Topic: The round

[Mando]

You could change the 2 second round to something like 6 seconds, but then the 1 action per round is not realistic anymore. You could, like Mattiyaho says, let everyone act on their init without declarations, but then you get an attack and parry problem. Which you can solve with the SPAR system, but still it requires a lot of changes.

To have more than one action, you can use the "move and attack" standard action wihch lets you move and attack in the same round. Hmm. Easy one. When I went to 6 seconds rounds, I added a "move and cast" and a "move and shoot", so anyone can move and act in the same round.

You can then ask players to adjust their init by themselves to take their planned action into account, ie adjust for one or 2 handed, etc. Just verify some times if they apply the rules fine, and then trust them. Ask again when in doubt

And instead of a full declaration phase, just ask who wants to remove some OB for something else. For some dramatic action, you can use a modified version of the combat cards, and just write on it: -10, -20, -30, etc. The player plays his card face down and reveals it on its turn or when struck. This is the amount of OB substracted for this round, available for any other maneuver. We call it "round stance", your fighting attitude for the round, full offensive or cautious, and all this works well for us.

[Grimburgoth]

I agree with you Mando. You seem to have solved it quite good. There are many ways to solve the problems. But what I find most striking is the fact that nodoby seems to use the HARP out of the box system. I see a lot more changes to the Harp system then I see to others, like Rolemaster which people change less and DND which people rarely change at all.

Now I'm wondering, what does this say about the Harp system. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

[Right Wing Wacko]

Now I'm wondering, what does this say about the Harp system. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

That it has a lot of options and can easily be house ruled to fit a variety of different gaming groups style or expectations...
And, yes, it is a good thing.

Oh, and some people don't have an issue with the 2 second round, so I wouldn't label it as a "problem" with HARP...

but hey... that's just me...

[masque1223]

I agree with you Mando. You seem to have solved it quite good. There are many ways to solve the problems. But what I find most striking is the fact that nodoby seems to use the HARP out of the box system. I see a lot more changes to the Harp system then I see to others, like Rolemaster which people change less and DND which people rarely change at all.

Now I'm wondering, what does this say about the Harp system. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Depends on what you mean by not out of the box.  I use several optional things in my game that aren't in the core book, but can be found in other official HARP products, like the Martial Law combat system, the D20ified rules, etc.  As for the 2 second round, I like it, keeps things moving relatively quickly.  I find HARP to be a very adaptable toolkit with lots of optional things to try within it's own material.  If the core book is the box, I'm out of it, but if the box is all HARP products, then the box is huge and full of all kinds of fun stuff.

[Karizma]

I agree with you Mando. You seem to have solved it quite good. There are many ways to solve the problems. But what I find most striking is the fact that nodoby seems to use the HARP out of the box system. I see a lot more changes to the Harp system then I see to others, like Rolemaster which people change less and DND which people rarely change at all.

Now I'm wondering, what does this say about the Harp system. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

I think it's a great thing.  If nothing else, look back on old D&D.  Everyone house-ruled!  Every group has different tastes, and it's nice to be able to cater to that.  HARP is very flexible to allow all kinds of little changes that don't completely disregard this, that, or the other.  I spent six months coming up with all sorts of fluff and stuff for changing the magic system in RMFRP just the way I wanted it until I found a copy of HARP at Half Price Books.  I picked it up, and fell in love with it.  When I bought the PDFs, I found that College of Magics let me incorporate everything I wanted almost seamlessly.  It took me three days to make my adjustments that I had spent six months working on.  Three.  Days.  It's fantastic.

Back to the topic, I'll defend two-second rounds on this point.  By limiting the time to two seconds, you easily dismiss the notion of people changing what they want to do mid-turn due to the tide of battle.

[Thos]

I have no problem at all with the two second round. It works very well with my group and has always made perfect sense to us.

[Duskwalker]

The two-second-round works pretty well for us in combat situations.
For eveything else we use common sense (which is actually rather uncommon these days... ) and split up time as necessary.

[John Duffield]

Having done a fair bit of full on martial arts (Bujinkan for those interested) I can affirm that my 7th Dan teacher does a lot of damage in 2 seconds - he can normally hit you two to four times.

The style is full contact so you know when you get hit, the bruises remind you for days

Also, two seconds is a good amount of time when you are in close and fighting, I have had bouts where aster less then six seconds the other guy is down and done.  You really don't want to take a long time to take someone out.  We do four and six on one scenarios and if you mess around you are very very sore very quickly.

edit - see http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x60qoh_ninjutsu-bujinkan-masaaki-hatsumi_sport for some idea

[RandalThor]

I really believe that the short rounds are great, we just need to get something in the rules to stop discouraging non-attack actions and encouraging other actions like maneuvering for a better shot or taking the time to actually dive behind the car as you see the gunmen come out of the bank with the assault rifle. But, so far, most games (RM falls under this too) don't. If you don't do what you can immediately, you will lose out because the rest of your group will get the XP or whatever.

Oh. I know what you are thinking: "But Rand, RM is deadly, any PC not taking the proper defensive action is stupid." Well, to that I say this: PPPPLLLLSSHSHSHSHSHHTHHTHTTHTHTHTTHTTH!!!!! The Players know that it is a deadly world too, and not just for them. They think: "Let me hit him first and he will then have negatives, if he can do anything at all." Not completely unreasonable, but it still leads to the do an attack every round or else you are wasting your time mindset that needs to be changed. (IMO) I fall into the trap too, but that is usually because as I look through all my options I see nothing that encourages me to do anything but ATTACK IMMEDIATELY.

Any ideas on how to - mechanically - encourage players this way?

[jurasketu]

RandalThor-

I think the key is need for tactical maneuver. Since most of my encounters are not dungeon-type encounters, the tactical distances are substantial larger. With some exceptions, most of my encounters begin with the combatants 30+ meters apart often with terrain in between. Maneuver is required simply to become engaged. More importantly, the bad guys maneuver. My players don't wantonly run forward and attack the bad guys they see - because they are afraid they'll get flanked by the bad guys they DON'T see (yet) and often one or two members of the group will not engage while waiting for the flanking attack that never actually occurs.

By varying the circumstances, timing and tactics of encounters - I've found that it encourages interesting and realistic behaviors. Sometimes, that behavior is charging straight away to engage as many foes as possible, to give time for highly scaled spells to get cranked up. And I force players to "look around" before making actions by having "spread out" tactical situations. Fortunately, my players buy into the concept, and roleplay tactical actions without too much prompting.

I also reward creative and original combat actions with substantially more relative XPs. If you kill the bad guy the exact same way as last time - does that merit the same XP value? I don't.

Robin

[RandalThor]

I also reward creative and original combat actions with substantially more relative XPs. If you kill the bad guy the exact same way as last time - does that merit the same XP value? I don't.

Pow! There's the key. Giving tactile, in-game reasons to do something. But more than that - and all your description about the combat is fine but I hope you know you drew the long straw in terms of players in this regard - I think the bonuses for doing the non-attack maneuvers (as they pertain to the next attack or spell or whatever) should be scaled up to encourage their use. If my whopping +50 only goes up to +60 for not attacking this round (which would be two attacks at +50 - this round and the next vs, a single attack at +60) I think I will be sticking with the attack in each round - especially if there is a chance that I won't get that second attack due to the opponent's attack this round!

[jurasketu]

I think the bonuses for doing the non-attack maneuvers (as they pertain to the next attack or spell or whatever) should be scaled up to encourage their use.

Well, I have to agree with that. My players don't typically use the non-attack combat actions except ones of their own invention. We do use SPAR. The various SPAR actions, by design, create moments due to the Retreat action that give characters opportunities to cast mid-combat spells, move to attack different foes, change weapons, etc.

One of my favorites examples was during an outdoor combat involving 12+ bandits (whom I had intended to capture the PCs) against 6 adventurers including a harper and a vivamancer neither of whom were particularly combat "ready". At a critical moment when four bandits were about to press the adventurers flank that almost certainly would have forced three of the adventurers to surrender or die, the vivamancer, who was on horseback, made a wild battle cry and charged the bandit flank from a good distance (2 rounds away). The four bandits, taken aback, instead of pressing the flank, turned to deal with the oncoming vivamancer. Initially, I thought he was really trying to make a heroic but hopeless attack. Since his horse wasn't a warhorse and the PC had no ranks in fighting off horseback anyway, I was going to have the horse stop short (and likely throw the PC to ignomious capture). The player, however, to my pleasant surprise, announces its just a feint and peels off and away leaving the four bandits waiting for an attack that doesn't arrive. I still required a riding maneuver roll by the PC to pull off the stunt (it was successful). But the 3 round distraction was enough time for the archer to nail a bandit, the two warrior mages and ranger to each down a foe and then the harper got off a Confusion that caught the bandit leader and bandit spellcaster who were hanging back. The tide of battle was turned - and the bandits ended up captives instead...

[Witchking20k]

I've never used the HARP combat round.  We've always used a variation of the Snap/Normal/Intended Action system.

[Erik Sharma]

I You could, like Mattiyaho says, let everyone act on their init without declarations, but then you get an attack and parry problem. Which you can solve with the SPAR system, but still it requires a lot of changes.

I don't know if it would take a lot of changes, just started doing this myself and so far so good. Instead of the parrying DB bonus for that round for example it now starts at that persons initiative and last to his next action. Basicly a round is now the time a person acts until is next action, wich all will be different for each person since they all start at different initiatives.
Only other problem (altough I don't considering it a problem) is if you roll initiative for each round a character could act last in one round and first in the next or the opposite giving the character some long rounds or short rounds, easy way to deal with that is to roll initative once for the whole combat or as I do just consider the rounds as fluid ones around 2s sometimes more and sometimes less. Always liked a more fluid approach not setting the pace at a fixed 2s round.
This also makes ambushes and suprises quite dangerous since if you don't get a good initiative the first round you don't have time to get your defenses up. Which I like personally.

[Hawkwind]

We run the way Chorpa does - parry DB is set until your next action. So if your opponent has already had a swing at you and you choose to full attack - you had better either get the kill or hope you get initiative next round, cause if you don't then you have no parry DB for their next attack.

It has worked well for us so far.

Hawk