Topic: Arms Law with HARP

[Right Wing Wacko]

Really?
Nobody?

I had tinkered with this idea briefly but nothing ever really came of it.  I realised that I was making HARP more and more like RM which isn't really what I wanted and was kind of silly as I could just play RM.  Sometimes an idea seems great in my head but in actual application it putters out.

jolt

Yeah... that has happened to me as well... but dang it! I like the expanded crits of RM!!!
I like RM combat and HARP spells and races/cultures...

[DavidKlecker]

I too like the idea of Arms Law with HARP as I find HARP to have a rather uncinematic type of combat. I think Hack and Slash might be that solution however I yet to read it. Overall, I do think HARP has superior stuff over RM: Spells, a tighter skill base, ability to increase stats, more flexible race and profession system, ability to dual class, etc. The things I likedabout RM were the skill details (albeit over the top) and the combat (again over the top, but still fun as hell as well as slow as hell unfortunately). If Hack and Slash doesn't cut it, I may go ahead with what I was toying with before on converting Harp combat to RM. Thus far to bridge the gap I decided to link them through the Armor. Thus whatever armor you selected (Plate, ridged, etc) would be linked to the Armor Type in RM. For example, Plate mail with greaves in HARP would just be linked to AT 18 and so on. The Armor DB is removed in favor of the Combat tables. Besides that, nothing else is changed. No idea how this works in game play as I haven't play tested it yet.

[Winterknight]

After a fair amount of experimenting with the various HARP systems, we've decided to do a simplified version of this.

Core rules: Hack and Slash
Modification: instead of using critical results from Hack and Slash, the letter will indicate a critical column to use from Arms Law.
H&S   ==    AL Crit
A-D   .....   A
E-H   .....   B
I-L    .....   C
M-P  .....    D
Q+    .....   E

We may do some experiments to adjust the ranges, and eventually we will probably do custom tables that expand the results beyond 150, and have a direct correlation to the AL crits.

[Ecthelion]

Winterknight, as mentioned on the previous page, I think taking a look at HARPer's Bazaar #11 is a good idea if you want to have a combat system similar as RM's Arms Law that fits nicely with HARP.

[DavidKlecker]

When it comes to going past 150 I don't think anything beats a rotating table. That is if your result is 225, then just take 225 - 150 which is 75 and just reapply that result on the same table. Thus a 300 results in two max hits. However there a con in applying a rotating table and that is it can make a weak weapon suddenly perform outside its natural abilities. For example, I roll a 300 on a blow dart and score enough hit points that would match a normal dagger hit. So I see a lot of reason to just stick with the caps. I really don't have a preference however there are instances where the having the caps is necessary and that one instance is definitely SpaceMaster. When a pistol could have the potential to rip through like a mounted canon I kinda feel as if that's asking a bit much.

One thing I think would be grand is right in the middle between Harp and RM. That is, split hit tables in half, that is have only 10 Armor types, not 20, and decrease the critical tables down to three columns, light hit, moderate hit, heavy hit or A, B and C. For Large creatures ignore A crits and for Super Large, ignore A and B crits. I honestly think 20 armor types and 5 critical columns is overkill.