Hammer & Helm

[NLP]

Non-d20 Usefulness?

I happen to be a dwarf fan, but I am not a d20 system user. Does Hammer & Helm have enough interesting information about dwarves, or is it primarily just full of Prestige Classes, Feats, and such? I would be far more apt to buy Hammer & Helm, as well as any other race-specific book, if it had "crunchy bits" of a non-d20 nature.

I am really wanting to support Green Ronin because I can respect the owners and the quality of the work, but I have no use for the d20 system, meaning most of the material published is of minimal use to me, and usually gets a pass. Books like Freeport can be used in non-d20 games with minimal work. There's enough "crunch" there to carry over. Books full of PC's, Feats, and Domains are really fairly useless.

I'd really like to buy this book, but if it's 80% d20 rules and 20% dwarven crunchy-bits, it's really not worth the money I'd spend on it.

 

[Lady Dragon]

Hammer & Helm is an excellent bookit is however almost entirely D20 crunch there isn't really even much on Dwarven culture just crunch.

Chapter one-The way of the mountain
This chapter is about Dwarves in general and could be used in any campaign D20 or otherwise it discusses classes,concepts,and pantheons.pages 3-11

Chapter two-feats
This is all feats.Pages12-21

Chapter three-Prestige classes
This is all pretige classes.Pages 22-47

Chapter four-Creatures
This discusses several dwarf related creatures and several alternate dwarf types.Pages 48-62

Chapter five-Spells and magic
This is a list of spells and domains.Pages 63-79

Chapter six-Equipment
This list equipment (including seige engines) and magic items.Pages 80-100

Appendix-Typical NPC's
This is mostly stats.pages101-111

I hope this helps,although in my opinion it is mostly D20 if your good you could convert.

 

[NLP]

Thanks for the information Lady Dragon. I appreciate it.

With so little non-d20 information I'll probably give the book a pass. I feel like I have spent half my game prep time converting, and it is growing old quickly.

While I have not considered Mongoose's Slayer's Guides to be exceptionally well written, I will say that I have gotten plenty of use out of the 29 pages of non-d20 material in each book; far more than I have gotten out of most other d20 products to date.

More "crunch" and less system-specific material might be something that more publishers will want to look into. The rpg market might be 85% d20, but the other 15% does add up to a considerable number of players who would like some useful information too. Just my opinion. Everyone else's mileage may vary.

 

[DPGDarrin]

Actually crunch refers to rules specific stuff while cream refers to story related stuff, so what you are looking for is more cream. Personally I prefer a good mix, and I will buy books that are mostly cream if the subject matter is interesting - like Forgotten Realms products.

 

[Crothian]

Re: Non-d20 Usefulness?

I happen to be a dwarf fan, but I am not a d20 system user. Does Hammer & Helm have enough interesting information about dwarves, or is it primarily just full of Prestige Classes, Feats, and such? I would be far more apt to buy Hammer & Helm, as well as any other race-specific book, if it had "crunchy bits" of a non-d20 nature.

I am really wanting to support Green Ronin because I can respect the owners and the quality of the work, but I have no use for the d20 system, meaning most of the material published is of minimal use to me, and usually gets a pass. Books like Freeport can be used in non-d20 games with minimal work. There's enough "crunch" there to carry over. Books full of PC's, Feats, and Domains are really fairly useless.

I'd really like to buy this book, but if it's 80% d20 rules and 20% dwarven crunchy-bits, it's really not worth the money I'd spend on it.

It really depends on what system you are using. Different systems convert easier and allow for more of the rules to be adapted.

 

[Dwarven Godfather]

Hammer And Helm

I love any books on Dwarves since I usually play Dwarves as characters, but I had just one question: where are the Tattoos, I picture dwarves in battle with tattoos some with it all over their bodies or just on their faces and I would have incorpated this book into the campaign world that I started creating for Palladium Books Rifts system until I looked more into the D20 system and now converting it over to D20 in the Dragonstar Universe.
My Dwarves in this world are guild based society with a mixture of undead and magical dwarves that have magical tattoos on the elite soldiers as possibly status within the elite warrior society.

 

[Jesse Decker]

Tattoos

Tattoos are a cool idea for dwarves, but there was only so much room in Hammer & Helm, and I felt it better to concentrate on new things that other books weren't likely to have (like exotic armor, spell-channeling feats, and other ideas) than things like tattoos that have been seen in a few other places. That's not to say that putting tattoos in would have been a bad thing; it's just that you've got to make choices about what to include.

There's a cool Tattoo Magic feat on pages 189-190 in Lords of Darkness, and in Monte Cook's Book of Eldritch Might there's a feat called Etch Object Rune. Either one (or both together for that matter) could easily work with the spells and themes presented in Hammer & Helm. I'm sure I'm missing some other examples of d20 tattoo rules; heck, I wager that most of the numerous systems for Rune magic can also work as tattoos (even if the authors didn't intend that) without affecting game balance.

-Jesse Decker

 

[Krug]

U're thinking Warhammer...

Dwarf tattoo magic? Different game dude!

 

[Frilf]

Congrats to Chris & the crew @ GR for another outstanding product. Although, I don't see what all the fuss about dwarves is-- unless it's the fact they're distantly related to gnomes But that's what makes the little world go around. You can't expect *everyone* to be able to talk to badgers.

Cheers, all!
Ian (Head Gnome)
Silverthorne Games

 

[Ghostwind]

Another excellent Green Ronin product. Chris and Jesse, well done! A player in my group spent about 15 minutes yesterday reading my copy before announcing that he was going to buy his own copy and that I had better be allowing the material to be used in my campaign with our epic level characters. Can't beat that kind of customer satisfaction...