Response to Woas about HARP

[Rasyr]

I want to bring up the development point thing again.

I skimmed over the character creation download, and it looks like higher stats give you more development points, which can give you higher stats, which give you more development points, etc etc, ad infinitum. Is that how it works?

Not quite. Higher stats do indeed give you more Development Points (DPs), and you can use these Development Points to increase your stats. When you increase your stats, the bonuses from those new stats are applied immediately, however, you do not receive any more development points from the newly raised stat until the character goes up another level.

For example, you have a stat of 75 (which gives 5 DPs and a +5 bonus to skills using that stat), and you are going from first to second level. If you spent 10 points on that stat to raise it to an 85, the stat bonus automatically goes up to a +7, and you need to refigure the total bonus for any skills using that stat. However, you have already figured what your DPs for this level is, and will not refigure them again until you gain enough experience to be third level. Thus you do not get the 2 additional DPs from the increase to the stat until you are going from second to third level and total up how many DPs you will get to spend.

You are also limited in how many development points that you are allowed to spend on stats each level as well (IIRC, no more than 20 DPs to stats each level).

And don't forget that DPs are also used to purchase new skill ranks and talents, and fate points, etc... Thus, any you spend on stats is less that you have to spend on skills. Using the above character from the example, the DPs spent on the stat will give him enough DPs to purchase one more rank of a skill from any of his Favored categories. However, to get that, he gave up purchasing 5 skill ranks (and at his level, going from first to second, each skill rank gives a+5 bonus to the skill) in order to increase the stat.

Thus he gave up a possible +25 in a single skill (depending on how many ranks he had in the skill to begin with) in order to get a +2 to a number of skills. As to whether or not that is a fair trade-off is determined by the player, and his goals for his character.

From comments on the ICE forums, and from personal experience, I can attest that increasing stats is quite often done on a much slower basis than as shown in my example. Most often a player will throw any left over DPs into a stat once they have finished purchasing other things (usually skills), especially if they have an odd number of DPs.

 

[Sado]

Thanks for the quick reply, Rasyr. By the way, don't you sleep? I work third shift, what's your excuse?

So you get the DP increase, but can't use it until next level. Got it.

The game has intrigued me, I will be getting a copy. I would like to add my approval of the way mixed races are handled.

 

[Rasyr]

Thanks for the quick reply, Rasyr. By the way, don't you sleep? I work third shift, what's your excuse?

I sleep a good 4 - 6 hours a night usually. This being a weekend, those hours started later than normal

So you get the DP increase, but can't use it until next level. Got it.

Yuppers!

The game has intrigued me, I will be getting a copy. I would like to add my approval of the way mixed races are handled.

Thanks!

For Blood Talents, I wanted a way to represent a character with differing amount of blood from another race in their veins, and it seemed like the best way to go.

 

[Rasyr]

Any more comments or questions?

 

[Henry]

Finally got a chance this week to dig into HARP. Some things you just can't appreciate without rolling up a character and playing. STILL haven't played it yet, but at least I went through some mock scenarios.

My opinion was mixed; it was fascinating to sift through, and try to figure out, never having seen Rolemaster, which parts were similar to Rolemaster, and which parts were brand-new. It definitely seems like it plays smoother than I had been led to believe - and Rolemaster style percentile rolls were definitely different from what I imagined (At first I had thought them more like CoC or Runequest).

What I do like, is the piecemeal approach to building a character through feats and skills (like what Mutants and Masterminds does for superheroes, this does for fantasy). I could build pretty much anything I wanted to similar to a D&D 3E character, through the skills and talents, albeit slower than such is given in D&D. At first I was thinking the Development Points (DP's) were excessive, but then realized they were nowhere near enough! Good balance overall, however, and much finer gradations of success, not just through the percentile system, but through the two or three different means of resoution mechanics.

What I DON'T like, is the Percentage system of success - it really bugged me the way it worked, and I can't put my finger solidly on why. Perhaps it's the examples I read, because it seemed like to figure out what percentage of something you've accomplished, it maps out directly to the result on your percentile roll, with no modifiers for skill, which doesn't seem right.

The only other thing that bugs me slightly is the dependence on two scores instead of one for skills; "dependence" might be a strong word, but it may take a while to get used to skill defaults in this system.

Other than that, the only other thing that put me off were the number of modifiers for combat; for the sake of excitement as well as accuracy, there seemed to be an overwhelming number of them.

The final thing to HARP is the flavor - forget Hackmaster, THIS is the game that catapults me to the feelings I had when I used to play 1st edition D&D - kind of a nostalgia/novelty hybrid feeling that had me interested in reading the rules and wanting to set something up with them for people to play. An Idea is forming in my mind about a series of one-shots of different game systems - Some of my players are already wanting me to run a Continuum game for them, I wonder how they'd feel about a HARP one-shot or two-shot. Hmmm...


But overall, the system screams playable at first glance, as well as amazingly customizeable, and much lower-power than D&D gets at higher levels.

 

[Particle_Man]

For Blood Talents, I wanted a way to represent a character with differing amount of blood from another race in their veins, and it seemed like the best way to go.

Yup, for a spellcaster take a Human with Dwarf Blood (Greater) and you get to add 3 bonus points to Self-Discipline's bonus from Human, AND 2 bonus points from Dwarf blood, so my 105 Self-Discipline character has a modifier of +20 to Self-Disicpline! Woot! Goes nicely with my +18 Reasoning bonus and +17 Insight bonus for my character. And my con penalty for a score of 11 goes from -14 to -12, which helps.

Nothing like starting with +83 and +93 in my two spells (Minor Healing and Phantasm) at first level, and +107 in my Power Point Development skill (I kept that +10 skill bonus from my human side just for this). The weak spot is resistance: Stamina at 16 (a frail wizard), but the +74 Resistance: Magic and +80 Resistance: Will makes up for it. Ahh...it all comes back. My inner Munchkin is happy. Who needs cookies?

 

[Particle_Man]

Slightly more seriously, do the stat bonuses from racial modifiers mean that one gets more development points, or not? My dwarvish human above has a SD stat of 105 but with racial modifiers has a 20 bonus instead of 15. Does that give him 15 Development points or 20 from that stat?

 

[Old Fezziwig]

The more you talk about chargen, Particle_Man, the more I want to play this. I've been reading the PDFs over the weekend. Good stuff.

Nick

 

[Particle_Man]

Hey all I need is to find a game master whose head won't explode when I show him my character.

Oh, and Eloquence is DA BOMB when it comes to talents for spellcasters. Accept no substitute!

My only problem is that the person likely to run the game is, well, me, so I would have to be all FAIR and BALANCED and NO MARY-SUE CHARACTER and all that. BOOOOOORING!

Seriously, though, it looks like a fine game, albeit with a learning curve. And it seems easy enough to house rule.

 

[Rasyr]

Slightly more seriously, do the stat bonuses from racial modifiers mean that one gets more development points, or not? My dwarvish human above has a SD stat of 105 but with racial modifiers has a 20 bonus instead of 15. Does that give him 15 Development points or 20 from that stat?

Development Points are based on Stats, not stat bonuses, so it give him 15 DPs for that stat.