So this time I want to cover two chapters of HARP Fantasy, Stats, Race and Culture.
The biggest difference here is that there are eight stats and they are on a scale of 1 to 105.
The rules give three options for generating stats, the first is roll eight d100 rolls and then assign them to the stats. You have your profession so you already know where you should traditionally be putting your best rolls.
The second option is heavily promoted as the recommended option and that is point buy. 550 points spread over the eight stats. There is an increasing cost for higher stats.
| Stat Range | Cost per Point |
| 1-90 | 1 |
| 91-95 | 2 |
| 96-100 | 3 |
| 101-105 | 10 |
The same costs are used for stat gains on leveling up but you spend DPs on stat gains at that point.
The final option is 500 point to spend plus 10d10.
Development points are either fixed at 50 per level, recommended, or based upon stats. There is a boxout that warns that some players will spend their DPs to increase there stats to get more DPs in a virtuous circle and/or arms race.
Stat bonuses are work out to be stat-50/5 rounding up. So a stat of 51-55 gives a +1 a stat of 76 gives +6 and 100 +10. Above 100 the bonus increases at +1 per point to a max of 105 giving +15.
The stats are largely the same as Rolemaster stats but we have lost Memory and Empathy. Intuition has be renamed Insight but apart from that you will be entirely comfortable with the stats and their impact on skills.
Races & Cultures
There are six pure races available Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Gryx, Halfling and Human. They get a mix of stat bonuses ranging from -2 to +5. They all come out roughly as having a net bonus of +10. Human’s though are treated differently. The player can assign up to 10 ‘pluses’ to any stats as long as no stat gets more than a +3. This means you can have tough northmen or intellectual urban dwellers without having to define new races and then of course that muddies the idea of setting neutral rules.
In addition to stat modifiers each race gets resistance roll modifiers, an endurance point bonus and a Powerpoint bonus. Endurance points are HARPs #hits so dwarves are the toughest at +40 and elves the most fragile at +20. Everyone else fits in between.
In reference to one of the RMU discussions every stat has at least one race that has a bonus in that stat. Also bowing to common stereotypes Elves and Gnomes get the biggest powerpoint bonuses but I was pleased to see that even Dwarves get a bonus. These powerpoint bonuses are in the region of +10 to +40 with humans getting +30.
The racial descriptions are definitely adequate. You get about eight paragraphs of background which would be useful to a new player or GM but then you get a description of the ‘blood talents’ that make the race different. Every race has three blood talents.
These blood talents are really cool. At the end of the racial descriptions is a list of blood talents. There is a lesser or greater blood talent for every race with a description of the effect on the character. Each lesser blood talent costs 5DPs and a greater 10DPs. At the time of character creation the player can add a dash of another races blood to their gene pool by buying the matching blood talent. If a parent was of that race then you would probably take the greater blood talent but if it was a grand parent then just a less blood talent. So with this a la carte method any combination of base race plus mixed blood can be created. Here is an example…
Dwarven Blood (Lesser)
The character has a bit of Dwarven blood in his ancestry, marking him with slightly Dwarven features. The player may also select any one of the following Special Abilities to replace any one of the character’s normal racial Special Abilities. Once selected, it cannot be altered.
- Dark Vision (Greater)
- Dense Musculature
- Stone Sense
Dwarven Blood (Greater)
One of the character’s parents is a Dwarf, making him half-Dwarven. His features are heavily marked, denoting his Dwarven heritage. The player may select any two of the following to replace any two of the character’s normal racial Special Abilities.
- Dark Vision (Greater)
- Dense Musculature
- Stone Sense
- The character’s Dwarven blood has a strong influence on his physique, determination, and lifespan.
- Constitution Bonus: +2
- Self Discipline Bonus: +2
- Average the lifespan of both your races.
I think this is brilliant, simple and elegant.
The rest of the chapter is taken up with some tables for typical height, weight, ages and base movement rates for all the races.
Cultures
The cultures section gives a description of each of the featured cultures and the number of starting ranks in languages. Although it does emphasise that Dwarves, for example, normally come from Deep Warrens there is absolutely no requirement to stick with those norms.
So cultures are given a paragraph on Location, Clothing and Demeanor of that cultures members. but then there is a table of free adolescent skill ranks.
Every culture gets 20 free ranks including every culture getting at least one rank in melee weapon and at least one rank in missile weapons. The most militaristic culture gets 2 and 3 ranks and most get 1 and 2 ranks in some combination.
So by now your character has 20 ranks in their professional areas from their profession and 20 ranks across a wide range of categories from their culture and then languages on top. This is before anyone has spent a single development point.
So next time I will cover skills and we get to spend some DPs!