Alternate systems suggestions to play in the world of Harn

[Jd Smith1]

Since you've run Zweihander, I'm going under the assumption you've played Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay as well? If so, would you say Zwei is significantly better then WFRP? Or at least what are the major differences?

Yes, and Zwei is massively better.

WH's system is a modified skirmish system, and it still, after four editions, feels like that.

Zwei is d100, with a cap of +/- 30 to any roll, applied in increments of ten.

Zwei's combat system is very deadly and tactical, but does it without a lot of charts or modifications. The magic system is low-power, but meshes very well with the combat system, and gives a good 'magic is both powerful and dangerous to the user' feel.

Player's choices as to skills and talents make a huge impact on the PCs, and to professions as well. We are currently wrapping up a Flames of Freedom campaign, which is Zwei in a time of gunpowder and no armor, and group discussions at to profession changes have been intense in both campaigns. The PC flexibility is impressive; in my Harn campaign one PC was built (after considerable improvement) to be a deadly archer with a high movement rate (not magically fast, just a good sprinter), and expertise in hiding; his drawback was that he was very easy to hurt if they could get him in melee.

The skills allow detailed social interaction without getting bogged down.

Magic is not limited by spell slots or points; a spellcaster simply gathers power and casts the spell. However, if in the process, he rolls a failure, the results can be bad to very, very bad. So spellcasters tend to stick to a very practical, dynamic use of magic, with none of the D&D 'a spell for literally everything', and lurk around in the background of combat with a ranged weapon, watching for an appropriate spell use situation.

The bestiary has most fantasy staples, plus a lost or re-labels WH creatures (Skaven, beastmen, etc). And it is extremely easy to create any creatures not statted out.

There are plenty of optional rules; I use one where greater damage potential is assigned to weapons, for example.

GM'ing is a breeze: a player wants an action, the GM assigns a difficulty (Trivial, Easy, Routine, Standard, Challenging, Hard, Arduous, done in increments of 10, with Standard having 0 mod) and the player rolls. Outcomes are success, failure, critical success, and critical failure.

The rules set is geared toward the low-magic, grimdark feel of War Hammer, which meshes very nicely with Harn's low-magic feel. Like I said, i changed Barbarians to beastmen, added skaven, and the campaign rocked.

Roll20 has an amazing PC sheet for Zwei/FoF that makes it incredibly simple to GM.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yes, and Zwei is massively better.

WH's system is a modified skirmish system, and it still, after four editions, feels like that.

Zwei is d100, with a cap of +/- 30 to any roll, applied in increments of ten.

Zwei's combat system is very deadly and tactical, but does it without a lot of charts or modifications. The magic system is low-power, but meshes very well with the combat system, and gives a good 'magic is both powerful and dangerous to the user' feel.

Player's choices as to skills and talents make a huge impact on the PCs, and to professions as well. We are currently wrapping up a Flames of Freedom campaign, which is Zwei in a time of gunpowder and no armor, and group discussions at to profession changes have been intense in both campaigns. The PC flexibility is impressive; in my Harn campaign one PC was built (after considerable improvement) to be a deadly archer with a high movement rate (not magically fast, just a good sprinter), and expertise in hiding; his drawback was that he was very easy to hurt if they could get him in melee.

The skills allow detailed social interaction without getting bogged down.

Magic is not limited by spell slots or points; a spellcaster simply gathers power and casts the spell. However, if in the process, he rolls a failure, the results can be bad to very, very bad. So spellcasters tend to stick to a very practical, dynamic use of magic, with none of the D&D 'a spell for literally everything', and lurk around in the background of combat with a ranged weapon, watching for an appropriate spell use situation.

The bestiary has most fantasy staples, plus a lost or re-labels WH creatures (Skaven, beastmen, etc). And it is extremely easy to create any creatures not statted out.

There are plenty of optional rules; I use one where greater damage potential is assigned to weapons, for example.

GM'ing is a breeze: a player wants an action, the GM assigns a difficulty (Trivial, Easy, Routine, Standard, Challenging, Hard, Arduous, done in increments of 10, with Standard having 0 mod) and the player rolls. Outcomes are success, failure, critical success, and critical failure.

The rules set is geared toward the low-magic, grimdark feel of War Hammer, which meshes very nicely with Harn's low-magic feel. Like I said, i changed Barbarians to beastmen, added skaven, and the campaign rocked.

Roll20 has an amazing PC sheet for Zwei/FoF that makes it incredibly simple to GM.

Good sales pitch. Might have to take a closer look at it.

 

[aramis erak]

Good sales pitch. Might have to take a closer look at it.

The irony of his pitch is that Zwei is directly derived from combining the mechanics from WFRP1e and WFRP2E.

 

[Jd Smith1]

The irony of his pitch is that Zwei is directly derived from combining the mechanics from WFRP1e and WFRP2E.

The overall structure, a bit, but the end product has been refined to such a degree that Zwei is a completely different system.

In actual gameplay, Zwei is radically different.

 

[aramis erak]

Jackals is built on the chassis of OpenQuest by Newt Newport, so I'd just grab that game if anything in Jackals grabs your fancy. Newt just updated the 3rd edition on DriveThru over the past weekend.

Jackals combat and damage rules are closer to the tone of Hârn than OpenQuest 2E is. (I was able to borrow a copy.)

OQ is standard unified HP with an optional major wound threshold, and pretty severe effects for a major wound. (essentially, disabling temporarily and permanently debilitating). Without the Major Wound rules, it's vanilla HP to 0 then die. With it, it's far more severe than Hârnmaster 3. OQ magic is pretty much a minor simplification of RuneQuest's.

Jackals has a 2 kinds of hit points system, one which refreshes after 10 min, the other one taking days to heal; the lasting wounds do not get resolved instantly, but only for survivors of the combat, and range from minor (scars) to major (amputations)... as with Hârnmaster, not all injuries leave major damage.

To get the feel right for Hârn as one interprets it (which varies), one might need to adjust the valor and wounds somewhat for Jackals, or play with the wound table mods; one will need to adjust magic as well.

So, they are definitely not interchangeable recommendations. (I also find it tiresome that so many people think that just because a game uses the SRD of another that the original can substitute for it interchangeably; that was largely true only for the height of the d20 glut.)

 

[MacDhomnuill]

Pendragon fits harn well if you tone down the passions rules, Dragonbane from free league is basically fantasy pendragon minus all the heroic overly dramatic knights. Magic World is a great BRP system from Chaosium that works very well for low magic skill based settings.