Hello All,

So far the Harn campaign is going along swimmingly, even combat is getting fast and smooth as everyone get familiar with the rules and their scores.

However, Im having a problem with the load / fatigue business.

I don't see where the character's strength comes into to how much they can carry. I see how endurance works on fatigue rate but not strength.

Shouldn't a stronger character who can lift more, fatigue slower than a lesser strength character who has proportionately more load to carry. As fatigue rate is load / endurance, shouldn't it have a strength portion there somewheres?

Or am I missing something. Harn is a great system but the rules are not presented to be easy to read or figure out.

I think you are using it as intended.

I use 2*Load/Strength for Encumberence
and 1*Load/Endurance for Fatigue Rate
(minimum of 1, round up)

HM1 doesn't front load all the fatigue costs but instead adds a Fatigue Rate of fatigue
every 6 rounds of combat.

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Member of the CoE (Council of Elitists)

Makes sense, Feanor.

With the HM rules as they are, a larger person is at a disadvantage when it comes to encumberance and fatigue. assuming equal strength, will, and fatigue, the larger person has a heavier load to carry as armour weighs more. They get a bump on strength for their size, but fatigue and will are not effected, thereby giving them a disadvantage when it comes to Encumberance and fatigue (or encuberance only if using HM3).

What would make most sense to be is their encumberance is determined only by strength - though how they fatigue and recover would be influenced mostly by their fatigue rating.

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

Im thinking of revising the formula for fatigue rate to divide by strength not endurance.

Then have endurance as the threshold for exhaustion once accumulated fatigue goes over the END score.

Seems to make sense that Strength sets how much you tire by (ie. how much of a load you can carry), while Endurance sets how long you can carry the load by.

Im playing HMG, as I didn't mention this before. I like numbers and there is an excellent spreadsheet for character gen / maintenance.

Are you looking at HM1,G, or 3 rules, Noldorion?

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

Im using the HMG rules but I like the load penalty they give as an optional rule.

So, I use fatigue as how long you can fight and load as how much your armour, etc slows you down. Currently using x2 as a multiplier of load for a physical penalty. Then people also run out of fatigue as they fight. Nice and realistic and my PCs are wondering now if their rush to armour up themselves isn't gone to far. Most are at the 4 stamina per minute loss rate which translates to -8 on all combat skills.

Good reason to not cover yourself in armour and leave the lesser hit spots lightly armoured or open to save the weight.

From strictly a real world sense and not a game balance point of view - The HM1/G encumberance penalties are probably abut right.

The HMG fatigue penalties though are perhaps to stiff - fighting someone without a significant load (Say fatigue of 1) can fight non stop for 20 minutes with a fatigue penatly at the end of this of only -20.

On the other hand, some one with say 70 pound of gear and a 12 END (Average load for a partial mail/quilt armour and weapons) will be at -120 after 20 minutes (impossible actually to a point).

I have used the fatigue numbers per HMG, then add 2 and divide by two for a fatigue rating, IMO this is more accurate.

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

I find the Encumbrance penalties are too high for armor and treat all weight equally. Properly fitted armor is even distributed and does not interfere with ones sword arm. It does increase ones fatigue considerably ion hot humid weather. I use to work out with two expert renaissance martial artist in the Alabama summers. I could walk around for hours without getting excessively fatigued, but even the most fit suffered from fatigue within an half hour of sparing. Most people need a break after 15 minutes. For comparison: I conducted small plot Ag research at the time and my crews could do manual field harvest for about two hours in the same heat. Thus I am experimenting with using the armor encumbrance as a fatigue generator.

1 level of fatigue per 15 - (armor encumbrance + Heat index(0-5 scale)) minutes of strenuous activity.
My heat index is 0 for cold dry to 5 hot and humid.

However, other "dead" weight is usually not evenly distributed and really hinders ones combat effectiveness. Historically troops ditch their packs at the first sign of combat. Packs belong in the baggage train! Many people that read this are going to point out that musket armed infantry carried their packs into combat, and they would be correct. However, the modern backpack began its development in the French revolution and transfers weight to the waist by way of a belt. These packs were not available in the ancient and medieval period


SIDE NOTE: I found that many of the weights for armor to be on the heavy side. I had three suits of Indian mail, one 13th and two from the 15th century weighed and they were all in the mid 20's. However they are all short sleeved and made of wootz steel so most likely lighter than European iron mail. For the record these suits are in a private collection of a friend and for security reasons I will not reveal their location. I also weighed three reproductions of quilted gambesons (worn under mail) and that are used with these armors and they were between 5 and 7lbs. For those knights that wish to wear their mail without a gambesons, be warned mail will imbed in one skin after a hard blow if some kind of padding is not worn underneath.

To be through I weighed a reproduction suit of Aztec cloth armor made of heavy hemp and padded with cotton and it weighed about 20 lbs. I weighed the cloth armor because it was the closest that I could come to a suit of cloth armor that would have been worn by European and Chinese infantry. There use to be some really nice chineses cloth armors at on exhibit Epcot Center in FL. I would be curious to know if anyone knows how much it weighs.

The only surcoat I could find made of historic material was around a pound.

I agree that the weights for armour are on the high side. Mail is about right, maybe 10% heavy, but that depends on the mail. The Indian mail you speak of though from what I know is not the same weight as Eurpean mail worn during the mail period - it was a bit lighter. One question I have - was this Indian mail riveted?

I actually at one time using historic wieghts (based on museum examples) came up with revised weights for all types of armour.

However, something like "padded" can vary a lot historically, on the heavy side the 30 layers of linen garment and on the other side 5 layers of linen with cotton batting. These are actually two seperate forms of armour designed for different needs.

But the other issue is not just weight but other factors such as stiffness, where the weight is carried,etc. - the weight of mail was born much by the shoulders, different lacing techniques tried to spread the weight around.

The other factor is heat and breathing, particularily with helms - fighting in quilted armour but with a great helm would be fatiguing, as the helm restricts oxygen ans causes a build up of heat around the face/head, which is one of the biggest reasons for later visored helms.

I like the idea though of fatigue being based upon heat however.

One thing - Middle ages knights were capable of vaulting onto horses without using the stirrup, climbing ladders on the underside of the rungs, going cartwheels - all in full plate.

I think most game systems, including Harn over rate the effect of armour on mobility and encumberance - I think primarily as trying to maintain "play balance" so a lightly armoured type has a better chance. I am of the opposite thought - if amrour was worn, and not a great hindrance to mobility, treat it as such - there where reasons why armour was worn, and this should not be "play balanced" out.

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

Yes, I have never seen a historical suit that was not riveted. There are a lot of "reproductions" that are not riveted. All of the suits showed signs of repairs done at different times and with methods that differed from the original maker. One suit had excellent repairs in one section, but poorly crimped repairs in another section. I suspect that the crimped repairs were battlefield fixes.




I agree, people used what was locally available. I am under the impression that Cotton was rare and expensive in Europe but common in India and Meso-America. I have seen an period source that stated one way a gambeson was made was by sewing thick wool fleeces together then quilting into a layer of linen. The linen was worn on the inside. I have also seen references to unpressed felt being used a quilt batting. Some historian propose that straw was used, but I think this would be excessively bulky.

LOL, that's what I was getting at. I was not sure if the mail has historical or reproduction. India is known as one of the larger makers of reproduction non-riveted mail



I agree on the straw being too bulky. As far as cotton - it may have been expensive early in the middle ages, but most late middle ages textile underarmour has cotton in it. I think the crusades opened up much trade and interest in cotton, and the Spanish reconquista opened up more christian areas where cotton was grown.

But yeah, textile armour could come in a wide variety. Felt is simple, effective, and uses a very common western European material, wool.

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

Strength and resistance are two different factor.

Not necessarily a strong man has more stamina.
Cardio Strength interval training is the way to go


By the way, im HM3, if i remember well, STR is factor in Endurance.
Personally fatigue rates are best not used at all.

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Si vis pacem, para bellum
I Signori della Guerra: http://www.isignoridellaguerra.com

Fully agree with you here, DFA. Only thing is if one has trained for strength, they are generally more fit, even from a cardiovascular standpoint than a sedentary person.

And the other thing why some posters wish to see strength more involved in Endurance is the simple math of it in HM terms.

As a for instance:

Take Big Abe and Medium Bob (A & B).

Abe is very large, 220 pounds, and gets a +4 on strength. Bob gets no adds for strength as he weighs 150 pounds. Both have average strength for size, Bob has a 15 strength

Because of Bob's size, his armour weighs 1.2 times the Norm. If using heavy weapons, the 1.2 roughly corresponds.

Both have Fatigue rates and will power of 10.5, making Bobs Endurance 11, and Abe's Endurance 12.

Lets say they have a base load with armour an weapons of 70 pounds. Abe's load due to size is 84.

They now have the following fatigue and Encumberance:

Abe: 84/12 = 7, 14 encumberance, 7 fatigue.
Bob: 70/11 = 12 encumberane, 6 fatigue.

Bob is penalized because Strength factors in .33 on End, though his size causes the load to increase by 1.2

If we calcualte Endurance as (Str+Str+Wp+Ft)/4, Bob's End is now a 13, and his Load and Fatigue is now equal to Bob's, i.e. 12 Encumberance, 6 fatigue.

There would be a more complicated way to factor strength inot the equation, Maybe (Str+Str+Wp)/3 to factor merely the encumberance (We can call this carrying capacity), and take a fatigue stat of (Ft+Ft+Wp), and divide this by the fatigue calcualted above, and this number is how many rounds go by before one accrues a fatigue level.

For instance - Abe has a CC of 15+15+11/3 = 14.
His load is 84/14 = 6, for an encumberance of 12.
His fatigue is 11+11+10 = 32
Fatigue (32) divided by load (6) = 5, so every 5 rounds he accumulates one fatigue level, or 5 points of fatigue.

With a Fatigue of 18, he goes 8 rounds before accumulating a level of fatigue.

This differentiates between strength a fatigue better, but is a bit too complicated for my tastes.

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

This is why I completely ignore armours size.

In general armour weight is distributed on the body. I've seen real-world friends of mine (about 20cm shorter) donning my armour and fatiguing the same rate.
I've lended chainmail and plate armours.

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Si vis pacem, para bellum
I Signori della Guerra: http://www.isignoridellaguerra.com

I understand. In my game, I have houserules which more closely tie strength to mass than the HM rules do. So a large character has an advantage in strength by a good margin, so to be fair to less than huge characters I use the armour size rules.

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