Temporal Potency

Copyright Nicholas HM Caldwell © 2006

Edited by Nicholas HM Caldwell for The Guild Companion

"The solution is to introduce a new Talent, Temporal Potency"

Introduction

HARP gamers who've been using HARP since its first release will be well aware that between the original 160-page version and today's 192-page version, there were a number of significant changes, notably in terms of spell durations. I personally believe that the wholesale reduction of many spell durations was a mistake as it rendered many Utility spells useless outside of the tactical environment. The aim of this article is to provide a solution to this problem that does not force a complete reworking of the current spell creation system or require GMs and players to vandalize their books. The solution is to introduce a new Talent, Temporal Potency, that like its elemental attack counterpart Potency, enables spell users to cast spells with longer base durations in return for a higher PP base cost.

Temporal Potency

This talent increases the duration of any one spell. The spell must not have an Instant, No Duration or Concentration only duration in its base form. The duration is increased by one or more steps, and the PP cost for the new duration is added to the base cost of this spell (see table below). The caster may choose to cast the spell in its original form or in its new form. This talent may be taken multiple times, for a different spell each time. The cost of this Talent is 20 DPs for Utility spells and 30 DPs for Attack and Elemental spells.

The Extended Duration Table

In producing this table, I've compared durations of spells between both editions of the HARP core rulebook. Where a spell has been reduced significantly, I've included it in the table and calculated the new base PPs required to use the spell in a longer form via the Temporal Potency. Note the new cost has been established by taking the difference between Attribute costs for the old duration and the new duration. Thus to extend a spell from 2 rounds/rank (20 points) to 10 rounds/rank (100 points), I've added 80 points to the spell's creation cost, which converts to an extra 4 PP in the base form.

This article uses the extended spell creation costs from my previous article Spell Casting on an Epic Scale. In addition this recalculation does not seek to bring any other parts of a spell into line with the spell creation system - this ensures that legacy spells such as Light don't become prohibitively expensive using this technique. GMs may apply this technique to other spells as they deem appropriate.