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Author Topic: HackMaster Player's Handbook  (Read 7203 times)

James Gillen

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HackMaster Player's Handbook
« on: May 02, 2013, 03:36:36 PM »
Currently Smoking: Mostly Maui Wowie, but it's got some Labrador in it


The HackMaster Player's Handbook is the new original system for the fantasy RPG mentioned in the long-running comic book Knights of the Dinner Table,  which is basically a parody of classic AD&D play as it usually ends up (that is, where most FRPGs present themselves as having the grandeur of Excalibur or Lord of the Rings, the self-interested characters in KoDT play their game somewhere in-between Game of Thrones and Monty Python and the Holy Grail).

The hardcover edition of the book comes at the dog-choking cost of $59.99, which with the almost-as-dog-choking $12 fee for USPS delivery is $71.99.  At least the physical product is worth it.  It has a smooth leather cover embossed with various symbols like a sword on the front, with a central shield with two mounted knights dueling under the book's logo.  The pages are high-quality gloss paper, in a color meant to suggest parchment.  The storybook feel is enhanced by getting some actual old-time illustrations of colorful scenes with chainmail-armored knights and young maidens in long gowns (the list of artists includes Howard Pyle and N.C. Wyeth).  Some tips on the rules are given by insets narrated by Kenzer characters like HackMaster's fictional founder Gary Jackson (whose cartoon is a little more realistic than in the comic, meaning he still looks like Frank Zappa but his nose isn't quite as long as a carrot).

The book's Foreword is worth noting in that the author tries to set the tone for how HackMaster differs from the games players might be used to.  Whereas recent games try to make the characters into larger-than-life heroes from the start- or actual superheroes- “(in) HackMaster, players begin running characters generally little better than the local commoner.”  The Foreword goes on to say: “With every move, from positioning in combat, to how rooms are searched, to equipping properly and so-on, if your characters begin as everyman, you'll have to think through each and every aspect of play.”
To me, this symbolizes the “old school” attitude of Gygax's AD&D, and of certain GM's I've had – for better and worse.   On one hand, the Foreword concludes: “Your characters will need to work as a team and plan to overcome obstacles.  And when you do prevail, you will experience a feeling of exhilaration like no other – knowing you succeeded by your wits and gaming skill rather than the sheer awesome power of your character.”  But while this is great for those who like a certain tactical play, some others would call it “roll play, not role-play.”  Moreover, some of those GM's I've had seemed to confuse “challenging” the players with frustrating them, and attention to detail in practice frequently means getting bogged down in minutia.  Thus this page and the subsequent Introduction (briefly describing how the game feels in practice) make it clear what the reader is getting in for, which may or may not be what most players want these days.

Chapter One: Character Creation
This is a brief chapter that mainly serves to explain what the other chapters are for, since there are 13 listed steps in character creation, spelled out over the book's first 12 chapters.  1. Begin with 40 Building Points. 2. Roll Ability Scores.  3. Arrange the ability scores you rolled in desired order.  4. Choose a Race.  5. Choose a Class.  6. Choose an Alignment.  7. Determine final ability scores with Building Points, racial adjustments and so forth.  8. Calculate starting Honor for the character.  9. Determine “Priors and Particulars” (various background traits).  10. Determine Quirks and Flaws (physical and mental issues that will give your character more Building Points).  11. Purchase Skills, Talents and Proficiencies (with Building Points).  12. Roll Hit Points (characters get a base number of HP for race, plus Constitution score, plus a die roll per class).  13. Purchase starting equipment.
If all this seems really involved... well, it is.  Fortunately they do a decent job in the subsequent chapters explaining how particular examples would work at each stage of the process.  And there is a flow chart.
Yes.  A flow chart.

This chapter also explains the concept of “penetrating” dice, or what some systems call exploding dice.  That is, if your die roll is max (6 on a d6) you get to roll it again, although in HackMaster the second die roll is a -1.  However if it keeps rolling max, you still get to roll until it no longer comes up with the maximum, although all rolls past the first subtract one (and only one) from each.  Thus if you were lucky enough to roll 6, then 6, another 6 and finally a 5, that would be a total of 20 (effective rolls 6 + 5 + 5 + 4).  Most rolls in the game are done like this, and in such cases the die code uses a “p” afterward (d6p as opposed to just a d6).

Also, before the ability scores chapter, the author stresses that the book is intended to be written not in a technical style, but in an “engaging” (read: snarky) one.  He also points out that some players may try to take advantage of this in the respect that certain things aren't spelled out to exacting detail.  Thus the book establishes two meta-rules: One, the burden of proof is on the player to establish his idea of a rule as correct, and if he can't, the GM must rule him wrong.  Two, to avoid tying up the game, a player gets one chance per session to dispute a rule as long as it takes him less than 10 seconds to point out the error, and in this case the game takes a 5-minute time out for the GM to look up the rule.  If he rules against the player, the player may not challenge a rule again that session.  If the player is ruled correct however, he retains his challenge.  “Yes, this is based on NFL rules challenges.  I like football, deal with it.”

Chapter Two: Ability Scores
The game starts with random rolls but from there depends on a point-buy system.  You start with 40 Building Points (BP).  As the first part of character creation you have to roll 3d6 – and ONLY 3d6 – for each of seven stats, in THIS ORDER: Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, Looks and Charisma.  Old-schoolers will realize that apart from Looks (a Comeliness stat that mainly serves to modify Charisma) this is the same order of characteristics as the first AD&D Players Handbook.  You also have to roll percentile dice for each of these seven stats, because whereas AD&D had a percentile roll for 18 Strength, Hackmaster gives every stat a percent score.  This is important for two reasons: One, as with the AD&D Strength rules, sometimes the differential between whole points is a stat in itself, and two, accumulated BP's can be used to increase stats on the percentile scale.
It will soon be seen that this system, as opposed to the “keep 3 of 4d6”, point buy or other systems, yields a lower average than newer D&D players might be used to, more around the 10-11 range than 13-16.  In fact the authors admit this.  Now this is where BP's can be used to bump stats, although this itself is on something of a curve: Characters with a stat of 10/01% spend 5 BP to raise the stat by 5 percent- i.e. you could spend 20 BP to raise a 10/01 by 100 percentage points, fully up to 11/01.  If a stat is below 10 (i.e. 9/100 or less), the BP ratio to improve it is only 1 BP per 10% (that is, a 7/92 could be jacked to 8/02 with only 1 BP).  However, after a stat gets to 16/01, each BP only raises it by 3 percentage points.
So you can only raise stats so high this way, and you need your Building Points for a LOT of other stuff.  For instance, it doesn't cost BP to pick a demi-human race, and they all get racial adjustments to stats (both up and down).  But each race has to pay a certain number of BP to select a class (including multiclass options, see below), the number depending on how well that class fits the racial stereotype; thus a Dwarf only pays 20 BP to be a Fighter but 75 to be a Mage.
The main advantage of being a Human in this system is that they only pay 20 BP for any class including the multiclass options.  
And of course you only get 40 BP base.  However at this point there is a critical decision to make that can earn more BP's.  You can rearrange your seven stats in the order you want, for no points.  You can “switch” one stat with one other  (for example a 10 Strength for 15 Wisdom for the guy who wants to play a Fighter) and get 25 more BP or leave the stats you rolled “as is” and get 50 extra BP.
Thus this should be the first decision you make before picking a race and certainly before picking a class.  Because that effects whether you have enough BP's to allocate to your stats and still get the various other things you need (like a class) in addition to the things you want (like Proficiencies, Skills and Talents).

Chapter 3: Character Races
This chapter goes over the various PC-eligible races in the game (not counting one HackMaster race which in this book is given in an Appendix), including the good ol' Dwarves, Elves and Halflings, Gnomes (including the belligerent 'Gnome Titans'), Grel (or barbaric 'grunge elves'), and the 'halves' (Half-Elf, Half-Orc, and even Half-Hobgoblin) giving each a good amount of background detail as to how each racial culture behaves in the HackMaster setting.  Game information includes stat adjustments (which go as high as +4 Con for Dwarves and -4 Con for Elves), various racial 'Pros' (enhanced vision, 'free' skill purchases to reflect native ability, etc.), racial 'Cons' (Half-Orcs for instance are at a NPC reaction penalty because 'Everyone hates them'), reduced cost for some abilities, and the costs to be a particular class.  Some demi-humans can't be a certain class, though they still get more options than old-school AD&D.
The background detail also includes appropriate advice on how to play as a given race, for example- “Advice on Playing a Human: If you cannot relate to the human experience, nothing I write here will aid your play.  Perhaps you should try half-orc?”

Chapter 4: Character Classes
Classes in this chapter are fairly basic and functional: Fighter, Ranger, Barbarian, Thief, Rogue (more a grifter than a burglar, and the closest you get to a Bard), Assassin, and Mage.   There are two classes outside the normal system: The Knight and the Paladin.  These are entered into successively from Fighter class, similar to the Fighter variants in the D&D Rules Cyclopedia or to a prestige class in D&D 3rd.  However one can qualify to be a Knight at no less than 5th level (and no higher than 10th) and once a Knight (Fighter) gets to be a 10th level character he may qualify to be a Paladin (making it something of a prestige prestige class, especially since the requirements are actually more stringent than they were in AD&D).
At the end of this chapter there are rules for the multiclasses.  Rather than have such characters divide XP between two or three classes (like AD&D did) or have them alternate classes each new level (like 3rd Edition does) HackMaster takes the really old-school approach of making each combo (Fighter/Mage, Fighter/Thief, Mage/Thief) its own hybrid class, each with some but not all of the features of the two parent classes.

Chapter 5: Clergy
There is one important omission from the Class list in the last chapter: Clerics.  This is because in HackMaster, each priesthood is what 2nd Edition AD&D called a “specialty priest” class, each with its own powers depending on the religion in question.  This chapter is where the main priesthoods of the game are detailed.  There are several more briefly named in a master list at the end of the chapter, but each alignment gets at least one clerical order described in game terms.  These come with a few paragraphs about worship of the deity and its popular epithets (like 'The True' or 'The Vengeful One') as well as his/her proper names, which vary from region to region.  Side boxes with each order describe its game traits.  Clerics of The True, for instance, can use a longsword (and only a longsword), while clerics of The Vengeful One have several assassin abilities.  Similarly the god of Chance gives some Thief abilities to his followers, and the True Neutral/nature clergy are basically Druids.  There are no multiclass options for Clerics, but if you pick the right deity, your order may give you some pretty spiffy powers that effectively make you such.

Chapter 6: Alignment, Honor and Fame
These are three related concepts.  In HackMaster, alignment is just what it is in D&D Classic, a nine-point wheel in which alignments of Good, Evil, Law and Chaos intersect with Neutrality in the center.
Specific to HackMaster is the game mechanic of Honor.  In character creation, this is first determined by taking the sum of all your ability scores (including the percentile scores) and averaging them, which of course will usually yield a score between 10 and 20.  In the game, honor is defined as “how the character measures up to society's ideals of courage, integrity and inner strength.”  It is not quite alignment, rather “Honor reflects how closely and consistently a character behaves relative to his belief system and alignment.”  In this way, an evil villain, even a chaotic one, can have high Honor while an innocent person can be reduced to low Honor by circumstances.  Individuals have Honor, but so do groups; in fact every adventuring party has an Honor score determined by the average of the individual Honor scores at the end of the game session.  What this means is that if the average party Honor is 25 and some people have scores below that, such characters have their personal Honor go up by one, but those above the average have their Honor reduced by one.  Advice: “Cut loose any deadweights that drag you down merely by association.”

In game, Honor is the GM's primary mechanic for enforcing in-character behavior.  Not just alignment, but racial animus, Quirks/Flaws, and class priorities.  For instance, a Fighter is normally supposed to be bold and not show fear.  Running from a challenge he could feasibly take on is worth a penalty to Honor, unless the character has a Phobia (quirk) against the target in question, in which case role-playing the fear might actually be worth an Honor reward.

If Honor goes below Low to Dishonorable (below 6 for a 1st level character) that dishonor causes a penalty of -1 to most rolls.  If a PC somehow gets to 0 or below and hits the status of “Notoriety” his alignment must change towards his current trend of behavior, and his experience point total (EP's) goes down to the minimum required for his current level.  Furthermore he is at a 20% EP award penalty until he gets his Honor back to at least Low.  On the other hand, going up to Great or (at higher levels) Legendary Honor allows limited +1 bonuses to rolls and at least one “mulligan” re-roll per game.  Furthermore there is an option for players to burn Honor to get a +1 to a roll or (in groups of 10 Honor points) an additional re-roll.  The author says these benefits of Honor allow PCs to perform larger-than-life feats, allow a player to save a beloved character, and finally, “this rule absolutely eliminates the need for anyone, be he player, or so help me gods, Game Master, to fudge a roll.”

Fame is a more tertiary trait, reflecting the character's public renown.  “Your GM has more details about Fame.  Suffice it to say, that it's generally good to become famous, but it's a double-edged sword.”

Chapter 7: Priors and Particulars
This chapter has a whole bunch of tables for the vital statistics of a given character- height, weight, number of siblings, even whether he's left or right handed.  

Chapter 8: Quirks and Flaws

Quirks are mental issues, and Flaws are physical ones.  These can earn the Building Points you desperately need to buy all the other stuff that needs to be bought (which can actually include money).  These yield diminishing returns, though, especially if you “cherry pick” the ones you want – each selected Quirk or Flaw is only half value and each subsequent one is half value AND -5 BP.  Rolling randomly (on d1000) yields the full BP value for the first such drawback but each one after that is a cumulative -5 BP less (so the third Quirk or Flaw rolled would be -10 value).  This is on a scale where speaking in an obscure Dialect is 3 BP and missing most of your fingers or being Blind is 60 BP.  “TIP: Helen Keller overcame many obstacles in her life.  Slaying dragons was not one of them.”

Chapter 9: Proficiencies
Proficiencies differ from Skills in that they (like D&D 3 Feats) do not depend on a skill roll- you either have them or you don't.  These include weapon and armor proficiencies, obviously.  Related to weapon proficiency is weapon specialization, which is fully described on page 143, and is easiest for Fighters, though other classes can specialize at increasing costs (Mages pay double in most cases).  Proficiencies also include the Grels' “Angawa Battle Cry”, Hiking, Laborer, and the ability to walk effectively with a Peg Leg.

Chapter 10: Talents
These are other special either-or abilities one can get with BP.  Some of these are of a miscellaneous nature ranging from “Mitigate Spell Fatigue” to “Tough Hide.”  Others are of a more specific combat nature and are thus called Martial Talents.  These include the 40 BP talents Blind-Fighting and Blind-Shooting, which allow you to halve the penalties for using a melee or ranged weapon (respectively) while blind.  So, if your random rolls for Quirks and Flaws turned you into Helen Keller, you might be able to get away with it.

Chapter 11: Skills
Skills, as you might imagine, are more involved than the previously described traits.  Some races and classes get appropriate skills as a free initial purchase, in some cases more than once.  Otherwise they cost BP's and one has to buy the skill again to increase the roll.   Initial purchase or free purchase gets the skill at a base percentile score (skill level) equal to its “relevant ability score.”  The first purchase also adds one roll of a “mastery die” to the base skill.  Second and subsequent purchases only roll the mastery die to add to the skill level.  The mastery die roll is penetrating but decreases from d12 to d3 as the skill rating goes up and it becomes harder to increase.  The relevant ability score also modifies the mastery die roll to increase skill.  However, some complex Skills have more than one relevant ability, so in those cases the character starts with his lowest ability for that Skill and also uses that ability on the mastery die modifier table.  

In most cases the percentile roll will not be very high, but the difficulty scale in this game gives hefty minuses for all but Difficult tasks (making it easier to perform the Skill) and even Very Difficult tasks are only +10%.  However, when doing opposed rolls (like making a Listening check against the monsters using Sneaking skill against you) you add your skill rating to the % roll and the higher score wins.  Skills have a wide variety of useful applications to the fantasy setting but unfortunately do not include some of the more useful adventuring skills from the last HackMaster, namely “Coin Pile Numerical Approximation” and “Dig Hasty Grave.”

Chapter 12: Goods, Services and Equipment
This chapter contains not only lists of goods, services and equipment, but compact stat blocks for useful animals (namely horses) and also stats for how armor and weapons work.  This relates directly to the following Combat chapter, which perhaps coincidentally is number 13.

Armor, as most of us have come to expect since D&D came out, does not reduce your chance to get hit but rather has a damage reduction (DR) score versus any attack that hits.  This is at the cost of possibly being easier to hit and reducing movement speed, depending on just how heavy and/or restrictive the armor is.  In this system shields are basically portable barriers that increase your Defense rolls against attacks (since in HackMaster attack and defense are opposed rolls).  They also have their own DR rating, which applies mainly if an attack hits the shield (that is, if it would have hit the character were it not for the shield's bonus).

Weapons come with a minimum Strength requirement, base (penetrating) damage, damage vs. shields (see above) and general damage type (Crushing, Hacking, Puncturing).  There are also stats for the special capabilities of polearms, including all those obscure French names that Gary Gygax looked up.

Further details on how money works are in Chapter Fourteen.  But here, a sidebar on page 192 says each character begins with a 'grub stake' of 35 + 2d12 silver pieces to start off.  But this is on a scale where studded leather armor is 40 sp and a longsword is 20 sp (baldric/scabbard sold separately).  Way back in Chapter 1, page 7, it's mentioned that you can spend BP's to get cash at the rate of 1 BP per 5 silver pieces.  But more than anything else, I think this would be the main obstacle to getting a game going properly, if the characters can't even equip themselves to survive a 1st-level dungeon.  That is, unless they instead spend their first adventure in befriending more experienced adventurers, drinking them under the table, rolling them for their cash and equipment, and getting the hell out of town.  On the other hand, in HackMaster this would be very genre-appropriate.

Chapter 13: Combat
“Combat is the ultimate and usually very final method of dispute resolution in HackMaster.”
In some regard this chapter is where HackMaster most diverges from other RPGs.  
As mentioned, when you roll an attack, it isn't just a d20 roll against an “Armor Class” or difficulty number, but an opposed roll: d20p for the attacker and usually d20p -4 for the defender (the full d20p if the defender has a shield).  Characters have Attack and Defense modifiers based on their ability scores and sometimes other factors like Weapon Specialization or Talents.  

Initiative is even more radical.  Combat time in HackMaster is not measured in rounds, turns or other game units, but second by second, “using actual time like your ancestors intended”.  When a combat encounter begins, the GM starts by announcing “1” and then counts up from 2 and on-
thus the progress of the encounter is the “Count Up.”  This means that when you roll initiative, you want to roll low, because the lower the roll the sooner you move from the start of the Count Up.  Characters have a Base Initiative modifier derived from Wisdom and Dexterity scores, (which will probably be a penalty unless both are very high) and this is added to the roll of the initiative die, which on a standard encounter is usually a d12.  If a party prepares against (or to set up) an ambush, this can result in a smaller initiative die, down to d4.  Some classes, namely Thieves, get to roll at least one die smaller (d10 where everyone else rolls a d12).  The smallest initiative die you can have is a d3, and if the Base Initiative is somehow negative, you still can't get lower than a Starting Initiative of 1.  If your Starting Initiative is higher than the current Count Up number, then you're surprised (what D20 System would call 'flat-footed') and cannot take any actions, even retreat, and your Defense die is only a d8p with no bonuses.  However, if you do get hit in combat, you get your first move no later than two seconds after being hit, even if your Starting Initiative roll is higher than that number.

The book frequently brags that with this system you can move at any time and never need to wait for a turn.  In practice, that principle only applies to actual movement actions from point A to B.  With combat, using a missile weapon has a certain rate of fire (such that to draw, pull, aim and fire a bow is a total of 12 seconds, and to prep a crossbow takes even longer) and melee attacks have a speed factor for each weapon.  For example, a knife has a speed of 7, so if you had a Starting Initiative of 5, and you had an opponent in range of you at that point, you could stab with the knife and your next attack with it wouldn't be until second 12.

Still, the opposed Attack roll and the Count Up initiative system are both innovative and easily grasped.  Unfortunately, other parts of  the combat system are the sort of complex-for-complexity's-sake bits that make many “fantasy heartbreakers” not worth the trouble of dealing with.  For instance, unarmed combat not only means an unarmed attacker grants a free attack vs. an armed opponent, but there are various attack modifiers for relative size and mass, penalized by the defender's DR armor value plus 2, successful damage means two rolls of d4p-2, damage/effects modified by either Strength or Dexterity modifier... even “attacks of opportunity” are less pain in the ass.

Other aspects of the combat system include Knockback (each race has a size modifier value, and taking HP damage in a single attack equal to this value is a 5-foot knockback times the multiple of that value), Threshold of Pain (a 'trauma' rule that means taking roughly 33% of your HP in a single attack forces you to save vs. 1/2 Con – that is, 17 Con means you need to roll 8 or less on d20 or be stunned for a period of seconds) and more basic fantasy rules for things like mounted combat and turning undead.

Finally there's a Knights of the Dinner Table inset strip to explain how all this works by having the characters use 1st-level PCs against Goblins.  In addition to showing the traits of PCs, this cartoon also demonstrates how a HackMaster GM is supposed to deal with players- namely by never giving them an even break, especially in not giving them free information.

Chapter 14: Money and Treasure
This section is obviously very important for character progress.  In addition to reiterating the already clear point that your starting funds will “slip through your fingers like water through a sieve”, Chapter 14 reviews various types of possible currency (noting that prices are on the silver-piece standard) and what to do about large-scale investments like buying a boat or property.  It also goes over “superior-quality” (a.k.a. Masterwork) items, which in this game can be up to +5, and the basic kinds of magic items.  It also stresses that there is NO such thing as a “magic market” for such goods, (except for one-shot potions) and your best bet is to pass them off to your NPC followers, so as to strengthen the whole group.

Chapter 15: Experience and Training
 This is at least as important a subject a subject for adventurers as earning treasure.  Well, perhaps equally as important, since with HackMaster, as in Gygaxian AD&D, you need to spend cash to train to next level, at least after 5th level.  Each new level, a PC gets 15 Building Points, and rolls for Hit Points.  It is here that the “HD + re-roll” concept is fully explained.  HackMaster PCs do not get Hit Dice at each level.  Rather at 1st level and every odd level they roll a new Hit Die for their class, and at 2nd level and each even level after that they get to re-roll the previously rolled die and keep the higher of the two results.  This requires players to keep track of what they rolled each level.  If neither of these two rolls is at least half the maximum for that die type, the second roll becomes half (4 HP on a d8, etc.).  If a character happens to luck out and roll maximum hit points on his first try (that is, on the odd level he gained that Hit Die) he will get a +10% to Constitution on the even level where he would have re-rolled.

Obviously many of the details on this subject are in the Game Master's Guide.  In this book, the chapter mainly goes over a character's options for formal training after 5th level.  It's possible to self-train (all Barbarians are assumed to self-train) for only 10% the costs of a training course, but this precludes certain benefits- which in this book seem to be mainly access to a “Training Events Table” that isn't detailed here but is probably in the GMG.  

Chapter 16: NPCs
The Player's Handbook is concerned with NPCs in terms of how they benefit player characters.  Assistant NPCs are categorized as “hirelings, followers, cronies, sidekicks, henchmen and hangers-on.”  Most of these are similar to NPC options in AD&D, with cronies defined as various contacts (possibly family) who are loyal but do not adventure, henchmen being willing to adventure, a sidekick being a unique - as in, only one per character career, like Xena and Gabrielle - friend ('You call a crony when you need help moving.  You call a sidekick when you need help moving a body'), and hangers-on being “unscrupulous bastards” who only seek to mooch off the PC and not contribute anything.  “It's tough to avoid these kind of characters but you can minimize the damage if you keep your guard up.”

This chapter also mentions the concept of a protege, which is where a PC can mentor a favored NPC (perhaps a family member or similarly close person) by funneling his own XP to the NPC and giving him other benefits.  Why would he want to do this?  The book explains that such proteges serve as a “prep pool” or “life insurance” so that if the mentor character dies, the player can select one of his proteges as his next PC.

Chapter 17: Miscellaneous Rules
This is the chapter with miscellaneous rules.  Specifically, illumination in a dungeon, falling (especially in a dungeon) and getting through doors and portcullises.  Most importantly this part has the rules for natural healing, which are pretty slow insofar as a given wound heals one hit point TIMES the wound rating in days (so a 4 HP wound takes 4 days to heal the first point, 3 more to heal the second, 2 for the third and 1 more for the last, a total of 10).  Fortunately these healing times are assessed per wound taken and not damage total, and multiple wounds heal in “parallel”, though this obliges the player to keep track of each separate time he is wounded.  First Aid can either restore 1 point per wound or increase healing rate with long-term nursing.  And of course clerical spells can heal wounds instantly.

Chapter 18: Clerical Spells
Coincidentally this leads to the chapter where Cleric spells are reviewed, including the rules for their casting.  In HackMaster, as in D&D 4E, a spell's level is the actual experience level that the character gets a spell (so he is able to cast 5th level spells as a 5th level Cleric).  In Chapter 5 it's mentioned that a Cleric gets a base of one spell of each level he can cast per day, with a few bonus spells for high Wisdom.  Fortunately there are a few bonuses over Mage spells.  Cleric spells do not require Spell Points, cause Spell Fatigue or have the potential for Spell Mishap (see below).  Furthermore it's worth noting that a Cleric spell slot is only used once it's cast- if a Cleric's spellcasting is interrupted, he can simply start over again to cast that spell.  It's also worth noting that with the various Cure Wound spells, “anointed followers” of the Cleric's religion get extra HP back from the spell.  However members of the religion generally have no saving throws against certain spells like Quest.

Chapter 19: Mage Spells
Mage spells are a good deal more involved, and spellcasting is further detailed in the Mage section of Chapter 4.  A Mage can only learn a limited number of spells per level (even an 18 Intelligence Mage can only learn 4 per level).  In addition to 1st level spells, a beginning Mage gets one Journeyman and two Apprentice spells of lower power.  All spells cost Spell Points (SP) on a scale of 40 + spell level, so a 1st level spell is 50 SP (Apprentice spells are 30 and Journeyman spells are 40).  A 1st level Mage has 140 SP, allowing for multiple but limited castings of his repertoire.  Spell points recover after 8 hours rest.  Depending on the spell description, additional SP can also be used to enhance various effects of a spell like its duration or area.
However casting Mage spells is difficult and only allows a d8p Defense roll during casting time, and if the Mage is struck, the spell is ruined.  Furthermore casting a spell causes “Spell Fatigue” such that he cannot make attacks and moves at half rate for 5 seconds + casting time.  Spell Mishap is possible if you get struck during spell casting, cast a spell in heavy armor or fail a spell (since opposed rolls apply to spellcasting too) while burning extra SP on the effect.  “Your GameMaster is in possession of the exact details of these risks.”
Spells include such worthy titles as “Bash Face,” “Magic Projectile of Skewering” and “Skipping Betty Fireball.”

The aforementioned Appendix (before the Index) is about Pixie-Fairies, with the information for using them as an optional race.  They can fly on insect wings and have various innate magical powers, but since they're about the size of a large grasshopper they are severely penalized on Strength and Constitution and must roll the next lower Hit Die for HP (d3 instead of d4 for a Pixie-Fairy Mage).  Fortunately one of their powers is the ability to reincarnate within proximity of their Mother Tree, an option the book recommends preparing for since the character's death is assumed to be a matter of When, not If.

SUMMARY
The HackMaster Player's Handbook is not a complete example of the game, since to play, you of course need the Game Master's Guide and the Hacklopedia of Beasts.  Which of course  means a pretty major investment for the GM.  But in terms of what it presents, you have both a style and a game system that are intended to appeal to the tactical “old-schooler” (preferably one with a sense of humor).  However the level of detail on some of these rules is such that it may turn off some who grew up with simpler approaches.  Moreover, one of the reasons that games got simpler is because people learned from the example of AD&D and its first generation of competitors.  And while this game isn't quite as cheesy as Kenzer's previous version, “HackMaster 4th Edition,” one of the underlying jokes in Knights of the Dinner Table is that a lot of those games were pretty arbitrary in design, and not The One True Way to simulate the setting.  Thus, to satirize the “genre” of such games, the game in question has to be flawed on some level.  Whether the new HackMaster is supposed to be a satire or a tribute to such games, the point may be lost on both old-timers and newer players, and arguably interferes with making the game work on its own terms.

Rating: 6
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Benoist

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« Reply #1 on: May 02, 2013, 04:46:11 PM »
Great review.

Now here's the killer question: what would motivate an AD&D 1st edition player to switch to Hackmaster, in your opinion?

James Gillen

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« Reply #2 on: May 03, 2013, 01:54:01 AM »
Maybe the chance to play a Gnome Titan with the Groin Stomp maneuver. :D

JG
-My own opinion is enough for me, and I claim the right to have it defended against any consensus, any majority, anywhere, any place, any time. And anyone who disagrees with this can pick a number, get in line and kiss my ass.
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-Be very very careful with any argument that calls for hurting specific people right now in order to theoretically help abstract people later.
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EOTB

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« Reply #3 on: May 06, 2013, 04:05:55 PM »
Quote from: Benoist;651530
Great review.

Now here's the killer question: what would motivate an AD&D 1st edition player to switch to Hackmaster, in your opinion?


Not the original poster, but I'll throw my 2 cents in.

I've got most of the stuff they've published for it so far, although it hasn't made me switch from 1E AD&D.  I would be interested in playing, but not so sure I'm willing to invest the effort to switch DMing platforms.

I quite enjoy reading through the system, and would play in a game enthusiastically.  Do you like the granularity of Dangerous Journeys, but want the flavor of the game to stay more AD&D-like?  Then Hackmaster might be for you.  A Hackmaster "fighter/magic-user" is very clearly the equivalent of an AD&D F/M-U even though the guts of the system make the specific mechanics a variance.

A couple of points:

The levels are cut in half compared to AD&D, so a 10th level Hackmaster Character is about a 5th level AD&D character.  So the HD re-roll mechanic makes sense in that regard.

I would give it a higher score than 6 out of 10 (probably about 8 out of 10), but there are some annoyances.  

1) the art - for a $70 book (shipped) the level of investment in original art is extremely disappointing.  It doesn't matter in table application, but the choice is odd because so much of the remainder of the book is absolute top quality.  But the public domain 19th century chivalry art doesn't really jive with the rest of the book's atmosphere (neither AD&D nor Hackmaster were really heavily grounded in the chivalric period) and it just feels like springing to buy a top-end Mercedes, and then when picking options try and save some pennies back with faux-leather vinyl seats as out of a 1970's Datsun hatchback.  When compared to DCC on art, DCC handily beats it.  When compared to OSRIC for a combo of art, rock-solid construction/quality, and price, OSRIC handily beats it (OSRIC is $28 or so? And that's for the MM, PHB and DMG in one book - or, $210 worth of shipped Hackmaster books assuming the HM GMG is also the same price when it's done.).  But, I also spent twice the price of the Hackmaster PHB on dinner and drinks with my wife the other night, so I don't think it is a bad value.  I think we are too hyper-sensitive on RPG book prices, sometimes.

2) Only being able to pick a single clerical spell of each spell level seems like a dumb rule.  I understand that they also doubled the granularity in spell levels, too, so what would in AD&D be a collection of 1st level spells is now split between 1st and 2nd spell levels, with the more powerful spells in the AD&D level going up to Hackmaster 2nd level, and the detect magics of the world remaining 1st.  But there are times when you are going to want to memorize 2 of the same spell, for a multitude of reasons.  The way the game dictates clerical spell memorization being 1 spell of each spell level, max, regardless of how high your character level ever gets, goes beyond requiring tactical forethought in an environment of scarcity, to just being annoyingly scrooged.

3)  The game is too tightly bound to David Kenzer's campaign world.  If I don't want to run that world (and I don't), then I shouldn't feel like I'm having to tweak large sections of the rules.  This is another reason why I am willing to play, but haven't been willing to invest time into GMing.  And for a game that really needs GMs to run it so it can find its legs, I think that doubling down on revenue bets with Kalamar will bite them.  Because now they're not just looking for GMs who like the system, but GMs who like the system AND like Kalamar, or, GMs who like the system and are willing to spend a moderate amount of time re-writing Kalamar out of it.  That's an artificial bottleneck that wasn't needed.  

Kalamar has that reliance on apostrophes and difficult pronunciations common to late 80's/early 90's fantasy worlds.  I found it annoying then, and it has grown into mood-killing now.  The world itself looks interesting, but feeling like I'm speaking Klingon at the game table kills my desire to run it.

4) The last quibble that I have with the game is calling Honor by that name.  The mechanic is effective, and I would change nothing about how it works.  But "honor" is a word that comes pre-loaded with assumed meaning, and the mechanic does not work like that except for perhaps a lawful good character.  So now I have to explain to every newbie why this concept and number on the character sheet called "honor", would in fact increase for a chaotic evil character that maims and kills his way across the landscape, breaking his word whenever it was most advantageous to himself.  Its counterintuitive, and easily avoided by use of a different word without such strong existing meaning.

But, all the above aside, I like the game.  I think it would easily play well and create exciting long-term campaigns - unlike, say, DCC (which I also own).  Overall, I would still strongly recommend the system for those looking to play a 1E-style game in a different way.  8 out of 10.
« Last Edit: May 06, 2013, 04:20:46 PM by EOTB »
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