Owl Skin Rug Mini

Posted by Jolly Blackburn in the HackMaster Forums, "Every Manor Needs One". Indeed!

Good luck gettin one the hard way...

Hackmaster Basic Pics

Ran a few sessions of Hackmaster Basic.  Made great use of all the Heroscape terrain I spent previous year buying off of ebay.  And the Alea colored magnetic bases I spent too much money on.  Each character / creature got 3 of the same color.  One for under the mini, one on HP track to track hit points, and one on the initiative track. Which is great way to keep track of HMB's "continuous" initiative system.

Ambush while on patrol in the woods.  Also note the "continuous initiative" track at bottom and hit point track on left.

Kill, kill, kill the PC's.

Can our intrepid militiamen defend the river ford. Turns out sadly, yes they can.

Basic Training!

Always worth including shot of guy picking his nose.

So booooored, can we get on with the killing and mayhem!

Haha, orc got pushed back into water (cool HMB rule, btw) and is now being washed downstream.

Btw I like HMB and some of it's ideas.  But, as a whole there's too much tracking of stuff I don't have any time to "be awesome DM".

Hackmaster Bootcamp

Having little time or interest in babysitting miserable far flung hamlets such as yours, Bordertown, Good King Osric has proclaimed that all able bodied men and those stout framed women who so desire shall henceforth be formed into militias charged with protecting the Kingdom's villages from orcs and other miscreants.

You've Been Drafted!

Report to your drillmaster, Sir Geant, on Sunday, June 13th, 12:30pm at BattleForge Games, Austin, TX.


A Hackmaster Basic introductory adventure.  You're in the Militia now! "What Militia?" you say? Who cares! The point is you get to kill stuff! More specifically, you get to hack the enemy to pieces using Hackmaster, a version of D&D with all the wuss parts removed.  A preview of what's in store, here's a PDF comic illustrating combat: Knights of the Dinner Table.

B2 Caves of Chaos Maps

B2 Caves of Chaos Twelve Hour Marathon Recap Part 1, other B2 Caves of Chaos Posts.

I get free rolls of newsprint from my employer which come in handy for drawing large player maps such as this one depicting the ravine that contains The Caves of Chaos.  I only drew the cave mouths that are immediately visible.  Also depicted is are wooden areas (and tree stumps that the nature destroying orcs left behind, bad orcs!), contour lines, and a stream.  I had hopped that the players would draw (their maps and notes) directly on this map.  Didn't happen much.

I have no scanner. And I'm done futzing with my camera and ready to move onto something that's not B2 so below small, blurry pics are the best you're gettin, sorry.

[Also, check out this B2 Map]

 

The above is a color copy I made of base map (not pictured) to which I added colored pencil shading.  The shading does accentuate the isometric and multilevelness.  It also looks perty.  Oh, I used three colors of shading, dark brown for top level, reddish brown for mid level and green for low level.  Also the higher up, the darker dungeon walls are (using different pen thickness/colors(grey vs black) and going over walls twice to make them darker).  Another trick to visually separate the various mini-dungeons is to use different "wall styles". The temple used big square blocks.  Warangutang lair used very straight lines.  Molemen and kobolds used wavy lines.  This also served as a reminder as to the composition and quality of construction of each lair.  E.g. wavy meaning dirt, tree roots hanging from ceiling, and the like.

The map is a mixture of D&D B2 and Hackmaster B2 maps. I liked some of the Hackmaster flavor and it was larger, but too large and not easily made isometric.  When combining the two I added many loops, alternate paths, more connections between lairs and levels, and more multilevel lairs.  The original B2's lairs are all fairly small and linear.  Characters have a choice of what what cave to enter but once there it was pretty much hack through a couple dozen minions until you get to the "end boss".  These loops provided tactical options to players and defending critters alike.

B2 also was lacking in traps.  I added a few.  Many from Hackmaster, the Kobolds lair in particular is trap central.  Btw pit traps are fun to draw isometrically, esp if at their bottoms are secret doors leading to the Otyough's cave complex!

I'm somewhat sad neither group got to the Warangutang lair (aka Hackmaster's Hobgoblins).  Warangutang's come from (ack forget which) blogger's mutant future campaign, uplifted by the ancients.  I decided their leader had a laser pistol, handed down through the generations.  They also, from Hackmaster, have funny motivational posters such as:

A tapestry depicts a group of four smiling Hobgoblins hangs on the west wall.  Which has some hobgoblin writing that reads "Sometimes the best solution to morale problems is just to kill all of the unhappy people."

... depicting a Hobgoblin military leader shaking his finger. The text reads "Don't make your death serve as a warning to others."

The hardest things to draw isometrically are caves and octagonal rooms.  I drew 2 drafts prior to getting to the final map.  I still made a couple mistakes, placing a sinkhole in the floor lower catacombs leading to the Minotaur lair some 2-3 levels above. And forgot to draw dashed lines a couple places where a passage was underneath another.  Overall neither a big deal. But makes me wonder how many iterations professional published module maps go through?

B/W copy of base map(not pictured) used for key and notes.  During a session I might scribble notes on this, deaths, changes to terrain, etc.  Esp if I were running a campaign.  Then create a new one for each session.  One reason I like to keep an original and make copies of it for in game use.

If this dungeon was my own creation it I'd probably not have a key.  Being my own creation much of it would only be in my head and vaguely defined rather than written out.  (A reason I publish very little.)  Rather than separate keys, I prefer to write notes / reminders directly on the map.  You might have noticed a theme of encoding as much information into the map as possible (isometricness, wall styles, trap symbols, drawing room features on map (see temple for example)).

Although, this particular map is a bit dense and too "zoomed out" for that to be very effective.   When more detail is needed I like to use 3x5 cards.  Each "lair" would have one card with encounter table for that lair, any other specific rules / reminders for that lair (5' ceilings, dirt and rough stone construction), and a few "five senses" evocative words / phrases for use in description.  Such as "Bree-yark!", stank of animal, dark, rat squeaking, crickets, moist dirt, tree roots from ceiling.  Then, if necessary, a separate 3x5 for each room/encounter with stats, names, tactics, treasure, boxed text, etc.  Really helps me give each area it's own flavor and feeling and cards with short notes are easier for me to access in game then flipping though book and reading paragraphs.

B2 Caves of Chaos Twelve Hour Marathon Part 2

B2 Caves of Chaos Twelve Hour Marathon Recap Part 1, other B2 Caves of Chaos Posts.

[I'm forgetting order of things and some details. I'm sure I'll get things wrong.  This player report is probably more accurate.  These recaps are more after-action analysis of my DMing, rules, scenario, props used than campaign dairy.]

In Attendance:

• Piss Pants the fighter, cousin of shit pants
• Mundy Meatshield, a fighter.
• Alex, token dwarve.
• Starhawk! an elf, what else?
• Blod thief of good spirit and bad luck, Soon replaced with Magnus a priestess of Marcuniess(sp?) Goddess of Metal and Healing.
• Onedias the most marvelous magic-user, aka NPC caster.
• Two wardogs "Gwar II" and "Sir Bitesalot", which were deadly but short lived.  Basically 100gp bazookas.
• Various men-at-arms who's names and exploits will not be remembered

Good Plan Lets Do It Again

Again party heads to Caves of Chaos.  Again DM rolls a 1 on d6 indicating wilderness encounter.  This time I roll [one roll looked up on two encounter tables] vampire (inhabited) and orcs (mtns).  I go with orcs, cause fuck this marathon is called B2 The Caves of Chaos I don't want to spend 12 hours slaying the party with a vampire.  Looking up orcs on my very freaking handy LL monster cards (Thanks Jonathan Chappell!) which I put into my DM binder instead of cutting up into cards (crappy photo at right). I see that #Encountered is 2d4, I roll 6.  Then I roll Reaction (2d6) got neutral response.  Figuring these orcs came from the "Blue Line", one of two tribes in the Caves of Chaos, and were out here on the road looking for a caravan to raid not a 8-12 member strong band of good guys.  Knowing they'll likely be spotted they send out the red heart on white flag universal "Let us parley" sign.

The party sends up two orc speakers. Pisspants and Starhawk an elf.  Who the orc "negociator" points at and says "Is that suppose to be an insult." Quickly thinking Pisspants looks angrily at elf and says "Stand back 10 feet." "Ah," orc says, "It is your slave, very nice.  We eat ours."  Short negotiations later, both parties agree to let the pass peaceably along with suggestion by Warich, the orc raiders leader, to seek out the "Blue Lines" chieftain, Muback if the party was sincere in their offer to aid the orcs in destroying their enemies. [Not even at the Caves and party is already trying to get the monsters fighting themselves.  BTW if they do this I award XP for monsters killed. Even if characters did not do the actual killing.  To my mind, getting "them" and "them" to fight each other doing your work for you is at least as deserving of reward/XP as risking your own neck.]

The party wanders around Kobolds "Hedge Maze" for awhile mostly remembering to use 10' pole and avoiding the many pit traps.  They find the entrance and a small fight erupts.  But the group shows zero interest in screwing with Kobolds.  Choosing higher risk and more rewards and less flippin pit traps.  And also bringing a tear of joy to the DM's eye for picking up on that "old school" characteristic so quickly.  More wandering and the emerge into the caves proper. I read them Gygax's "boxed" text;

The thick, twisted tree trunks, unnaturally misshapen limbs, writhing roots, clutching and grasping thorns and briars all seem to warn and ward you off, but you have hacked your way through regardless.  Now you have stepped out into a ravine like area.  The dark, streaked rock walls rise rather steeply to either side to a height of about 100' or so.  Clumps of trees grow here and there.  At varying heights on all sides of the ravine, you can see the black mouths of cave like openings.  The sunlight is dim, the air dank, there is an oppressive feeling here.  A flock of ravens rise croaking from the ground, the beat of their wings and their cries magnified by the terrain to sound loud and horrible.

You know that you have certainly discovered the Caves of Chaos.

Party makes straight for what they've been told is the "Blue Lines" cave.  Some failed negotiation, crossbow bolt to the chest of Hylas Amazonian men-at-arms, and a wandering monster roll (again!) later group decides, after much deliberation, to "take out" the Owlbear.  [Since negotiations were taking some time and party was hanging out of caves I rolled d6 a '1' indicating some activity related to one of the denizens of the CoC's. I rolled another die and counted cave entrances clockwise landing on the Great Horned Owlbear's cave.  And that is how we got to what happened next.]

Party makes a fairly reasonable plan to kill the Owlbear with dogs and ranged weapons.  Being the single most feared creature I figured it was "smart" enough to have not fallen for standard tactics like that. Rather than become a pin-cushion it used forest and other covering terrain to approach as close as possible to it's dinner.  Emerging from the tree-line 1 round worth of charging away.  Onedias yells, "Wait! Hold fire for one round." and casts charm.  I felt bad having NPC take the "lead" pull out the ace.  But, that is what he'd do and I added him specifically to the party so they would have that ace.  Well one failed save and DM misinterpertation(lack of bothering to look up spell actually) later party has a third "dog".  Just this one has 5hd and 3 attacks.  Onedias yells his second line of the evening, "Now, now my friends we visit our friends the orcs!"

Best marching order for entering orc cave;
charmed Owlbear in front.
Everyone else anywhere that is out of it's way.

Orcs amazingly succeded the several moral checks I subjected them to as the party and Bear Owl slaughtered them.  Owlbear was killing about 1.5 per round but orcs using corridors to their advantage were able to get 4 attacks per round on it.  It got down to 1 orc (who yet again made is moral check, a 3 I think) and owlbear with 3 hitpoints.  That guy was gonna be a famous orc hero. It's porcine bust carved in marble or cast in bronze, sitting on the mantles of upper caste orcs from the Grimlok Sea to the Mushy Marshes.  Instead bear owl rolled it's to hit first and started munching on tasty orc.  That is when Magnus Priest of healing and metal (not good kind of metal) decided she had better finish owlbear off rather than risk charm breaking.  Since target was unawares and distracted I let her roll damage (automatic hit). She luckily rolled more than 3.  Would have been great time to roll on Death and Dismemberment table for owlbear.  But, alas, I had already decided that was not for monsters.

Some playing hide and seek with a Otyugh (which I couldn't find in LL, not there? called something else?) and several forays to city to sell orc loot and owlbear eggs/loot and leveling. They decide to take on the baddest, scariest cave there is.

"You find a hidden set of steps carved into the steep ravine.  Starting about 100 yards from the large cave entrance to either side of the path are skulls resting on tall polls.  As you get closer you can tell this is no cave but an entrance lined and faced with large granite blocks. Into which skulls and necromantic features have been carved. On the whole it appears very tomb or crypt like.  Standing before the entrance you smell the stench of death's decay.  Emanating from the black hole is an oppressive malevolence, weighing you down and testing your resolve."

After that description and near universal men-at-arms moral check failures party decides to try the next cave over.  Minotaur yeah! Onedias (under player control this time) charms the Minotauress and if you read the Hackmaster B2 version of the minotaur lair you you know what a mistake that was.  Much handwaving of details later party rescues Onedias and slays the Minotaur.  After some DM prodding they even locate the secret stash of major loot; Staff of Curing, +2 platemail, potions, and lots of gold.


Some Observations
That I didn't work in elsewhere or need repeating.

• Labyrinth Lord is fun!  I can see some peeps wanting more detailed, nailed down system for a long campaign (not me). But, for a pickup D&D game.  Nothing beats it.
• Example of ruling not rule. Alex dives into pool in attempt to remove Grey Oooze, but ooze acid eats him to 0 hitpoints.  Alex rolls "knocked out" on Death and Dismemberment table.  So, I rule that getting into water did dislodge ooze, but unfortunately Alex is now face down in the water. Mundy wades through pool and hoists Alex onto his shoulders. Sadly (or comically depending on your sense of humor) another ooze had been moving that way and decides to drop.  So, I rule that 1-5 it drops on Alex (who is on Mundy's shoulders) and on a 6 it will drop on Mundy.  It falls on Alex and for pure comedic value (the players didn't see the funny in it though) I further rule that Mundy is unawares and wades back across the pool to safety. Cheering that he has saved Alex, setting him down only to see a Grey ooze where Alex's torso use to be.
• Example of winging it. Magnus finds secret tunnel, leading to secret door, leading to bottom of 30' pit trap.  No one but he wants to open it. Rest of party go way back down the tunnel. I knew it wasn't trapped. But I didn't know what was down there beyond the traditional "skeleton of past adventurer".  Since player had shown initiative and taken risk I thought they deserved chance at reward.  Ask them to roll d4-1 and that was how many magic items they found.  Magnus rolled 4.  More really lucky random rolls later; A mace +1 +3 vs undead, scroll of protection from undead, boots of springing and leaping.
• Example of winging it/rulings not rule: Frandor's keep has got to have black market.  For one shot I didn't figure out NPCs, what was available, etc. Instead when player looks for something I ask them for a d6-X roll, where X larger number for rarer items and that is how many they find. Most common item is potions, d6-2. Then roll randomly on potion table. If they ask for something specific, there's a 1 in 6 or 1 in 12 or 1 in (you get idea) chance that it is available.  Reaction isn't a factor in market, they want to sell, you want to buy, it's business. But buying from the church requires a Reaction roll and if it turns out poorly they will not sell to you (nor the rest of the party if they know you are associates)
• I made the players booze and wench it up when ever they returned to Keep loaded with treasure. Every character rolls d6x10 (or larger die if they choose).  The sum of all dice rolls / number of characters is how much gold each must spend. One side benefit is this provides a +1 when rolling for hirelings.
• A men-at-arms pulled her unconscious master from certain death by Grey Ooze.  I gave a 1 in 6 chance that such bravery elevated her to 1st level and henchman status.  She failed that roll and both her and master got dissolved by ooze shortly there after.
• Here is a picture of a 3x5 card of things I always forget and want to be reminded of.  I never remember to look at card and still always forget these things.

• I'm ok with the hands body (means use my hands and whole body when doing NPCs, monsters, etc) and enthusiasm. But can never have enough of that.
• Mid-encounter description means part way through battle, take a pause and redescribe the scene.  Updated with blood and drama and tension.  "Blood glistens from Mubak's axe as he raises it to deal Mundy a final death blow."
• 30 sec visualization pause, means before describing scene. Take 30sec to build up scene in my mind using all 5 senses before opening my mouth.  I'm way to frantic during play to ever do this, but I do it before play and sometimes remember it. Such as describing entrance to Temple of Chaos.
• Slow, slow pacing description. Means I need to quit being such a frantic spaz, allow some slow parts, allow players to digest and plan. Remember to describe fully instead of rushing to next thing.

Next B2 post will be on the maps I made.

B2 Caves of Chaos Twelve Hour Marathon Part 1

On Sat, April 3rd, at Dragon's Lair Austin (FLGS), I ran a twelve hour marathon of B2 Caves of Chaos, a mixture of Basic D&D's B2 Keep on the Borderlands and Hackmaster's B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands, using Labyrinth Lord (a BD&D retro-clone) from Goblinoid Games.  I originally planned to run this for TARGA's International Traditional Game Week.  But that was not meant to be. Instead for ITGW I ran a shorter B2 Caves of Chaos for the Austin's D&D Meetup Group. Which turned out to be good marathon prep. As it was my first time using LL and my first non-solo run of B2.

Now that I got every possible plug out of the way...


The short

Both times running this I had a blast. Players seemed to have a blast. B2 is just plain damn fun.  And with LL's fast combats you get to experience more of it in same amount of time.  Combined, approx 18hours of game time, the players wiped out (or allied with) every major group except the Warrangutans (aka Hobgobs), The Black Temple (aka Chaos, aka undead central), and the tiny Bugbear lair.  Our results might be skewed as both groups rocked.  Good tactics, avoidance of high risk, low rewards (kobolds and their "Hey what's that? Bet we could trap it!" attitude), and the like.

Charm, esp when misinterpreted by DM to work on Owlbears and Minotaurs is really an effective spell.

In both sessions I've used various things (rules, char sheets, monster cards, etc) created by the OSR and others.  First, thanks! You Rock! Second, I've now used OSR creations in actual game play that made those games better.  For me, from this point forward, anyone who says OSR hasn't produced anything worthwhile or the like can shove it. "It" being a 10' pole.

Oh and even despite my almost total lack of advertisement and us playing in the back room (and thus bereft of most foot traffic) a half dozen people showed interest and we were able to hook them up with info on D&D meetup and other D&D groups in Austin. If you have any inclination to spread our hobby and an opportunity to play in public I encourage you to do so.  Playing in public really, truly attracts new (and returning) players and grows the hobby.


House Rules in Effect

XP is not divided by number of players.  Find a 1200gp goblet, everyone gets 1200xp.  Compressing many sessions of raiding B2 into one marathon.  It worked well. For example, elves slow progression was an actual penalty, something not normally seen in a one-shot. 

MU starts at 3rd, CL starts at 2nd.

Damage by class with more damage if you forgo shield and use a 2h and +1 to hit if you dual wield.  No one ever picked dual wield +1 to hit.  Is it not worth it? Or did I just speed past the description that no one picked up on it.

Death and dismemberment with d12 "hit location" die. For PC's only, wardogs, cooks and men-at-arms bite it at zero hitpoints.  I ruled that magic healing fixed broken bones and reconnected severed limbs.  In retrospect mending broken bones seems ok, it's magic! But, the severed limb thing was a bad ruling on my part.  After using this table in two sessions, I'm still a fan.  But it's not deadly enough, every roll but 2,3,4 on 2d6 is no big deal (if group wins battle).  When using again I will do one or more of the following:

1) reduce access to magical healing.

2) modify table, make every roll 7 and under be almost certain death described variously, 8-10 bad, keep 11 as no effect, and 12 as "now I'm angry" adrenaline surge.

Sleep with campfire, hot food, and good rest each character regains their hitdice in hit points e.g. 3rd lvl fg regains 3d8.  If your hiding out from patrolling orcs, with iron rations, no fire or light, sleeping in armor etc. you get only one hitdie.

Group dice rolls for searching, listing, etc.  I'll write a post about this later.

Attribute checks didn't come up often but they are d20+attribute >= 20 (or 25, 30 for very hard checks)

No critical hits, but when a player rolled a natural 20 I generally described something hopefully awesome sounding e.g. slicing through two kobolds, climbing up the back of the ogre and jamming sword downwards through its neck/shoulder.


In Attendance:
 

• Piss Pants the fighter, cousin of shit pants
• Mundy Meatshield, a fighter.
• Alex, token dwarve.
• Starhawk! an elf, what else?
• Blod, a thief of good spirit and bad luck, Soon replaced with Magnus a priestess of Marcuniess(sp?) Goddess of Metal (sadly not this kind) and Healing.
• Onedias the most marvelous magic-user, aka NPC caster.
• Two wardogs "Gwar II" and "Sir Bitesalot", which were deadly but short lived.  Basically 100gp bazookas.
• Various men-at-arms who's names and exploits will not be remembered.

The Plan

Starting in Frandor's Keep players had opportunity to search for hirelings. 5gp got them a roll on Dungeons n Digressions' LL Hirelings Recruitment Table and Record Sheet.  I also kicked in a magic-user NPC, Onedias. Onedias proffered the following plan "Let's go up river to the Caves of Chaos and loot the place." Having no better idea the party agrees.

I didn't want to do any of the wilderness, side, or in town, encounters from B2.  This one shot was about the caves. Even so, I couldn't just let the players wander willy nilly through the wilds!  1 on d6 means wilderness encounter.  Rolled once on way to caves, once on return trip, and also once anytime players waste time mulling about outside caves or for things such as to see if anything came by and ate their donkeys. [Towards end of evening I quit rolling cause the random encounters had done their job, providing a bit of danger and variety. The players were now really "into" the caves and it was more fun focusing our time there. An example of how I "fudge" things as DM.]

Having forgotten there is a wilderness encounter table in B2 I rolled on the LL one.  Which is pretty freaking dangerous!  I use one roll and look it up on two or more tables (this time mtns, and inhabited).  This gives me flexibility in choosing encounters.  The roll turned up Chimera or Gargoyle.  Both TPK's and not even fun TPK's. Now an encounter doesn't necessarily mean creature has appeared 100 yards in front of party and combat starts.  It can mean hearing creature (players now have option to flee or investigate, thus any TPK is now their choice rather than random FU roll), encountering tracks or other signs (piles of dragon poop are my favorite).  LL has the best mechanic for determining nature of an encounter, The Reaction Roll.  2d6 with results from "hostile, attacks immediately" to "friendly", but weighted towards "neutral, wait and see".  Despite it's utter awesomeness, I didn't use it this time.  I had another "no-good fudging DM" trick I occasionally use.  Here is what happened.


The Result

"You hear the bleating of a goat, up the mtn side to your left.  Followed by a lion's roar and a gout of flame shooting out over a ledge." I was impressed that every player at the table instantly knew what creature this was, and more impressed that when I gave them a moment to react most of them fled for cover :) "You hear the lion cry out in pain and see a three-headed beast take flight, trailing blood from a vicious claw on it's flank." More player hiding and waiting.  "Quickly chased by a grey, stoneskinned, batwinged demon."  Waiting until the pair are out of site, most of the party wants to beat it but of course the thief, Blod, needs to see what's what and climbs up to the ledge.  One failed search later Blod decides to  tear apart the nest.  That is when the hidden, terrified, 3HD baby Chimera burns his ass.  One challenging battle later party finds the Chimera's treasure.  I have them roll for it on the spot.  Blod's character rolling for the magic items in a last ditch hope of getting a potion of healing.  He rolled naught.  Thief dead, party returns to town to sell ring with largest diamond they ever saw (Mundy rolled up 1300gp jewelry as treasure).  [btw every minute or so I rolled d6, on a 1 the survivor of Gargoyle / Chimera battle would return.]

For gems and jewels players got full XP but only 80% of value when selling to jeweler.  Arms and equipment are sold for 50% or less if they are of shitty humanoid make, players get XP for sale value.  Art and weird stuff like Owlbear eggs they must find buyer (an adventure in itself and not possible in one-shot) or sell at auction, players get XP for sale value. [Was making this stuff up on the fly, proly shouldn't give full XP value for the gems and jewels. I did cause I awarded XP for those at time of acquisition and I hadn't thought about the 80% sale price yet.  In future I'd not award XP for anything until it was sold for gold.]

Norm's Simple Auction Rule: DM determines potential value of auctioned objects dX+X (although it should not be bellcurved, i.e. a single die).  Each player rolls that.  Highest roll is the highest bid and what the player's receive (minus taxes, tariffs, auction fees etc).  E.g. 3 owlbear eggs were auctioned as a lot.  I decided value was  d12x100gp, players rolled 2, 5 and 11.  Eggs sold for 1100gp!


Friendly Local Game Store

I try to follow the rule "If I play a game at a FLGS, I buy something from that store."  This time I picked up BRP Rome. Cause Rome is always cool, I've been hearing bits about BRP and want to check it out, and I've read a few favorable reviews of Rome supplements lately (although, darn bad memory can't remember if BRP was one of them.  Bunch of peoples seem to have released a Rome recently.)

Ugh, too much for one post, Part 2 to appear later. Also, more posts on B2 Caves of Chaos & maps.

"B2" Caves of Chaos Maps

Is a portion of the map I created for the upcoming Twelve Hour B2 Caves of Chaos Marathon I'm running on April 3rd at my FLGS Dragon's Lair in Austin, TX. (also used for this B2 Caves of Chaos game).

I call it Caves of Chaos instead of Keep on the Borderlands 1) I totally thought that was what B2 was called. 2) It's a mixture of D&D B2 and Hackmaster B2, and some some additional weird shit by me (more caves, more innter-connections, more loops, molemen instead of goblins, warangtangs instead of hobgobs).

I started the Caves of Chaos map on a lark to see if I could make an isometric version of the classic B2 map.  It turned out ok.  After I was sure I was running the B2 marathon I got excited about working on the map again and mixing in Hackmaster stuff.  It really flowed and new ideas poped into my head as I was drawing it.  (maybe why it got a little too crowded).

I used different wall styles / colors for the various levels. Which you might just be able to make out the "square" stone dressed blocks of the Black Temple in this slightly zoomed image. [clicky for embiggin]

After I color photocopied original I used different color pencils to "shadow" / "crosshatch" the stone in a way I hope accentuates the isometricness.  I like to write notes right on maps such as what and how many, encounter tables, and the like. But didn't want to junk up "nice" map with those and the room key so, I made some b/w copies of the original.

For being poor at cartography/art I think my isometric Caves of Chaos map project turned out pretty bad ass. Don't know if it's practically superior to flat map, but I sure do like lookin at it.

ITGW "B2" Caves of Chaos Game Report

In honor of International Traditional Gaming Week I ran my "B2 Caves of Chaos" for some of the local D&D Meetup crew this past Sunday.  Using Labyrinth Lord rules [house rules in effect; Order of d30, damage by class with more damage if you forgo shield and use a 2h and +1 to hit if you dual wield, death and dismemberment, sleep regains hitdice "don't get" hit points e.g. 3rd lvl fg regains 3d8].


In attendance:

• Sparkles the Wizard
• Shitpants, a fighter
• Wispy the token Dwarf known for the lowest stat, a 4 in strength
• Chuck tallest mini and a fighter. With "sparky" 1/2ling torch bearer hireling
• Cleric of the War God banished from temple for his overuse of the "run away" tactic.
• Cleric of Knowledge and Light. Who's pack bearer, "easy" was laden down with bags of tinder and oil.  Of great use in spreading light to the enemy.

Sparkles and the Dwarf went in on a trio of men-at-arms whose employment did not work out to the satisfaction of anyone involved. (they failed moral when seeing ogre in first encounter of the game, Sparkles (did I mention he was Chaotic?) felt they should return their days pay for such cowardliness.  A feeling he expressed with no small number of threats. Spock, McCoy, and Kirk (the m-a-as) left on less than amicable terms.)

This was my first time DMing LL, and the first time (that I remember) DMing B2.  I felt rough but this group rocked out.


First encounter party attacks rather than parlays with the molemen (nee goblins) trigging the later to payoff Ogre to come squash intruders.  I thought "yay, TPK!" But was denied when they scared away Ogre's molemen support. Clearing way to encircle Ogre while it was being distracted with bribes. Scratch one Ogre.  The molemen fearing these powerful new killers offered them tribute.  Which party deftly parlayed into installing themselves as the new "Ogre" and extracting a great deal of good intel on the caves while feasting with the moleman king. Intel they put to smart use.

Next they go to town and spend all their ill-gotten loot on better armor, potions and a couple of war dogs, "Gwar" and "Fluffy". Which, back at the caves, they use to lead charge into the "blue line" orc cave.  Quickly slaughtering 4 piggies in first guard room, then 4 more in second guard room.  Then wisely withdrawing as the orc lair "awakes" and a large force of pig men assemble to deal with the interlopers. On the way out they yell insults and claim the slaughter to be paid for by the "red triangle" aka orcs from next cave over.

[Aside on "orcs": Properly called pig men and derogatorily as porkers. Which common folk shortened to 'orkers, then ork, which eventually got misspelled as orc. Bam! Pig-faced for a reason.]

Of course party bee lines for the "red triangle's" cave with fresh "blue line" bolt they pull from Shitpant's chest for incrimination with goal of inter-tribal war.  Well long story short, Sparkles Charm spell works this time and on the "red triangles" chieftan. Being an orc chieftan it was not hard to convince him of "blue line" treachery, the need for revenge and to whip him into a frenzy.  He declares  a "war party" and some 20 red triangle orcs with players close behind head over to to teach the blue lines a lesson.  Well big battle later only a few orcs and one porker chieftan remain alive.  Of course, that is when Chuck drinks a potion of heroism and shortly thereafter no orcs and zero chieftans have survived  Player character duplicity at it's finest.

BTW I awarded xp for all dead orcs no matter if characters killed them or not.  To my mind characters were directly responsible for their "defeat".  Besides if successfully enacting the "Fist Full of Dollars" plot ain't worth xp then xp ain't worth having!

[Aside on big battle: It is boring to watch DM roll hits and record damage for 50 orcs/I really didn't want to run big battle.  Instead, I rolled 1d6 for each tribe low roll (blue lines) lost the initial melee at cave mouth.  Many of the pursuing red triangles broke off to pillage (storage room and common room full or pig women was next locations on map, seemed like the orc thing to do). I ask players if they want to pillage, find orcs to kill, follow chieftain and guard who are still charging through cave, or something else? They choose to follow chief whom they correctly surmise is hot to put an axe in the opposing chief.  I narrate a bit of chief-n-guards hacking down doors and dealing with blue line bodyguards.  This ends at "climatic" scene of red chief (his guard stripped away/replaced by characters) vs blue chief, his mate & child (which the players mercilessly slaughter before his eyes) and a few remaining blue orc guards.  Which we play out as normal combat.

So, big battle into small battle, the important one. While broad brush stroking the lessor battles. It worked well and I liked it. The key was giving the players choices. If they just wanted to grab some loot and run then the chief battle would have occurred off stage "in my mind" (and only if I needed to know what's up with orcs/local power structure cause characters were returning to caves of chaos).

If the players aren't involved it doesn't need to be determined in detail. Simple d6 vs d6 (maybe with a modifier if one side has advantage, is more numerous, etc) is all you need.]

Low points:

• No characters died (players consistently rolled 9+ on that damn death and dismemberment table. One punk player even used his d30 roll to nie guarantee an adrenaline surge of regained hitpoints.)
• Really, wtf! Not one single death.
• I suck at voices. Unfortunately the main accent I channeled was "Hispanic gansta", maybe next time I'll describe molemen wearing the bandana
• A player used d30 for damage vs Ogre, rolled a 4.  Actually that was awesome. Ha ha, in your face adrenaline rolling player!
• Combat hirelings were a complete bomb and written off as useless.  Perhaps due to unlucky coincidence (failing first moral check) and NPC's(DM) not taking kindly to character's attitude/verbal abuse.  Not like characters needed them at all.
• Two wardogs were killed during filming.

All in all an excellent prep for my upcoming Twelve Hour B2 Caves of Chaos Marathon on April 3rd at FLGS Dragon's Lair in Austin, TX.

Hackmaster / Exploding Dice Analysis

Back when reviewing Hackmaster I wondered about the penetration (exploding) dice. I worried that a d4 would be better than d6 as the d4 was more likely to roll it's max value and explode than the d6. Being a programmer dude I wrote code and ran some tests.

The results of "throwing" each type of die 100,000 times.

die   avg    max
d4p   3.01   24
d6p   3.99   37
d8p   5.00   49
d12p  7.00   55

As you can see, exploding only increases the avg by about .5 and max values ramp up nicely. If you roll 100,000 times you can get some impressive max rolls. But, super high explosions are rare. Here are the details on d4, d6, and d12 (chosen cause of this) rolled "only" 12,000 times each. Results are value rolled, number of times it was rolled, % chance of rolling that value, % chance of rolling that value or higher.

d4p count chance cumulative
1    2954 24.62% 100.00%
2    3060 25.50%  75.38%
3    2991 24.93%  49.88%
4     756  6.30%  24.96%
5     796  6.63%  18.66%
6     740  6.17%  12.02%
7     177  1.47%   5.86%
8     184  1.53%   4.38%
9     181  1.51%   2.85%
10     43  0.36%   1.34%
11     43  0.36%   0.98%
12     42  0.35%   0.62%
13     11  0.09%   0.27%
14      3  0.03%   0.18%
15     10  0.08%   0.16%
16      5  0.04%   0.07%
17          not rolled
18      3  0.03%   0.03%
19      1  0.01%   0.01%
20          not rolled
21      1  0.01%  -0.00%

d6p count chance cumulative
1    1951 16.26% 100.00%
2    2064 17.20%  83.74%
3    1922 16.02%  66.54%
4    1993 16.61%  50.53%
5    1992 16.60%  33.92%
6     334  2.78%  17.32%
7     347  2.89%  14.53%
8     331  2.76%  11.64%
9     370  3.08%   8.88%
10    322  2.68%   5.80%
11     60  0.50%   3.12%
12     68  0.57%   2.62%
13     43  0.36%   2.05%
14     75  0.62%   1.69%
15     64  0.53%   1.07%
16      7  0.06%   0.53%
17     11  0.09%   0.48%
18      9  0.07%   0.38%
19     12  0.10%   0.31%
20     16  0.13%   0.21%
21          not rolled
22          not rolled
23      4  0.03%   0.08%
24      2  0.02%   0.04%
25      1  0.01%   0.03%
26          not rolled
27          not rolled
28      2  0.02%   0.02%
29      1  0.01%   0.00%

d12p count chance cumulative
1     968  8.07% 100.00%
2     978  8.15%  91.93%
3     991  8.26%  83.78%
4    1004  8.37%  75.53%
5     987  8.22%  67.16%
6     996  8.30%  58.93%
7     980  8.17%  50.63%
8     982  8.18%  42.47%
9    1006  8.38%  34.28%
10   1025  8.54%  25.90%
11   1057  8.81%  17.36%
12     87  0.73%   8.55%
13     78  0.65%   7.83%
14     74  0.62%   7.18%
15     80  0.67%   6.56%
16     88  0.73%   5.89%
17     99  0.83%   5.16%
18     82  0.68%   4.33%
19     93  0.78%   3.65%
20     95  0.79%   2.87%
21     83  0.69%   2.08%
22     84  0.70%   1.39%
23      6  0.05%   0.69%
24      8  0.07%   0.64%
25      7  0.06%   0.57%
26      5  0.04%   0.52%
27     10  0.08%   0.47%
28      7  0.06%   0.39%
29      8  0.07%   0.33%
30      5  0.04%   0.27%
31      8  0.07%   0.22%
32      7  0.06%   0.16%
33      5  0.04%   0.10%
34          not rolled
35      3  0.03%   0.06%
36          not rolled
37      2  0.02%   0.03%
38          not rolled
39          not rolled
40          not rolled
41          not rolled
42          not rolled
43          not rolled
44      1  0.01%   0.02%
45          not rolled
46          not rolled
47      1  0.01%   0.01%
48          not rolled
49      1  0.01%  -0.00%

5% chance for 17+ damage is a little high (2d12 avg=13). Seems not too out of whack for "critical hit" system. Still might change 2-hand damage to d10p.

In my Post on Weapon Damage a comment was made that exploding dice combined with my house rule, pure fighters get to roll damage twice and take the higher result, is too much of a damage escalation. An unmentioned tweak is fighters get to take the higher of the initial non-exploded roll, they don't roll exploded dice twice. Mostly cause I don't want to deal with insane amount of dice rolling / tracking.

So, modifying my program... Here are 2d10 and 2d12 rolled 12000 times, highest initial roll taken, and then exploded as appropriate.

d10p count chance cumulative
1     131  1.09% 100.00%
2     351  2.93%  98.91%
3     565  4.71%  95.98%
4     867  7.22%  91.28%
5    1082  9.02%  84.05%
6    1278 10.65%  75.03%
7    1600 13.33%  64.38%
8    1763 14.69%  51.05%
9    2072 17.27%  36.36%
10    232  1.93%  19.09%
11    241  2.01%  17.16%
12    233  1.94%  15.15%
13    218  1.82%  13.21%
14    213  1.77%  11.39%
15    243  2.02%   9.62%
16    226  1.88%   7.59%
17    207  1.73%   5.71%
18    234  1.95%   3.98%
19     26  0.22%   2.03%
20     23  0.19%   1.82%
21     24  0.20%   1.63%
22     13  0.11%   1.43%
23     28  0.23%   1.32%
24     27  0.22%   1.08%
25     33  0.27%   0.86%
26     19  0.16%   0.58%
27     23  0.19%   0.43%
28      5  0.04%   0.23%
29      2  0.02%   0.19%
30      1  0.01%   0.18%
31      6  0.05%   0.17%
32      2  0.02%   0.12%
33      3  0.03%   0.10%
34      2  0.02%   0.08%
35      1  0.01%   0.06%
36      7  0.06%   0.05%

d12p count chance cumulative
1      83  0.69% 100.00%
2     227  1.89%  99.31%
3     416  3.47%  97.42%
4     573  4.78%  93.95%
5     767  6.39%  89.17%
6     885  7.38%  82.78%
7    1067  8.89%  75.41%
8    1291 10.76%  66.52%
9    1366 11.38%  55.76%
10   1590 13.25%  44.38%
11   1813 15.11%  31.12%
12    148  1.23%  16.02%
13    149  1.24%  14.78%
14    182  1.52%  13.54%
15    163  1.36%  12.02%
16    141  1.18%  10.67%
17    159  1.32%   9.49%
18    153  1.27%   8.17%
19    181  1.51%   6.89%
20    154  1.28%   5.38%
21    148  1.23%   4.10%
22    182  1.52%   2.87%
23     13  0.11%   1.35%
24     13  0.11%   1.24%
25     20  0.17%   1.13%
26     14  0.12%   0.97%
27     11  0.09%   0.85%
28     19  0.16%   0.76%
29      7  0.06%   0.60%
30     10  0.08%   0.54%
31     10  0.08%   0.46%
32     18  0.15%   0.37%
33     19  0.16%   0.22%
34      1  0.01%   0.07%
35      1  0.01%   0.06%
36      1  0.01%   0.05%
37          not rolled
38          not rolled
39          not rolled
40      2  0.02%   0.04%
41      1  0.01%   0.02%
42      2  0.02%   0.02%
43      1  0.01%  -0.00%

Chance of exploding is 2x normal what I'd expected. Did not realize "rolling twice taking best" would produce such high results. 55% chance of 9 or higher on d12.


For completeness here's d6p as rolled by fighter.

d6p  count chance cumulative
1     328  2.73% 100.00%
2    1016  8.47%  97.27%
3    1727 14.39%  88.80%
4    2322 19.35%  74.41%
5    2937 24.47%  55.06%
6     620  5.17%  30.58%
7     589  4.91%  25.42%
8     580  4.83%  20.51%
9     632  5.27%  15.68%
10    612  5.10%  10.41%
11    104  0.87%   5.31%
12    101  0.84%   4.44%
13    104  0.87%   3.60%
14    107  0.89%   2.73%
15    102  0.85%   1.84%
16     18  0.15%   0.99%
17     21  0.18%   0.84%
18     18  0.15%   0.67%
19     23  0.19%   0.52%
20     22  0.18%   0.33%
21      1  0.01%   0.14%
22      3  0.03%   0.13%
23      2  0.02%   0.11%
24      2  0.02%   0.09%
25      5  0.04%   0.08%
26          not rolled
27          not rolled
28          not rolled
29      1  0.01%   0.03%
30      1  0.01%   0.03%
31      1  0.01%   0.02%
32          not rolled
33          not rolled
34          not rolled
35      2  0.02%   0.01%

HackMaster Basic Bits

[I wrote this long ago and forgot about it till now.]

After a more thorough reading here's more review of HackMaster Basic. Bits of rules I missed in my first quick HackMaster Basic review. Extractable mechanics and ideas that might be useful beyond a HackMaster game.

Abilities

When using the quick character creation rules there are no build points, thank Crom! So, to simulate the build points a player might have spent there is this little chart for ability adjustment based on class

Fighter +1 Str, +1 Con Thief +2 Dex Cleric +2 Wis Mage +2 Int

Combine with roll 3d6 in order, may swap one stat with another, max stat is 18. That hits my sweet spot of healing modern gamers of their "optimal build" mental condition while recognizing that some players come to the table with a particular archetype in mind. Forcing someone to play an Int 5 MU or a thief when they hate that role is not being "old school", it's being a jack ass.


Hit Points
Staring hit points are (Con Score + fixed racial amount + class based hit die). The racial amount is 10hp humans and dwarves 5hp for the two wuss races, 1/2lings and elves. Those hitpoints are very high compared to most D&D and d20. Remember 4th ed HackMaster had a hit point kicker, 20hp I think. The system is also overall deals higher damage. Finally, critically is the Threshold of Pain rules were if you read the awesome KoDT comic combat example you'll see are often what takes down an opponents rather than reaching 0 hit points.

I like the addition of race to equation and how it boosts starting hitpoints. I'd consider using that with normal non-Threshold of Pain games. Also, just thought about races altering class hit die EX: Hu fighter has d10 hit die, 1/2 is one smaller d8 and orc is one larger d12. But that is consfusing exactly what hitpoints are.


Classes get a new hit die every other level. On even number levels players reroll their previous hit die roll taking either roll or 1/2 the die size (whichever is largest). This means that the previous hit die roll result must be recorded, meh. And also hitpoints tend to avg or above. No glass jaws wusses in HackMaster. Interesting variation on the OD&D interpretation that all hit dice are rerolled each level and new result is used if higher than existing hit points. I think I like that system better than HackMaster's. I like the slower hitpoint progression though.


Class
In quick char gen each class is given a fixed set of profeciences and skills + a couple class appropriate skills rolled from a table. If I were to use feats, talents, profecincies, skills and the like this is how to handle them for new characters. You could get as fine grained and complex as you want say offensive fighter, defensive fighter, swashbuckling fighter. The key is to minimize choices, complexity and time needed to start playing. I've totally bought into the idea that after 10min a new character needs to be complete enough to play with.

RPGs I desperately want to play

The Philippine Gamer posted a list of RPGs he hasn't played but desperately wants too. Sounded like a good idea.


Games I should or will own if they ever get freakin released

Shard - been waiting for it to be released. I guess I played it, but game store demos don't count. Do they?

Mutant Future - obvious choice ;) I'd also like to run a Spaceship Warden campaign.

Anyting run by various OSR bloggers whose game session reports I read with jealousy.


Games I actually own.

Labyrinth Lord / BECMI - This one is easy to achieve I just need to show up to the Sunday game at Dragon's Lair.

Star Frontiers - I've had this since it was originally released. NEVER played it. So sad.

Traveller - Mongoose pocket edition. Sanbox style. Actually thought bout doing Star Flight / Ur-Quan masters type of campaign.

HARP - and/or Cyberspace and/or Spacemaster, been a fan of Rolemaster since highschool. Actually played a little in college. Can be cool if you view it as a bunch of houserules to be used to construct a game system.

Ars Magica - Oh please! But will never happen. Great ideas on entourage play, non-balanced characters, coven(domain/kingdom) creation/management, and magic. Oh lord! The magic, it is soooo awesome.

Nephelim - another oh please / never will happen. I got a fair amount of supplements neat stuff for use in other games.

Hidden Invasion - I don't know buttkiss about the mechanics TriTac? But it says "Fantastic Science Fiction Role Playing" and "High Adventure Across the Galaxy" on the cover so I bought it, for $5.00! Premise goes like this "You and other random people (aka the party) get abducted by 50's era flying saucer. You all break loose, fight, kill your abductors and take over the ship. Rest of game is flying around the galaxy doing cool shit with your UFO saucer and other rad alien technology.

HackMaster Basic - "desperate to play" might be pusing it. Probably will happen when I get some time and can run a 1-shot at the FLGS.

Oriental Adventures - AD&D. But really any fantasy, 1970'sish, kung-fu action game will do, I have a couple. Is "Ruins and Ronin" an actual thing or just a plan?

HackMaster Basic - Quick Review

I got my HackMaster Basic pre-order in the mail yesterday, woot! These are my thoughts after a feverish read through.

If you like HackMaster this is HackMaster v2.0. If you're after a crunchy, point buy system that's less ornery rule wise (but more ornery flavor wise :) than GURPs/HERO/RoleMaster this book contains everything (cept an intro module) you need to start. Alternatively, there are several mechanics that can be straight up stolen for use elsewhere.

Pros: Price, $20 for 185 pages. Complete, quick start rules, monsters, magic, no intro module though. Effective, reader friendly layout and design.

Cons: Crunchy char build, point buy, but that's just me. Too many different mechanics; roll over, roll under, roll against, use d20 use d100. No rules on converting 4th ed (of HackMaster silly) or d20 stuffs (then again that seems like a web/free download type of thing). Wasting 10 pages on old, tired dice etiquette bit, boooooh!


The Suck

Build Points and Fractional Stats are two horrors I was really hoping they'd ditch. I like to be able to pick up a game and get playing pronto. I like to get new people to play. I like to play one-shots at game stores which means we have 4-6 hours and don't wanna spend more than 15min of that on character gen. Point buy is the plague of death to any of those. Fractional Stats are faniggly and crunchy for crunchy sakes. In other words complete waste of time. Although, I give Kenzer mad props for including "Quick Start" rules that are character gen without the point buy. Personally this is what I'd always use. Drop Build Points and that whole mess. Drop it with fire down a pit to hell!

Skills, meh, mostly skipped this part of book. Needlessly crunchy (proly mostly to support usage of build points) and using different mechanics than rest of game? d100p roll under. WTF? I don't need no skills and would use stat based system such as the one from C&C. But if I wanted skills I'd use a nice system, i.e not this one.

Weapon specialization. There are four categories you may increase per weapon attack, damage, speed, defense. But you have to increase them all to +1 before any can become +2, etc. So, what's the freakin point of having those categories if there's no possibility to rock one out (say to make a big bruiser with high damage bonus or a swishy swashbuckler that has extra defense with his rapier). The reason is to provide a Build Point sink for fighters, lame, uber lame! Throw out build points and give fighterly types one or two +1 specializations to distribute per level. Bam!


The Hacking!

Despite the authors claims to the contrary a game called HackMaster is all about the axe to the face style of roleplay. The most interesting bit here is the continuous initiative system. Initiative is "roll low" usually a d12 but other dice are possible such as d6 if character was ready and looking for trouble to charge through the door. Also, thieves being canny and such roll smaller dice. This is modified by stats (DX and INT, nice!), armor, and maybe some other stuff. But it really only matters once at the start of combat.

DM starts counting up (each count is 1 second). Characters are "surprised" (can't act/have typical "flat-footed" type penalties) until their initiative number is reached. Once that happens they can declare actions, which take a certain number of seconds. One second of movement, four seconds to aim bow, couple seconds to draw/ready huge zwei-hander. Each weapon has a "speed" This is in fact the number of seconds it takes to recover after rolling to hit with that weapon. If I rolled 10 for initiative and my mighty axe had a speed of 7 I'd roll to hit (assuming I did nothing but attack on counts 10, 17, 24, 31, etc. So, there aren't really turns, everyone is interleaving their actions back and forth. In the case of movement all players might all act every count! This along with the defensive roll seems like it would keep everyone involved and combat would play fast and tense. Even if it takes a long time it wouldn't be a drawn out bore.

I like continuous initiative systems very much. Lots of tracking though. Easy to mess up/cheat. Complex for new players? As DM I'd probably be tracking everyone's initiative + all the monsters, bleck! Still, I want to try it. Just need to come up with some awesome prop/aide to make it easy.


Dice rolling, most rolls are opposed and not vs a static number. So, instead of rolling d20 to hit and looking to get over a certain "Armor Class" number. The defender rolls defense. Highest roll "wins". Saves vs poison and spells work in similar vein. This is nice for player engagement but puts additional burdens on DM (all his cute creatures need rolling) and lengthens conflict resolution.

Interestingly not all attacks/defense rolls use d20p. For instance a d12p/d8p is called fo when defending against flank/rear attackers, when fleeing like a sissy you can't use a shield and only get a d10 for defense Range for missile weapons is also handled by reducing the die type rolled as distance increases. Although Kenzer fucked up that simple system with complexities of target size and shooting into melee. There are nice fumble (opponent gets free attack), critical hit (dbl damage), and expert defense (defender gets free attack) mechanics for rolling 1 and 20's.


Armor provides damage reduction, from 1 Thick Robes to 5 Scalemail, which directly reduces the number of damage points a successful attack causes. Armor also provides an adjustment to defense. This adjustment is in the bad direction making it easier for you to get hit! I approve of this mechanic. One I've longed for since learning it from RoleMaster. Heavier armors also increase initiative (bad), how fast you can move and really heavy armors have a speed modifier reducing how often you can swing a weapon.

Thank the elder gods! Finally a RPG has given the shield its due! +4 to +6 to defense and you roll d20p instead of d20p-4 for defense, a roughly 40-50% increase of defensitude. That's what I've been talking about yo! When using a shield opponents misses are considered to have always hit the shield. The opponent rolls reduced damage (1/2 for hack/crush, 1 point for pierce) and applies this to your shield which has 4-6pts of damage reduction, remainder hits your armor (more DR), any left over you take as damage. Simulating heavy blows to your shield doing some damage. (although, this isn't how shields are actually used but hey this is a fun game not a medieval combat simulation). Shields can also be splintered/destroyed if they fail a save after taking more than a threshold amount of damage. So, again get hit more but take less damage. All around I dig these shield rules. They are now my shield rules and will see use (possibly slightly tweaked) in other games I play.


Hackisms! Knockbacks, do a certain large amount of damage (based on targets size) defender gets knocked back 5', 10' or more. Everyone has a ToP, Threshold of Pain, based off of hit points, increasing slightly with level. Receive a wound, trauma, greater than your ToP roll d20 (thankfully no penetration) under 1/2 CON. For each point you miss by you spend 5 seconds rolling around on the ground crying for yer momma. Aw yeah, these are some sweet bits to steal if you're after this kind of flavor.


There is an excellent detailed example of combat using KoDT comic, blocks of text explaining mechanics and a top down view of a battle map. Entertaining and well done. Overall looks like fun combat system. A bit long to resolve but not slow and boring. Geared towards smaller battles (there's just way too much to track for huge 40 orcs attack you type slugfests) Although mook/minion rules would be simple enough to come up with.


The Other

Nice, clean, readable layout. Thank you. I'm tired of RPGs masquerading around as fancy coffee table art books. There freakin rules! I want to read them, not drool over your art direction. Makes good use of shaded text blocks to expand on rules. Nice tables. Effective and funny use of KoDT comic. Except for the stupid dice chapter an entertaining smackering of the "HackMaster Universe" Gary Jackson and the like. Right amount of art to inspire (sadly most of it not in the HackMaster style, lots of it looks reused, but hey $20).

Movement is interesting. Due to the continuous initiative system movement is rated on a feet per second basis. Character may move every second at one of four speeds walk, jog, run, sprint. Armor reduces top movement type not overall speed. Thus Bif the Basher decked out in heavy scale armor can only walk and jog. Another faniggly bit that adds zero to fun is this retarded rule:

From a standing position, a character can begin to walk or jog immediately but not run or sprint.

Never will enforce that, bet most people will never read or remember that. Just stupid. An example of how crunchy authors can't leave well enough alone. I might do the jog/run/sprint thing as a group of mounted knights charge just to build tension but there's no need for a freaking rule, geez.


No intro module. I don't need one but it could have nicely portrayed the HackMaster style of play and ethos. And it's a real shame cause the ten pages they wasted on the unfunny and largely identical to what has been printed before "Dice usage and Etiquette" Chapter would have been plenty of room for a rockin dungeon. That dice crap is the kind of thing that should be on their website/freebie download. But, 10 out of 185 pages is not a deal breaker


GM Section. Thankfully & strangely? no section on "What is roleplaying", or "This is how you GM". I guess they believe their main audience is existing gamers and/or people don't need baby like hand holding. I agree with that belief, tis better not to tell people how to play. Let them figure out their own style. Included here are enough monsters and magic (40pgs worth) to get started and have many sessions of hacking and looting fun. Of note is the Hydra, Aquatic Worm featured on the cover.


No index. Meh, don't rightly know if this kind of book (basic intro to game) really needs an index. There's not that many rules / options, the book is well layed out, and it's not a rules reference.


The Shindiggy

Overall, I like the game play parts and loath the character gen/build point/skills parts. It seems easy enough to drop the suck (Kenzer has even started this with the Quick Play rules) or lift the awesome into something else. There's little quirks and minor things I'd gloss over or streamline. All and all the second crunchy but fastish playing system I've seen this week, Shard being the first. Is this the most happy and glorious future of RPGs? I would not be sad if so.

If there are any questions on specifics, post'm to the comments. I'll be glad to look them up and answer them.


PENTRATION

The majority of rolls (to hit, damage, defense, healing!) penetrate aka explode. That is if you roll (per die) the highest possible value you roll that die again, subtract 1, and add the result. Repeat until you don't roll the highest possible value. I dig that this is fun, exciting, and provides a chance for the impossible. What I'm less hot about is that a d4 is much more likely to penetrate than a d12 or d20. Btw a d6 is used for d20 penetration and a d20 for d100 penetration. But, I guess my fears are unfounded, here are the averages (and max value rolled) after 100,000 dice rolls each. Most the avgs seem to be just .5 or so more than normal non-assploding average.

d4p 2.99 28
d6p 3.99 34
d8p 4.99 35
d12p 7.02 56
d20p 10.63 47
d100p 50.53 143

And details for d4p (100,000 rolls)
1 25122 0.25
2 24740 0.25
3 25028 0.25
4 6371 0.06
5 6218 0.06
6 6318 0.06
7 1542 0.02
8 1512 0.02
9 1573 0.02
10 391 0.00
11 410 0.00
12 398 0.00
13 103 0.00
14 84 0.00
15 92 0.00
16 24 0.00
17 28 0.00
18 26 0.00
19 5 0.00
20 3 0.00
21 9 0.00
22 2 0.00
23 not rolled
24 1 0.00