HARP because I found everything beyond RM2 to be too fiddly, too much housekeeping. Really, too much a player needs to have at least a halfway understanding of before they can be part of an adventuring party that moves at any reasonable pace. I went to HARP rather than RMC because I could see things in it I considered "lessons learned" from RMSS/RMFRP. There were things in the later versions I liked that had conceptually carried over into HARP, like all skills within a category having the same cost.

But I had to customize HARP a lot to make its system fit to our playing style and setting...

That was always the largest feature for me about ICE games, pretty much any of them. I felt they were designed to be a customizable platform, tweakable to whatever setting/play style the GM and players wanted. They don't try to predict a particular setting or style, or force you into a particular setting or style, they give you the tools to make the game fit YOUR setting and style. The downside is that if you're not willing to play the default setting/style, and not willing to just blow off gaming altogether in your frustration... well, with the tools being right there, now you don't have any real excuse not to do the work of using them to get the game you want.

I always hoped the publisher would pay somenone to do it for me

It's nice to have all the tools in the toolbox arranged in such a way that they're easy to find and lay hands on when you need them. But I don't want them to go any farther than that, because anything farther than that begins to force me into the default setting and style. The problem with doing that in context of something like ML is that okay, this book is the section of the toolbox where all the combat system tools go, and here's the selection of tools available there.... until someone comes up with a new optional combat mechanic. Once that happens, either 1) you have a combat tool permanently out of place in the toolbox, or 2) the publisher has to come up with a new "combat options" book, because the current one no longer contains all the optional ways to tweak the combat system.

[Zhaleskra]

Now that people have said more, I can actually make a response without insulting broad swathes of people (which would mostly be by accident).

I'm with Grumpy on this one. Charts for every single weapon is ridiculous in my book. Besides being curved or slightly longer, there's really not that much difference between different kinds of swords. At best, the curvy ones are easier to pull out of your enemy's bodies.

I also played various versions of RM, before and during HARP. While I have no problem with "dead" character levels, I do have a problem with "dead" slots in my character's spell list.

And though I can't remember when, I do recall ICE making a statement about HARP being a starter game.

[jasonbrisbane]

Hi

Please explain?
How does hns make elemental attack size scaling redundant?
We use it all the time with no issues...

[Ecthelion]

How does hns make elemental attack size scaling redundant?

With H&S elemental attack scaling simply makes no sense. Even using a Tiny bolt it is possible to achieve a killing critical. And the penalty for scaling up the spell eats up the advantage the higher scaled version has in terms of better critical results. The only remaining advantage of a scaled up version is a few hits more, but "it's not the bruises that kill". No use to invest more power points for this bit of an advantage.

Therefore IMHO the H&S is broken and not usable  .

[Zhaleskra]

Looks like I now have 2 reasons not to like Hack & Slash, without ever having seen the book.

[WoeRie]

Ok... but what's the first one?

I still think H&S is the fastest and easiest combat system in HARP. The standard rules and ML are too time consuming (fights tend to go for ever, as nobody is able to make this last killing blow) and HS11 is to RMish for me. I think I would simply switch to normal AL combat (or totally to RM2) if I wanted to use these tables.

[Zhaleskra]

Ok... but what's the first one?

The title.

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

Not really a tweak, but one thing that really bothered me about ML was the pricing of superior non-magical and magical items as described in chapter 6 "Weapons & Armor". According to these rules e.g. a +25 non-magic spear would cost 23cp * 40 (While Alloy + Master Workmanship) = 9.2sp, while a +30 magical broadsword would cost 1gp * 10020 (Titusinium + Master Workmanship) = 10,020gp. This is more than 10,000 as much for a mere +5 more OB and having the weapon treated as magical! This is just as broken as being able to - in theory - buy the +25 spear above weapon from the character's starting money, since it's so extremely cheap. In effect we did never use this chapter at all.

IMO the pricing of magical and non-magical items should be brought in sync between the core rulebook, ML, CoM and LaFG. Until this is done, I'd suggest to completely remove the part about prices for improved quality and special material items from ML.

Just my 2 cents

Technically the magic materials have +10 workmanship bonuses already included in their stats and pricing.

What we propose here is to reprice all the materials and workmanship. The emergent formula currently has White Alloy worth X350, Improved at x25, Master at x50, Titusinium is at X950. Thus an Improved White Alloy spear costs 86gp, the titusinium version (+20 bonus) sets you back 218.5 gp. Factor of 3 difference. Even if the GM insists that all magic items must have a base cost of 1gp, the difference factor is about 10 times.

Thoughts?

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[Ecthelion]

What we propose here is to reprice all the materials and workmanship. The emergent formula currently has White Alloy worth X350, Improved at x25, Master at x50, Titusinium is at X950. Thus an Improved White Alloy spear costs 86gp, the titusinium version (+20 bonus) sets you back 218.5 gp. Factor of 3 difference. Even if the GM insists that all magic items must have a base cost of 1gp, the difference factor is about 10 times.

Thoughts?

That sounds much better IMO.

[allenrmaher]

If martial law is being "Tweaked" I would like to see some sections expanded.  Frankly this is one of my favourite HARP core book, I like the critical tables, the expanded armour, weapons, and combat styles.  I would love to see orders fleshed out, a more comprehensive set of training packages, and perhaps even skirmish, miniature, tactical combat sections added.

The battlemaster PDF Tim did is a logical inclusion, as would some form of mass combat rules or ship combat rules expansion. With HARP SF, there are vehicular rules that could be translated into wagons, sailing vessels, etc...

I would love some form of mass combat rules in ML as well.

Just a few suggestions.

I am not now, nor have I ever been in the H&S camp... so I don't favour it's inclusion or integration into the core books... but hey if the new and hopefully expanded ML had it as an appendix, I would not loose sleep over it.

[jasonbrisbane]

Plus one for h+s; minus one for ml criticals;

[Ecthelion]

I also liked the combat styles added with ML, but I think some rebalancing would be useful. E.g. the sword & shield style IMO is rather useless as it is at the moment.

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

Expansion is not Tweaking and would cause additional delay to getting Martial Law back on sale.

The suggested expansion ideas are all good ideas for a future product.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[allenrmaher]

Happy to hear that the focus is on getting product back on the shelves rather than a lot of reworking.  I look forward to seeing the finished product.

[DavidKlecker]

As do I. The one thing I liked about the ML combat was how it expanded the previous tables from the Core Rules. Whenever you got to a point where all you did was hit the damage caps, you wound up getting the same critical over and over again. It got very repetitive. Granted ML has the same repetition but not as much as the Core rules. Hack and Slash I loved primarily because of how it accurately ran a combat. I never liked the Rolemaster combat system in that combat even between a lesser opponent almost never was resolved in two hits. With Hack and Slash almost any combat is resolved quickly. However as noted, the Elemental spells with Hack and Slash were far too unbalanced. I never got a chance to try this but I was thinking the next time I did Hack and Slash I would actually impose a damage cap regardless: 150 for Huge, 135 for Large, 120 for Medium, 105 for small and 90 for Tiny. However I would only impose this damage cap where appropriate, usually based on the weapon like the core rules do. I believe there weapons where a damage cap is appropriate (blow darts, elemental spells) and where they are not (Broadsword, Long Bow). One thought I had was to have critical tables based on the weapon group. For example a Bow critical table and a Great Blades critical table. That might be a lot of work though and not a tweak.

I think all three combat systems (Core, ML and H&S) have pros and cons and I think a combination of all three focusing on the pros might produce a better combat system. My two cents.

[tommysl]

So one area where I find ML flawed is the adjusting values for crits. I've played a few campaigns in HARP, and in one of them the players went from level 1 to 25ish. In the group we had one monk and one paladin, one wearing a combination of no armor/soft leather and the other plate on most locations. For plate users all crits have to subtract 10 hits, 15 from penalties, 3 from bleed and death is increased with 6 rounds, whereas the for no armor you have to add roughly the same numbers.

Now while I found it very reasonable that no armors take hefty damage the plate wearers I find to strong. Most crits below 50 can be completely ignored. This happened mostly on higher levels where the paladin had negated most negative effects from wearing heavy armor as they have maxed out armor skill and also have higher quality armor.

Further wearing plate gives you in the region +60 DB. So it kind of feels like that armor all the gives the DB twice (i.e. you get +60 DB and at the same time you ignore most crits that is below 50).

[jasonbrisbane]

Now while I found it very reasonable that no armors take hefty damage the plate wearers I find to strong. Most crits below 50 can be completely ignored. This happened mostly on higher levels where the paladin had negated most negative effects from wearing heavy armor as they have maxed out armor skill and also have higher quality armor.

Further wearing plate gives you in the region +60 DB. So it kind of feels like that armor all the gives the DB twice (i.e. you get +60 DB and at the same time you ignore most crits that is below 50).

Finaslly, someone vocallised what I was thinking!

That is Exactly what I found!.
For the ML tables, the entire combat system needs to be adjusted as the better armor gives an higher DB bonus AND a adjustment on the crit tables. It feels unbalanced because of this double dipping... I feel that the armor DB needs to be adjusted across the board to be more even so that the armor doesnt get double bonuses.

In the end, hitting armored opponents feels like an exercise in futility. You need a very high OB to get through the armor and then do higher than 50 on the table as criticals are negated. So the Db for plate is effectivelty 110 (60 from Db and an additional 50 as the crits below this are adjusted and negated.

It would be better to have the critical descriptions and adjustments from ML on the HnS tables. So the attack does a base number of hits before doing the critical. And armor then negates the critical damage, being less likely to do a near mortal wound. This would be a much better system and also make up for the shortfalls that I see in HnS (BTW: I still dont understand the elemental crit issue so I may still be missing a whole issue here...)

Regards
Jason Brisbane