HackMaster The Combatant's Guide To Slaughtering Foes
The Combatant's Guide to Slaughtering Foes: Driving Your Enemies Before You and Hearing the Lamentations of Their Women
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The Hackmaster RPG is an Origins Award winning game inspired by and using portions of AD&D to create a new take on old-school gaming.
Here I examine the second of four books in its classbook line, The Combatant's Guide To Slaughtering Foes: Driving Your Enemies Before You and Hearing the Lamentions of Their Women.
Released in January 2003, the Combatant's Guide dramatically enhances the abilities, backgrounds, and lives of fighter-group class player characters and NPCs in the Hackmaster game and provides ideas suitable for use in your d20 game as well. Don Morgan is the lead author, but as with all HackMaster books, a number of persons contributed both original material and classic TSR material which was adapted.
This 143-page softcover book has six chapters and retails for $19.99. It is by the far the most popular book amongst HackMaster players in my experience, for it covers in detail what the game is alleged to be about: combat! Even one who does not normally play fighter types can beenfit from the lessons in this tome.
Chapter 1, Character Classes, introduces new fighter-group classes and updates the existing ones. This chapter is less humorous than the others, but is still a joy to read as it has few typos and clear text. It introduces 8 new character classes: the Bounty Hunter, Holy Knight, Gladiator, Pirate, Samurai, and Soldier. Many of these were kits in second edition or are adaptions from Oriental Adventures (such as the samurai) and thus the depth of material on them and their suitableness for every campaign varies. Nonetheless, each new class is quite playable and a welcome addition to the game-I started a Seven Samurai game once the book came out though it ended up being five samurai, a barbarian using the rules update, and a fighter/assassin dwarf in the end. Likewise, the pirates and swashbucklers would make an excellent group for a nautical campaign. Bounty Hunters are stealthy fighters who specialize in retrieving the most dangerous prey and they have a few thief abilities, low-level magical spells from the cleric, magic-user, and druid lists once they hit 5th level, the ability to subdue, and several other bonuses that make them a good choice for a player who wants a little of everything except the big armor. Gladiators are a dangerous class with 12-sided hit dice, bonuses to hit when in front of a crowd, an ability to gain ridiculous amounts of Honor when fighting in front of a crowd and sacrificing damage for Honor, and the ability to develop a named fighting style (see the chapter 2 review section) at level 2 and free combat procedures every level from level 3 onward. Their major drawbacks are Honor, contracts and the need to fight every three months in game time, and that they must follow the rules of the arena (particularly for Lawful gladiators). Holy Knights are a combination of paladin and cavalier and thus should be extremely rare-they must be human and in the Upper Class range and follow the Code of Chivarly to the last letter. The attribute requirements are also the highest in the game. Pirates are the first of two pirate classes, for in the thief book for HackMaster, another pirate class was introduced. The pirates of the Combatant's Guide are fighter-group pirates in HackMaster parlance, so they can attack more often, get better hit dice, and can buy talents and proficiencies that other fighters can. Fighter-group pirates can swim, Climb Walls (mainly they climb rigging), fight well on rigging (they get AC bonuses and save bonuses when on the deck of a ship), and get a bonus skill related to being part of a boat crew. They also get the Acrobatic Skill Suite talent regardless of race and can carry a blade in their teeth-and all races in HackMaster are suitable as pirates. However, since this is HackMaster, all fighter-group pirates are Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, or some kind of evil; good guys don't run up the Skull and Bones. Samurai are one of the more powerful new classes in the Combatant's Guide. They are good with samurai weapons from daikyu to katanas, can learn one martial arts style cheaper at character creation, can attack adjacent opponents in melee (no other class can do this and it is a powerful ability), and gain a variety of powers. The downside is they are human, must be Lawful, and must adhere to Bushido. Bushido is poorly explained, really is Lawful Neutral, and the cultural requirements from the Gygax version of Oriental Adventures were removed. Still, samurai have a few cultural skills they get for free and are killing machines-just be warned that most people don't really understand the culture if that matters to you. Soldier is a class for a player who wants a ton of military-related skills. Soldiers must be Lawful and always train formerly at military academies; their boons are free Military and Leadership skills at every level, major bonuses to pass skills at non-military academies if they are training skills there, social class advancement and the ability to award medals. The Soldier class combined with the myrmidion package makes one nasty character on a battlefield. Swashbuckler is perhaps the weakest of the new classes, as it is more an attitude than a class. Swashbucklers are excellent at social situations, good with the opposite sex, and get AC bonuses when wearing light armor and use the thief savings throw tables. They also make snappy comebacks and are masters at two-weapon fighting.
A few of the base fighter-group classes undergo significant changes here in the Combatant's Guide, or CG as most know it. The barbarian dislike of magic is explained at length and a loophole for grunge elves (grel) is provided so that you can play a grel magic-user and grel barbarian side-by-side at level 1. Barbarian skills are clarified and made actual skills, so you know how good the barbarian is at Holistic First Aid and Wilderness Running. Cavaliers lose a little as their spell-resistance abilities are clarified to be level-based in 10% increments. A significant problem for GMs and players is minimized by a clarification of how the Knight Errant apology works; knight errants also lose Armorer and Weaponsmithing as free skills but may now use shields (explained in a humorous story). Monks get the greatest change of any fighter-group that appeared in the HackMaster PHB-the fighting orders explain why monks fight for levels and give them a special martial arts skill (see chapter 5 review for more on this) once they reach a certain level. So, if you want to play an Iron Cobra, you can beat the tar out of Daniel Miyaga. Paladin powers are clarified and the ranger now has the option of specializing in a primary terrain for bonuses to skills there at the expense of penalties elsewhere (a fair tradeoff if your ranger stays in one terrain type as the types are broad). Times and costs to dual-class and an explanation of when a character formally trains and when they must level without formal training (known to some as autoleveling) are also clarified. In sum, chapter 1 really gets your fighter juices going and then you proceed to chapter two to turn you basic fighter-group character into a killer.
Chapter 2, Fighter Group Priors, Particulars, and Options, is the crunchiest chapter in the book and at 36 pages, the heftiest. It starts with Quirks and Flaws, problems that fighter-group characters acquire in their pre-play character generation process and perhaps through play. The bulk of the Quirks and Flaws may be humorous, but they hurt your character so much you won't be the one laughing! These problems include Small Bladder, Bardic Tendencies (a long song or speech when you should be hacking), phobia of certain weapons and disdain for certain armor, and being Outlawed. Fighter-group packages are like the kits of 2e; they give you a great roleplaying line for your character and some special powers. The beast-rider gets an animal friend, the myrmidion is a melee weapon specialist and career soldier, the archer a deadly missile weapon specialist, and the trailblazer the guy you want leading a small expedition into the deepest jungle. Archer and myrmidion are ways to get your fighter-group characters who are not single-classed fighters weapon specialization and thus they are the most popular, but all of the packages are playable and useful for the right character class combinations. The next portion, Quality of Training, is hurt by the most significant typographical errors in the book. While you can figure out the tables as referred to in the text and in the table labels, the first time I saw it I was confused-check the errata when using these tables. The Quality of Training tables show where your fighter-group character (except barbarians, berserkers, and monks-and monks have training tables in Hackjournal #8 based off these tables) goes to basic training, how good that training was, their specialty assignment (infantry, cavalry, and archer for example), results of that specialty assignment, and the state of warfare during their enlistment period. Your PC can die during training or suffer accidents, though most PCs end up with some weapon skills and a list of enemies fought so they can tell stories of fighting orcs to bore the magic-users. Parts of the descriptions are quite funny-like horrible archers making targets for the class because they couldn't hit the target. New skills, weapon proficiencies, and talents which help fighters and which are generally restricted to fighters (unless you play unsanctioned), also appear. Now you can legally dual-wield longswords, be quicker and hit harder with that bastard sword used two-handed, use a shield more competently, Disarm your foes, make Camouflage, trip people, and sleep in your armor or take more damage before having to shrug off the pain. Fighting styles are perhaps the most interesting addition in the Combatant's Guide to the HackMaster game. These are collections of manuvers using certain weapons and required certain prerequisites that grant in-game bonuses and make a fighter-group character attack in a certain way. For example, the Axe Storm style has the wielder use a Hand Axe in each hand. At the low end of the skill spectrum they can split attacks, the second level grants a bonus to the speed of their attacks when charging, the third level is a knockdown and strike attack, and the fourth and fifth levels are multiple-attack madness. Each has an impressive title as well, so the final Axe Storm style manuver is the Hurricane of Axes manuver. Four fighting styles are provided as examples and rules on developing your own are provided as well. If you really want a unique fighter, get them to name level and have them develop a fighting style, or get some ancient fighter to them the secrets. Just remember, you're trying to make something which is balanced but rewards your character for having this great way to fight. A few fighter personalities round out the chapter-good for newbies but experienced players understand whom the Crude Crusher, Faux Martyr, and Fated Philosopher are even if they don't use those words to describe them.
Chapter 3, Paramilitary Organizations, discusses organizations fighters can join and gladiatorial arenas. In HackMaster, one of the events that can happen while your character is formally training is that an organization recognizes that the character is awesome, and recruits them to join. Sometimes you can join these organizations as a starting character, but don't on it. The Iron Axes are one of the more popular organizations in my game, for they reward you for killing dragons with medals that give bonuses to hit and damage against dragons. They also have an alternate training course that is dirt cheap. SELUM, the Society for the Elimination of Lycanthropes and Undead Monstrosities, provides turning powers to non-clerics and aid in killing undead and lycanthropes; they are also quite popular. There are two organizations for Dark Knights, one for veterans of warfare with orcs, and a few poncy organizations to give you 11 organizations to put your fighter-group character in or to base a campaign-specific organization on. The gladiatorial section describes gladiator events on Garweeze Wurld-it will give you a basic idea of gladiatorial events but I've seen more in Roman-centered works.
Chapter 4, Rules of the Road. This chapter has a few rules and a lot of suggestions about how to fight. It starts off discussing weapon laws and costs for weapon licenses-important stuff but remember weapon laws vary from country to country. Dueling for Fun and Profit discusses the all-important Honor Duel and how to run one-an Honor duel is a huge matter, so read this carefully and chose a good second. There are also rules on sleep needs for PCs, the effects of temperature on PCs (don't wear full plate in a desert without a lot of Resist Fire spells), and how equipment is damaged by the environment. Mining rates are included. The section on HackStrategy and the role of a fighter is invaluable-if your group doesn't follow it, you're risking casualties or you are playing demigods. Some of this advice does appear in other game systems, but you'd be surprised at how many players don't know basic polearm tacticals.
Chapter 5, Art of Hack: Combat Rules, clarifies and adds combat rules to HackMaster. It supersedes the HackMaster PHB and GMG, so read carefully. The bulk of HackMaster combat confusions were dispelled here, which is why most veterans suggest that new players and new GMs buy this class guide first. The chapter also adds martial arts, a nasty form of unarmed combat. Martial arts are better for most fighter-group characters than they are for the purported martial artists, monks. Other class groups can learn martial arts, but it takes them 4 months and fighter-group characters 3 months, so most characters start out with martial arts because you can always improve the style and add manuvers in normal training time but finding 3 months to train is hard (you need the gold and the time). Martial arts powers are basically revived from Oriental Adventures-the nice thing is the monk can use their school's power for full effect unless it is damage-based. A monk using Speed and getting many melee attacks should make kung-fu fans happy. The chapter also has barding rules and rules for archery matches and other tournaments (since expanded on in Lord Flataroy's Guide to Fortifications).
Chapter 6: Tools of the Trade is a short but essential chapter. It covers weapon construction time and costs (explaining why armor is so expensive), armor repair costs, armor and weapon maintenance, and introduces new weapons and armor and new weapon statistics. In HackMaster, each weapon has a different damage code depending on target size-so you use a club against goblins and a two-handed sword against the giants if you are a smart warrior.
Between the last page and the inside back cover is a sheet of color cardstock coupons. My copy is sheet #4 of 4. These coupons, like other Hackmaster coupons, have game effects. For example, my sheet of nine coupons has a coupon for armor repair, a coupon justifying any killing, and coupons adding to hit and damage bonuses. They are all humorously titled, as usual for Hackmaster coupons. For example, the coupon "No Tears Are Shed When an Enemy Dies" allows the character to justify any killing like the knight errant (who usually gets away with mayhem by saying, I'm sorry) and "You Killed My Father, Prepare to Die!" which also the PC to use the Mortal Combat skill once without a skill check.
The table of contents and index are very helpful and the placement of an ad page between the index and the coupons makes access to the index and coupons painless.
The Combatant's Guide has little artwork. It is a text-heavy book, like most HackMaster books. Nonetheless, the black-and-white line art does the trick. The front cover is four-color, befitting the spirit of Conan who is quoted in the subtitle and the HackMaster game where the PCs are great heroes making their mark on the land. The front cover continues the classbook trend of showing the PCs slaughtering their foes, a nice counterpoint to the Hacklopedia of Beast volumes showing PCs being slaughtered by monsters. Stacy Drum paints us an action-packed scene on the front cover that is my favorite of the Hackmaster class Guide covers. A giant is taking on four PCs, and you can see his arms almost captured in motion as he has released a boulder that appears to have seriously injured a PC and which is knocking that PC off the ledge where the fit is occuring. The blue-shirted halfling from the Hacklopedias is stuck through a rock, or maybe a piercer. That leaves two adventurers, a human male with bracers, a scale vest and a big pro-wrestling style belt and a half-elf female fighting wielding twin long swords and wearing so few clothes that in other systems she'd get a nudity bonus to AC, attacking the giant. The half-elf female's sword farthest from the giant is dripping blood and it corresponds with a large splash dropping from the giant's wrist that will hit the human male with the wrestling belt. The interior art is primarily by the brothers Fraim, Brendon and Brian Fraim, and depicts fighters bloodying their foes. My favorite two interior images are on page 129, where a morningstar strikes a copious flow of blood from a foe's face and one of the hero's companions is drooling a little blood out of her mouth and has a bloody chest wound. On page 130, a dwarf with a vixing-style helm is being attacked by a group of pixie-fairies and you can see his anger.
There are a number of typographical and editing errors-however most of these can be easily worked through. The greatest error was mislabeling of the fighter training tables, so you should consult the HackMaster errata if you can't immediately figure out how they were misprinted. Other errors are minor and.
Overall, the Hackmaster Combatant's Guide to Slaughtering Foes is an excellent product. Even if you aren't a fan of the Hackmaster system, the humorous discussions of fighter clases, the training tables, new weapons, combat advice, and organizations will make you a better player of a fighter character or better understand the role of the party beatstick.
I rate the book four out of five stars and urge those of you who haven't tried it to take a peek at it at your friendy local gameshop or to buy directly from Kenzer and Company if your local game shop is not friendly.
