In HarnMaster your character has an EML (Effective Mastery Level) which consists of his skill plus or minus any modifiers that may come into play. You, the player, must equal to or under this EML in order for your character to be successful at any skill test. Any dice roll result that can be evenly divided by five is a critical result (e.g. 25, 40, 85, etc.). If your result was a failure and it can be evenly divided by 5, it is considered a critical failure. If your result was a success and it can be evenly divided by 5, it is considered a critical success. This is an elegant and sound game mechanic. Some players I have talked to have a problem with this mechanic because they feel really good successes and really poor failures should lie in the really low end of the dice result range or in the really high end of the dice result range, respectively. However there is just as much chance that you will roll a critical in HarnMaster as you will roll a special success, for instance, in RuneQuest (20% of the normal chance for success). However, the designers of HarnMaster have saved you the trouble of looking on a chart or doing mental calculations. HarnMaster combat results depend solely on rolling a Critical Success, a Success, a Failure, or a Critical Failure. Initiative is determined upon the completion of an engage move. Each party tests initiative. If the defender gains a higher success level, a tactical advantage is earned, which can be used to attack first, disengage, or otherwise proceed normally.
To quickly explain the system, both attacker and defender roll and compare their results on a table. Cross referencing the their results gives some kind of attack result. (Note: The attack and defense tables are small, but very easy to read, and only take up half a page.) Some examples of attack results:
Attacker gets a success and the defender blocks with a success: The result is a successful block.
Attacker gets a failure and the defender blocks with a success: Defenders Tactical Advantage (I will explain this later.)
Attacker gets a critical success and the defender dodges with a success: The attacker gets A1 (this means that the attack was successful and the attacker gets to roll one 1d6 in addition to the number of d6 damage his weapon allows).
Attacker fails and the defender counterstrikes with a critical success. The defender gets D2(the same as above, but the defender gets to roll damage on the attacker...2d6 extra damage dice in this instance)
If a successful strike was made by either attacker the next chart called the Aiming Zone (on the same page) is consulted. The aiming zone is divided into 3 columns. Attacker or defender can aim for the high body (which covers from skull to abdomen) or low body (forearm to foot) at -10 to their EML. If no aim was made, there is no modifier to EML and die results are spread out over the entire body (less likelihood you will strike the place you want to hit). The strike location is very specific allowing strikes to jaw, eye, mouth, neck, thorax, hip, upper arm, etc. Once the strike location has been determined the damage dice are rolled to determine the effective impact of the strike on the Injury table. Armor is subtracted from the damage before the effective impact table is consulted. Each strike location has a result for effective impacts of 1+, 5+, 9+, 13+, and 17+ damage. 1+ results always produce minor damage (bruises, cuts, stabs). 5+ results and 9+ results mostly produce serious damage (fracture, cuts, stabs) of different levels. 13+ results produce a few serious damage results to such areas as calf and forearm and a few kill results to such areas as skull and neck and the other results are mostly grievous (crushes, cuts, or stabs). 17+ results are either kill results or grievous results of different levels. The injury table also indicates when fumble, stumble, or amputation checks should be made. Injury results are listed with the first letter of the type of injury (minor, serious, grievous, kill), and the level of injury in numeric form (e.g. M1, S2, G4). All of this information is printed on one page (in color in the second edition, I have heard the third edition is black and white) with highlighted cells in the tables and clear fonts so that it is very easy to read and quick to consult.
Each new injury and its body part are recorded on the injury section of the combat profile on the back of the Character Sheet. For example a neck S2 injury is recorded, “neck S2”. Every time a character takes a new injury a 1d6 is rolled for each point of Universal Penalty. Universal Penalty is the combined total of wound levels and fatigue levels. If the roll exceeds endurance, the character is downed (unconscious) from bloodloss, pain, and injury. Each turn, the player makes a roll for his character to see if he regains consciousness (using the same number of dice). If a successful roll is made, he regains consciousness. After recovering consciousness a character makes one more shock roll. If he does not make this shock roll, he is in a state of shock, displaying symptoms of cold sweats, weakness, incoherence, etc. If his roll is successful, he remains coherent and can function normally with his Universal Penalty applied. Universal Penalty is a negative modifier made to any skill roll due to fatigue and injury. For more detail/ realism/ consistency the GM may restrict Universal Penalty to appropriate skill rolls, depending on the injury. A K result on effective impact indicates a mortal wound that may be fatal. Where one of these results is indicated the player rolls a number of die equal to the level of the injury. For instance if a K5 is noted, five dice are rolled. If this roll exceeds endurance, the character has died.
Sometimes the attacker or the defender may get a tactical advantage. According to the rules this means that the character can immediately and execute a bonus Action Option. No more than one tactical advantage may be gained during a turn, although a character may get other ones during the round. Tactical advantages could possibly be used in other ways by creative GM's and players (if the GM allows it).
I will not go into these because of space but the rules also address knockbacks and bleeders (in which characters lose 1 blood point per minute).
After the battle a little dice rolling is done concerning wounds. This extra time seemed realistic to me, because after every real battle some time is spent assessing wounds and treating them. Each wound has a healing rate generated by the treatment table. A character receives one healing roll for every five days per wound to reduce injury levels. The treatment table is very detailed and goes into graphic descriptions of wounds and the specific treatment of them. This seems realistic to me because I think I would have an idea of the nature of my wounds during battle, but I wouldn’t really find out more specifics of them until after the battle was over. The chart goes into how deep punctures are, how long gashes are, the degree of burn, etc.
Rules are given for movement, charging, disengaging, rising, surprise, groping for items, missile attacks, catching missiles, wet bowstrings, wild shots, zone targeting, target shooting, grapple attacks, martial arts attacks (limited), body blocks, esoteric attacks, and tangle attacks with nets and such. The 3rd edition rules also have mounted attack rules. The defender has options for blocking, counterstriking, dodging, or doing nothing (Ignore). Each weapon has what are called weapon aspects. These are damages based on how the weapon is used. A dagger, for example, has Blunt (1) Edged (2) and Point (5). The numbers in parentheses stand for how many d6 may be thrown for weapon damage in addition the damage shown on the attack table. I have played a lot of role playing games and I have never seen as detailed a system for armor as in HarnMaster. It accounts for layering armor of a wide variety of types such as leather, quilt, mail, scale, etc. and armor size. This means that those bits and pieces of armor your character finds laying around in an old castle may be put to some good use if they fit you. The bookkeeping may take some time during character creation, but its worth it. Each hit location can be armored and the armor protection is subtracted from the effective impact of the strike.
By the way, Harnmaster gives weapon breakage rules. I would strongly suggest revising these or not using them at all. I really don't really care what the actual breakage rate for medieval weapons was. It is very frusrating to lose a battle because your weapon breaks, and it seemed to happen too often in our games. I would recomment using the weapon breakage rules for old weapons found rummaging through ruins.
That’s the basic outline of the Harn Combat system. The system is designed to work on a very basic level, or you can add optional rules given as you desire. There are some problems in store for the GM in regards to creatures, however. How much endurance do you give to a Manticore, for instance? Sometimes you have to alter the hit location table to include wings or a tail. This can be fun sometimes, or it can be frustrating at others. The GM who just randomly makes creatures according to whim may run into problems. Players may notice any inconsistencies of endurance or armor factors in creatures compared to previous creatures he has designed. It is probably better to make up rules regarding weight and size of creature and endurance. Another possibility is to make a short catalog of traditional fantasy creatures (wyverns, unicorns, trolls)all at once and make new creatures that are consistent with the ones in the catalog.
How does the system play? It is a very descriptive system. Very gritty and (Should I dare say?) realistic. It includes more dice rolls than are common in many systems, but some other factors common in other systems are streamlined by the game designers to reduce mental calculations, and therefore, save time. Much of the tables can be memorized. Our GM only had to look at them from time to time. There is actually a very easy concept behind each table that, once understood, would allow you to memorize the tables quickly. How fast does the game go when the tables are memorized? Incredibly fast. How fast does the game go if both players and GM both have to look at the tables and are unorganized? It goes more slowly in this case.
Harnmaster does not have rules, that I know of, that deal with heavy medieval war engines such as catapults. Columbia Games offers a mass combat supplement for HarnMaster called Battle Lust. I don’t know if it covers combat engines or not.
Now…about The Riddle of Steel. I have read about it online. It seems to give very descriptive results for different hit locations. The initiative system is different and gives the feeling of circling opponents. You can split your dice pool to defend and attack with different amounts of dice. I actually like that idea. Although using a dice pool may be more elegant or intuitive, you could replicate it in HarnMaster by letting characters split their EML between attacks and defense. It sounds to me like there are a lot of good ideas in the TROS system. Let me tell you what I think HarnMaster may offer that The Riddle of Steel doesn’t. The attack results in HarnMaster are vague enough to tweak for different situations. HarnMaster doesn’t really have a specific martial arts system. Let’s say one of my players wanted to play a martial arts character. The HarnMaster charts don’t have to be restricted to what they were originally designed for. An A1 attack could mean a level one martial arts maneuver rather than an extra 1d6 damage. Or an A2 attack could mean two quick jabs for a boxer. If a martial artist’s intention was to do a reverse spin kick (possibly an A2 manuever)and he only got an A1 result, maybe it could be handled by saying that at the last second before he initiated the attack, he saw a more direct attack for a frontal kick (A1 result). Lets say he gets DTA (Defenders Tactical Advantage) on a block. The rules give him the opportunity to make an immediate counter attack. I tell him he traps the attacking hand in a lock and delivers a counterstrike to the head (if he wishes to take a -10 to his EML.) Lets say my fencer has a skill called Disarm which allows him to disarm his opponents. He is attacked and he feints ( a false dodge) so he takes the dodge option. He gets a DTA. I ask him to roll against his Disarm skill. He is successful. I tell him that he feints and his opponent leaves himself wide open for weapon disarm. His opponents weapon goes flying across the room...poor fool.
I have noticed that many Harn players played RoleMaster at one time and maybe have their old books lying around. Attack results have four different levels in Harn...and their are 5 different levels of criticals in RoleMaster. You could use an A2 result to represent a B unbalancing critical or an A3 attack result to represent a C sweeps critical for a martial arts manueuver.
Also injuries are described specifically enough to know what type of injury is done to the body but vaguely enough that the GM can tweak his descriptions of them to add variety, to fit an unusual weapon, or to describe grapples, sweeps, and throws. This combat system is full of opportunities to customize, make your own interpretations, etc. The Riddle of Steel does not seem to have this flexibility, from what I have read of it online. It seems to be too precise and detailed for my tastes, but then again, I haven't seen it. I like the flexibility of combat in the HarnMaster system. Also HarnMaster covers many things in detail that the Riddle of Steel may not cover. I read that it is very good for determining melee combat. I have not read any claims for it with regard to missile fire, nets, fire, wild shots, etc. I am not saying TROS does not have them. Lack of information about these subjects doesn't necessarily imply that the game doesn't handle those things well. One other thing that I have read in regard to the Riddle of Steel is that a hit usually means serious injury or death. I personally think this may be a misrepresentation of TROS. I am not an expert in medieval combat, but I have done some “live” simulated combat. It is certainly not the case that everytime I get hit, I get seriously injured. I can see how the effect of mowing down your enemies could be exciting and reminiscent of glorious sagas. HarnMaster doesn’t offer this unless your character is really good and your opponents are really poor. After several serious hits you may fall unconscious from pain and shock…or maybe the gods will give you strength to go on. You never know when your point of collapse is going to come. I think it is very realistic in that case. One other thing I read with relation to TROS, was something to the effect that finally here is game where a large number of grunts can defeat a hero. That makes sense because the hero’s dice pool will eventually be used up trying to defend himself from attack. You can get the same effect in HarnMaster by either only allowing the character to defend himself against a limited number of attacks or by gradually decreasing his EML for defending himself by 10's for each attack he has to defend himself against in a round. In any case, HarnMaster has always allowed me as a player, and my players to do anything we wanted to in combat, even though the rules do not touch on every specific situation. This flexibility and the fact that the tables are simple, on one page and memorizable may give it the edge over TROS. HarnMaster combat may offer a little faster combat resolution than TROS does. That is the best I can do without seeing TROS or playing in it or running it. I am hoping that those who have played both systems will write in affirming or disagreeing with what I have to say. Some people really want to know. (Also see the comments under "How is this realistic?" in my HarnMaster review).
I have seen a few reviews that describe HarnMaster as a clunky system. I can understand how someone could pick the game up, play it once or twice, and get this impression. HarnMaster players who give themselves some time to get familiar with the system, usually enjoy it, from my experience. HarnMaster can be a clunky system if the GM is limited in his imagination or if he is unorganized. There are many, many systems that don’t allow for GM creativity. HarnMaster is not one of them. It is specifically designed for both players and GM to be creative. The rules are modular and loose enough to allow for just about any revisions without remaking the basic game system.
