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WarFlail's Archives - 2009

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Tuesday, 10 February 2009

HMA Character Profile v1.6.2, HMA Rulebook v1.4

My attention was drawn to a number of bugs in the HMA Character Profile v1.6.1. I think I've managed to fix them now, but please let me know if you are getting any errors. One solution appeared to be to activate the 'Analysis Toolpak' add-in function in Excel, although I think the fixes I made no longer make this necessary.

As always, the HMA Rulebook continues to grow bit by bit, although I am trying to keep advanced rules at a minimum in my current HMA campaign. This update expands a little on the character creation rules and also the esoteric meta-skills, Arcane Discipline and Arcane Lore, which are adapted from HMg's Shek-Pvar rules. Also, I've toned down the base Unarmed impact values according to Strength (from HMg), to make them more consistent with HM3's method of incorporating STR into weapon impact values.

Wednesday, 21January 2009

HMA Character Profile version 1.6.1

Just a minor update to the HMA Character Profile. I have now added a Notes sheet to record miscellaneous notes, spillover equipment lists, etc. Also, I've set the range of thrown weapons to be affected by both the weight type (heavy, light) and the thrower's Strength attribute.

I'm sure you know where to look for this download... :-)

Wednesday, 14 January 2009

HMA Updates Galore

Probably the biggest set of updates I have done in ages - I have revised and updated the HMA Character Profile (v1.6), HMA Rulebook (v1.3), HMA Missile Combat System (v1.3) and HMA GM Screen (v1.3)!

There have been some major changes to the HMA rules. After our game last weekend, I have started to lean back towards d6 (instead of 1d100) resolution for initial combat effects, i.e. Shock/Fumble/Stumble/Kill Rolls and Weapon Damage checks. The reason is speed and simplicity - it is much easier to translate an S3 injury (say) into a 3d6 Shock Roll than to roll 1d100 and consult a table. But I still don't agree with HM3's brutal system of piling on the dice equal to Universal Penalty - so instead it is down to rolling 1d6 per Injury Level for the wound that triggered the roll, plus Universal Penalty. (For those of you with a long memory, that is exactly how it was in my original HârnMaster House Rules v3.2... But this time I have added a twist by introducing rules for Stun, which is something I do like from HMg.)

Other big changes include the Missile Attack Table. What I call the Marginal Zone - the middle 4 cells of each Matrix - always caused a problem for me with regard to arrows. That is, the typical strike result would end up being M*1, which just seemed too weak for device-propelled missiles. So previously, I had attempted to fix this by setting the impact level to M*2 but applying a dice roll limit for thrown missiles, so that thrown spears and javelins didn't end up becoming overly powerful relative to melee use. However, the implementation wasn't very smooth. So now the Missile Attack Tables feature some cells with two strike impact levels: one for Low-Velocity (LV) missiles, and the other for High-Velocity (HV). And this seems to work quite well in practice.

As always, take a look at the House Rules page for the updates.

Monday, 5 January 2009

HMA Rulebook

Okay, it has been an astoundingly long time in coming, but after all these years I have finally pulled the various HMA rules into a single rulebook. So now there is no need for separately printing off skill lists or weapon lists - they are all contained in this one document. You still need the HMA GM Screen for the combat tables, however, and the HMA Missile Combat rules (now updated to version 1.2) for anything to do with missiles, but at least this is more manageable than the assortment of spreadsheets and documents that needed to be printed off.

Head on over to the House Rules page and take a look...

Thursday, 1 January 2009

HMA Character Profile version 1.5

Happy New Year! Here's wishing Hârniacs around the world all the best in health and happiness in 2009.

As promised, the HMA Character Profile has been fully updated. The major change is in the redesign of the weapon stats to be more closely aligned with HM3. So now you can have light and heavy versions of certain types of melee weapons - with the new Strength bonuses, strong characters can now deal out some serious impact, which should shorten combat time quite a bit.

The manual has been updated as well, for the sake of completeness.

As usual, you will be able to find this in the House Rules page.

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