Topic: A Few Rule Interpretations Needed

[acuoio]

Just played our first gaming session for SF and it went decent. We have a couple of questions on interpretations from the rule book.

Human Special Abilities on page 44. Which way is it?
1.  You get 3 abilities:  Bonus Skill Ranks, Skill Specialization, and (Profession Adaptability or Skill Flexibility).
or
2.  You get 2 abilitles:  Bonus Skill Ranks and Profession Adaptability or Skill Flexibility and Skill Specialization.

Purchasing Active Field Talent(s)
Can you purchase more than one Active Field Talent per level?  Meaning, at level 1, can I have Tier 3 in Telepathy if I want to spend the dev points to do it? 

Ballistic Puncture and Ballistic Impact
When is it best to use one crit chart over the other? 

Suppression Fire
Does this also degrade the performance of the enemy?  Meaning, I perform suppressing fire on a group of enemies, would that inhibit their ability to perform certain actions like movement or firing back or force them into cover?

Hit Locations
Are these used for every attack or only for Called Shots?  Or is the Crit Table determining the hit location?


Thanks

[Cormac Doyle]

Human Special Abilities
You get 3:
1. Bonus Skill Ranks
2. Skill Spec.
3. Profession Adapt (HARP-style) OR Skill Flex (HARP-SF, will be added to HARP in next ed)

Active Fields
- Buy whatever you can afford (Tier 3 active would chew up a LOT of DP)

Ballistic Puncture - when the weapon is capable of penetrating the armor (or there is no armor)
 -- Armor Piercing weapons vs Armor; regular rounds vs unarmored
Ballistic Impact - when the weapon is not capable of penetrating the armor
 -- Regular rounds vs Kevlar vests; "Rubber Bullets" vs unarmored.

Suppression Fire
 -- is designed to enforce a Morale/Fear roll before the foe does anything. If you don't use those ... that is up to you. Also, it essentially implies that you are spraying an area with fire; any "reasonable" person would spend most of their time trying to stay behind hard cover. If someone choses to stand up and shoot back, they are very likely to be hit ... but as a GM that is for you to enforce. (The morale/fear rules are the only official game-mechanic available ... I would suggest - "Absolute success = no penalties other than the risk of being shot; Success = -20 to all actions due to caution; Failure = -40 to all actions; Absolute Failure = fail to act due to fear" or something similar)

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

Reinforcing Cormac's very proper answers:

Just played our first gaming session for SF and it went decent. We have a couple of questions on interpretations from the rule book.

Human Special Abilities on page 44. Which way is it?
1.  You get 3 abilities:  Bonus Skill Ranks, Skill Specialization, and (Profession Adaptability or Skill Flexibility).
or
2.  You get 2 abilitles:  Bonus Skill Ranks and Profession Adaptability or Skill Flexibility and Skill Specialization.

It's choice 1. Humans get 3 abilities and choice is between Skill Flexibility and Profession Adaptability. This will be back-ported into HARP Fantasy.

Purchasing Active Field Talent(s)
Can you purchase more than one Active Field Talent per level?  Meaning, at level 1, can I have Tier 3 in Telepathy if I want to spend the dev points to do it? 

Yes.

Ballistic Puncture and Ballistic Impact
When is it best to use one crit chart over the other? 

From the book:
"Kinetic enhancements to armor cause the impact of a projectile to
be spread over a large area rather than punching a hole through
the target’s body. SysOps may wish to represent this by allowing
Ballistic Puncture attacks from firearms to be resolved as Ballistic
Impact criticals instead. Likewise, kinetic enhancement armor will
protect against Shrapnel attacks – the SysOp can allow these to be
resolved as Impact critical attacks instead." (page 170)

You can also rule that certain armors are simply too good against inferior types of firearms and use Ballistic Impact.

Suppression Fire
Does this also degrade the performance of the enemy?  Meaning, I perform suppressing fire on a group of enemies, would that inhibit their ability to perform certain actions like movement or firing back or force them into cover?

It depends on how badly hurt the enemy wants to get. There aren't morale/fear rules though a SysOp is welcome to apply common sense / morale - most foes won't run into a hail of bullets or energy bolts or do stuff that exposes them to that sort of danger.

Hit Locations
Are these used for every attack or only for Called Shots?  Or is the Crit Table determining the hit location?

You need them for Called Shots. You may use them for all attacks as another way of varying the critical result description.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[acuoio]

Thanks Gentlemen.

[acuoio]

Well, we finished our 2nd play session and burned the midnight oil from 2pm to 3am.   We have a couple more questions on the rule set.

1. This one concerns Clouding. I have designed a toon that is made for Clouding III, Ambushing, and attacking with a vibroblade. I need a few rule interpretations on the appropriate use of Clouding.

A. Clouding is a Concentration discipline. What examples from above would break my Concentration?  I assume anything that would require me to make a Maneauver roll.  So after Clouding, I could walk up to a guy and Ambush him. The Ambush is a MR and would break my concentration. At that point the guy could see me.

B. At Tier 3 Clouding, the description says "can completely disrupt one sense". At the end of all the descriptions, it says "Tier 3: The activator can affect three senses."  I'd like to know how to interpret these seemingly conflicting statements.

C. Also, if I choose to "make the person blind" with Clouding III, does that also make the person blind to my team or just to me? What is accomplished at Tier 4/5?

2. The last one concerns Pulse Grenades.  A Mark II pulse grenade has a target CRR of 100. Is that an all or nothing roll?  We think of CRR as having degrees of "harm" of which your RR tells you which degree you suffer.

Thanks.

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

Well, we finished our 2nd play session and burned the midnight oil from 2pm to 3am.   We have a couple more questions on the rule set.

1. This one concerns Clouding. I have designed a toon that is made for Clouding III, Ambushing, and attacking with a vibroblade. I need a few rule interpretations on the appropriate use of Clouding.

A. Clouding is a Concentration discipline. What examples from above would break my Concentration?  I assume anything that would require me to make a Maneauver roll.  So after Clouding, I could walk up to a guy and Ambush him. The Ambush is a MR and would break my concentration. At that point the guy could see me.

Making the actual ambush is going to break concentration. It is an Ambush maneuver followed by the actual attack. An ordinary Telepath won't have the spare brain capacity to do that and maintain concentration. Typically if it requires a maneuver roll and it can't be done slowly (i.e. at a penalty of -50 for brain trying to keep concentration), it should also end the concentration. SysOps should note the Mental Focus skill for maintaining concentration over time and in the face of distractions.

B. At Tier 3 Clouding, the description says "can completely disrupt one sense". At the end of all the descriptions, it says "Tier 3: The activator can affect three senses."  I'd like to know how to interpret these seemingly conflicting statements.

Disruption is a separate Tiering parameter to Senses (number of). Thus a telepath could choose to scale for two senses (Tier 2, -10 penalty) and have complete disruption to both senses (so Tier 3, -20 penalty) for blind and deaf, say, so total scaling penalty of -30. You have to scale both - and you don't get any parameter above Tier 1 for free.

C. Also, if I choose to "make the person blind" with Clouding III, does that also make the person blind to my team or just to me? What is accomplished at Tier 4/5?

The target is unable to see anything.

At Tier 4 and 5, the telepath is being much more subtle. At Tier 4, you could walk up to the sentry and let him see you but not see the blaster you are holding in your hand. At Tier 5, you could have him see you and a young naive farmer on your gravcar but not be able to see the two robots in the back (though if they make any noise there will be a problem!).

2. The last one concerns Pulse Grenades.  A Mark II pulse grenade has a target CRR of 100. Is that an all or nothing roll?  We think of CRR as having degrees of "harm" of which your RR tells you which degree you suffer.

Thanks.

These weapons are aimed at disrupting cyberware and robots etc., so you can choose to have these just cause a d100 roll on the Malfunction Table for electronic equipment if the target is failed or use the following table (to be found in HARP SF Xtreme) for standard equipment too

CRR(Target) No effect
CRR(Target - 25) 1d100–20 on the Malfunction Table
CRR(Target - 50) 1d100–10 on the Malfunction Table
CRR(Target - 75) 1d100 on the Malfunction Table
CRR(Target - 100) 1d100+10 on the Malfunction Table
Failure 1d100+20 on the Malfunction Table

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[joel.lovell]

"Making the actual ambush is going to break concentration. It is an Ambush maneuver followed by the actual attack. An ordinary Telepath won't have the spare brain capacity to do that and maintain concentration. "

C. Also, if I choose to "make the person blind" with Clouding III, does that also make the person blind to my team or just to me? What is accomplished at Tier 4/5?

The target is unable to see anything.

Interesting - so you could have one character do clouding on sentry's...and have another character come up on them to nail 'em. The other character is doing the manuever, so the clouding effect could in theory be maintained correct?

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

Correct, the team works.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[Zhaleskra]

Reconstituting from transporter buffer because this seems like the most appropriate topic in which to ask my question. I am glad that HARP SF Psionics are less confusing than I originally thought, though I do have distaste for them appearing to not stick with the "one mechanic for everything" theme. Anyway, it's somewhat unclear to me whether a character needs to purchase additional tiers at first level, or as long as they have the active psionic field in that discipline, they can raise it when they have enough DP. So could you please clarify this?

My common sense would suggest the latter interpretation. I don't want to have to say "If you want to play a psionic character, let's play a different game". Because my original interpretation of HARP psionics was "Forbidden Kingdoms (a D&D setting) does it better". Thank you.

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

As long as you have at least Latent Psionic Field in the chosen field at 1st level, then the character can buy Active Psionic Field talents at any later level. Only latent potential need be purchased at 1st level (and even that can be relaxed by SysOps for special circumstances). Make sense?

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[Zhaleskra]

Yes, that does clarify my confusion. Thank you again.

[joel.lovell]

As long as you have at least Latent Psionic Field in the chosen field at 1st level, then the character can buy Active Psionic Field talents at any later level. Only latent potential need be purchased at 1st level (and even that can be relaxed by SysOps for special circumstances). Make sense?

The rules on Psionics state: "An Adept automatically gains a Latent Psionic Field Talent in one Field and one Active Psionic Field Talent for that Field. The Adept can choose to concentrate in that Field by taking a second
Active Psionic Field Talent. Alternatively the Adept can take a second Latent Psionic Field Talent in a different Field. Adepts (or indeed Fusions) who wish to have the latent potential for additional Fields must expend the Development Points as normal."
and
"Each Field must be developed separately and only one Psionic Field may be unlocked or improved per level."

If a 1st level character chooses to take a 2nd Latent Psionic Field Talent as part of his profession package, can a first level character spend DP to unlock that 2nd Latent Psionic Field? In other words, can a 1st level character start off with two Active Psionic Fields?

If the Adept chooses to spend DP then, during first level, to gain a 3rd Latent Psionic Field, is it at the normal cost of a third Latent purchase? I'm assuming it would be.

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

As long as you have at least Latent Psionic Field in the chosen field at 1st level, then the character can buy Active Psionic Field talents at any later level. Only latent potential need be purchased at 1st level (and even that can be relaxed by SysOps for special circumstances). Make sense?

The rules on Psionics state: "An Adept automatically gains a Latent Psionic Field Talent in one Field and one Active Psionic Field Talent for that Field. The Adept can choose to concentrate in that Field by taking a second
Active Psionic Field Talent. Alternatively the Adept can take a second Latent Psionic Field Talent in a different Field. Adepts (or indeed Fusions) who wish to have the latent potential for additional Fields must expend the Development Points as normal."
and
"Each Field must be developed separately and only one Psionic Field may be unlocked or improved per level."

If a 1st level character chooses to take a 2nd Latent Psionic Field Talent as part of his profession package, can a first level character spend DP to unlock that 2nd Latent Psionic Field? In other words, can a 1st level character start off with two Active Psionic Fields?

No (unless the SysOp has a really pressing plot reason).

If the Adept chooses to spend DP then, during first level, to gain a 3rd Latent Psionic Field, is it at the normal cost of a third Latent purchase? I'm assuming it would be.

It would be at normal cost.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[joel.lovell]

I thought I would summarize a few of the answers to some questions I had answered by Nicholas:

Q: Does the beginning Talents that an Adept gets at level one count towards the maximum of 1 activation of a Latent Psi Field per level?
N: Yes it does.

Q: Any armor penalties to Psions?
N: Psionics does not have armor casting penalties.

Q: How many tiers can you jump to in a single level?
N: Limited by available DPs. Limited to one 'Field' at a time per level.

[joel.lovell]

What rolls would be needed for a Psion to use Telekinesis to move a grenade to make an attack, in particular, to make a sneak attack? i.e. put a gas grenade into a room.

Bolt attack - how far away? Can you use telescope to 'spot' target that is line of sight and is there a range penalty?

[joel.lovell]

If an armor min MP is 0 - does that mean if your armor skill, if higher than needed to offset the MP of the Armor, that you get a bonus to MM?

[markc]

AFAIK , you should never get a bonus to a maneuver because your armor is higher then the MP of the armor. That is true in RM and it should be true in HARP/SF but it has been some time since I have played HARP/SF and my book is out of reach at the moment so I cannot give you a page # to look at.


Logically why would wearing armor and be very good at wearing armor provide you with a MM bonus to do something? ie in essence it would mean it is easier to do specific physical  tasks in armor then when you are unencumbered.   
MDC

[lordschmodder]

I think that you don't get a positive MM bonus is written down somewhere in the rules, I just stumbled about it a few days ago - maybe under the skill description for 'Armor'?

Take a look there.

[joel.lovell]

I think that you don't get a positive MM bonus is written down somewhere in the rules, I just stumbled about it a few days ago - maybe under the skill description for 'Armor'?

Take a look there.

I'd poked around but couldn't find anything, but I was pretty sure that was correct, no positive MP result possible. Thanks.

[lordschmodder]

OK, I just found it in my pdf:
It's in the last paragraph of the Armor skill description on p. 61:
"This skill will allow the character to negate some or all of those penalties. However, it cannot reduce a penalty below its minimum."