Topic: Collective effort

[Zut]

A suggestion for an additional "rule" in HARP: when a group of people is performing some sort of collective effort ( spell ritual, searching a secret door, etc.), there needs to have some mecanics to account for all the skills those people "bring" together.

So instead of having every character rolling individually (e.g. Perception when searching), one roll is made by the character with the highest skill bonus, and the other ones give a bonus on the roll.

There is something along those lines in the Herbs & Poisons chapter (united Group Searches). I made a quick search in the book and couldn't find anything more general, though the way it's written, I think it could be used for any other skill.

If there is already a rule for this kind of situation, sorry! (But please, give me the reference where I can read it!)

[Turbs]

I personally just use the manouver table depending on situations that can modify difficulty, I generally have all players attempting to help make a standard manouver using thier skill that they thinks benefits the situation along with the justification of -how- they think it helps.

If successful they lower the difficulty of the manouver by one level (or two if its a particularly useful skill or some other reason)

example (and i dont have the rules handy at the time of writing so forgive me if the numbers are out);

a rogue characters wants to set a trap in an underground cavern to slow down persuing cave-beastie of doom.

being an urban background he doesnt know much about caverns nor cave-beasties. but is quite skilled at trap setting. Also the GM deems the cave-beastie of doom is a cunning hunter and wont easily fall for traps (the GM sets the manouver at very hard)

however in the party there is a dwarf warrior who is very much at home in fighting in caverns.  The dwarf makes a standard tactics-skill <insert any relavant skill here> manouver and succeeds, advising the rogue of the best place to set up the trap and lowering the difficulty to "Hard"

also within the party is a druid, who makes a Lore: bestiary skill roll, and succeeds, She then advises the rogue the Cave-Beastie of doom generally has excellent perception except in its blind spot which is over its head.
She therefore advises the rogue  to set the trap up in a high location to maximise the chance that the Cave-Beastie of doom will fail to see it, And... lowers the difficulty of the manouver to "Medium" in the process

this system basically allows for other relavant skills to be used in a manouver/skill check and effectively adds a +10/+20/+30 bonues etc depending on how many levels of difficulty are reduced.  obviously absolute failures (fumbles) can have a reverse effect.