News about the New HARP (and a discount on the PDF)

I've been wondering about the HARP ruleset that suddenly shot up to the top 10 rankings of RPGNow and DriveThruRPG. It has the old new cover of the edition that I saw in the early 2000s, but what's inside?

Now, according to this news bit from Iron Crown Enterprises, we find out that there are indeed changes to the original 2003 and 2004 editions. Here's what the had to say:

• The Professions have been rebalanced in terms of their professional abilities
• Flat 50 Development Points is the default for calculating Development Points
• Races have been better balanced in terms of stat bonuses, some racial abilities have been revised, and Humans now get Skill Flexibility (the ability to make a single skill in a NonFavored category Favored)
• Blood Talents have been rebalanced in terms of Development Point cost
• The Mandatory Subskills rule has been incorporated from HARP SF
• Four new Influence skills have been added from HARP SF
• New talents have been added from HARP SF and Development Point costs of existing Talents have been properly balanced
• The use of Spell Adders and Power Point Adders has been clarified
• Clarifications and improvements have been made to the rules for Light & Vision, Fighting Blind, Asphyxiation and Holding Breath, Drowning and Stat Loss
• Life Points have been removed and the Stun rules made consistent with HARP SF
• All of the spells have had their base costs and scaling options made consistent with the revised spell creation system (to be published in the enhanced College of Magics) and descriptions have been clarified in specific cases
• Herb and poison prices have been rationalized
• A new monster creation system has been used to rework the monster collection with some monsters being replaced with new creatures
• Several magic items have had their effects adjusted
• The guidance on customizing clerics and magic users has been revised to better fit with the rules given in the enhanced College of Magics and future envisaged sourcebooks.
• The Language Table and associated rules have been made consistent with HARP SF
• The “Non-Adventuring Professions” have been removed – these will return in in a future sourcebook in a form suitable for PCs 

Furthermore there's a discount code on the PDF provided, allowing you to get the PDF (for a limited time until September 15th, 2012) for only $5.

Sound like a good deal?