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.