From: lrg@crud.cray.com (Lee Gordon) Subject: Re: Eye Damage > > From: Axel Schudak > > Eye damage > Thanks for your answers. I think that the damage location "eye" is very > vulnerable, so I will likely use the following procedure: > Blunt,Frost,Fire : normal healing procedure > Squeeze,Edge,Tear : minor : no aftereffects > serious : - 1 to eyesight > grievious : eye is gone > Stab,Point : minor : 1-5 IP no aftereffects > 6-10 IP -1 eyesight > serious > grievious : eye is gone > These results are in addition to normal healing procedure. > Is this too much ? I think it is just right, but my players disagree ;-) > > Axel As a player, I'd like add a few comments about this. What concerns me most about these procedures is that characters will have a relatively short adventuring lifespan. I've been role playing the same character for 4 years, and he's taken multiple serious and 1 grevious wound to his eyes over his lifetime. He has lost some of his eyesight, by the way, but he can still see. If you plan on using characters for a long period of time, they will most likely go blind before they have a chance to get killed. (We've had only 1 PC fatality in the 4 years since I've been playing Harn). Something else to consider is that the eye can't be protected by armor. Therefore, almost any [stab, point] eye strike could reduce eyesight. One way to help justify the current Harn rules is to view the eye location as the eyeball proper, and the region right around the eye (like a "black eye"). If this area around the eye is hit with minor wounds, it really doesn't matter. Also, I believe the physician tables make eye wounds more difficult to treat (i.e., greater chance for MI and SI), so the point loss is more likely in the eyes than arms, for example. Someone give a yell if this is wrong. From a realism standpoint, these procedures might be valid, I don't know. But from a playability standpoint, you'll end up rolling new characters more often than you might think. (We take about 6-8 hours to roll up characters, so we don't like to do it very often). These are just the views of an unknowledgeable PC... -Lee From: advent@ukc.ac.uk Subject: Varied Bits and Pieces This includes comments on several of the recent articles on this list, as well as a couple of new points... 1. For those of you in the UK. Virgin Games in London now has copies of 'Tome of the Shek-Pvar' and 'Grey Mysteries'. costs 9 and 6 pounds. 2. I've now looked through the above, though not thoroughly. From this I have one question - Is there a replacement for 'Ward of Arkana'? ie something that you can use to protect a (convocational) item from mundane damage? Or does giving the item an EGO naturally do this, since the ego bestowing spells no longer seem to require WofA? 3. Eye Wounds - I think the damage posted by Axel is too severe. Only if the healing roll generated an impairment would I apply a loss of eyesight. I take the view that eye location covers the area around the eye as well. (this leaves the slight problem that the wound isn't rsolved until after the combat, but if its that bad the character will be unconscious anyway!) 4. Panaga - I really dislike the clone idea. Possession seems fine, as does giving him an apprentice or suchlike. (by apprentice I mean an apprentice grey mage ;-). He would then try to carry on Panaga's quest. By the way, does anyone have any idea of what will be in the third part of the saga? (if so please do NOT post it here since players read it, just say so, and I'll get in contact) 5. Manor / County / Duchy size - re France - I believe that the feudal structure was very similar to England, as were manor sizes etc, but an extra 'level' was introduced, the GrandDuc and ArchDuc, which were usually fairly closely related to the King, as well as the various Princes. These controlled large area of France (for example Normandie, Bretagne, Languedoc etc) which are considerably larger than English counties. Steve From: dweinste@carl.org (Dave Weinstein) Subject: Eye Damage Redux On May 8, 2:12pm, Lee Gordon wrote: } > From: Axel Schudak } > } > Eye damage } > Thanks for your answers. I think that the damage location "eye" is very } > vulnerable, so I will likely use the following procedure: } > Blunt,Frost,Fire : normal healing procedure } > Squeeze,Edge,Tear : minor : no aftereffects } > serious : - 1 to eyesight } > grievious : eye is gone } > Stab,Point : minor : 1-5 IP no aftereffects } > 6-10 IP -1 eyesight } > serious } > grievious : eye is gone } > These results are in addition to normal healing procedure. } > Is this too much ? I think it is just right, but my players disagree ;-) } > } > Axel } } As a player, I'd like add a few comments about this. What concerns } me most about these procedures is that characters will have a relatively } short adventuring lifespan. I've been role playing the same character for } 4 years, and he's taken multiple serious and 1 grevious wound to his eyes } over his lifetime. He has lost some of his eyesight, by the way, but he } can still see. If you plan on using characters for a long period of time, } they will most likely go blind before they have a chance to get killed. } (We've had only 1 PC fatality in the 4 years since I've been playing Harn). } Something else to consider is that the eye can't be protected by armor. } Therefore, almost any [stab, point] eye strike could reduce eyesight. One fatality? Either you are very very very cautious, or you've got a nice GM. One of the things I like about Harn is that the combat system is extremely deadly (much like Aftermath). Knowing that every combat is potentially quite lethal makes the game a bit more ''real''. As for eye damage, I think it depends on the world (no, I don't use Harn). My worlds are generally magic poor, but the most recent, while having almost no magery to speak of (at least that the players can *get* to), has an abundance of religion, and priestly healing works quite well. } From a realism standpoint, these procedures might be valid, I don't } know. But from a playability standpoint, you'll end up rolling new } characters more often than you might think. (We take about 6-8 hours to } roll up characters, so we don't like to do it very often). Perhaps, but I don't think you'll have that much trouble, so long as you can get to some sort of healer... --Dave -- Subject: To Harnlist From: Axel Schudak > Subject: Re: Eye Damage > > Stuff about eye damage > > As a player, I'd like add a few comments about this. What concerns > me most about these procedures is that characters will have a relatively > short adventuring lifespan. I've been role playing the same character for > 4 years, and he's taken multiple serious and 1 grevious wound to his eyes > over his lifetime. He has lost some of his eyesight, by the way, but he > can still see. If you plan on using characters for a long period of time, > they will most likely go blind before they have a chance to get killed. > (We've had only 1 PC fatality in the 4 years since I've been playing Harn). I usually try to make characters for a long life, but some of my players frequently undermine my efforts. Last session one was killed by his former friend for insulting him. Another just "forget" to tell the group that the "Cohorts of Gashang" would ambush the party. He went to the nearest brothel :-( Next session the survivors will meet him again ;-) > One way to help justify the current Harn rules is to view the eye > location as the eyeball proper, and the region right around the eye (like > a "black eye"). If this area around the eye is hit with minor wounds, it > really doesn't matter. Also, I believe the physician tables make eye > wounds more difficult to treat (i.e., greater chance for MI and SI), so > the point loss is more likely in the eyes than arms, for example. Someone > give a yell if this is wrong. Yell yell yell. I just looked it up. Found nothing. If this rule exist, I will submit myself to the pillory for a week because of misjudgement. Maybe I will change this rule to : If bleeding occurs 60% chance that eye is gone, MI and GI as usual. > From a realism standpoint, these procedures might be valid, I don't > know. But from a playability standpoint, you'll end up rolling new > characters more often than you might think. (We take about 6-8 hours to > roll up characters, so we don't like to do it very often). I have plenty of exercise in this, I usually need 2 hours with "experienced" players. This leads me to my next point... Dislexia I recently (some 2 month ago) created a character with dislexia. The player insisted on playing a Shek Pvar. Now I need information about the effects of dislexia. As far as I know a person with dislexia can read and write, but will make mistakes. He may not even notice them. Is this correct ? Any ideas for irritating my (in)famous mage ? Missiles I was not satisfied with the rules for high velocity missiles and made up my own rules. To be correct, I only varied the impacts, depending upon distance. I will post this table and would enjoy any comments on it: 10' 25' 60' 150' 300' 600' 1200' H. Longbow +20/14 +10/13 +5/12 +0/11 -10/10 -30/8 -50/6 M. Longbow +20/12 +10/11 +5/10 +0/9 -15/8 -40/6 -80/4 L. Longbow +20/10 +10/9 +0/8 +0/7 -25/6 -60/4 na H. Shortbow +20/10 +10/9 +5/8 +0/8 -15/6 -40/5 -80/3 M. Shortbow +20/8 +10/7 +0/6 +0/6 -25/5 -60/4 na L. Shortbow +20/7 + 5/6 +0/5 -5/5 -35/4 -80/3 na H. Crossbow +30/13 +20/11 +10/10 +0/9 -20/7 -80/2 na M. Crossbow +30/11 +15/9 + 5/8 +0/7 -30/5 na na L. Crossbow +30/9 +10/7 + 0/6 -5/5 -40/3 na na Sling +10/8 + 5/7 +0/5 -10/4 -25/3 -50/2 na Staffsling + 5/8 + 5/7 +0/6 - 5/5 -20/4 -40/3 -80/2 Blowgun +25/0 +10/0 +0/0 -20/0 na na na All impacts : point, except sling and staffsling : blunt Arrows indicate iron head. Stone or wood have impacts rating from 10-50%. Sling and Staffsling indicate picked pebbles. Lead gives +1 to impact, random pebbles -1. Weapon data table is WQ A/D B E P Shortbow 8 2/1 1 - - Longbow 9 3/2 2 - - Crossbow 9 2/2 3 - - Sling na na - - - Staffsling 8 2/2 2 - - Blowgun 7 1/1 0 - - This table is for the use of bows etc as emergency weapons. For each point of quality below these values, the impact of the missile is reduced by one (impact under 0 means out of range). Higher values in the quality will not add to the impact. SIZE OF DUCHY I looked to my history atlas for the size of duchies and counties in france in 1200. I found some 11 duchies and 4 counties. France had some 60% of its current size. If these informations are correct, there would have been far more than 10 baronies per county. I think the number would be more likely 100. Many of these duchies and counties were de facto independent, if not de juro. In the holy roman empire there were even kingdoms (remember the iron-crown of the langobards). These definitely had a subinfeudation, but I cannot say anything about this. I will look for it... Axel From: advent@ukc.ac.uk Subject: Character Death As a HarnMaster/Harn GM I'd like to take the oportunity to follow up on the comment about character death, and ask what sort of kill rate other GMs have had. I think that I am not a particularily lenient GM, and certainly my players think that I run a dangerous game. I have however only killed one character in about the 25 sessions I have run this year. Some others have come close to dying, and a couple have effetively retired, though they still occasionally meet up with the main group. This to me seems more likely than actual death, unless of course all of the group do badly, and there is no-one left to patch them up. (note that the fyvrian mage in the following example is a very recent addition to the party, though they have usually had access to someone with ^20% physician and ^20% psionic healing, or better) For example recently the party (A Knight, his squire, and man at arms, together with a viking and a sindarin Fyvrian Shek-Pvar) while on foot met up with four mounted knights from the Agrik Order of the Crimson Dancer. Due to flying insults, combat ensued. The final result had 2 dead horses, 1 unconscious horse, 4 unconscious agrik worshippers, 1 heavily bleeding, but conscious Knight, one unconscious and bleeding sindarin. The viking also fell over at the end of the fight due to entering a berserk frenzy. Strangely one of the horses survived unscathed, and the man-at-arms only had light wounds, as did the squire. The Agrikans had better armour than all but the Knight, and similar weapon skills. Yes, the fighting is dangerous, and in the above the elf lost a point of endurance, and the knight two of comliness due to their wounds, but once again no kill result (except against the poor horse). The only character in the game to die was due to infection of a bad wound caused by a CF vc CS counterstrike, location eye! Steve From: lrg@crud.cray.com (Lee Gordon) Subject: Re: Eye damage and other stuf > From: Axel Schudak [ stuff removed ] > > > One way to help justify the current Harn rules is to view the eye > > location as the eyeball proper, and the region right around the eye (like > > a "black eye"). If this area around the eye is hit with minor wounds, it > > really doesn't matter. Also, I believe the physician tables make eye > > wounds more difficult to treat (i.e., greater chance for MI and SI), so > > the point loss is more likely in the eyes than arms, for example. Someone > > give a yell if this is wrong. > > Yell yell yell. I just looked it up. Found nothing. If this rule exist, > I will submit myself to the pillory for a week because of misjudgement. I don't believe there is a special "eye" rule for impairments, but I do think that eyes are more easily impared than some other locations. Since I'm not a GM, and don't have access to the tables/rules, I'm going on experience here. If the physician tables don't make a distinction by location for attending wounds, then I apologize. (Our GM may have some home cooked rules). However, each location is unique when determining the severity of impacts in combat. Thus a 10 point [Point] strike to the eye could cause a serious wound and an E4 shock roll, whereas a 10 point [Point], strike to the hip might be a minor wound and an S2 roll. (I pulled these out of the air, no flames please...) The bottom line is that a strike to the eye is more damaging than strikes to some other locations. Therefore, ability loss is more likely from the eyes using the current Harn rules. > Maybe I will change this rule to : If bleeding occurs 60% chance that eye > is gone, MI and GI as usual. This is a more preferable, but remember what you're talking about is the equivalent to an "amputation" roll for an eye. Nasty stuff. I would lobby for a special penalty that lasts until the wound is down to the minor category. > > From a realism standpoint, these procedures might be valid, I don't > > know. But from a playability standpoint, you'll end up rolling new > > characters more often than you might think. (We take about 6-8 hours to > > roll up characters, so we don't like to do it very often). > > I have plenty of exercise in this, I usually need 2 hours with "experienced" > players. This leads me to my next point... The actual dice rolling part of generating characters takes only a couple hours. Our GM has us start roll playing before our characters have professions though. ("You're 7, what do you do?"). We then develop a background, character history, and motivation for "adventuring". This is what takes awhile. > From: dweinste@carl.org (Dave Weinstein) > Subject: Eye Damage Redux > > On May 8, 2:12pm, Lee Gordon wrote: > > [ stuff removed ] > > } As a player, I'd like add a few comments about this. What concerns > } me most about these procedures is that characters will have a relatively > } short adventuring lifespan. I've been role playing the same character for > } 4 years, and he's taken multiple serious and 1 grevious wound to his eyes > } over his lifetime. He has lost some of his eyesight, by the way, but he > } can still see. If you plan on using characters for a long period of time, > } they will most likely go blind before they have a chance to get killed. > } (We've had only 1 PC fatality in the 4 years since I've been playing Harn). > } Something else to consider is that the eye can't be protected by armor. > } Therefore, almost any [stab, point] eye strike could reduce eyesight. > > One fatality? Either you are very very very cautious, or you've got a We are careful that when we enter combat, it is on our terms. Also, our GM's philosphy is that if the PCs don't act stupidly, they shouldn't die. Our one PC fatality was caused by a Navayen master's blunt strike to the neck. The neck was broken, and the K roll was failed. For some things we are just out of luck... > nice GM. One of the things I like about Harn is that the combat system is > extremely deadly (much like Aftermath). Knowing that every combat is > potentially quite lethal makes the game a bit more ''real''. The GM has some flexibility as to how deadly combat really is. I'm not talking from a "fudging dice" standpoint. After there is a clear victor in the battle, people can be taken hostage, held for ransom, made to take an oath, etc. Death doesn't always have to result. Our characters have strong noble ties, so doing the "honorable" thing is expected between the PCs and NPCs. For those encounters with non-nobles, fights to the death do happen. For us, combat is more debilitating than lethal. My character has lost agility, dexterity (lost 2 fingers), eyesight, voice, and comeliness. > } From a realism standpoint, these procedures might be valid, I don't > } know. But from a playability standpoint, you'll end up rolling new > } characters more often than you might think. (We take about 6-8 hours to > } roll up characters, so we don't like to do it very often). > > Perhaps, but I don't think you'll have that much trouble, so long as you > can get to some sort of healer... As long as this is available, losing eyesight would be fine. I believe this would be similar to regenerating limbs though, which is practically unheard of in Harn. Lee (the rambling man) Gordon From: Axel Schudak > From: lrg@crud.cray.com (Lee Gordon) > these out of the air, no flames please...) The bottom line is that a strike > to the eye is more damaging than strikes to some other locations. Therefore, > ability loss is more likely from the eyes using the current Harn rules. > > Maybe I will change this rule to : If bleeding occurs 60% chance that eye > > is gone, MI and GI as usual. > This is a more preferable, but remember what you're talking about is > the equivalent to an "amputation" roll for an eye. Nasty stuff. I would > lobby for a special penalty that lasts until the wound is down to the > minor category. You are correct with the "amputation" roll. I just wondered why there is no "amputation" result for the eye. If you do'nt die, you will get a subtraction of 2 as the harshest result. Since the eyes are an extension of the brain, no real healing can occur to eye damage (if you assume that the eyeballs are hit). To reflect this, I tried to develope the "eye damage procedure". BTW, if there is a Vlasta attacking, this becomes irrelevant. He will take they eye whenever he gets a hit. Please correct me if this is wrong. From: SCHMUNK@SPACVAX.RICE.EDU (Robert B. Schmunk, 1-713-527-4939) Subject: Re: Character Death Perhaps I shouldn't be following up on this topic, as I've only HMed a few times, and have yet to kill a PC. However, the topic brings up some theoretical points about role-playing that I can't resist discussing. Basically, I have always found the lack of "death" in most fantasy role-playing objectionable. In many adventures in which a character of mine particpated (in a game system to be unnamed, but its initials are ADD), one or more PCs were usually killed per adventure, but after the rest of the party returned to town and "paid off" the local temple, they rose again to fight another day. To be blunt, I hate this. Not only does it ignore the condition of a body that's been dead for the length of time it took to reach a temple (and I've seen GMs willingly resurrect week-dead bodies), I believe that players think less about what they're doing when they do get their PCs into a fight. Invariably it's "Charge; I can always be resurrected." It's stuff like this that attracted me to HarnMaster in the first place. The combat system is reasonably realistic, wounds are bloody, and dreaded infectiosn may yet occur. While resurrection is still possible, it doesn't seem so easily obtainable. Okay, by now it's obvious that I'm a realism freak, which is somewhat odd when you consider that it's only fantasy involved. But still... well, realism creates challenges creates more satisfaction (in my mind) with successful adventures. And to get around to Steve Bartlett's original question. I can only state that if he's only killed 1 PC in 25 sessions (sounds like probably 50 fights), then the PCs are doing pretty well for themselves. Either they've been really lucky or they've been playing smart. In addition, the scenario he describes of knight's party encountering some Agrikans sounds pretty reasonable to me, at least on the PC side. I'm curious as to how the 4 Agrikans became unconscious, figuring that perhaps one or two should perhaps have been killed outright, but no big deal. As for the unscathed horse...well, somebody had to come out of the fight looking good, why not a horse? rbs PS Good thing you didn't get me started on Cure Light Wounds spells. From: SCHMUNK@SPACVAX.RICE.EDU (Robert B. Schmunk, 1-713-527-4939) Subject: EH articles A couple months ago I posted a message about all the modules and such that I was looking for. I've pretty much obtained everything I'm looking for (or can obtain it locally), except for one EH article. This is the Law article, which I think was in EH 2. I realize it has been in the second version of Chybisa, but I've got the version (oops) the *first* version and don't want to buy another copy. So, if any of you Americans or Canadians would care to mail me a photocopy, it would be greatly appreciated. If possible, I'd like to skip using any money in the transaction, and so I'll trade a photocopy of another hard to find article if that's okay with you. Manor, Astrology and Herblore come to mind. Please e-mail if you can help, schmunk@spacvax.rice.edu From: Klaus Ole Kristiansen Subject: Character death I have had no PC deaths in my campaign, though I have had two close calls. One was a single character, who had a serious wound. Another PC tried psionic healing, reducing HR with a CF. The first healing roll failed, causing infection. The psionic then reduced the HR to one with another CF. The wounded character made his devine intervention roll, otherwise he would have been dead. The other time the entire party was captured by a band of pagaelin and delivered in a very poor condition to an augur. I decided that I did not want to start a new party, and had a sindarin investigating commity come by. I now regret this, the players/PCs had been VERY stupid, taking a shortcut through pagaelin teritory to save the caravan fee. There have been several NPC deaths. The above mentioned psionic usually tries to heal shocked oponents, and usually gets CF. Klaus Kristiansen From: advent@ukc.ac.uk Subject: Combat Recently Rob Schmunk expressed some suprise that in the fight I detailed all four agrikans ended up unconscious. Personally I find that with reasonably armoured antagonists the possible results are 1. one person fails shock roll and go unconscious 2. get to the point where fatigue makes virtually everything impossible (I impose that when fatigue reaches mobility you collapse) 3. due to loss of weapon, fatigue etc the person attempts to surrender or run Thus if it is to be a 'fight to the death' as this one was, involving 4 agrikans on one side, and 2 laranians, and a beserk viking on the other, the usual end point is that all of one side will be unconscious / unable to move. I've only had about 2 'K' results on the party, and about 3 on their opponents in the 25 or so sessions. I'd guess that they included something like 20 fight scenes since we seem to average about one per session, though not always. That fight with the knights would have counted as one of the four or five largest. How does this compare with others experience of combat in Harn? Steve From: SCHMUNK@spacvax.rice.edu (Robert B. Schmunk, 1-713-527-4939) Subject: Training/Instruction A month or so ago, there was a discussion about development rolls coming a bit too frequently and how to slow them down a bit. One other idea I've had on this matter is to make it a bit more diffi- cult to locate an instructor. On Skills 7, it states that the PC will receive a development after 12 hours of instruction from anyone who has an ML 20 points higher. This strikes me as a bit odd in that it is very often a person may be very good at something but be totally incapable of explaining this skill to another person. Unless you consider knowledge of a skill to include the ability to teach it, HMs may want to alter the qualifications of a teacher so instead of requiring: teacher's skill ML > players's skill ML+20 *also* require that: teacher's average(skill ML and rhetoric ML) > player's skill ML+20 However, I'm not quite so sure about using rhetoric and would replace it in the above with a new automatic skill: Pedagogy Base Attributes: Voi, Int, Wil [Tai/Tar/Sko+1] OML = SB2 Thus, if a PC has ML50 in Broadsword, he must find an instructor who has Broadsword>69 *and* (Broadsword+Pedagogy)/2 > 69. Any comments on this new skill? Comments on using this requirement when receiving instruction? rbs From: Haavard Steinsbekk Subject: Combat Regarding the outcome of fights I have usually found that the winning side is the one with at least one fighter still standing while all the others are laying about either uncoscious or in shock. That person can then help his friends and dispatch the enemy. I have very seldom experienced an outright kill in a fight. Usually people die by having their head choped off after the fight or from lack of first aid. In fact the only time I had a kill was when two PC got so angry that they attacked each other.... Haavard. From: advent@ukc.ac.uk Subject: Tax Recently Haavard Steinsbekk wrote asking about the collection of taxes. I'm not sure about how the urban tax system would work, but have a better idea for the rural. Taxes are usually levied on the land owned, possibly also on a headcount as well. Since the farmers only really make a profit after the harvest, then this is when the taxes on the people will be collected (often either in the form of either labour harvesting the lords land, or in a tithe of the harvest) Trading taxes, and property taxes are only really used within the towns. I'd guess that businesses within the town would probably pay taxes monthly, traders travelling into the town would pay taxes on entry and/or exit, depending on the type of tax, the amounts assessed by an agent of the King / town council or whatever, and open to appeal to a higher authority. I don't think that the party are likely to be suprised by a tax demand (unless they haven't enquired about them) It is not in the interrest of those collecting the tax to cause this sort of problem - they'd much rather just quietly collect the money in as quiet and simple method as possible. From: ccelric@castor.ucdavis.edu (Eric J. Anderson) Subject: psionic healing? Klaus Kristiansen says : >There have been several NPC deaths. The above mentioned psionic >usually tries to heal shocked opponents, and usually gets CF. CF has no effect on the target, if I recall, just requires a e3 shock roll vs. AURA. (I don't have my books with me right now though) Eric Anderson From: dweinste@carl.org (Dave Weinstein) Subject: Changes to HarnMaster I'm curious as to what modifications other's have made to the HarnMaster rules; specifically, has anyone found any sort of a decent means of allowing characters to work on improving stats without throwing the game drastically out of balance? To start things off, I'll describe the "House Rules" I use... ------------- Psionics: I don't like the way they integrate into the game (too ruddy many psionic players running around ESP'ing... :-) ), so I discarded that section completely. Priestly Rituals and Divine Invocations: All Piety point totals are kept by the GM and are kept secret (you shouldn't ever *know* what your diety thinks of you). Because my worlds have far fewer dieties (current has only two for humans, and two for Khuzdul and Sindarin combined), I don't use ritual lists. Rather, the player prays, and that prayer is interpreted (much in the way you would interpret a Divine Intervention request), and a cost in piety is assigned, based on the type of action, and how well it jibes with the precepts of the diety in question (i.e. healing the sick when worshipping a healer god doesn't cost much at all, blighting a field when worshipping a fertility goddess costs *lots*). Going negative into piety generates a geas ("You have abused the powers I have given you..."). Character Generation: I've pretty much tossed out the generation rules entirely. Players conceive a character conception *and* history, and the result is then turned into HarnMaster mechanics, much along the lines of the "points based" systems. Since there *isn't* really a points based conversion rule, making the system work depends on both the GM (to keep things in line), and the players (to keep munchkinism *out*). --Dave -- From: ccmsean@bullwinkle.ucdavis.edu (Sean A. Matheis) Subject: Psionic Healing >Klaus Kristiansen says : >>There have been several NPC deaths. The above mentioned psionic >>usually tries to heal shocked opponents, and usually gets CF. >CF has no effect on the target, if I recall, just requires a e3 shock roll >vs. AURA. (I don't have my books with me right now though) > >Eric Anderson You are correct; a CF on any psionic talent requires an e3 shock roll, as a MF requires an e1. On a side note, Eric Anderson (ccelric@deneb.ucdavis.edu), Jeff Barrett (ccmjeff@deneb.ucdavis.edu) and I have expanded on a skill enhancement system for improvement via study and/or time in the working environment. I'll post it in the next few days. Sean ccmsean@deneb.ucdavis.edu From: SCHMUNK@spacvax.rice.edu (Robert B. Schmunk, 1-713-527-4939) Subject: A couple of things... 1. Dave Weinstein mentions keeping Piety Points a secret from the player. This with idea that the PC should not know how much of an "in" he's got with his deity. I like this idea and will be adopting it immediately. 2. Dave also mentions tossing out the character generation system and urging the players to come up with a profile/history of the PC they'd like to run. Personally, I think is a bit far toward the direction of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but for every GM there is a system. I must admit seeing a bit of munch- kinism among my players as they try to increase their MLs, but it's not serious enough to worry me. 3. In a discussion of taxes, someone (sorry, forgot the name) mentioned collecting it from the rural people after the harvest. This may very well be the case with freeholders, but with the serfs, labor is collected whenever it is needed to work the manor lord's land: at planting, harvest, etc. There is a discussion of how much labor a serf owes his lord in Shorkyne (or the feudal section of Harn- World; one of those two), and it's something like 3 or 4 days per year for each acre held. Of course, the lord also gets to collect whenever the serf wants something special, like permission for a child to marry. 4. My discussion of a new Pedagogy skill (a posting yesterday) is a bit too complex in retrospect, but I was typing it in as I thought of it. I'm now leaning toward the idea that after 12 hours of teaching, the teacher makes a Pedagogy roll, with the following possible results: CS - PC gets one or two development rolls (depending on generosity level of the individual GM) MS - PC gets one development roll MF - PC learns nothing CF - PC is confused and may unlearn something; GM might consider making the PC do a development roll in order to *retain* his current ML (for failure, drop it 1 pt) Of course, the teacher must still have an ML in the skill in question 20 pts higher than the PC's ML. Any thoughts on this idea? I haven't had any PCs spend enough time with a teacher to get a development roll and am wondering what more established GMs might think. rbs From: SCHMUNK@spacvax.rice.edu (Robert B. Schmunk, 1-713-527-4939) Subject: Taxes again... Oops, just realized the other, more likely side of the rural taxes issue. I just commented on when serfs might have to pay up, but how many players will you see running a serf PC? Far more likely that the PC is a knight who holds the manor. In this case, collection of taxes after the harvest is over makes sense to me. rbs From: dweinste@carl.org (Dave Weinstein) From: SCHMUNK@spacvax.rice.edu (Robert B. Schmunk, 1-713-527-4939) } 2. Dave also mentions tossing out the character generation system and } urging the players to come up with a profile/history of the PC } they'd like to run. Personally, I think is a bit far toward the } direction of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but for } every GM there is a system. I must admit seeing a bit of munch- } kinism among my players as they try to increase their MLs, but } it's not serious enough to worry me. Perhaps I should elaborate. I've taken to setting campaigns during historical cusps in Aethernya (my own world). The backdrops are times of change, and the characters may (or may not, if they choose not to), take part in these events. One of the reasons I prefer HarnMaster (and skill based systems in general), is that the players don't have to be mighty warriors (and will almost never, if not never, be mages [magic poor world]). But they are often people who found themselves involved in events because of who the character was and who they met, not how many people the character could slay, preach to, or patch up. In general, most players have shied away from Amazingly Astoundingly Superly Powerful (pat. pending, void where prohibited by law) conceptions, although I will allow them to be skilled in their chosen professions. Since the bulk of the campaign is on role playing and interaction, it is the personality more than the skills which become crucial. In fact, it is one of the factors in favor of the HarnMaster combat system, you simply cannot create a warrior who could withstand an squad of guardsmen with triple-crossbows. } 3. In a discussion of taxes, someone (sorry, forgot the name) mentioned } collecting it from the rural people after the harvest. This may } very well be the case with freeholders, but with the serfs, labor } is collected whenever it is needed to work the manor lord's land: } at planting, harvest, etc. There is a discussion of how much labor } a serf owes his lord in Shorkyne (or the feudal section of Harn- } World; one of those two), and it's something like 3 or 4 days } per year for each acre held. Of course, the lord also gets to } collect whenever the serf wants something special, like permission } for a child to marry. Yes, serfs would pay both in labor *and* in kind at harvest (as well as various penalties, such as cash or kind remittance in return for the drioit de seignueure (spelling optional) being avoided). In general serfs and freemen would pay in kind or labor. It wasn't until the fairs which started offering a little more flow of cash and the growth of the cities that taxes started really being in coin (unless dealing with nobility). } 4. My discussion of a new Pedagogy skill (a posting yesterday) is } a bit too complex in retrospect, but I was typing it in as I thought } of it. I'm now leaning toward the idea that after 12 hours of } teaching, the teacher makes a Pedagogy roll, with the following } possible results: } CS - PC gets one or two development rolls (depending on generosity } level of the individual GM) } MS - PC gets one development roll } MF - PC learns nothing } CF - PC is confused and may unlearn something; GM might consider } making the PC do a development roll in order to *retain* } his current ML (for failure, drop it 1 pt) } Of course, the teacher must still have an ML in the skill in question } 20 pts higher than the PC's ML. } } Any thoughts on this idea? I haven't had any PCs spend enough time } with a teacher to get a development roll and am wondering what } more established GMs might think. I'm not sure that this really is needed. Quite frankly, a chance to increase a skill by one percentage point after spending 12 hours working with someone more skilled isn't really that far out of line. On the other hand, I like the idea for opening the skills... --Dave -- From: marten@rieska.oulu.fi (Master of Twilight) Subject: Calendar Greetings unto the populace of the Island of Harn (and the GM's too..:) I have now browsed through all the previous mailings the administrator mailed me (thanks again! :). Lots of good questions and good ideas. I will use them when I manage to start a new campaign. (The previous one 'died' since most of the players move off during summer and it wasn't such a success anyway. The players were the PC's - that is SOMETHING teleported (?) them form Terra to Harn etc... Too bad it didn't work as I hoped it would..:) Anyway - to the subject of this posting: Calendar Yes, I know, calendar is quite easy to do, you just use regular weeks and the last day is a holiday... Or is it? Well, in Ear..umm Terra anyway but since there are several 'Churches' in Harn, each of which acknowledges the existence of the other Deities - but is not necessarily in good terms with other religions, a 'common holiday' is quite difficult to establish. Also, what is a Harnic Week anyway? Well,I ran into this problem as my players wanted to find it out. Also it would affect several of the city-scenarios/adventures I planned. Since I'm a medievalist (and a member of SCA - founding one in Incipient Shire of Aarnimets{ (==Finland)) I naturally tried to find out clues from my books of medieval Europe. Nope, no good. ONE CHURCH ENVIRONMENT was too overpowering. Then I realized (since most of the adventuring happened in Tharda (which is roughly equivalent to Republican time of Rome)) that Roman calendar might be the ideal source - Romans had quite a few religions existing simultaneously, none of which was actually the 'state religion'. So I browsed through the 'Atlas of Roman Empire' and lo! On one page there WAS actually a photo of roman calendar (Empiric time). Reading it briefly I was convinced of its suitability to Harnic use. First of all - Romans had a 8 day week. Now, let us think of Harnic year.. 360 days / 8 = 45 weeks. Excactly. Next, the end of each week was reserved for MARKET. Now, I know BIG markets are quite rare and once a week is quite often, but then - the weekly markets don't have to be so big ones, right? Thirdly, the roman calendar listed a number of holidays (boy, did the romans had festivals!! whew!) which were divided in several classes according to their effect on work. On the most important holidays, all work was forbidden, in some holidays only certain jobs (such as baking, butchering, etc) were allowed (to provide foodstuffs) etc. The problem is, which holidays would a Harnic culture have? I have made a calendar, which has fixed holidays but I'd like to hear some suggestions/ideas/opinions/flames/etc. The calendar itself is too difficult to post here, but the holidays are listed below: COMMON HOLIDAYS (applicable throughout the Harnic Island) ========================================================= (roughly) each 8th day: Market day (29. Nolus is a market day due to Midsummer Eve -feast 30. Nolus) (29. Morgat is a market day due to New year's Eve -feast 30. Morgat) Each 15th of the current month: Midmonth day (Note that market days never overlap with midmonth days, they do overlap the last and first of each month. That's why I decided to have a Midmonth day instead of 'First of Month' or 'Last of Month' -days) 1.Nuzyael: New Year's Day 27.-30. Peonu: Spring Feast 30. Nolus: Midsummer Eve 1. Larane: Midsummer Feast 30. Azura: Harvest's End 1.-4. Halane: Harvest Feast 30. Savor: Midwinter Eve 1. Ilvin: Midwinter Feast 30. Morgat: New Year's Eve REGIONAL FESTIVALS (applicable to given kingdom only) ===================================================== Kaldor: King's Birthday, Coronation Day, St. Ambrathas' Day (Laranian saint) Orbaal: King's Birthday, Coronation Day Kanday: King's Birthday, Coronation Day, St. Ambrathas' Day (Laranian saint) Melderyn: King's Birthday, Coronation Day Chybisa: King's Birthday, Coronation Day Rethem: King's Birthday, Coronation Day, Balefire Feast (Agrikan feast 8.Agr) Tharda: Opening of the Senate Session (overlaps with Midwinter Feast) Closing of the Senate Session (overlaps with New Year's Eve) Evael: Night of the Golden Twilight (Siem-feast 15. Azura), Lament of the Battle of Sorrows, Coronation Day Azadmere: Foundation Feast, Lament of Kiraz, Lament of the Battle of Sorrows, Coronation Day, King's Birthday NOTE: The order given is the order of importance. e.g. in Chybisa King's birthday is more important than Coronation day but in Azadmere it is not so (the longer-living races are not as fond of counting years as are we short-living races..:) The actual dates (which cannot be found from books) are scattered through- out the calendar (I established them by rolling the d12 and d30, except with the Lament of Kiraz (which 'was sacked in the early summer') and the Lament of Battle of Sorrows (battles do occur more frequently in summer since in spring the weather is not good and (in agricultural tribes) crops must be planted - and in autumn the food must be gathered/harvested). Weather in winter on the other hand is too hard for fighting great battles. Well, that's all I have ready for now. Please, do mail comments (on mailing list) since I think there's still room for lots of improvement in it! marten ======================================================================== # At office: Atte Kinnula # In the Current Middle Ages: # # Rakentajantie 5 F/303 # Llwyd ap Cadwaladr # # 90570 OULU, FINLAND # (now try pronouncing that >;)# From: lrg@crud.cray.com (Lee Gordon) Subject: Re: Combat/House Rules/Training Re: Combat/Death > *From: advent@ukc.ac.uk > Subject: Combat > > Recently Rob Schmunk expressed some suprise that in the fight I detailed > all four agrikans ended up unconscious. Personally I find that with > reasonably armoured antagonists the possible results are > > 1. one person fails shock roll and go unconscious > 2. get to the point where fatigue makes virtually everything impossible > (I impose that when fatigue reaches mobility you collapse) > 3. due to loss of weapon, fatigue etc the person attempts to surrender > or run > > How does this compare with others experience of combat in Harn? > > Steve This is my experience as well, except for one more result. 4. due to 15+ injuries to limbs, the person can't move or attack. A semi-pacifist character I have tries for this result, and has a motto of 'de-feet instead of defeat'. I also agree with most other observations that Kill rolls are pretty infrequent through the course of combat. That doesn't make combat any less deadly though. ================================================================================ Re: House Rules > *From: dweinste@carl.org (Dave Weinstein) > Subject: Changes to HarnMaster > > I'm curious as to what modifications other's have made to the HarnMaster > rules; specifically, has anyone found any sort of a decent means of > allowing characters to work on improving stats without throwing the game > drastically out of balance? > > To start things off, I'll describe the "House Rules" I use... > > Psionics: I don't like the way they integrate into the game (too ruddy > many psionic players running around ESP'ing... :-) ), so I discarded that > section completely. Our GM does this as well. In fact, in one campaign, the whole psionic system was replaced by a system much like the spell system (level based, convocational, etc). This creates opportunities for a psionicist to develop new psionic abilities, instead of being limited to only those skills you know. Another psionic twist was created when we first started using HarnMaster. At the time, I was playing a 4th Level Paladin in AD&D. When we converted over, the character became a Knight of Larani, and had the psionic ability of Healing as an equivalent to "laying on hands". We decided that this ability was divinely given, and drew its power from Larani. When the power is used, a beam of light breaks through the clouds, angelic voices sing, etc. Later, as we rolled up non-AD&D character attributes, I rolled on the psyche table, and happened to hit theophobia, which is fear of the divine! As a result, the character *hates* to use this ability, and only does so to save a life. It's not like, "bummer, MF on the physician roll. Oh, well, the healer will raise it to H6 anyway". While it started as a random act of fate, it became a good idea. This has worked to keep the game balance in check, and also makes it difficult to heal people opposed to Larani. You need to plead your case to heal an Agrikan Knight... I would suggest tailoring psionics to individuals based on their circumstances, if you use psioinics. A house rule we use is to limit the amount of armor that a person can wear. We discovered that we were in the midst of an arms race (even though we have no access to plate), and bandits were walking around with great helms, quilt and scale, etc. Broadswords were wimpy and daggers were a joke. What our GM decided to do is to limit the percentage amount of the body that could be covered by armor without penalty. He spent a great deal of time looking at armored figures during the middle ages, and determined that they wore armor that covered 155% of their body, on average. So, that gave rise to the following rules. 1. No more than two layers of armor can be worn without a special penalty. The penalty is double the percentage of the body covered by that third layer. For example, if you had three layers on your neck (%2 of body), the penalty would be 4%. 2. For each percentage of body covering over 155%, there is a 1% penalty. At first it's a bunch of extra math, but after you get your armor figured out, you shouldn't need to change it much. This allows knights to effectively wield broadswords, and bandits to go back to leather armor... ================================================================================ Re: Training/Stat improvement There has been some talk here about people wanting to make it more difficult for PCs to train. I'm just curious as to what PCs are training in that is causing problems. Weapon skills can only be improved to 69 via training, and other skills (with the exception of spells) don't excessively unbalance the game. I find that as my character gets better at skills, the tasks become more difficult as well (locks become more complex, foes become more competent, etc.), so it all comes out in the wash... As far as stat improvement goes, you are limited to the 125% of original stat, which keeps things down, plus the chance of rolling higher than the current stat becomes prohibitive after awhile. Over the course of 150 rolls, you have a 50%-50% chance of rolling one 18. Stat Percent chance to roll above stat on 3d6 12 25.9% 13 16.2% 14 9.3% 15 4.6% 16 1.9% 17 0.5% Also there are training costs involved, and while people train, they generally don't have any income. PCs may have other duties (knights have service to lords, priests need to work in churches, thieves are expected to produce revenue for the guide, etc), which require time, so it would be tough to try to spend long periods of time training. These are my random thoughts for the day. Lee Gordon From: lee@sq.com (Liam Quin) Subject: Harnic Calendar There is a rather pretty calender in Gods of Harn, complete with various holidays and colour-coded blobs. I found it a little boring -- awfully regular, and not mediaeval at all! But it's there... Liam -- Liam Quin, lee@sq.com, SoftQuad, Toronto, +1 416 963 8337 the barefoot programmer From: SCHMUNK@spacvax.rice.edu (Robert B. Schmunk, 1-713-527-4939) Subject: markets and festivals Speaking of markets... In LIFE IN A MEDIEVAL CITY, by J&F Geis, there is a nice discussion about the big fairs at Troyes, France. I found it particularly handy for the info about what kind of items make it worthwhile for merchants to carry long distances, but there;s other handy stuff. As for lesser markets, and for just general "feel" of medieveal life, I'd like to recommend a novel by Ken Follett, THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH. This is about a town trying to construct a cathedral during the time of England's conflict between Maud and Stephen, but there's a lot more than just building the cathedral: politics, market info, rights of the nobles, etc. Oh, and the story was pretty good too. Speaking of festivals... Gods of Harn has a calendar with all the various holy days marked. Some events correspond with festivals; for example, the 17th day of Larane is the Feast of St. Ambrathas (Laranian faith) and many temples sponsors tourneys on that day. With Peonists, the Harvest Home festival on 4th Azura once "tended to be riotous or violent debauches" but have quieted and are now peaceful and merry celebrations. rbs From: Klaus Ole Kristiansen Subject: Armor limitations We use a simpler rule. If a location is covered by more than one layer of armor, all but the heaviest gives double encumbrance. Ordinary clothes give no encumbrance in any case, and no protection unless they are the only covering of that location. Boots are considered armor, not clothes for the purpose of this rule. Klaus Kristiansen From: SCHMUNK@spacvax.rice.edu (Robert B. Schmunk, 1-713-527-4939) Subject: Psionic house rules Dave Weinstein mentions discarding the Psionic rules entirely. Lee Gordon mentions one GM who replaces psionics with something much like the spell system. In another case, a Laranian knight had to pray for divine intervention in order to use Healing. Prompted by these comments, I started thinking about the psionic rules and realized that there is indeed something wrong. As it has popped up in my campaign world, and presumably in many others too, good mages are also heavy in psionic skills because Aura is common to calculating both psionic and spell bases. For example, one player of mine in creating a PC used the method where you start all seven attributes at 8 and then distribute another 28 points between them. He arrnged for Aura 17 and thus according to the rules gets 4 psionic skills; meanwhile, his spell bases are uniformly good and he'll be able to learn spells in *any* convocation up to CL V. In other words, this PC could turn into a heavyweight after he's been played for a while, not because that's the way things happened but because the player arranged it during character generation (also a display of munchkinism now that I reflect upon it). Prompted by posting here, and by the incident I just described, it looks like there will soon be new Psionic house rules in my campaign world. I haven't come up with anything I really like yet, so I'm hoping more of you GMs out there can post what you've been doing so that I can steal your ideas. BTW, in a combat I ran the other knight, there were *three* hits to eyes, two on the same PC. Call it bad luck, chance, or whatever, that particular players was not amused. Also BTW, I took a look at HarnLine the other night. You can regard what I'm about to say as hearsay, but it would appear that Trierzon is not coming out this year. Crossby has commented that when writing one of the big modules like Ivinia or Shorkyne, he has to also work on the surrounding areas at the same time in order to make things mesh. Trierzon apparently has a lot of borders. Also, he mentioned some called "The Curse of Ethlen" which I think may the final installment of Panaga and which sounds like it will be published later (as in not very soon) this year. rbs From: lee@sq.com (Liam Quin) Subject: Psionic rules | Prompted by these comments, I started thinking about the psionic rules | and realized that there is indeed something wrong. Yes. What I said was this: Yes, your character has 4 (say) psionic skills. Let me see which ones you got. Well, your character only knows about some of these. Perhaps he'll learn about the others if someone Awakens him -- i.e., uses the skill in his presence, or teaches him -- maybe. For now, the character knows nothing of them at all! I generally let them have one or two non-combat ones, though, if they rolled them. Liam -- Liam Quin, lee@sq.com, SoftQuad, Toronto, +1 416 963 8337 the barefoot programmer From: advent@ukc.ac.uk Subject: Several Points The list has been fairly busy recently, so I decided that since I just had to respond to a couple of the items, I'd do it all in one go! Anyway here goes... 1. Psionics In my view these seem far too common for the description of harn. For example EACH talent will be possessed by about 1 in 500 of the population (3d6 Aura, and aura over 14 for talent, rough calculation). This seems a little high, ie there is likely to be a psionic healer per large town, and the demand on them is likely to mean they are good. Hence resurrection is possible in each town! I'm starting to adopt a method proposed I believe here when the list started... Psionic talents are dormant until they are triggered by something into functioning, so that most people (including players) don't know they are psionic, even if they are! (triggered by relevant Savoryan spell, artifact etc) 2. Piety Points Up until recently I didn't have a priest in the party, so this wasn't a problem. If the characters wished for divine intervention they usually said they were burning all their piety anyway so it didn't really matter. I can see some benefit for keeping the piety scores hidden from the players, but I'd also claim that the character would have some idea of their standing with their God, and a Priest would definately have a good idea, and probably suitable dreams if their piety was getting too low! For those of you who keep piety hidden, do you have players say "I'm using 40 piety for this request", or "I'm using quarter of my remaining piety" or what? 3. Skill Improvements I quite like the idea of the pedagogy skill, though I'm not sure if I will use it. The main problem I see with the skill improvements is that, despite what players say, they are too fast. For example a blacksmith continuously working at his craft for 3 years is almost guaranteed a skill of 100% (especially if you use specialisation). Compare this with the star ratings of most 'masters' in the various modules! Slowing down the 'taught' time in this manner will not affect this problem with the self taught scheme, simply bring the gains from both schemes closer together. 4. Stat Improvements is this just a house rule, or from the main rules? (I can't remember seeing it anywhere) 5. Calendar I've been using the calendar from 'Gods of Harn'. I must admit that festivals and holidays are something that I kind of ignore. Up until recently the party has had two main religions, Sarajin and Larani, with several players that aren't highly religious, but follow Peoni. The Sarajin lot spent the month of Sarajin in a festival at a clan house, and the Larani lot went to the Chelabin Tourney. They are now set up in a village that is about 6 hours journey from the nearest Temple, and so they don't go to the minor festivals. The question I'd like to ask others, is do they give the serfs days off for the religious festivals? and if so which ones? These would affect the party since they now form the backbone of a newly settled village. 6. Magic A new thread, started by me. I've just finished reading through "Tome of the Shek-Pvar", but haven't got to add it into my campaign yet. How many of the optional rules are people using? Steve From: port@camcom.sta.sub.org (Stefan Schultze) Subject: Calendar&Time :From: marten@rieska.oulu.fi (Master of Twilight) :Subject: Calendar : :Anyway - to the subject of this posting: Calendar There is actually a calendar with the holidays for all deities in the Gods Of Harn module. :Also, what is a Harnic Week anyway? As mentioned in Harndex 30 days are one month. How would you do this with 8 days a week ? In Harnmaster / Campaign I, Months & Days under the month table you'll find the note: Tuzyn Reckoning does not have a seven day week. A "tenday" (three per month) is commonly used, and a "Hinyael" (fifteen days) is met with occasionally. In some regions the days are given names of their own, but there is nowhere near the conformity .... :The problem is, which holidays would a Harnic culture have? Again, this could be found in Gods Of Harn. There're _many_. :COMMON HOLIDAYS (applicable throughout the Harnic Island) :========================================================= :1.Nuzyael: New Year's Day :27.-30. Peonu: Spring Feast :30. Nolus: Midsummer Eve :1. Larane: Midsummer Feast :30. Azura: Harvest's End :1.-4. Halane: Harvest Feast :30. Savor: Midwinter Eve :1. Ilvin: Midwinter Feast :30. Morgat: New Year's Eve :REGIONAL FESTIVALS (applicable to given kingdom only) :===================================================== :Kaldor: King's Birthday, Coronation Day, St. Ambrathas' Day (Laranian saint) :Orbaal: King's Birthday, Coronation Day :Kanday: King's Birthday, Coronation Day, St. Ambrathas' Day (Laranian saint) :Melderyn: King's Birthday, Coronation Day :Chybisa: King's Birthday, Coronation Day :Rethem: King's Birthday, Coronation Day, Balefire Feast (Agrikan feast 8.Agr) :Tharda: Opening of the Senate Session (overlaps with Midwinter Feast) : Closing of the Senate Session (overlaps with New Year's Eve) :Evael: Night of the Golden Twilight (Siem-feast 15. Azura), : Lament of the Battle of Sorrows, Coronation Day :Azadmere: Foundation Feast, Lament of Kiraz, Lament of the Battle of Sorrows, : Coronation Day, King's Birthday It's a good idea to plan holiday's for regional festivals. So long, Stefan +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+ H (') (') Stefan Schultze USENET: port@camcom.sta.sub.org H H | |___| | 8000 Muenchen H H | _ | - WEST GERMANY - Dragons are not to be toyed with. H H |__| |__| World Wildlife Found B-) H +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+ From: Klaus Ole Kristiansen Subject: several points advent@ukc.ac.uk writes Subject: Several Points The list has been fairly busy recently, so I decided that since I just had to respond to a couple of the items, I'd do it all in one go! Anyway here goes... >1. Psionics > In my view these seem far too common for the description of harn. >For example EACH talent will be possessed by about 1 in 500 of the >population (3d6 Aura, and aura over 14 for talent, rough calculation). The character generation rules are for PCs. PCs have 3d6 aura, the average peasant does not. PCs have a number of psi talents based on aura, the average NPC does not. >4. Stat Improvements > is this just a house rule, or from the main rules? (I can't >remember seeing it anywhere) There is NO way to improve stats in the rules as published (save for certain spells, which can raise them temporarily). >5. Calendar > The question I'd like to ask others, is do they give the serfs days >off for the religious festivals? and if so which ones? These would >affect the party since they now form the backbone of a newly settled >village. According to Harnlore, most services take place after work. Klaus Kristiansen From: dweinste@carl.org (Dave Weinstein) On May 20, 9:06pm, advent@ukc.ac.uk wrote: } Subject: Several Points } } } The list has been fairly busy recently, so I decided that since I just } had to respond to a couple of the items, I'd do it all in one go! Anyway } here goes... } } 2. Piety Points } Up until recently I didn't have a priest in the party, so this } wasn't a problem. If the characters wished for divine intervention they } usually said they were burning all their piety anyway so it didn't really } matter. I can see some benefit for keeping the piety scores hidden from } the players, but I'd also claim that the character would have some idea } of their standing with their God, and a Priest would definately have a } good idea, and probably suitable dreams if their piety was getting too } low! } } For those of you who keep piety hidden, do you have players say } "I'm using 40 piety for this request", or "I'm using quarter of my } remaining piety" or what? A more apt question would be "what are piety points?" (from a character's standpoint). The priest prays for something to occur, and (usually) it does, with a cost commensurate to the scope of the request *and* modified by the requests conformance to the god's teachings (healing priests cursing fields costs *lots*). --Dave -- From: ccelric@castor.ucdavis.edu (Eric J. Anderson) Subject: Secret Piety points The subject of piety points is somewhat touchy with me as well. I have often considered keeping the totals myself, but have been reluctant so far because of the added book keeping. Also if I begin to keep track I have a feeling that my players might stop praying. It is conducive to role-playing when the characters act out their prayers to their respective gods. On a different subject, you should expect the Skill and Attribute Improvement system that Sean spoke of posted by tonight. -Eric From: advent@ukc.ac.uk Subject: Ward of Arkana I asked this question a while back, but haven't seen any reply, so I thought I'd try again. In the 'Tome of the Shek Pvar' and 'Grey Mysteries' they've moved EGO imbueing magic into Neutral, and have removed the requirement that the item must first have had a CS Ward of Arkana cast upon it. I have no problem with this (other than that it will probably increase the amount of EGO items around), but wondered what happened to Ward of Arkana? I could find no reference to this. Is this spell now elsewhere (it was common), have I just overlooked it, has the effect of this spell been made part of other magics, or none of these? ;-) Steve From: advent@ukc.ac.uk Subject: Background Information I've noticed a couple of people recommending books relevant to the era on this list recently. I'd like to recommend the following. Edith Pargetter (sp?), also writes as Ellis Peters Edith has published a number of historical novels, based in England of the twelfth and thirteenth century, (the times of the Stephen and Maud civil war, the crusades and so on). Generally they are based around Shrewsbury and the area around that (on the English side of the English-Welsh boarder). As novels I find them somewhat lacking, though they are good for detail about the times, and I believe historically accurate. She is far more popular (in the country) as Ellis Peters, the writer of 'whodunnit' novels, crimesolving novels set in the mid twelfth century, in which the chief character is Brother Cadfael, a brother in the abbey at Shrewsbury, and one time crusader. As such books go these are quite good (and I prefer them to her novels). There are probably about 20 in this series. These are also historically correct in their descriptions, and provide quite a good view of both monastic and town life of the time. Both types of book are good for a general feel of life in medieval England, and they definately would produce some well detailed npc's! Steve From: Klaus Ole Kristiansen Subject: Psionic healing I have checked the rules, and you are right. In Harnmaster, no effect is listed for CF. The rule that CF reduces HR comes from a set of extended psionics rules that I got from the net. Klaus Kristiansen From: advent@ukc.ac.uk Subject: Piety and NPC Stats In a recent article I asked about the number of people of harn with psionics, as well as the issue of keeping piety points hidden. I'd like to follow up on some of the replies this generated... From: Klaus Ole Kristiansen > > The character generation rules are for PCs. PCs have 3d6 aura, the > average peasant does not. PCs have a number of psi talents based > on aura, the average NPC does not. I'd very strongly disagree with this. Harn is not a heroic game in the style of ADnD. Harn characters are normal people, its just that they have chosen careers that (hopefully) allow then to travel around. As such I would generate NPCs in exactly the same way as PCs. This is my own personal opinion, and how I run my game, though I also beleive there is nothing in HarnMaster to claim that the character generation system is only for PCs, in fact there are hints to the contrary (for example the medical problems that are not recommended for the PCs). The only advantage I give PCs over a randomly created NPC is that they generate primary stats on 4d6 drop one die rather than 3d6, to give them a slight edge. Inportant NPCs have their primary stats fixed by me. By primary stats in the above, I mean those important to the character, not necessarily the first four physical, and three mental as in the rules. From: dweinste@carl.org (Dave Weinstein) > > A more apt question would be "what are piety points?" (from a character's > standpoint). The priest prays for something to occur, and (usually) it > does, with a cost commensurate to the scope of the request *and* modified > by the requests conformance to the god's teachings (healing priests > cursing fields costs *lots*). A good point. I'd agree that the character wouldn't know what piety points, or the costs for apropriate things were. A lay worshipper usually only calls for divine intervention when he really wants it to happen, and so in game terms would burn the extra 50pp to get the max modifier he could, or all of his remaining piety if it was less. A priest however is likely to use divine intervention for things that his rituals don't cover, and so is less likely to have an all or nothing approach. If we consider the 'minor intervention' costs, then he may burn from 5pp to 55pp, the difference between a couple of days, and a months continous prayer! Admittedly there are both ritual prayer modifiers and appropriateness modifiers to this, which will hopefully help the priest, but he doesn't know these when he starts the call for intervention. Overall I like the idea of keeping piety scores secret, but think that the mechanics would defeat any benefit. If a player started taking advantage of knowing his own piety score, then the secret modifiers to intervention start getting weighted against him! Steve From: lrg@crud.cray.com (Lee Gordon) Subject: Re: Several Points > > From: Klaus Ole Kristiansen > Subject: several points > > >4. Stat Improvements > > is this just a house rule, or from the main rules? (I can't > >remember seeing it anywhere) > > There is NO way to improve stats in the rules as published (save for > certain spells, which can raise them temporarily). > I should probably have a .sig file that says I'm not a GM, nor do I have access to the rules. This would save on some (but not all) of the confusion that I seem to create. I'll try to explain how our house rule works for raising stats then. Our GM spent some time in the army. During that time, he went through several exercises aimed at physical development. After he was done, he was bigger, stronger, faster, etc. This led him to think, 'If you can improve your attributes in real-life, then why not in fantasy?'. The counter argument to this is that the abilities you roll are the peak that your character can reach in prime physical condition. What we do is allow PCs to spend two hours a day per stat for two weeks to get an attempt at improving an ability. At the end of the two weeks, you roll 3d6, and if the result is higher than the stat, the ability improves by 1. You need to get trained in the particular abililty, which costs about 120/stat/month. We have a cap of 125% of the originial ability for improvements through training. This may seem like munchinism, but we only have 3 PCs in our group, so for our own survivability, we need to be respectable with many diverse skills. Also, what this training really does is raise below avg abilities back to the average range. The high abilities would be too costly to improve. > 5. Calendar > From: port@camcom.sta.sub.org (Stefan Schultze) > Subject: Calendar&Time > > > :From: marten@rieska.oulu.fi (Master of Twilight) > :Subject: Calendar > > :Also, what is a Harnic Week anyway? > > As mentioned in Harndex 30 days are one month. How would you do this > with 8 days a week ? In Harnmaster / Campaign I, Months & Days under > the month table you'll find the note: > > Tuzyn Reckoning does not have a seven day week. > A "tenday" (three per month) is commonly used, and > a "Hinyael" (fifteen days) is met with occasionally. Our GM has 30 days/month, 4 weeks/month, and 7 days/week. If you do the math, there are two days left over. These are the religious days (15 & 30). On these days, you can not effectively do anything. This makes keeping track of time easy and still keeps 30 days/month. S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Gods Day 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Gods Day 30 It's kinda strange, but it works. Lee Gordon P. S. I will try to post our home-grown psionic rules later. I believe there was a request for psionic house rules??? From: dweinste@carl.org (Dave Weinstein) On May 22, 11:59am, advent@ukc.ac.uk wrote: } Subject: Piety and NPC Stats } From: dweinste@carl.org (Dave Weinstein) } > } > A more apt question would be "what are piety points?" (from a character's } > standpoint). The priest prays for something to occur, and (usually) it } > does, with a cost commensurate to the scope of the request *and* modified } > by the requests conformance to the god's teachings (healing priests } > cursing fields costs *lots*). } } A good point. I'd agree that the character wouldn't know what piety } points, or the costs for apropriate things were. A lay worshipper } usually only calls for divine intervention when he really wants it to } happen, and so in game terms would burn the extra 50pp to get the max } modifier he could, or all of his remaining piety if it was less. A } priest however is likely to use divine intervention for things that his } rituals don't cover, and so is less likely to have an all or nothing } approach. If we consider the 'minor intervention' costs, then he may } burn from 5pp to 55pp, the difference between a couple of days, and a } months continous prayer! Admittedly there are both ritual prayer } modifiers and appropriateness modifiers to this, which will hopefully } help the priest, but he doesn't know these when he starts the call for } intervention. Overall I like the idea of keeping piety scores secret, } but think that the mechanics would defeat any benefit. If a player } started taking advantage of knowing his own piety score, then the secret } modifiers to intervention start getting weighted against him! I have to disagree. First of all, with no "set" ritual lists, the difference between direct intervention and ritual becomes more a matter of degree. Rather than have a player burn "x" piety points, I judge how many they have spent based on how they word the prayer for aid. The more they ask for, the more they promise, and how much they dwell on previous acts determines how much they are spending. Role playing it rather than roll playing it. --Dave -- From badorion@watyew.waterloo.edu Thu May 23 00:10:58 1991 Received: from watyew.waterloo.edu by pop.stat.purdue.edu (5.61/Purdue_CC) id AA20440; Thu, 23 May 91 00:10:56 -0500 Received: by watyew.waterloo.edu id ; Thu, 23 May 91 01:10:49 EDT Date: Thu, 23 May 91 01:10:49 EDT From: "Brian A. Dorion" Message-Id: <9105230510.AA05500@watyew.waterloo.edu> To: parson@pop.stat.purdue.edu Status: R To: parson@pop.stat.prudue.edu Re: Calendar As one good gentle has mentioned the general term for a week in Harn is the tenday. In my campaign I tend to use the term ten-night or "tennit". This is based on the archaic use of sennight (pronounced sennit). According to my Oxford Illustrated Dictionary sennight means week and is a contraction of seven night. A similar useage is fortnight, for forteen night. Just the way I do it....... Brian Dorion From: ccelric@castor.ucdavis.edu (Eric J. Anderson) Subject: Skill Improvement Hello all! The following is a system that we have developed for our game to replace the current development roll system. It was born out of the realization that the current rules gave far too many devo rolls to characters who were training or practicing. Hours/development Roll SI Training Employment -- -------- ---------- 1 10 20 Instructor's 2 20 40 Pedagogy Roll:(optional) 3 30 60 CF: - 2x(15-Pedagogy SI) to roll 4 40 80 MF: - (15-Pedagogy SI) to roll 5 50 100 MS: + Pedagogy SI to roll 6 60 120 CS: + 2xPedagogy SI to roll 7 70 140 8 80 160 9 90 180 10 100 200 11 110 220 12 120 240 The standard rules say that for every 40hrs of employment or 12 hours of training, the character gets one development roll.(devo roll) This system curbs the syndrome of the apprentice who pays to be trained for 3 months, and almost surpases his master. Remember, that in order to be train someone, the instructor must have the skill at 20 points higher than his/her pupil. The devo roll should be modified by the Instructor's Pedagogy skill (or Rhetoric skill if you dont want to introduce the new skill) according to the table above. (c) 1991 Davis Harnmaster Players any comments? -Eric J. Anderson From: ccelric@castor.ucdavis.edu (Eric J. Anderson) Subject: Re: Ward of Arkana I believe that the Ward of Akana is now the Common Multi-Level Ward spell. I believe it is the same as the old Ward of Akana, but I may be wrong. -Eric J. Anderson. From: ccelric@castor.ucdavis.edu (Eric J. Anderson) Subject: Stat Improvement Hello again! Someone recently posted their stat improvement rules, and I thought that I would post ours. The rules presented previously relied on 3d6 rolls greater than your stat over a 2 week period of working out 2hrs /day. These rules take into account the character's willpower, because this determines how long a person can actually workout. Also, most stats cant improve over their beginning values. The only ones I allow are Strength and Endurance. It is silly to think that by practicing on an eye exam that your eyesight will improve, otherwise I would have done this for myself!! Strength can be improved in an obvious way, lifting rocks, doing push-ups, but not lifting weights! To my knowledge, there were no nautilus machines around in medieval europe. Also there is a good possibility that Smashums the Gladiator might throw out his back trying to reach his "full pump-tential." "What? lift that rock?, well perhaps if I were given several months of proper diet and training- perhaps a smaller rock" --Bill Murray as Hercules on SNL. The other stat which can be improved is Endurance. This is through long distance running, swimming (a chance for swimming development rolls) or perhaps skiing or other physical skills. There are various levels of physical training available for PCs to use. Training Program: Willpower Roll Stat Roll WFB* Light Training Regimen: (WILL)*4 (25-STAT)*2 5 2 hours/day (3 monthly devos) Moderate Training Regimen: (WILL)*3 (25-STAT)*3 10 4 hours/day (3 monthly devos+ 24d/month upkeep+ 50% employment) Intensive Training Regimen: (WILL)*2 (25-STAT)*4 20 8 hours/day (3 monthly devos+ 48d/month upkeep+ 0% employment) * WFB=Workout Factor Bonus :) Willpower Roll Results: CF: Concentration lost, no gains or further chances this month, Cumulative WFB is reset to 0. MF: Unsuccessful attempt at current Regimen, try WILL check at lower intensity to determine actual intensity of workout. If successful, attempt STAT roll at the less intensive regimen. Continue until you fail at the Light Training Regimen. If you fail the Light Training Regimen, then add the WFB of 5 points to the cumulative WFB for next month. MS: Successful attempt at current Regimen. Now test stat against current multiple. CS: Outstanding workout, Extremely effective. Test stat against Stat Roll + 25. Stat Roll Results: (remember to apply Cumulative WFB.) CF: OUCH! some sort of injury! Use common sense and GM discretion. Cumulative WFB is reset to 0. MF: Drats, No increase in stat, however add WFB to Cumulative WFB from the table above. MS: Success! increase stat by 1 point. cumulative WFB is reset to 0. CS: Outstanding Success! increase stat by 1 point, add 10 to the cumulative WFB. (Do not reset it to zero for next month.) Note: stats may only increase to a maximum of 125% of original value. The Willpower roll becomes harder to make as the training regimen gets more intensive. The pc chooses which level of training intensity he/she wants, expends the monthly devo rolls, the money for upkeep, and the time for the actual training. The figure for upkeep is only a suggestion, GMs should modify as they see fit. The % of employment is the amount of employment one can still do while training. Keep in mind most employers are not very amicable to flex-time or part time workers. Not that the higher the intensity of the training regimen, the higher the chance for stat improvement. If possible, the player might employ a trainer to help him/her with their regimen. The GM may wish to modify the Willpower roll by the trainer's SI in the applicable skill. Example skills: * Strength/Endurance: (Physical Training [Voi Wil End Ahn+2,Ahn+1,Fen+1] SB2) The skill of getting people motivated to go through their training regimen. NPC's with this skill might include gladiator trainers/slavers, Laranian/Agrikian fighting order instructors, etc. * Endurance improvement: Swimming, Climbing, Skiing. etc. Without some physical activity, Stats increased through training revert to original values over time. In order to avoid a depreciation in the increased stats, the player must devote 10 hours/month/stat to maintain the current value. If players neglect this then consult the following table once per month. Stat Depreciation: Check against (Current Stat-Original Stat)*10 CF/MF: No reduction. MS/CS: Reduce stat by one point. Effects of Increased stats: If a stat goes up, recalculate skill bases for all affected skills, and increase the ML by the skills OML*increase. For example, if Sir Loin of Beef's Broadsword SB went from 17 to 18, then increase Broadsword ML by (OML*change in SB)= 3*1. This method works well for other things such as magic items(gasp!) or spells which affect stats other than Strength or Endurance. The Lyahvi spell which increases eyesight comes to mind... The reasoning behind using OML for ML increases is that the OML is an indicator as to the relative importance of raw stats in the effective use of the skill. For example, Mace opens at OML 4 which means that raw stats are more important than in using a flail which is OML 2, which requires more skill than brute force. Effect of Decreased stats: Similarly, if a stat is decreased(only due to stat depreciation, and not injury) Then recalculate affected skill bases, and reduce Skill MLs by OML of skill. Stats reduced by injury affect skill bases normally, and skill ML's by 5*stat loss. An example of the Stat increase system in use: Luccero is a Lia-Kavair who recently made a big heist and has a lot of money and has decided to put some muscle onto his scrawny frame. He also has a lot of time to kill, while his enemies forget about him. His current Strength is a paultry 9, his Endurance is 10, and his Willpower is 17. He also has a friend who works training fighting slaves, who has agreed to help him train for a price (20d/month). Luccero's maximum STR is 9*1.25 =11 Luccero decides to improve his Strength first. He selects the Intensive Training Regimen, and expends his 48d+20d(not including lodging), his 3 monthly devo rolls and works at nothing else but training.(0% employment) After one month of training, Luccero makes a Willpower Check: Month CWFB (WILL)*2 +SI for trainer = 1 17 *2 +7 = 41. He rolls a MF, and tries again at the lower training regimen.(moderate) 17 *3 +7 = 58. This time he rolls a CS. He now tries to improve his strength with a bonus of +25. Since he made the CS at the Moderate level Regimen, the STR multiplier is only 3, and not 4. 0+ (25-STR)*3 +25 = 89. He rolls a MS against this and his STR is now 10. Since he made his stat devo roll, his CWFB is reset to 0. (it was already zero.) Luccero inspired by his success, decides to continue with his intensive regimen for another month. He expends the neccessary funds and devo rolls, and makes another Willpower check. Month CWFB (WILL)*2 +SI for trainer = 2 17 *2 +7 = 41. He rolls a MF, and tries again at lower regimen.(Moderate) 17 *3 +7 = 58. MF, tries at (Light Regimen). 17 *4 +7 = 75. Again, MF. He adds 5 (the WFB for Light Training) to his CWFB. Since he failed his will checks, he makes no stat improvement checks for this month. Still having lots of money, time, and will, he decides for another month of intensive workout. His trainer was killed in a freak temple accident, so he gains no trainer bonus. Month CWFB+ (WILL)*2 = 3 17 *2 = 34. He rolls a MS, and tries to improve his STR to 11.(its maximum) 5+ (25-10)*4= 65. He rolls a CS and improves his STR to it's maximum. Since he can go no higher with Strength, he loses the benefits of the CS After 3 months of training and a total expenditure of 204d (not including lodging) Luccero STR has gone from 9 to 11. Luccero's skills are adjusted, for example his Falchion which is STR STR DEX, increases from (9 + 9+16)/3 +3 (angberilius)= 14 to (11+11+16)/3 +3 =16. His ML (61) is also adjusted up by (Falchion OML * change in SB)= (3 * 2)=6. SB 16, ML 67. Eventually Luccero's enemies catch up with him and throw him in jail, He is shackled in the High tower. Every month, he checks vs. (Current Stat Value-Original value)*10, and after 2 years returns to his original Strength. (Realistically, his stats (STR,END, AGL, DEX,SPD) would decrease over time. As would skill MLs, but being thrown in jail is bad enough for Luccero, and the GM is feeling particularly nice) (c) 1991 Davis Harn Players --------------------------- cut here ----------------------------- Any comments would be greatly appreciated. -Eric J. Anderson From: marten@rieska.oulu.fi (Master of Twilight) Subject: Burn Impact.. Unto all Harniacs.. A question: How do you determine burn impacts from mundane fire? I couldn't find any reference to it from either Harnmaster or any other 'rule' book. Looking at the 'Orb of Zatara' (Peleahn III) and the combat tables (the chart of burning armour) I think that the *flames* do 2d6 BI (=Burn Impact) and touching a burning object does 3d6 BI (hence burning leather (close to skin though not (necessarily) touching it)) does 3d6. This occurred to me when a peleahn mage in my game tried to use Breath of Casyl to send flames towards his opponents (who was approaching him, there was a bonfire between them). I decided that this was not possible with BoC spell, but before I could say anything the mage rolled CF and thus saved me (and not himself..>;) from the situation... Anyway, the idea has troubled me since someone might try to do something say, with a torch. marten ======================================================================== # At office: Atte Kinnula # In the Current Middle Ages: # # Rakentajantie 5 F/303 # Llwyd ap Cadwaladr # # 90570 OULU, FINLAND # (now try pronouncing that >;)# From: advent@ukc.ac.uk Subject: Background Information I've noticed a couple of people recommending books relevant to the era on this list recently. I'd like to recommend the following. Edith Pargetter (sp?), also writes as Ellis Peters Edith has published a number of historical novels, based in England of the twelfth and thirteenth century, (the times of the Stephen and Maud civil war, the crusades and so on). Generally they are based around Shrewsbury and the area around that (on the English side of the English-Welsh boarder). As novels I find them somewhat lacking, though they are good for detail about the times, and I believe historically accurate. She is far more popular (in the country) as Ellis Peters, the writer of 'whodunnit' novels, crimesolving novels set in the mid twelfth century, in which the chief character is Brother Cadfael, a brother in the abbey at Shrewsbury, and one time crusader. As such books go these are quite good (and I prefer them to her novels). There are probably about 20 in this series. These are also historically correct in their descriptions, and provide quite a good view of both monastic and town life of the time. Both types of book are good for a general feel of life in medieval England, and they definately would produce some well detailed npc's! Steve From: Klaus Ole Kristiansen Subject: Psionic healing I have checked the rules, and you are right. In Harnmaster, no effect is listed for CF. The rule that CF reduces HR comes from a set of extended psionics rules that I got from the net. Klaus Kristiansen From: advent@ukc.ac.uk Subject: Piety and NPC Stats In a recent article I asked about the number of people of harn with psionics, as well as the issue of keeping piety points hidden. I'd like to follow up on some of the replies this generated... From: Klaus Ole Kristiansen > > The character generation rules are for PCs. PCs have 3d6 aura, the > average peasant does not. PCs have a number of psi talents based > on aura, the average NPC does not. I'd very strongly disagree with this. Harn is not a heroic game in the style of ADnD. Harn characters are normal people, its just that they have chosen careers that (hopefully) allow then to travel around. As such I would generate NPCs in exactly the same way as PCs. This is my own personal opinion, and how I run my game, though I also beleive there is nothing in HarnMaster to claim that the character generation system is only for PCs, in fact there are hints to the contrary (for example the medical problems that are not recommended for the PCs). The only advantage I give PCs over a randomly created NPC is that they generate primary stats on 4d6 drop one die rather than 3d6, to give them a slight edge. Inportant NPCs have their primary stats fixed by me. By primary stats in the above, I mean those important to the character, not necessarily the first four physical, and three mental as in the rules. From: dweinste@carl.org (Dave Weinstein) > > A more apt question would be "what are piety points?" (from a character's > standpoint). The priest prays for something to occur, and (usually) it > does, with a cost commensurate to the scope of the request *and* modified > by the requests conformance to the god's teachings (healing priests > cursing fields costs *lots*). A good point. I'd agree that the character wouldn't know what piety points, or the costs for apropriate things were. A lay worshipper usually only calls for divine intervention when he really wants it to happen, and so in game terms would burn the extra 50pp to get the max modifier he could, or all of his remaining piety if it was less. A priest however is likely to use divine intervention for things that his rituals don't cover, and so is less likely to have an all or nothing approach. If we consider the 'minor intervention' costs, then he may burn from 5pp to 55pp, the difference between a couple of days, and a months continous prayer! Admittedly there are both ritual prayer modifiers and appropriateness modifiers to this, which will hopefully help the priest, but he doesn't know these when he starts the call for intervention. Overall I like the idea of keeping piety scores secret, but think that the mechanics would defeat any benefit. If a player started taking advantage of knowing his own piety score, then the secret modifiers to intervention start getting weighted against him! Steve From: lrg@crud.cray.com (Lee Gordon) Subject: Re: Several Points > > From: Klaus Ole Kristiansen > Subject: several points > > >4. Stat Improvements > > is this just a house rule, or from the main rules? (I can't > >remember seeing it anywhere) > > There is NO way to improve stats in the rules as published (save for > certain spells, which can raise them temporarily). > I should probably have a .sig file that says I'm not a GM, nor do I have access to the rules. This would save on some (but not all) of the confusion that I seem to create. I'll try to explain how our house rule works for raising stats then. Our GM spent some time in the army. During that time, he went through several exercises aimed at physical development. After he was done, he was bigger, stronger, faster, etc. This led him to think, 'If you can improve your attributes in real-life, then why not in fantasy?'. The counter argument to this is that the abilities you roll are the peak that your character can reach in prime physical condition. What we do is allow PCs to spend two hours a day per stat for two weeks to get an attempt at improving an ability. At the end of the two weeks, you roll 3d6, and if the result is higher than the stat, the ability improves by 1. You need to get trained in the particular abililty, which costs about 120/stat/month. We have a cap of 125% of the originial ability for improvements through training. This may seem like munchinism, but we only have 3 PCs in our group, so for our own survivability, we need to be respectable with many diverse skills. Also, what this training really does is raise below avg abilities back to the average range. The high abilities would be too costly to improve. > 5. Calendar > From: port@camcom.sta.sub.org (Stefan Schultze) > Subject: Calendar&Time > > > :From: marten@rieska.oulu.fi (Master of Twilight) > :Subject: Calendar > > :Also, what is a Harnic Week anyway? > > As mentioned in Harndex 30 days are one month. How would you do this > with 8 days a week ? In Harnmaster / Campaign I, Months & Days under > the month table you'll find the note: > > Tuzyn Reckoning does not have a seven day week. > A "tenday" (three per month) is commonly used, and > a "Hinyael" (fifteen days) is met with occasionally. Our GM has 30 days/month, 4 weeks/month, and 7 days/week. If you do the math, there are two days left over. These are the religious days (15 & 30). On these days, you can not effectively do anything. This makes keeping track of time easy and still keeps 30 days/month. S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Gods Day 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Gods Day 30 It's kinda strange, but it works. Lee Gordon P. S. I will try to post our home-grown psionic rules later. I believe there was a request for psionic house rules??? From: dweinste@carl.org (Dave Weinstein) On May 22, 11:59am, advent@ukc.ac.uk wrote: } Subject: Piety and NPC Stats } From: dweinste@carl.org (Dave Weinstein) } > } > A more apt question would be "what are piety points?" (from a character's } > standpoint). The priest prays for something to occur, and (usually) it } > does, with a cost commensurate to the scope of the request *and* modified } > by the requests conformance to the god's teachings (healing priests } > cursing fields costs *lots*). } } A good point. I'd agree that the character wouldn't know what piety } points, or the costs for apropriate things were. A lay worshipper } usually only calls for divine intervention when he really wants it to } happen, and so in game terms would burn the extra 50pp to get the max } modifier he could, or all of his remaining piety if it was less. A } priest however is likely to use divine intervention for things that his } rituals don't cover, and so is less likely to have an all or nothing } approach. If we consider the 'minor intervention' costs, then he may } burn from 5pp to 55pp, the difference between a couple of days, and a } months continous prayer! Admittedly there are both ritual prayer } modifiers and appropriateness modifiers to this, which will hopefully } help the priest, but he doesn't know these when he starts the call for } intervention. Overall I like the idea of keeping piety scores secret, } but think that the mechanics would defeat any benefit. If a player } started taking advantage of knowing his own piety score, then the secret } modifiers to intervention start getting weighted against him! I have to disagree. First of all, with no "set" ritual lists, the difference between direct intervention and ritual becomes more a matter of degree. Rather than have a player burn "x" piety points, I judge how many they have spent based on how they word the prayer for aid. The more they ask for, the more they promise, and how much they dwell on previous acts determines how much they are spending. Role playing it rather than roll playing it. --Dave -- From badorion@watyew.waterloo.edu Thu May 23 00:10:58 1991 Received: from watyew.waterloo.edu by pop.stat.purdue.edu (5.61/Purdue_CC) id AA20440; Thu, 23 May 91 00:10:56 -0500 Received: by watyew.waterloo.edu id ; Thu, 23 May 91 01:10:49 EDT Date: Thu, 23 May 91 01:10:49 EDT From: "Brian A. Dorion" Message-Id: <9105230510.AA05500@watyew.waterloo.edu> To: parson@pop.stat.purdue.edu Status: R To: parson@pop.stat.prudue.edu Re: Calendar As one good gentle has mentioned the general term for a week in Harn is the tenday. In my campaign I tend to use the term ten-night or "tennit". This is based on the archaic use of sennight (pronounced sennit). According to my Oxford Illustrated Dictionary sennight means week and is a contraction of seven night. A similar useage is fortnight, for forteen night. Just the way I do it....... Brian Dorion From: ccelric@castor.ucdavis.edu (Eric J. Anderson) Subject: Skill Improvement Hello all! The following is a system that we have developed for our game to replace the current development roll system. It was born out of the realization that the current rules gave far too many devo rolls to characters who were training or practicing. Hours/development Roll SI Training Employment -- -------- ---------- 1 10 20 Instructor's 2 20 40 Pedagogy Roll:(optional) 3 30 60 CF: - 2x(15-Pedagogy SI) to roll 4 40 80 MF: - (15-Pedagogy SI) to roll 5 50 100 MS: + Pedagogy SI to roll 6 60 120 CS: + 2xPedagogy SI to roll 7 70 140 8 80 160 9 90 180 10 100 200 11 110 220 12 120 240 The standard rules say that for every 40hrs of employment or 12 hours of training, the character gets one development roll.(devo roll) This system curbs the syndrome of the apprentice who pays to be trained for 3 months, and almost surpases his master. Remember, that in order to be train someone, the instructor must have the skill at 20 points higher than his/her pupil. The devo roll should be modified by the Instructor's Pedagogy skill (or Rhetoric skill if you dont want to introduce the new skill) according to the table above. (c) 1991 Davis Harnmaster Players any comments? -Eric J. Anderson From: ccelric@castor.ucdavis.edu (Eric J. Anderson) Subject: Re: Ward of Arkana I believe that the Ward of Akana is now the Common Multi-Level Ward spell. I believe it is the same as the old Ward of Akana, but I may be wrong. -Eric J. Anderson. From: ccelric@castor.ucdavis.edu (Eric J. Anderson) Subject: Stat Improvement Hello again! Someone recently posted their stat improvement rules, and I thought that I would post ours. The rules presented previously relied on 3d6 rolls greater than your stat over a 2 week period of working out 2hrs /day. These rules take into account the character's willpower, because this determines how long a person can actually workout. Also, most stats cant improve over their beginning values. The only ones I allow are Strength and Endurance. It is silly to think that by practicing on an eye exam that your eyesight will improve, otherwise I would have done this for myself!! Strength can be improved in an obvious way, lifting rocks, doing push-ups, but not lifting weights! To my knowledge, there were no nautilus machines around in medieval europe. Also there is a good possibility that Smashums the Gladiator might throw out his back trying to reach his "full pump-tential." "What? lift that rock?, well perhaps if I were given several months of proper diet and training- perhaps a smaller rock" --Bill Murray as Hercules on SNL. The other stat which can be improved is Endurance. This is through long distance running, swimming (a chance for swimming development rolls) or perhaps skiing or other physical skills. There are various levels of physical training available for PCs to use. Training Program: Willpower Roll Stat Roll WFB* Light Training Regimen: (WILL)*4 (25-STAT)*2 5 2 hours/day (3 monthly devos) Moderate Training Regimen: (WILL)*3 (25-STAT)*3 10 4 hours/day (3 monthly devos+ 24d/month upkeep+ 50% employment) Intensive Training Regimen: (WILL)*2 (25-STAT)*4 20 8 hours/day (3 monthly devos+ 48d/month upkeep+ 0% employment) * WFB=Workout Factor Bonus :) Willpower Roll Results: CF: Concentration lost, no gains or further chances this month, Cumulative WFB is reset to 0. MF: Unsuccessful attempt at current Regimen, try WILL check at lower intensity to determine actual intensity of workout. If successful, attempt STAT roll at the less intensive regimen. Continue until you fail at the Light Training Regimen. If you fail the Light Training Regimen, then add the WFB of 5 points to the cumulative WFB for next month. MS: Successful attempt at current Regimen. Now test stat against current multiple. CS: Outstanding workout, Extremely effective. Test stat against Stat Roll + 25. Stat Roll Results: (remember to apply Cumulative WFB.) CF: OUCH! some sort of injury! Use common sense and GM discretion. Cumulative WFB is reset to 0. MF: Drats, No increase in stat, however add WFB to Cumulative WFB from the table above. MS: Success! increase stat by 1 point. cumulative WFB is reset to 0. CS: Outstanding Success! increase stat by 1 point, add 10 to the cumulative WFB. (Do not reset it to zero for next month.) Note: stats may only increase to a maximum of 125% of original value. The Willpower roll becomes harder to make as the training regimen gets more intensive. The pc chooses which level of training intensity he/she wants, expends the monthly devo rolls, the money for upkeep, and the time for the actual training. The figure for upkeep is only a suggestion, GMs should modify as they see fit. The % of employment is the amount of employment one can still do while training. Keep in mind most employers are not very amicable to flex-time or part time workers. Not that the higher the intensity of the training regimen, the higher the chance for stat improvement. If possible, the player might employ a trainer to help him/her with their regimen. The GM may wish to modify the Willpower roll by the trainer's SI in the applicable skill. Example skills: * Strength/Endurance: (Physical Training [Voi Wil End Ahn+2,Ahn+1,Fen+1] SB2) The skill of getting people motivated to go through their training regimen. NPC's with this skill might include gladiator trainers/slavers, Laranian/Agrikian fighting order instructors, etc. * Endurance improvement: Swimming, Climbing, Skiing. etc. Without some physical activity, Stats increased through training revert to original values over time. In order to avoid a depreciation in the increased stats, the player must devote 10 hours/month/stat to maintain the current value. If players neglect this then consult the following table once per month. Stat Depreciation: Check against (Current Stat-Original Stat)*10 CF/MF: No reduction. MS/CS: Reduce stat by one point. Effects of Increased stats: If a stat goes up, recalculate skill bases for all affected skills, and increase the ML by the skills OML*increase. For example, if Sir Loin of Beef's Broadsword SB went from 17 to 18, then increase Broadsword ML by (OML*change in SB)= 3*1. This method works well for other things such as magic items(gasp!) or spells which affect stats other than Strength or Endurance. The Lyahvi spell which increases eyesight comes to mind... The reasoning behind using OML for ML increases is that the OML is an indicator as to the relative importance of raw stats in the effective use of the skill. For example, Mace opens at OML 4 which means that raw stats are more important than in using a flail which is OML 2, which requires more skill than brute force. Effect of Decreased stats: Similarly, if a stat is decreased(only due to stat depreciation, and not injury) Then recalculate affected skill bases, and reduce Skill MLs by OML of skill. Stats reduced by injury affect skill bases normally, and skill ML's by 5*stat loss. An example of the Stat increase system in use: Luccero is a Lia-Kavair who recently made a big heist and has a lot of money and has decided to put some muscle onto his scrawny frame. He also has a lot of time to kill, while his enemies forget about him. His current Strength is a paultry 9, his Endurance is 10, and his Willpower is 17. He also has a friend who works training fighting slaves, who has agreed to help him train for a price (20d/month). Luccero's maximum STR is 9*1.25 =11 Luccero decides to improve his Strength first. He selects the Intensive Training Regimen, and expends his 48d+20d(not including lodging), his 3 monthly devo rolls and works at nothing else but training.(0% employment) After one month of training, Luccero makes a Willpower Check: Month CWFB (WILL)*2 +SI for trainer = 1 17 *2 +7 = 41. He rolls a MF, and tries again at the lower training regimen.(moderate) 17 *3 +7 = 58. This time he rolls a CS. He now tries to improve his strength with a bonus of +25. Since he made the CS at the Moderate level Regimen, the STR multiplier is only 3, and not 4. 0+ (25-STR)*3 +25 = 89. He rolls a MS against this and his STR is now 10. Since he made his stat devo roll, his CWFB is reset to 0. (it was already zero.) Luccero inspired by his success, decides to continue with his intensive regimen for another month. He expends the neccessary funds and devo rolls, and makes another Willpower check. Month CWFB (WILL)*2 +SI for trainer = 2 17 *2 +7 = 41. He rolls a MF, and tries again at lower regimen.(Moderate) 17 *3 +7 = 58. MF, tries at (Light Regimen). 17 *4 +7 = 75. Again, MF. He adds 5 (the WFB for Light Training) to his CWFB. Since he failed his will checks, he makes no stat improvement checks for this month. Still having lots of money, time, and will, he decides for another month of intensive workout. His trainer was killed in a freak temple accident, so he gains no trainer bonus. Month CWFB+ (WILL)*2 = 3 17 *2 = 34. He rolls a MS, and tries to improve his STR to 11.(its maximum) 5+ (25-10)*4= 65. He rolls a CS and improves his STR to it's maximum. Since he can go no higher with Strength, he loses the benefits of the CS After 3 months of training and a total expenditure of 204d (not including lodging) Luccero STR has gone from 9 to 11. Luccero's skills are adjusted, for example his Falchion which is STR STR DEX, increases from (9 + 9+16)/3 +3 (angberilius)= 14 to (11+11+16)/3 +3 =16. His ML (61) is also adjusted up by (Falchion OML * change in SB)= (3 * 2)=6. SB 16, ML 67. Eventually Luccero's enemies catch up with him and throw him in jail, He is shackled in the High tower. Every month, he checks vs. (Current Stat Value-Original value)*10, and after 2 years returns to his original Strength. (Realistically, his stats (STR,END, AGL, DEX,SPD) would decrease over time. As would skill MLs, but being thrown in jail is bad enough for Luccero, and the GM is feeling particularly nice) (c) 1991 Davis Harn Players --------------------------- cut here ----------------------------- Any comments would be greatly appreciated. -Eric J. Anderson From: marten@rieska.oulu.fi (Master of Twilight) Subject: Burn Impact.. Unto all Harniacs.. A question: How do you determine burn impacts from mundane fire? I couldn't find any reference to it from either Harnmaster or any other 'rule' book. Looking at the 'Orb of Zatara' (Peleahn III) and the combat tables (the chart of burning armour) I think that the *flames* do 2d6 BI (=Burn Impact) and touching a burning object does 3d6 BI (hence burning leather (close to skin though not (necessarily) touching it)) does 3d6. This occurred to me when a peleahn mage in my game tried to use Breath of Casyl to send flames towards his opponents (who was approaching him, there was a bonfire between them). I decided that this was not possible with BoC spell, but before I could say anything the mage rolled CF and thus saved me (and not himself..>;) from the situation... Anyway, the idea has troubled me since someone might try to do something say, with a torch. marten ======================================================================== # At office: Atte Kinnula # In the Current Middle Ages: # # Rakentajantie 5 F/303 # Llwyd ap Cadwaladr # # 90570 OULU, FINLAND # (now try pronouncing that >;)# From: ccmjeff@castor.ucdavis.edu Subject: Davis Training Table [Eric-] Didn't we decide SIx5 hours for training? You put SIx10 in the table. Jeff B. From: E90MHG@rigel.efd.lth.se Subject: Harn There has been, during four or five years, persistents rumour concerning the Battlelust book. Lately the rumours seem to be more persistent than usual so I wonder if anyone of the geographically closer members of Harnmail knows more? And do they know more about new products (rumours and "real") from Columbia? And finally - I've been writing on a adventure to HM the last year. The main plot centers around The Black Tower (Nurisel, Melderyn) and it has subplots with a bunch of loony Gargun, the Guild of Arcane Lore and a little more. My main objective is to write an adventure that can be sold (I've sent a letter to Columbia asking about their interest, but up to now they haven't answered). Hopefully this adventure, or the main part of it, will exist after this summer. If there is anyone out there interested in playtesting this adventure, entitled The Black Tower, please contact me. I cannot answer to the grammatical, at least not in the first version, but... * [Ed. note: Mikael will be out of contact with his email account until * late this summer, as in August. If you are interested in getting a copy of * his 'module' for playtesting, you may want to mail now (avoid the christmas * rush...), and he'll send it as soon as possible.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mikael Hegardt Lunds Institute of Technology Sweden From: advent@ukc.ac.uk Subject: Mundane Fire Recently Martin (marten@rieska.oulu.fi (Master of Twilight)) asks about burn aspects from mundane fire. I'd like to make a few comments / suggestions on this. As he says the only real information given is the damage from Peleahn spells, and the damage from armour catching light on the combat table (if the armour takes more than a 11 aspect burn?) These are: cloth 1 round at 1d6 leather 2 rounds at 2d6 quilt 3 rounds at 3d6 using this I'd say that if the location was in contact with a reasonable fire for the complete round (10s) then the burn aspect would be 3d6. I'd claim that the cloth was much less since it will burn away in less than the 10s, and is unlikely to remain in contact with the skin as it burns. The leather will smoulder rather than burn, but will remain in contact, hence the intermediate damage. The quilt will burn properly, for longer, and in contact with the skin. For landing in a bonfire or suchlike I'd then give a 3d6 burn aspect to any locations that happened to be in the fire (you're likely to get out fast, but bits of burning wood etc may stick to you. For jumping or diving through flames, either a d6 or 2d6 depending on the situation. Possibly modified by some sort of 'jumping' roll. (CF = 3d6, MF=2d6, MS=d6 CS=none). As for location, roll randomly a couple of times on the tables, using the appropiate aimed locations, probably legs. Acrobatics would be another suitable skill for this. CF is likely to land you in the fire however, and MS take no damage. I regard acrobatics as a more stylish for of jumping etc when used in this form, working better if you succeed, but worse if you fail. (ie it takes a real expert to get it badly wrong!) Striking with a burning torch however is quite a different matter, since the 'weapon' is unlikely to be in contact with the victim for very long. I'd probably implement something like... the wielder has the choice of using the burning torch to either do blunt damage to the victim, with a small amount of fire, or try to hold the torch against the victim, and do more fire damage, and no blunt damage. In the first case the victim sustains a d6 burn in adition to the weapon damage. In the latter the damage die are used as burn impact rather than a blunt impact. The weapon bonus (if any) no longer applies. I'm not really sure if the 'catch fire' for armour/clothing is calculated before or after the armour reduction has been applied. I suppose it really should be after since it is much easier to set cloth alight than it is leather... Anyway, a few random thoughts from... Steve From: SCHMUNK@spacvax.rice.edu (Robert B. Schmunk, 1-713-527-4939) Subject: Modules, 1st vs 2nd ed I really hate to bring the subject again, considering how long the discussion lasted before, but I wanted to ask about differences in some of the Kingdom modules. I recently obtained a copy of HarnLore 7 (thanks, Grant), and Dalgliesh's column mentioned that Azadmere and Chybisa had been reworked and reprinted, and Harn and Evael soon would be. I know for a fact that I have version 1 of Chybisa and version 2 of Harn(World), but I haven't a clue about my copies of Azadmere and Evael. If anyone knows, could he post some info about the changes in the latter two modules? Cover design, differing articles, etc.? Also, HarnLore 9 mentions that Melderyn was reprinted. Are there any differences in between printings? And for those who have forgotten: Chybisa (v1), cover drawing of Caer Burzyn includes Herblore and Bejist, but not Law articles not bound to cover and no title page Chybisa (v2), cover drawing of mounted commander of Chybisan guard includes Law, but not Herblore and Bejist HarnWorld appears in red print on cover In order to save some bandwidth on HarnList, I'd like to suggest that any of you who want to post some info on this topic, please send it directly to me. I will summarize all the replies (if any) and post them sometime next week. Thanks... rbs (schmunk@spacsun.rice.edu or schmunk@spacvax.rice.edu) From: ccelric@castor.ucdavis.edu (Eric J. Anderson) Subject: Re: Davis Training Table Hello all! Jeffs note was correct about SI*5 for training times, not SI*10 like I had written. Thanks Jeff! The times for employment are still 20*SI. This is similar to the book which has 12 hours for training and 40 hours for employment. -eric Subject: Family generation under Harnmaster From: Jim Seymour I have been using the character generation section of Harnmaster to make NPC's for my campaign. Since I don't intend these NPC's for combat, I don't bother to roll all the stats, just a few of the key ones to give a general idea of the character. What I *really* want, though, is to use the system to generate entire families. I have had reasonable luck so far, but I thought I'd see if any of you Harn/Harnmaster gurus have put any work into this problem already. Here's what I've been doing: 1. Roll on the table under 'Offspring' in the sibling rank table to find the rank of a hypothetical child, then add 1d6-1 for the total. 2. I then roll Sex/Estrangement/Medical/Height/etc. for each child. Glitches: Sex should be 50/50 when you consider even the ones that are going to die (I use the 60% probablity of survival listed to mean that each child has a 60% chance to survive to adulthood). The 52% figure only makes sense when considering adults (men die sooner). There is no guarantee that the appearance of the children will be even close to each other or their parents. I understand that some families can have quite a disparity between siblings, but in general, if one child is really tall, another will not be really short. Some ideas I've had for this second glitch are: 1) Have a modifier to the various stats based on the average of the parents' stats. Such as: If the average height of the parents is 72", give the child +4" or so (just an example). 2) Use a different spread based on the parents average. Example: For STR, use 2d6 - 7 + (Parent's Average), or something similar. 3) The eye/hair color can be done simply by rolling a complexion for the entire family. Still, the parents complexion should be generated randomly and the childrens' should be related in some way. -- -Jim Seymour qintar@agora.rain.com ================================================================= Cipher Systems, Inc., P.O. Box 329, North Plains, OR 97133 From: SCHMUNK@spacvax.rice.edu (Robert B. Schmunk, 1-713-527-4939) Subject: New Harn stuff Mikael Hegardt asks for rumors/nes about forthcoming Harn publications. Well, I logged onto HarnLine a couple weeks back, and as best I can interpret what I read, forthcoming publications include: TOME OF JMORVI - was in playtest earlier this spring; hopefully it will go to the printers soon (if not already) TOME OF FYVRIA - needed two more spells as of a month or two back; probably in playtest now TRIERZON - lots of work to be done; don't expect it 'til 1992 "Curse of Ethlen" (I may have that one wrong) - Crossby was chortling over some diabolical things he'd included; I somehow got the impression that this was the final chapter of the Panaga trilogy; no idea if it's in playtest or when it will be published As for BATTLELUST, while the rumors have been flying and the Sept 90 Columbia order form listed it as 1991 product, I didn't notice a word about it on HarnLine. To warp a computer term, this looks a lot like a VaporModule. BTW, there is a HarnLine section called Sanctum, for people who are willing to pay a fee to enter the select group of playtesters. Unfortunately, I haven't joined this elite (!?) group, but I would imagine that they'd have a much better idea about what's in the pipeline. Are there any Sanctum members out there? rbs From: marten@rieska.oulu.fi (Master of Twilight) Subject: Another Cbt Question Thanks for Steve and Robert for the tips of burn impacts. A player of mine has a weird fascination of fire and your suggestions will certainly be tested...:D But then, partially from Steve's answer (about using torch as a weapon).. How do you handle situations where two of the weapon's aspects BOTH affect the opponent. For example, a morning star (spiked club) hits someone. Point aspect (the spikes) is rather obvious but the blunt aspect may come into play as well. (or if we use ball&chain with rather short spikes, the blunt aspect WILL come into play). On the other hand, if a person (in mail for instance) is struck with a battlesword. Lousy edge hit, no damage done, but the weapon has considerable momentum and since mail (i've made one for SCA use, so I know something about it..), especially inferior one, is not very shock-absortive the victim will definitely suffer from blunt impact. (Remeber that with the exception of mang and mankar, the edges in swords are straight and thus the strike is NOT a slashing 'curve' but more or less a 'club-like' hit). How would you handle this? Take the full 'blunt' (orwhatever the secondary aspect is) impact or reduce it (due to not using it 'primarily')? In most of the attacs made with club-type weapons I would use both impacts. On the other hand I would accept the 'blunt' impact of swords only if the edge fails to do any damage.. Suggestions? (is there a rule for this somewhere?) marten ======================================================================== # At office: Atte Kinnula # In the Current Middle Ages: # # Rakentajantie 5 F/303 # Llwyd ap Cadwaladr # # 90570 OULU, FINLAND # (now try pronouncing that >;)# From: advent@ukc.ac.uk Subject: Weapon Aspects An interresting question from Marten about weapon aspects, and what happens if more than one aspect would seem suitable. After thinking about it a while I came to the following conclusion. It is already built into the system! When attacking, the player has choice of what type of blow he is going to make. Obviously if the 'victim' is encased in lots of plate armour then (unless he feels lucky on the location roll), he should choose the blunt aspect of his battlesword. This does slightly less damage than the edge, but is far more likely to penetrate the armour. Looking at the tables I'd claim that the combined effects are already included as well, for example a longknife (probably the closest thing to a rapier), I would assume has a good sharp edge, and has an aspect of 3. In comparison the battlesword is likely to be blunter, though has aspect of 8. Why? - because of the extra 7 pounds of weight behind the blow, which would correspond to the additional blunt aspect. Steve