Well, I nicely placed sword thrust to the face could end things quickly, even with armour.

I recall a some information on William Marshall, one of the most renowned true knights of history. Took out a few opponents thru their vision slits, but did not kill them (This was a tournament style melee, either blunted weapons or possibly more shockingly he held his thrust enough t just injure ....probably the first though )

_________________
Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

Gruesome.

Don't get me wrong; I think HM is has much versimilitude, which I like. I think this angles it away from 'heroic' gaming...whatever that is.

For me heroic can be picking up that pitchfork as the hooves quicken...even though statistically you know your character is doomed

For Conanesque gaming I prefer the term epic. Or childish.

_________________
Plots and schemes are the same thing..

Second try...yesterday's post isn't showing today.

I should have expected that answer! For every type of play, there is one that loves it, and another that hates it. I once tried to get a Lionheart campaign going. No magic, although much superstition, lots of politics, bandits, crazy Scots coming over the border, etc. Couldn't get a single person interested. I am quite happy to do a historic fiction campaign, or an alternate world with no magic. But, if magic exists and the gods really are present, I need to have them out in the open. Partly it's the genre, but partly I am unable to fully commit to a world that has deities that do not manifest on occasion, or that has magic that cannot be used for the public good. Either campaign type is good, but this halfway meeting that has become more prevalent in Harn fanon just leaves me cold.

Every system points its players in a certain direction. AD&D leads to dungeon crawls. Hero System tends to lead to power gaming and min/maxing. I'm sure Runequest and GURPS aim players towards a type of play or genre. All can be used to play a campaign type very different than the standard, but it takes house rules and extra work, and still may not be optimal. Personally, I dislike house rules, and prefer to use a system already optimized for the style of play I want. I also like generic systems (Hero, Gurps), rather than specialized ones. HM is great if you want combat to be very deadly. If your typical campaign is the miller, reeve, a Peonian priest, and a yeoman beadle solving a murder mystery, then it is wonderful. If they run into 5 gargun or a couple Agrikian fighting order members, they should be scared.

My story is more along the lines of two knights, a forester, a veteren yeoman, and two Shek-P'var, all with significant experience and some with psionics, and they are regularly skirmishing with bandits, Solori, Lady of Paladin's soldiers, Ivashu, and gargun. I expect them to regularly beat twice their number of gargun with only minor injuries, because they are that much better at combat. I also expect them to get hurt badly when fighting certain key bad guys. Take equal parts of the Deryni, Sanctuary, and Tolkien books, and you have an idea of what I aim for. Now, I can do this in HM. But, I had already been using Hero for years when I first found HM, and Hero takes far less modification to get the style of play I need.

In my second storyline, the main characters are bishops, fighting order grandmasters, Shek P'var masters, and the King of Melderyn is a supporting NPC. Family connections to the upper nobility is assumed. It is heavy roleplay, leaning into the storytelling realm. Attributes, spell lists, and combat ability are not really important, because you'll be sending someone to do the dirty work. It's who you know and what favors are owed, and it is expected that the main characters will often be working directly against each other. The system make little difference, and I could be as happy with AD&D as HM. It's the setting and feel of the game that is important. The rule set is there to support the game, not be the game.

Perfectly true, for instance here below is Conan as a starting PC in HMg, occupation mercenary, parent occupation weaponcrafter, about one year additional experience and very good stats. Some houserules were used, notably the one that puts maximum ML at 5×SB+50, as well as revised specialisation rules and custom weapon impacts/armour protection values.

_________________
«Fair is what we see, Fairer what we have perceived, Fairest what is still in veil.»
—Nicolaus Stenonius

There is one thing though. Even with impressive numbers like the Conan Mac shows, he is still capable of being defeated and/or severely wounded even in a one on one melee. Yeah, he SHOULD make quick work of guardsmen, but with bad luck things can go badly.

And even trying to fight 5-10 opponents at one time - this would be a tough go even if they are not greatly skilled opponents.

A "Heroic" type in HM is a far cry from a D&D heroic type. Someone who can take on 2-3 reasonably skilled opponents with a good chance of sucess is heroic. If you can't take on 50+ 1st level opponents in AD&D and win, you are not heroic.

Actually, some of the more "heroic" types in history would overshadow an HM hero (Leaving Shek-Pvar out of this).

William Marshall fits the true heroic types in history. Not a lot of specific in this excerpt, but:


There are tournament records of him taking on multiple opponents at the same time (other knights) and winning, another time where he was fighting almost single-handedly against a group of knights and took out many of them, their only tactic that worked eventually was to take out his horse so he was afoot.

He was also the only person to sucessfully unhorse King Richard, a renowned jouster.

His last combat kill was at age 75 of another knight about 40 years his junior who decided to trade blows with him.

_________________
Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

In HM with unmodified rules such a character is quite posiable. I remember my earliest character defeating 3 knights at one time - he didn't even have a magic weapon or armor (though they were Khudzul make). I can remember he a another knight making a competition of charging (on horse) into gargun and seeing which of them could achieve the more impressive amputate roll. I don't remember them being particularly concerned about injury from mere gargun.

I do remember at some point he lost an eye fighting pagalean. He no doubt would have been in the "William Marshall" class.

And I remember a 7' tall freekishly strong Ivinian, former gladiator, even he was frightened by.


Throw in a magic sword and some magic armor and a mage or cleric to heal the worst wounds and there isn't much a HM character can't compare to. (For that matter I remember Conan getting magical healing in the movie). Oh, sure the fantasy hero, unarmored, bare-chested who kills dozens of warriors with only a scratch is out and anyone in a chain-mail bikini with a bare abdomen will end up disembolwed. But a realistic William Wallace in armor is quite posiable.

_________________
Member of the CoE (Council of Elitists)

That's the type I like to see represented, or a William Marshall.

There are some "heroes" of history that had deeds similar to what a Top flight HM character could do. Sometimes truth can be as suprising in heroic deeds as fiction, like the 300 Spartans (Yeah, I know there were a few thousand greeks with them also, but still, it was amazing what they did).



Some "houserules" or even different game rules make PC's more effective, though some hurt PC's as well.

For instance the knights charging gargun - any recalc for blunt? This would make the heavier armoured types more vulnerable, I always use it. I also like lower blunt values for armour - you can get beat up pretty good without pentrating mail.

The other thing is HMG has an added 1D6 or more depending on the speed of the horse charge in mounted combat, to BOTH the rider and foot. This is realistic IMO, and makes a mounted charge scarier for the rider.

_________________
Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

Wallace and Marshall are good examples of what I want, not Conan. And for a fictional characters, I like Boromir or Turin Turambar. Heroic, but could still be taken down. With HM, you can have a couple combats of the heroic type. But sooner or later, the odds will catch up to you - HM is just too deadly to do this on a regular basis.

With dwarven armor and weapons, a good sword and a horse such heros could expect to survive dozens of major battles. Played realisticly with a realization and avoidance of the worst risks and not just doing a death charge at an unstoppable army.

Actually with original HM1 rules general Physical Penalty was only -1 per 10 pts of injury. Most characters were pretty dang heroic - unlikely to pass out even when most of their skill EMLs reduced to near zero by penalties. When rendered beyond useless they would ride off the field of battle or escape or whatever. IMC I like them a little more human we use -1 per 5 IP.

HM3 uses PP of 1d6 per 5 IP (1IL). That's an average of 7 times the penalty that HM1 used (1 per 10 IP). HM3 characters fall over fairly quicky with even a few small injuries. While original HM1 characters would still be able to make major shock rolls even with over a 100 points of injury.

Such a simple adjustment could swing a campaign all the way from pansy to heroic.

_________________
Member of the CoE (Council of Elitists)

Do you recalc for Blunt Feanor? Makes great armour not quite as good, and is realistic too IMO.

I do a few things with armour differently as well. I don't have superior non-metallic armour - Cloth armour that weighs .05 yet provides 2-3-2 armour is a bit silly IMO.

I did go with HMG values for leather - 1-2-1. Seems accurate for most thicknesses for leather. After researching "Buff' leather coats worn in the 16th century or so, perhaps a 2-3-2 value and .15 weight seem realistic, but it's to heavey and retrictive to combine with quilt IMO, and from what I see was never worn that way.

Quilt I give a 4-3-2 value, with the exception of thick quilt, which is 5-4-3 but is not worn under other armour. Represents well IMO the quilt armours worn under mail, and the heavier represents the 20+ layers of linen discussed in period sources.

And Mail - Good at edge and pierce, not much for B impact, it's a 1-8-6 IMO. Plate I only give a 5B value - without sufficent padding, concussive strikes still deal damage well. Even high quality mail still is not better in stopping blunt damage - it just resists E and P better.

Point of all this I guess - with lower blunt values, (A 5B with the standard mail over quilt) you are still succeptible to Blunt damage, even with high quality mail.

What I really tried to get away from are the old HM1 armour values with superior quilt, cloth, etc.

I trying to recall, but I think superior mail was 4-10-8, s/quilt 7-4-3, s/cloth 2-3-2.

So someone with Superior (all) Quilt, Mail and a surcoat had B-E-P of 13-17-13, virtually invulnerable, even to most blunt attacks.

Good news for PC's is that Blunt damage is not prone to infection

_________________
Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

I've been running a d20 3.5 game for the last year, well, mostly Harn. I plunked the island down in my own campaign world.

For clerics, I created a primary domain that priests for each deity had to have, and a list of secondary domains for that deity they could choose from. Granted, I had my own dirties, but the concept would work just fine for the Harnic deities.

Removed the whole druid council thing and made Sindarian priests druids.

For arcane . . .
I disallowed the sorcerer class to make Arcane types universal.
Removed the two free spells per level Wizards get.
Used of the elemental character concepts from the Quintessential Wizard book by mongoose press.

The lack of free spells at each level means wizards got only those they found, or those from their specialization, which was elemental based. Few wanted to tackle the difficulties and the limited number of arcane caster resulting in a decease in the proliferation of arcane casters when compared to a non-harnic D&D game, like Grayhawk or Forgotten Realms.

In retrospect, if I had it to do over, I'd run a pure harn world, and disallow the wizard class. The Sorcerer class works SO much better for pure Harn.

I have never noticed this... Maybe I do not pay enough attention.

_________________
"Ofnær nefi" kvað karl, var skotinn í auga."

(To close to the nose, he said, when he was shot in the eye)


www.stridshest.no

I wrote a new players hand book using the open licence and used some ideas from Shane Morales, Game of Thrones D20,

Rule one no Prestige classes well only one

Each Religion has its own Cleric Class and I used the piety idea combined with the Good Evil Alignment system from the Demons Blood Fanzine published about 1982, Not all clerics can heal and those who can often lose piety for casting a Heal on some one who is not part of the Clergy or Layty of their church.

I have got rid of Alignment and protection and detect good evil stuff

Each Cleric has a list of there spells no spells above 6th level still get the slots but that for Metamagic stuff

Agrik
The clerics are very dangerous but have rules the do not think they are evil they are very intimidation they are very combat centric but not as good as fighters
No power to effect undead

Halea
More like the Brian Asbury Houri class from White Dwarf from memory issue 20.
Good against undead

Ilvir
Druid like but want to control nature not save it
No power to effect undead

Larani
Almost the classic DnD Cleric
Paladins are a class subservient to the clerics more like a prestige class.
Good against undead

Morgath
Almost the classic DnD Evil Cleric insane not but Bad and Mad they have kids so just mad think Dexter
Necromany is the way forward, not only do they control and make undead at 12th level the cleric of Morgath voluntarily joins the ranks of Morgaths undead as a Amorvrin.

Naveh
Ninja Assassins, monks with spells bad hombres, but do not kill for fun its to important for that .
No power to effect undead

Peoni
The role playing challenge Monks with spells and no combat skills they never get better at it
Very good against undead

Sarajin
Raging Clerics of a Norse god, you want them on your side
No power to effect undead

Save-K'nor
Monks with spells mainly legend lore and the like and Bardic Knowledge
No power to effect undead

Siem
Who know what Elves and Dwarfs do, Humans join The Uthriem Roliri and are Rangers

All Shek-Pvar are Sorcerers with set spells for each convention again no spells over sixth level with some changes to how you select spells.

At 10th level they can become the only prestige class the Grey Mage they are DnD Wizards with Vanceian Magic, the magic of the Elves

Elves who are Mages are Wizards the forgetting spells is in line with the way Elves Brain’s work.

Other Classes

Barbarians, different abilities depending which tribe they come from

Bards, Harpers and Heralds One class with two names and two roles, each name as all it is, is a name gives a guide to the direction of travel but not the destination, as DnD gain no spells over 6th and “Harpers and Heralds have a secret; a secret that they dare not reveal, the secret is magic. For hundreds of years Harpers and Heralds have been learning secrets and one of the secrets is how the Shek Pvar manipulate the world around them. Harpers and Heralds do not work their magic within the Pvaric Conventions but they use magic in a similar way, like the Shek Pvar they do not let ordinary folk see the magic. More importantly they do not let the Shek Pvar see the magic, The Shek Pvar suspect that Harpers and Heralds use magic but as long as it is disguised as Music and Trickery, and the Collages do not break the “Laws of the Shek Pvar” and keep to the Pvarvian Ethics, the chantries will leave the Collages alone. After all no one wants a war!”

Foresters (Rangers with out spells) range the forests and plains of Lythia, whether lawful men plying their trade or poachers intent on stealing a deer or boar from a noble’s private forest.

Fighters (man at Arms) straight DnD probably the strongest class fighters run the place mainly

Elves and Dwarfs are very good and have big level adjustments so players need Character Points to play them, worked out by Dr James Cruikshank, extra freats that make the races non human

Character points are like Bushidō On system awarded by the players at the end of a gaming session for good role-playing and by the GM me for dying well

What is the line “the world in not full of Heroes and Wizards but they are all Player Characters”

I am old school been DnD since 77, and I like level gamesI am currently upgrading to Pathfinder its DnD 3.75 and the combat systems better The players seam to like it and are asking me to run it again so it must be OK, and at the Liverpool Wargames Association play RPGs three times a week and must have played about 90% of the RPG systems the club is 40 years old this year, big Rune Quest following Pendragon, Traviller, Twilight etc

I went with a minimalistic approach to rule changes.

To handle the dark ages feel of Harn, I did some major tweaking of feats. I declared Heavy Crossbow and Long Bow as Exotic Weapons, but left the racial benefits for dwarves and elves the same.

I removed heavy armor (Well, I left banded as an armor for Dwarven nobility) from the game, and allowed player fighters, pally, and clerics the option of taking the Dodge feat as a replacement for the heavy armor proficiency. I also made the martial weapon and medium armor proficiency have a requirement of a new feat: Title of nobility, which I controlled tightly. As a replacement option, characters could select Weapon Focus as a marital weapon replacement feat and Toughness for the medium armor feat.

This worked out rather well. Nobody elected to be a knight, nor has much of a desire to be one. so they ended being in studded leather and using spears, staff, and mace.

I also added three staff feats to help round out the emphasis on staff.
* Dexterous Staff use (use dexterity bonus to hit instead of strength)
* Improved Dexterous staff use (use dexterity bonus to damage instead of strength)
* Quick Staff (+2 bonus when using combat expertise)


Each race or nationality received a free feat.
Barbarians: Athletic.
Kaldor & Kanday: Animal Affinity.
Elves: Skill Focus: Nature
Tharda: Animal Affinity OR Skill focus: Religion
Dwarves: Skill focus: A Crafting Skill
Meldryne: Magical Aptitude
Orbaal: Skill focus: Sailing
Chybasia: Animal Affinity OR Magical Aptitude

As for prestige classes, I also removed them from the game as general knowledge, and have been dropping them on certain NPCs the players meet as potential trainers. The same with non-Player's Handbook feats.

As for RP rewards. At the end of each session, I post a poll on our message board (thanks to freeforums.org) and the players vote on did the best job as a thespian. The winner gets the use of a feat they don't currently have.

As for Alignment . . .I left the alignment system in place, but declared that DETECT spells could only detect those with religion auras (Clerics who take the Good/Evil/Law/Chaos domains). The allowed me to continue to use Protection From (Good/Evil/Law/Chaos) spells, aligned weapons (Anarchic/Axiomatic/Holy/Unholy) and such.

All and all, its worked out rather well. I'm pleased with the results. For the most part, I have very Harnic feel - a gritty, dark ages world, but using the D&D system.

I declared the coinage system to be silver and copper based, rather than gold, but left their purchasing power in place using the D&D system, since so much of the crafting rules make use of this economic system.
1cp is really a small copper coin
1sp is medium copper coin
1gp is small silver coin
1pp is a large silver coin
So, a longsword is still 15gp, but it is 15 of the small silver coins not real "gold". Yes, Yes, I know Harnic blades are some 10 times that . . .

For the Harn characters visiting FR I set up an exchange that may be a simpler transition. Were using D&D price lists for the Realms (and other D&D spaces) and Harn for Harn (of course).

Sized D&D coins at 100 to the lb. and kept D&D price ratios by varing the quantity of metal and filler in the coins. A sp is 20% silver core with nickel around. By weight of silver 1 Harnic pence = 1.56 SP. (Based on silver content D&D will mostly take Harnic pence at 1:1 and Harn will take sp at 2:1).

At 10 GP per SP a 150d (pence) the price of a Harnic Broadsword would convert to about 10 GP - which doesn't sounds pretty close (10 gp for Broadsword and scabbard 1st ed PHB).

Mostly luck. Probably not everything converts that well (I'm sure D&D and Harn price list differences would prevent anything from doing so) but easier than changing all the coins around.

Pretty standard D&D ratio I think: 10 gp:1mp, 5gp:1pp, 10sp:1gp, 100cp:1gp
100 coins to the lb
coin construction:
10.00% Mithril
10.00% platnium
10.00% gold
10.00% electrum (electrum isn't used due to ease of fraud)
20.00% silver
100.% copper

_________________
Member of the CoE (Council of Elitists)

Doing a little tinkering with the coins, this is what I came up with for my Harnic d20 game.

While the game uses gold pieces as currency, the real in game currency are labeled Guilders - silver coins about the size of a US quarter. The generic D&D silver piece in game became a Shilling and is copper coin about the size of a Eisenhower dollar, and the lowly copper piece became the Penny, a copper coin about the size of a US dime.

For the most part, I let the D&D coinage stay at the 10:1 with the three values, but I did comment to the players there are several other coins that split and multiply these values into or larger coins. For instance, there is a Dram, a silver coin about the size of a dime that is worth 40 D&D copper pieces; The Farthing, a copper coin the size of a quarter and worth 2.5 copper pieces; and the Noble a large silver coin the size of a dollar that is worth 4 D&D gold pieces (or 400 CP).

I expanded this real world weight to gold and created the gold Crown, the size of a dime is worth 320 D&D Gp, which worked out nicely as the Harnic gold coin the dwarves use; the Quarter sized gold Royal, worth about 800GP, and the dollar sized Gold Sovereign equal to 3,200GP.

To reflect the endless combination of coins and weights and for brevity, if my players would overlook the fact that a +2 weapon is worth a kingdom, I would ignore coin weight. A bit fantasy for a bit of fantasy.

However, I did calculate out the coin weights.
A pound is equal to about 25 of the dime sized coins so
1 pound of copper coins = 25 D&Dcp
1 pound of silver coins = 1000 D&Dsp
1 pound of gold coins = 8000gp

Yeah, yeah, I know. WAAAAAYYY too much free time.

Way back in the day I did use AD&D to power Harn. It was what I had and all that. The Pvaric magic thing wasn't an issue since back then the only thing the Harndex mentioned was Chantries of Arcance Lore. If the Pvarism is a problem just redact all that stuff about it that doesn't fit with AD&D. It's not like there are going to be a glut of Mages running about, and the Pvaric Code still works fine whatever the game mechanic is. Reskin the various D&D humanoids as whatever gargun, and the rest of the critters have some equivalent in the Monster Manuals or someplace.

I think folks are too tied into the HM system as the One True RPG for Harn, and that's just not so IMO. The versimilitude of the setting is where Harn's strength lay.

HM is the perfect fit for Hârn, obviously; besides that, it could all be a matter of perspective: either you play in a Hârn game and use AD&D (or whatever) as rules material, or you play in an AD&D game (or whatever) and use Hârn as background material.

_________________
«Fair is what we see, Fairer what we have perceived, Fairest what is still in veil.»
—Nicolaus Stenonius

I get the feeling I must have been doing AD&D all wrong. It's just a rules system, that apparently nowadays is a genre all on its own. I didn't cotton to Dungeon Fantasy in the 1980's any more than I do now. You can work the game however you want, and HM is perfect for a certain narrow view of the Harn setting. AD&D was designed for Dungeon Fantasy, but it's barely an outline of an RPG when compared to something as complete as HM-- which to me translates as "would work fine".

I haven't used AD&D in my Harn.
But I have used Harn in my AD&D.

And that is why I am here (first post to these forums, and all). I run a 2nd Edition AD&D World of Greyhawk campaign (continuous timeline, albeit with many different adventuring parties, since 1980... without a single reboot). Granted, my campaign has expanded out into Spelljammer and Planescape, but at its heart it is still and always will be a Greyhawk campaign. I have, however, found the Harn materials extremely useful over the years, and have incorporated much of it into my Greyhawk campaign. The detail and richness of the locations are fabulous. I've used many of the cities as Greyhawk cities. Its not too difficult to match general geography and population size - for example, Tashal stands in for my Verbobonc. I've also used some Harn cities as new Greyhawk cities where I though there should be a city and there wasn't. I've also placed all of the Earthmasters sites in various locations around the world of Greyhawk (perhaps I'll post more on that over in the Geographica Kethîra forum). I've also drawn from the Harn mapping style for many of my own maps that I've created over the years.

Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com

Hiya Dennis, been to your site many times - great stuff there!. Welcome to my favorite hangout online: Lythia and the HarnForum.

I've used Harn as background for my own 1E based game since early 84. My blog, the Bloated Blowfish details some of this info in the Sandbox section - which I'm detailing piece by piece. http://bloatedblowfish.blogspot.com/

Cheers, and again, welcome to Lythia

_________________
"Honor is earned through the balance of peace and harmony, yet to the Master all eyes are open to possibilities".

Silverleaf 1981