Substance

Character Creation

HARP uses a class-and-level system, but the game pulls a whole lot of options out of that seemingly restrictive framework.

Players choose between nine Professions:

• Cleric
• Fighter
• Harper
• Mage
• Monk
• Ranger
• Rogue
• Thief
• Warrior Mage

(Cute touch calling the game’s answer to the bard a “Harper,” by the way.)

Skills fall under categories like Combat, Outdoor, Subterfuge, or Mystic Arts, and professions basically determine the categories from which the character can purchase skills at a discount, along with the number of free skill points he gets to spend on those categories as a one-time apprenticeship bonus.

I really like the way this balances out. By default, the Fighter’s going to be the bad boy on the block when it comes to… well, fighting. Just as it should be. Less focused warrior types like Rangers will get the same discount on purchasing Combat skills, but not as much of a head start on fighting ability through apprenticeship.

And in a related note, the Cleric is the only profession for which the player can choose two favored skill categories in order to reflect the nature of the Cleric’s deity or the Cleric’s function in the service of that deity. So if you’re wondering where the Paladin profession is, that’s just a Cleric who’s selected Combat as a favored skill category.

Oh, and to clear up any confusion for those most familiar with D&D 3rd edition, the Rogue is basically a guy with a pretty generic skill set – a good choice for a newcomer to the game. Not to be confused with the Thief who’s… well, a thief.

The races adhere fairly closely to fantasy RPG standards: Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Gryx, Halfling, and Human.

And what is a “Gryx,” you may ask? It’s a big, ugly, tough dude looking like a Klingon/orc crossbreed – essentially, a way to fill the half-orc niche without the uncomfortable rape issue. And to be honest, I don’t really care for their inclusion in what sets out to be a more or less generic fantasy system. There’s nothing wrong with the race, exactly. It just lacks the sort of mythic resonance associated with the standard races and feels too setting-specific.

Speaking of half-orcs, though: while the game doesn’t allow for them as PCs, it does allow for mixed-blood characters in any combination, so long as the player spends the character creation points required. What’s more, each racial element comes with both a “lesser” and “greater” version, affecting the number of characteristics the character has inherited from that part of his lineage. For example, a player could create a character whose mom was an Elf and whose Dad was three-quarters Dwarf and one-quarter Halfling, making Elf the character’s “base” race modified by greater Dwarf blood and lesser Halfling blood.

I love that.

The options don’t stop there, either.

For one thing, the game breaks with the idea that a fantasy race must be its own culture. Instead, each race has one or more default cultures, which determine the character’s mode of dress, general outlook, starting languages, and skills learned during the adolescent years. That’s how the game accommodates both the traditional Tolkien Hobbit-style Halfling and the newfangled D&D Kender-style Halfling, by the way: the former follows the sedentary “Underhill” culture, while the latter follows the wandering “Nomad” culture.

Players can also choose from a number of special qualities known as “Talents,” giving their PCs anything from skill bonuses and speed-loading on up to regeneration and shape-changing.

Put this all together, and you’ve got a serious set of options on your hands. That plain old Dwarf Fighter can be a Dwarf Fighter who grew up in the big city, knows a bit of magic, had a Halfling for a granddad, and can talk to cats.

The only issue I have with the character creation system – and it’s a relatively minor one – is the fact that the number of points you have to spend at both character creation and when leveling up depends upon the level of the character’s attributes. This isn’t such a big deal if you use the point-buy method for attributes, but when using the randomized method, you have a “rich get richer” situation.

Task Resolution

HARP uses a kind of inverted percentile system that may seem strange to anyone unfamiliar with Rolemaster. Instead of rolling percentile dice and trying to get a result less than or equal to an ability score, the player adds the roll to his character’s skill level and tries to get a total over 100, with most rolls open-ending on a result of 96 or better. Difficulty modifiers affect this roll, of course, as do two attribute bonuses – either from two different attributes, or from the same attribute added twice. The latter helps reflect a more complex set of influences on a skill, with Acrobatics, for example, taking both Agility and Self-Determination into account.

Now, I don’t like having to juggle double- or triple-digit numbers. That personal bias aside, I find the basic concept superior to the traditional roll-under percentile method due to the greater ease of handling effectively unlimited success levels. And HARP puts that basic mechanic to some fairly clever uses in just a single table. A given success level can tell how far a character gets with an extended task in one round, for example, or how much of a bonus a use of a complementary skill will give the primary roll.

The system grows slightly more convoluted when it comes to opposed rolls, however. Such rolls aren’t compared directly; instead, the success level of one roll generates a number from the table that becomes the difficulty of the opposing roll.

Combat

Combat works in a fairly straightforward manner. The attacker makes his open-ended percentile roll and adds his Offensive Bonus, based on his skill plus any modifiers. The defender’s Defensive Bonus, based upon factors such as armor, quickness, parrying skill, and so on, reduces the roll’s total. If the end result is 1 or greater, it’s a hit! The attacker adds in a weapon modifier ranging from -20 to +20, depending upon the weapon’s size – this, by the way, isn’t the game for you if you’re into detailed weapon stats – and checks the result against one of 13 critical hit tables to determine the final outcome of the attack. (While that may sound like a lot of tables, it’s nothing compared to having a separate table for every single weapon in Rolemaster.) That final outcome can include anything from concussion damage to wound penalties to instant death. As one of many options provided throughout the book, the combat chapter offers a simpler life point system to use in lieu of the critical hit results.

Triple-digit math aside, I like the single-roll resolution combat resolution, even if the latter requires the GM to reveal a foe’s defensive capabilities. Also, the system offers a nice range of combat options, from piecemeal armor to disarms and fencing slashes.

I should also mention there that the game makes no bones about Monks being a full-blown kung fu martial artists, complete with their own fighting styles: Dragon Style, Monkey Style, and so on. (As an aside, I recall being really confused by the monk miniature figure for AD&D 1st edition – what looked like a Catholic friar in a kung fu stance. But I digress.)

A few things do bug me about the combat system, however.

First of all, every non-Martial Art combat skill uses both Strength and Agility for its bonuses. As a result, the system washes out any distinction between the slow-but-strong Dwarf and the quick-but-weak Halfling, for example.

Furthermore, armor reduces the chance of a hit, but weapon damage comes into play after a hit. This counters the suggestion that the Strength/Agility combo represents the chance of dealing a damaging hit. If it’s a matter of causing a damaging hit, shouldn’t weapon modifiers apply to the roll? And if it’s not a matter of inflicting a damaging hit, shouldn’t Strength add to damage and armor subtract from it?

Also, the Critical Hits tables get a little too cutesy for my tastes with descriptions like “I have seen kittens hit harder,” and “That’s gotta hurt – you broke his foot.” Sure, the GM can paraphrase these results, but they aren’t exactly mood-setters for anything other than the most lighthearted games.

Magic

While I may be a little undecided on the combat system, I’m a huge fan of the magic system.

Every spell is its own skill, and spellcasters may choose from spells falling under their own professions as well as those from a generic list available to any spellcaster. Any spellcaster can fire off a bolt of arcane power or boost his attributes, for example.

At first glance, the Cleric spell list looks like little more than a 50/50 split between magic for druids and for worshippers of generic good gods, but Clerics get to select half of their base spells from any spell list. So, a Cleric of a fire god could snag some elemental fire spells from the Mage spell list, for example, and a Cleric of a warrior god could dip into the martial magic of the Warrior Mage list. That’s efficient game design at work.

But what I love best about the system is the way the way spellcasters can tweak default spell effects by increasing both the Power Points invested and the casting difficulty. For example, a Mage could boost the range, radius, or potency of his fireball spell, or any combination of the three. Not only does this give spellcasters plenty of flexibility, but it also ensures that certain spells won’t fall into disuse as the spellcaster advances in level. He can always use more power and overcome greater casting penalties to create more potent effects than can lesser spellcasters who know the exact same spell.

And speaking of casting penalties, any spellcaster can wear armor, but all but the lightest armors increase the Power Point costs of any spells cast. In this way, the game gives a reason for the stereotypical armor-less adventuring magician without arbitrarily mandating the stereotype.

Monsters

The rulebook cements its completeness with a bestiary that covers all of the basics: assorted humanoids, demons, giants, undead, bugs and rats of unusual sizes, and some other standard fantasy beasts – including, of course, dragons. It’s plenty to get you started, and I’m fairly picky about such things.

The full list includes:

Ant, Giant	Ape, Giant	Beetle, Giant	Cat, Large	Centaur*
Demon, Class I	Demon, Class II	Demon, Class III	Demon, Class IV	Demon, Class V
Demon, Class VI	Dog, Riding**	Dragon, Adult	Gargoyle*	Giant, Greater
Giant, Lesser	Goblin*	Golem, Iron	Griffin*	Hippogriff
Hobgoblin*	Horse, Light**	Horse, Medium**	Horse, Heavy**	Horse, War (Lesser)**
Horse, War (Greater)**	Hydra	Kobold*	Lizardmen*	Ogre
Orc*	Pony, Mature**	Rat, Giant	Sabertooth Tiger	Scorpion, Giant
Spider, Giant	Spider, Greater	Spider, Lesser	Troll, Greater	Troll, Lesser
Undead, Class I	Undead, Class II	Undead, Class III	Undead, Class IV	Undead, Class V
Wasp, Giant	Werewolf	Wolf	Wyvern

*These creatures can be used as player characters, with GM approval. The choices in this regard seem somewhat arbitrary, though. Why a griffon but not a hippogriff? Why an orc but not an ogre? On the other hand, I appreciate the fact that the stats include both old-school AD&D-style monster-bashing info as well as full attribute information on a separate table.

**Mounts appear in their own table with more abbreviated listings.

Magic Items

The rulebook includes nine pages full of magic items of all sorts, from the usual (magically accurate weapons and healing elixirs) to the handy (armor that helps you float) to the campy/cool (an equivalent of Thundarr’s Sun Sword) to the creative (a potion that makes the imbiber a better politician). Once again, it’s a generous selection that’s more than enough to get you started.