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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2009317" data-attributes="member: 1129">Hammer & HelmA Guidebook to DwarvesWritten by Jesse DeckerPublished by Green Ronin Publishingwww.greenronin.comGRR1101ISBN: 0971438056112 b & w pages$19.95The first book in the Races of Renown series from Green Ronin covers the dwarf.  This is the first OGL Interlink product, with the linked product in question being Races of Legend from Paradigm.  But what about this book?  Does it stand on its own?  Hammer& Helm is one of, if not the best, book, I’ve read to augment Dwarves from a mechanical point of view.  It starts off with some role-playing concepts for players who may be unfamiliar with the dwarf.  You get the standard battlerager, forge priest, and stoic soldier among others.  Nothing to inspire a revolution in the way we play dwarves or anything, but good material for those new to role playing and dwarves in general.  The section that briefly touches on how dwarves fit the core classes provides some interesting thoughts on what happens if you change the favored class for dwarves, which can change the whole society.  More interesting to me though, were the alternative racial concepts.  This section provides the reader with a few alternatives, some standard, like the dying race or the lords of battle, to others, vastly different like the minions of evil or the desert warriors.  In each case, it’s a small amount of information with some alternative racial abilities, consisting of changing racial bonuses.  Another change of pace from some Green Ronin products was the sample Dwarven Pantheon.  I’m used to GR publishing products are that all purpose but these three gods take up less than a page and introduce several new domains that make sense for dwarves.The real meat of the book starts in chapter two, feats.  There are over fifty new feats included in this section.  Some of them are repetitious, like the various Sorcery alternative feats that allow the user to have a different stat for his spellcasting ability, most of them however, add greatly to the game.  There is nothing wrong with having Flameborn sorcery, Seaborn Sorcery to use Strength or Skyborn Sorcery to use Wisdom or Stoneborn Sorcery to use Con, but one feat called Elemental Sorcery would’ve covered it fine.In addition to numerous feats that help show why the dwarves make such effective armies, like Back to Back, and Rapid Siege Engine Use, there are three new types of feats:  Bloodgift, Bonding and Spell Channeling.  The Bloodgift feats remind me a little of Oriental Adventurers with their ancestor based feats.  These Bloodgift feats, whose core feat, can only be taken at first level, provide abilities based on the ties that the dwarf has with the earth.  Bloodgift feats are of four types, Deepblood, Drakeblood, Forgeblood and Stoneblood.  After first level, the dwarf can gain access to other feats that augment some aspect of the dwarven nature.  For example, once you’ve taken Forgeblood, you can take the feats Fires Within or Divine Flame.  The Divine Flame uses a clerical turning ability and adds 1d6 points of fire damage to a weapon for as many rounds as the user’s Charisma bonus.  The Bonding Feats are more costly.  Not only do they require a feat, but also the user must undergo a ritual that needs 1,000 gold and 500 experience points.  For such a high cost though, the user can take a feat like Pledge of Frost or Flame, feats that provide the user with either the fire or cold subtype.  The Spell Channeling Feats use magical energies to augment the dwarf.  For example, Mystic Endurance allows the user to use a Trasmutation spell that provides the user with a +1 bonus to Con for every level of the spell.  Said benefits from Spell Channeling Feats last for 1 minute in most cases.I found the feats helped to round off the dwarves in manners not done in previous products.  The Blooded and Bonding Feats showcase a magical nature that dwarves are often found lacking in while the Spell Channeling Feats showcase how dwarves, while not known as spellcasters, still use magic to augment themselves.  The military based feats are an excellent addition to anyone running a mercenary campaign or one in the middle of a war.Chapter Three, Prestige Classes, introduces 16 new PrCs.  A lot of these look like they’ve been inspired in part by fiction, some by Games Workshop miniatures, and some by trying to fill mechanical roles in dwarven society.  Take the Mountain’s Fury Devotee.  The introductory text mentions both troll slayers and battleragers and attributes their powers to this 5 level PrC.  Another PrC that stood out to me were the holy warriors that make up the Stormhammers, a PrC that allows a paladin to multiclass freely with it.  This 5 level PrC provides augmented spellcasting abilities and the ability to use a battelhammer, a new type of weapon, with exceptional ability.  Another favorite of mine, more due to personal role-playing, was the Thunderthrower.  These warriors are masters of throwing weapons into combat and then charging in.  It reminded me of a dwarf in one of my campaigns who had a battle-axe that could be thrown for double damage.  Suffice it to say that this PrC would’ve augmented his abilities with such abilities as catching thrown weapons to throwing with such skill that the Thrower ignores range, cover and concealment penalities.Chapter Four, Creatures, provides the GM with some unique entitles to throw into his campaign and a bit of background that can be added to his campaign.  The defenders of Mar-Namor were created to guard the city of Mar-Namor from mind flayers, but instead their creators took the undead and fled the city.  This template can be applied to an undead and provides them special abilities based on their original power level.  The more powerful the undead was to start with, the more powerful abilities they gain.  A little disappointing to me were the two new dwarf races.  While its nice to see the Eldlorn, arcane dwarves, and the Isen, artic dwarves, GR didn’t provide racial ability scores.  Everything else, including ECL, favored class, and standard benefits, but no racial abilities.The interesting bit about almost all the templates though, was the fact that they took ECL into account.  Want to make a Tempered?  A being blessed by the Forge God?  It’s an ECL of +3.  Want to use an Iron Souled template?  A being whose skin becomes like iron and can inflict terrible damage with it’s blows?  It’s an ECL +3.  Even the monsters have ECL ratings for those bold DMs anxious to see how a Gore Mole would act under the hands of a player.There were few actual monsters here but the templates go further in making the dwarves stand out as a unique race instead of just short humans.  Of course the templates aren’t limited to dwarves either and I’m sure some GMs, given the opportunity, will take great pleasure in having an Iron Souled Stone Giant pound on the players.Chapter Five introduces new spells and domains.  Now it’s common to not think of dwarves as being master spellcasters but this chapter will change your mind.  It starts broken up into list by class and then level.  The new type of magic, Clanheart, is listed first.  These spells require a feat to acquire and can only be learned by those dwarves who take it.  The interesting aspect here though, is that it can be either a divine or arcane spell user with no change in the spell list.  Next, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger, and Sorcerer and Wizard spells are listed.  Now I personally thought that the Cleric list would get the most new spells as the rune priest is a standard archetype but Green Ronin surprised me with lots of mage spells from 1st to 9th level.  Some of the spells are fairly standard like Acid Burst or Stonesight, but others while standard in spell effects, were more evocative of something different.  My favorite is the Shredding Spheres, which creates two orbs covered in blades.  Ah, another tribute to Phantasm.  Another interesting one was the Chains of Mar-Namor, which links back to the fallen city.Next up, domains.  Armor, Construct, Fortitude, Stonehearth and Sword domains all join the standard ranks with granted power and domain spells.  My personal favorite is the Sword domain that I’ll be providing to the Greyhawk quasi-deity, the Prince of Swords.  Of course, the question must be asked then, where are the hammer, axe, and fortress domains.  Maybe a web enhancement will take care of that for us.Those hungering for new weapons and armor to clothe their dwarf in will relish Chapter Six, Equipment.  I personally didn’t like the Exotic Armor, which requires a feat to use and provides various bonuses.  I can understand the line of reasoning.  There is something different enough about the armor, inherent bonus, reduced spellcasting failure, etc… to require the feat, but unless the game system starts allowing bonus feats and skill points, certain things are going to fall by the wayside and exotic armor proficiency would probably be one since most players will wait for magic armor instead of using a feat for something like Dwarven Plate, even though it provides a very impressive +10 Bonus with a +2 Dex Bonus.  Some of the armors I just didn’t’ get like Ringmail.  Sure, it’s got a +5 AC bonus with a +4 Dex bonus, but couldn’t the dex bonus have been lowered and this put into a normal armor setting?Of much more interest to me were the new weapons.  I have numerous Warhammer figures and trust me, the author must’ve been peaking at my collection because we’ve got lots of new hammers: the Stonesledge, a massive stone hammer, the Battlehammer, the bastard sword of hammers, and the Double Hammer.  Other weapons like the Charge Breaker are meant to once again showcase the strength of the dwarves in war as this spear like weapon can hold a charging individual back, preventing them from attacking the user.  I don’t see why all of them are exotic.  Why is the Stonesledge exotic?  It does 1d12 with x3 critical, but it’s a two handed weapon.  The text behind it doesn’t provide any unusual abilities so why is it exotic?  Good thing about roleplaying though is that unlike most computer or board games, you can change the rules.In addition to mundane weapons and armor, there are new magical items.  The section starts off with new armor special abilities like aspected.  This armor displays the users holy symbol, clan crest or family emblem at the users command.   I prefer specific armors though, like the Golem Plate.  This armor allows the user to transform into an Iron Golem.  Another cool suit, the Half-Plate of Alchemy, has various tubes and valves on it that scan spray a stored liquid at creatures close by the user.  Ah, imagine the ghouls’ surprise when holy water hits ‘em.  New weapons abilities include Bonded.  Those weapons that are bonded to the user can be drawn as a free action and get a 4 bonus to avoid being disarmed.  A vicious special ability is cascading.  Each successful hit without miss, grants a cumulative +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls for that round.  With the cap limit on attacks being 4 per round without special abilities, the cascading ability isn’t going to overpower the campaign, but it does bring out the cool factor.  For specific weapons, I was a little disappointed that we didn’t see more magical varieties of the new weapons introduced.  Still, I found the idea of the Bolthammer, a hammer that can be shot from a crossbow amusing, and the Crystal Gauntlets, a monks weapon if ever there was one, good to fill out the gaps.  I do wish though that there had been some artifacts or more powerful unique weapons.  A third subject cover by Equipment is Siege Engines.  We can now add dual ballista, alchemical jets, goblin crushes and gravel slingers to the game.  The alchemical jets shoot out what amounts to greek fire in a 40 foot cone while the goblin crusher is a massive iron cylinder that crushes those who can’t get out of the way.  The Gravel Sling is a quick firing catapult that is useful for thinning out enemy ranks but useless in destroying walls.Not satisfied with mundane siege weapons, the author introduces masterwork and magical improvements.  Even more impressive is the example of a specific siege engine, Durgen’s Fire Bellows.  The thing I didn’t like about this section is the lack of illustrations.  While I can picture what the gobbling crusher does, it’s hard to imagine what it looks like in action.  I was also disappointed that we didn’t have a legendary siege engine.  With the movie, The Two Towers coming out soon, I would think that a massive artifact used only in the direst times would be a no brainer.The last section here is Special Materials.  I was very curious to see what the author had wrought.  Unfortunately, there are only three materials; blending earth, spirit stone, and steelstone.  While they are useful and unique, I was hoping that with the one of the PrCs having a crystal aspect to it, we’d see more on gemstones, more on obsidian, more on different alloys.The book wraps up with an appendix that covers typical NPCs ranging from dwarven priests and warriors, to sorcerers and aristocrats.  Most of them are written out from 1st to 20th level with notes on what equipment they have at each level.Editing in the book is fairly good as nothing jumped out and bit me with its wrongness.  I noted a few places where the formatting wasn’t the same, like a title that wasn’t bold where all the others were, but I didn’t see any references to missing feats or numerous misspelled words.  The layout is simple two columns with a border across the top, broken up by illustrations.  The art, all by David Griffith, is top notch.  More important, to me at any rate, is the fact that they didn’t use black with white letters for their tables.  This looks so much better with gray and black text.  Now if only they would put them in standard instead of angled boxes…Overall, the book has a few areas where I felt it should’ve gone further.  A few patches of white, some areas where art is missing.  The lack of artifacts.  The reuse of an illustration within the book.  All very minor but noticeable complains.  It doesn’t bog down the reader with what it thinks dwarves should be though.  The starting material on alternative dwarves and stereotype dwarves provides the reader something to think about briefly before diving into feats, PrCs, spells, magic items, and templates.  If you’re a player of a dwarven character, this book is for you.  No ifs, no ands no buts.  If you read the book, chances are you’ll want to make a dwarven character.  For GMs, the bits on Mar-Namor make some interesting campaign seeds as one might think of ways to have the players reclaim or rebuilt this city or hunt down the mind flayers that overran it (anyone have that old Dragon with the dwarven illithid hunters handy), but mostly, it’ll provide some solid, but optional tools to fine tune dwarves in your world.  The weapons and armor are easy to add while the domains take a bit more though.  The PrCs can help fill out the ranks of important dwarven functions and the feats make for perfect bonuses for Soldiers from Sovereign Stone or mercenaries in an army.</blockquote>

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