[Hackmaster] To anyone who's ever been slightly interested in trying this game out...

[ExploderWizard]

OMG, I was just reading KODT this morning, and the Hard Eight guys were talking about people complaining about weapon speeds. If I was drinking anything just now, it would have been coming out my nose.

Which issue?

 

[Greylond]

I was running the playtest game and the whole shield thing seemed overly fiddly for my tastes. Rolling to hit, rolling defense, finding the difference between the two, then seeing that you need to apply shield damage, remembering which half damage die gets used and rolling that vs the shield..... its a bit much for every attack.

You don't worry about Shield Damage/DR for every hit. The only time you worry about that is if the Attack Roll is a "Miss" but misses by 10 or less. If you hit the Defender, the attack has gotten past the Defender's Shield and you ignore it. If the Attacker misses by more than 10 then you also ignore it.

All the rest of the Combat stats, such as Shield Damage should be written on the character sheet so that it is easy to look up.

I did like the mechanic of the count up system but I gotta ask: who came up with those weapon speeds?

13 seconds between staff attacks? Are they assuming everyone is partially paralyzed? 10 seconds between longsword swings from a strong fighter is extremely slow. A GURPS fighter would eat him alive!

There are games with abstract rounds in which attack rates are actually slower but not counting out every second it doesn't seem as slow.

Overall I like the feel but there is tweaking to be done before its ready for prime time light and fast campaign play.

Even though you are tracking movement second by second, HM doesn't track every single blow. In between weapon speed everyone involved in the melee is considered to be constantly attacking, parrying, etc back and forth. Tracking every single swing, block, parry, counter, riposte, etc, etc, would get repetitive and boring. HM combat is not intended to be boring...

 

[frankthedm]

What a shame they don't take paypal.

And it looks like there is $11 handling charge. The web page lists the item has free shipping, but the extra $11 was sticking with the item through the checkout process. Can't see the final page this without giving out credit card info, which is something I won't do, without the verification on the price the web page is holding back on.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Email them direct, they are a very approachable bunch and they will answer those questions

 

[ExploderWizard]

Even though you are tracking movement second by second, HM doesn't track every single blow. In between weapon speed everyone involved in the melee is considered to be constantly attacking, parrying, etc back and forth. Tracking every single swing, block, parry, counter, riposte, etc, etc, would get repetitive and boring. HM combat is not intended to be boring...

There is no good reason to track things second by second if actions are abstracted. This is what combat rounds are for and what Hackmaster has classfied as a mechanic for lesser games. If a tic represents 1 real second then when do we assume there is stuff going on and when do actions actually cost combat tics?

Real time and abstraction don't mix well.

 

[frankthedm]

Email them direct, they are a very approachable bunch and they will answer those questions

Edit: Went further into the order method: The $11 stayed on, shipping was listed as $0 and then my State's sales tax reared it's &@#* head. Impulse to buy fully killed.

 

[Greylond]

Real time and abstraction don't mix well.

Well, actually I don't agree. I've been playing with this system for over 3 years now and really love it. It works very well. IME, combat in HMb is faster than any other game system that I've played in over 30 years.

 

[falcarrion]

I also played it up at Garycon. It may sound complicated but the combat flowed well.

 

[lejanius]

What a shame they don't take paypal.

And it looks like there is $11 handling charge. The web page lists the item has free shipping, but the extra $11 was sticking with the item through the checkout process. Can't see the final page this without giving out credit card info, which is something I won't do, without the verification on the price the web page is holding back on.

Feel free to email me directly at jerimy_at_kenzerco_dot_com

THe way our system processes flat rates for shipping when you do orders like this is that is puts in a flat number (in this case $11 to ship 5 books) but when you get to the check out screen it says "Free shipping" because the shipping is already calculated in.

Not much we can do about that. Just the way it is with our system.

The $11 is the cost of a medium flat rate priority box, we don't make any money on shipping.

Feel free to email us with concerns and comments, we don't check these forums that much so we might miss something posted here.

 

[lejanius]

What a shame they don't take paypal.

And it looks like there is $11 handling charge. The web page lists the item has free shipping, but the extra $11 was sticking with the item through the checkout process. Can't see the final page this without giving out credit card info, which is something I won't do, without the verification on the price the web page is holding back on.

Also, who says we don't paypal?

We have had customers pay that way before. Email me about it at the above address and we can take care of you.