Years ago I put quite a lot of effort into developing a d20 RPG for Harn. It had the full support of Jeremy Baker and NRC. However, the news of 4e D&D and the death of NRC, not to mention the clamor of d20 fans who would throw a fit whenever I desired a change they didn't like, soured me on the project.

I'm interested in doing it again, for myself if no one else. I'm not really sure whether there would be any interest in it beyond myself now, but here's what I'm planning:

- no inflating hit points. PCs are rate in two categories: lethal HP and non-lethal HP. Each one is equal to your CON score. When you lose all your non-lethal HP, you may fall unconscious. Further, all future damage goes to lethal HP. When they reach 0, you're dead. Losing lethal HP gives you a penalty to your actions.
- armor will convert lethal damage to nonlethal damage. A character with AC of 5 would convert the first 5 points of damage to nonlethal damage. Anything beyond that is lethal.
- no vancian magic. All spellcasting requires a success roll, based on your skill with the convocation in question
- there are three types of class: common, protagonist, hero. You can start as any of the three. If you start as a hero, you need to detail your commoner class and protagonist class. For instance, a knight (hero class) could have a protagonist class of squire and a commoner class of noble son. A soldier (hero) might have feudal levy as his protagonist class and peasant farmer as his commoner class. It's basically a sort of life path progression, similar to Burning Wheel and Warhammer.

I guess that would be a resounding "no".

Vegetable: I didn't realize that you were making a request for feedback.

While there is a question in the subject line, from the actual article, it sounded like this is something that you were planning to move forward on for your own sake, regardless of interest level. Or at leats that was was my impresssion-- that's why I didn't respond either way. Others might have thought similarly.

Personally, I don't have a any desire for a d20 rules system for Harn, but that doesn't mean no-one else would. Maybe you might want to repost this as a poll in WarFerrets?

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-- Jim Chokey

"Argent, chief embattled tenne. A coney of the field and crossed carrots proper"

I should have been more succinct. I'm just interested in knowing if anyone would have an interest in seeing a finished project posted somewhere. If I ever finish it.

What will it be based on (1-3e, other) or will it be so many changes so it doesn't matter?

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"Corpora lente augescent cito extinguuntur" - Tacitus
Fenhorn's Hârnpage

Mostly on 3e, but there will be a lot of changes. Still there will be the familiar spells, feats, skills, etc.

Good then, I own alot of 3e books (or 3.5e actually) and do from time to time enjoy a break from HârnMaster. Although I usually run FR, but I have thought many time to adjust the rules so they fit Hârn better and run that instead, but I have never got my thumb out of ...

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"Corpora lente augescent cito extinguuntur" - Tacitus
Fenhorn's Hârnpage

Well, I was interested for a second but then I spotted 'feats'. I'm currently prepping a campaign using D&D (Rules Cyclopedia) but would prefer something skills-based (i.e. classless). Harnmaster appears to entail a bit too much bookkeeping (real-time) for what I want right now. I'd like something simpler but not so abstracted as D&D. I would need to review d20 (OGL, etc.) again before I could answer yay or nay (maybe that's why you don't have more traffic on this topic).

Bottom line, I'm sure it would be interesting reading (and might give folks some ideas) but I'm not looking for a system right now that includes 3e feats.

Ignore 'em. IMO you don't have to use them. You can ignore combat feats that give you bonuses to specific types of weapons because I am dividing combat ability (BAB) into melee, thrown, and bows. Likewise, many feats just give you bonuses to skills. So those are easily ignored as well. There will probably not be any metamagic feats either, since this system has PCs roll for whether their spells work, and how *well* they work at that.

Jeez, I may have just talked myself out of feats...

Lol! Yes, I'd be interested in at least reviewing such a system (particularly as it is Harn flavored).

I'm interested in that whatever you come up with I'd use with True20. Not that I couldn't use True20 now.

I'm very interested.

To stay on the straight and narrow you have to recaste it as an 'OGL' version of Harn. The D20 license is no more. The OGL license however is forever.

I'm far more familiar with 3.5 so I'd love to see you Harnify 3.x.

Sigurd

Yes, to be accurate it would be OGL and not d20. Hell, I'd actually prefer it be a 3d6 mechanic instead of d20, since I think incredible results should be rare in a Harn game. What are your thoughts on the changes I mentioned in the first post?

Personally, I think that HM is what is it thanks to it's very peculiar mechanics (and world).

A d20 HarnMaster will be a "killer application" (in a negative sense).

Though, for me, depending on the approach of this d20 HM system, I could go from a "not interested" to a "could get a look at".

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

IMHO:
I couldn't care less. DnD and derivates always underwhelmed me to the brink of nausea. That's why I use Harnmaster and not D20 or other BS. I will never even bother to have a peek at it, no matter which features are included.
Sorry, I don't mean to discourage you from your labour of love, but it will be not for me.

my 2 €-cent

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"The purpose of the game is to entertain the players and the GM. The rest is just semantics."
-by Munin from the forum-

After reading the various threads here, I got to thinking (yes, dangerous I know) what if... using the Siege Engine system from Troll Lord Games in a Harnic environment. Far simpler to use than D&D 3.0, 3.5 and 4.0, no feats, Prestige classes but lots of things that would fit into Harnic type society. Magic can be toned down but there are Barbarians, Knights, Clerics, Rogues, etc. That was just a thought.

Obviously this would be for people not interested in HarnMaster, so you wouldn't be a target.

Hey, I'm interested in HarnMaster AND D&D. Some of us are in fact capable of holding two conflicting thoughts in their head simultaneously. Or more to the point, play HM with their adult friends, and DnD with their kids.

d20 is a perfectly fine mechanic. What keeps me from using a d20 product on Harn is all the inappropriate features - overpowered spells, inappropriate classes, etc.. But I'd say it would be a lot of work to really get it right. My hats off to you if you are willing to sign up for the task.

There was a d20 OGL for Harn that was started and died offmany years ago. Basic mechanics, occupations, tribal backgrounds all went pretty well. As psionics (sensitivity, mental confict) were introduced the effort started to creep away from representing Harn well. I think the project died shortly thereafter (and better dead than Red AFAIC).

Having recently been exposed to the D&D 4e I'd have to say the new system is a complete farce. It's sad to see what 4e has done to Forgotten Realms - I'd hate to see what a 4e Harn would look like.

IMO most D&D system improvements over the years have made D&D more like Harnmaster (and for that matter most simplifications done to Harn to make it play more like D&D have made it less good). Much of what was done well with the Harn OGL was done by drawing from Harnmaster and started to fall apart when stepping away from that. A long way around to return to the opinion I started with but, by extention, it would seem easier and better just to use Harnmaster.

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Member of the CoE (Council of Elitists)

Harnmaster suffers, though, for a lot of players - especially my kids.

Advancement is glacial.

Combat is unpredictable. Yes, this is a problem for a lot of players, who prefer a world where the favorite always wins. My kids don't like to see their characters laid low by a lucky blow from an inferior opponent. (I can't say I'm too pleased when it happens to my characters, either, but I've learned not to let the GM see me cry.)

Their friends play D&D. We all know how hard it is to get a HM game going.

So get over it. If a d20 variant existed that modeled Harn's religious, military, and wizardly institutions well, I'd be DMing it for my kids next week.

There is another thought here, of using Harnworld as the setting for a D20 game, be it D&D of any flavour, or using Castles and Crusades. By showing the Harnworld setting, one can lead others into Harnmaster and its various flavours.

In doing D&D / HM conversions it is amazing how strong a corralation there is between HP and END. Any system that creates an increasing END or a "buffer" of points before applying GP vs ability scores would simulate HP.

Especially consider staying away from HMC/HM3's 1 IL = +1d6. If you use that characters fall fast and randomly.
1 IL (5 IP) equating to +1 on existing injury and 1d6 per IL on current wound is going to improve play a lot. (That is for those who don't like characters dropping like flies on huge random basis - from what I've heard lots of people like it that way though.)

+1 per 5 IP is a good ballance. HM1's +1 per 10 IP was a bit excessive and characters with high END would remain conscious and "fight on" long after their combat skills were reduced to zero and they were reduced to crawling abound the battlefield with sub-zero MOBILITY. +1 per 5 IP is a mercy - at least you pass out about the time it is clear you have no chance. +1d6 per 5 IP is just sad: you pass out soon after your 2nd minor injury in a short combat with your skills and mobility largely untested.

Really. If you aren't already try +1 per 5 IP (1 IL) and I doubt you'll feel a need for D&D anymore.

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Member of the CoE (Council of Elitists)

Depends on how quickly the GM hands out development rolls I guess.

Outside of play 1 development rolls for [12 hours training by an expert, 20 hours practice, or 40 hours of employment] is hardly slow. Most persons by that rule become "Masters" within 3 years of employment. It is so fast it can't be fairly applied to NPCs - only to those constantly applying themselves toward rapid advancement and challenge.

3 monthly improvement rolls from "2 hours a day practice" equate to 1 improvement roll per 20 hours. A character could go far by expanding to 4 hours a day or more. I also give bonus development rolls for monthly activity.

Monthly employment: 300 hours @ 1 per 40 hours of employment = 7 improvement rolls a month. Consider a character hiking in the wilderness for a month: running, jumping, climbing, awareness, stealth - or riding if on a horse...

In play improvement rolls tend to come even faster. Usually several per combat. I've started a new rule IMC that you might like. Every time a CS or CF is rolled "in play" on a skill the character gets a development roll - probably better than the GM having to decide after the combat how many improvement rolls were earned. The GM can always hand out bonus rolls on top of that if he wishes - or decide a particular situation doesn't rise to the level of challenge sufficient to deserve that many improvement rolls.

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Member of the CoE (Council of Elitists)

That's a good point. It may be worth noting that in the current HM campaign in which pokep and I are both players, the group also chose to limit the number of development rolls per session to a max of 3 (rather than one for each skill used during the session), although we have since expanded this to also allow 'extra' rolls for skills on which a CS or CF was rolled. This has made skill advancement even slower than in other HM games I've played.

By contrast, Eric Anderson's old "Legends of Elorinar" campaign, a more generous approach to development rolls was in play-- if you used a skill a lot during a session, one might get more than one rolls per session. After only 12-13 sessions of play, I had a character go from a starting ML of 42 in one skill to 108. (It was HMG, with spells as individual skills-- and this was a spell I used like crack).

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-- Jim Chokey

"Argent, chief embattled tenne. A coney of the field and crossed carrots proper"

Check your nearest Barnes & Noble's bargain book tables this week for a super-cheap source of d20 hardbound rulebooks. I found 11 D&D 3.5 rulebooks for $3.99 each at the B&N in Bloomington, IL today; I figure I'll read them and resell on eBay anything that's not a keeper. (4E? I'm still DMing for my kids with 3.0, and couldn't see the point of spending full price for D&D 3.5 books -- but for $3.99 each? Sure!)