Topic: Using SM2 Combat with HARP SF

[Mungo]

Hi,

Those of you who read my HARP feedback know that my group and I are not too happy with the HARP system for Personal Combat (we like rolling criticals too much). In HARP we took 10MWTD, but I don't like the SciFi Armor system there. For the same reason also SM:P is not what I am looking for.

So currently I am going for SM2, because there also the Mark numbers correspond nicely to the HARP SF Weapon Sizes. But there are 3 questions left:

a) There is no table for Direct Psi Attacks (Physical Attacks in HARP SF) in SM2, they use the weapon tables. I am thinking about using the Firebolt table from RMSS for this purpose, with the criticals being determined by the bolt type (Heat, Electricity, ...). Any better suggestion?

b) Vehicle Weapons against Individuals: in HARP SF there is a +20 Size Modifier and a conversion table to Critial Tables for Personal Combat. I would treat this the following way:

Vehicle Crash       ->   roll Impact Critical determined by Crash Size
Vehicle Energy (Laser)   ->   roll Mk.5 Laser Attack, Critical 2 Sizes increased
Vehicle Energy (Particle)   ->   roll Mk.5 Blaster Attack, Criticial +2 Sizes, Radiation Critical Size unchanged
Vehicle Energy (Plasma)   ->   roll Mk.5 Blaster Attack, Critical 2 Sizes increased
Vehicle Piercing      ->   roll Mk.5 Small Projectile Attack, Critical 2 Sizes increased
Conventional Warhead   ->   roll Mk.5 Grenade Attack, Critical 2 Sizes increased
Nuclear Warhead                 ->   roll Impact, Shrapnel, Plasma and Radiation Critical determined by Attack Size.

Do you think this is a good way to treat this situation?

c) Armor QU penalties: I would simply divide them by 2.

What do you think, should I divide by more?

BR
Juergen

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

These all sound like plausible methods.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[Alcibiades]

Haven't played SpaceMaster, but I think I know what you mean w.r.t. criticals.

Since a pistol is a small weapon, it maxes out at 90 on the ballistic puncture critical table. This means that a character will only die from a gunshot wound in exceptional circumstances (rolling 99 or 00, sniping or using combat actions).

As a SysOp, I don't want my players to feel invulnerable. I intend combat to be a very rare but extremely dangerous event. Therefore, I plan to incorporate the critical tables out of Weapons Law: Firearms into a Martial Law style of combat rules (using hit location instead of A,B..E crits)

My group has been using Martial Law in our HARP Fantasy campaign and it has been working well for us so far.

If people are interested, I'll post an example critical table when it's done.