Hi there! I'm planning to get some friends hooked with RPGs, but it's been a long time since I GMed at a table, I did run some sessions with MERP back when I was 13/14 years old, but that was over 10 years ago so I'm starting over with HARP. I did run a campaign by forum, but it's not the same thing. The players don't know anything about pen and paper RPGs
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So, I'm looking for general advise, since the last time I was 14 and tried to create characters with RMFRP and we all ended up overwhelmed by the character creation system. I know that HARP is A LOT simpler, but I want to avoid repeating the same mistake of not being prepared this time.
- Which level do you suggest I get the PCs started?
I'm thinking the lower the level, the more chances of dying for being careless or being a little frustrated by the difficulties of action, but the higher the longer it's going to take to create the characters. I created a Human Sylvan Ranger to test the system but it seemed a little underpowered at lvl 1, at least compared to RM ones. To be fair I bought two talents(Speed Loader and Survivalist) so I guess it's a little too much to ask to have a spell too.
The guy ended up with +50 at bows(good enough), +65 at Tracking, +40 at Perception, but almost everything else at 40 or below. .In a system where the standard difficulty is +0 and you have to overcome 100, the odds to succeed at something aren't great. Considering there's going to be at most 3 players, that's not so great(in a 5 guys party I wouldn't mind).
So I'm thinking starting at lvl 2-3. Is there something wrong with my reasoning? I know lvl 1 aren't supposed to be great, but I expected a little more(maybe because in RMFRP the characters gained a big bonus at lvl 1 instead of a +X every X levels). Since I want to get them hooked, I don't want the first game to be frustrating, I can try for more grittiness once they adjusted.
Also, as a minor complaint, while I found the organization of the book fine for beginners, having the Armor penalties in the Combat section was a bit impractical, you would expect first 7 chapters to have everything you need.
- Balance in professions:
How beneficial/prejudicial is having more or less Favored Categories in the long run? I'm thinking about the Fighter who is almost exclusively combat/physical oriented, in the long run I imagine every single one of them ending up multiclassed, which is not great in my book.
Also, in a Fighter vs Monk related bussiness, the Monk can attack multiple times per round from the very beginning, isn't that a little too beneficial?
- Encounters and such. How difficult should they be?
So, as a final question(sorry for the long post), how can I tell how the group will be able to handle different monsters, based by the OB, DB, attacks? Especially considering it's a group of people new to RPGs, I don't want to end up TPKing them all in an unbalanced encounter. And my experience with MERP/RM is that a bad roll can hurt A LOT if they don't Parry. What should I watch out for?
Thanks a lot in advance, sorry for my awkward english and please don't take my insecurities as a critique to the game, I love it and think it's a vast improvement from anything ICE has done before. I just want to screw up as little as I can in my first session.