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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="baakyocalder" data-source="post: 2009748" data-attributes="member: 7404">The Hackmaster RPG provides a new type of classbook for high fantasy games.This new look is illustrated in the first of four classbooks, The Spellslinger's Guide To Wurld Domination: Crushing Empires for Fun and Profit.Released in October 2002, the Spellslinger's Guide to Wurld Domination dramatically enhances the abilities, backgrounds, and lives of magic-user class player characters and NPCs in the Hackmaster game and provides ideas suitable for use in your d20 game as well.This 144-page softcover book has seven chapters and three appendices and retails for $19.99, if your retailer still has a copy.  The first printing has already sold out.Chapter 1, Specialization, provides an excellent discussion of the types of specialist.  It uses a medical school analogy to explain the differences between generalists, standard specialists, double specialists, sole practioners, holistic practioners, and unorthodox practioners.    Generalists are like family practice M.D.'s, specialists are like podiatrists, double specialists are like the brain researcher, and sole practioners are like surgical cardiologists.  Holistic practiners acheive the same effect with a different method and unorthdox practioners are like faith healers, doing stuff that the normal mages don't get (p.6-7).  Spell acquistion tables and details on specializing in each school of magic are also provided.Chapter 2, Sole Practioners, discusses the magic-users who focus only on one type of effect within a specialist.  For example, a good NPC class, the Sniper, studies Invocation with the intention of being a lethal Magic-Missile user and can figure out who the leader of any group is with a round of study.    Sole practioners for each college of magic are discussed and their experience tables, since Hackmaster uses different experience tables for each class, appear in that section.Chapter 3, Holistic practioners, brings the Elementalist from the 2nd edition AD&D Tome of Magic into the Hackmaster system and improves it.  Elementalists specialize in one particular element, and at the risk of spell failure, they can cast a spell from that element at 1d4 levels higher.  For example, a dwarven fire elementalist, G. Ford Pinchot, could cast a Fireball with 1d4 more levels of effectiveness.  Battlemages, arguably the best magic-user class in Hackmaster, are also considered holistic practioners.Chapter 4, Unorthodox Practioners, adds three magic-user classes to Hackmaster.  The blood mage from the KODT comic finally graces the Hackmaster scene, and is a scary foe.  With the ability to cast Necromantic spells Woefully, that is in a way where there is now way to resist them, the Blood Mage can take down any foe.  This is counterbalanced by the fact they draw life energy from themselves and those around them and if they cast a spell Woefully they fall into a coma and risk losing Constitution permanently.  The Wild Mage from The Tome of Magic returns, but is given the ability to memorize more spells, just like other specialists.  The Wild Surge table has been adjusted to give more variation, as has the level variation table.  Only the Wild mage can use Wild magic spells (with some notable exceptions).  There's a kewl kritter in one of the Hacklopedias for Wild Mages to hunt that allows them to be even more chaotic.  The painted mage adds tattoo magic to Hackmaster.  Based off the idea that pixie-fairies, which have tattoos, developed a magic system based around them, painted mages tattoo themselves with arcane symbols allowing them access to a number of spells.  Since painted mage spells are near instantaneous and non-disruptable, this class is actually viable in combat against the crazy fighter-types Hackmaster players can churn out.  A side bonus is that their spells are harder to Dispel.Chapter 5, Magic-User Character Priors, Particulars, and Options, is the meat of the book.  It adds new flaw tables to represent bad things that happened to your magic-user during training.  For example, a magic-user with a Wuss Mentor can't learn combat spells.  A magic-user with a College Rivalry has gone too far in hating another school and will NEVER use its spells.  Magic-users can also have spell allergies.  Of course, the new flaws (quirks as well for mental problems), can be avoided per Hackmaster rules by smart players.  Several optional packages are included; these resemble the AD&D kits and are rather stale.  Only one is interesting, the Militaristic Magic-User, and it is far too cheaply available for its benefits.  Another option is magic-user personalities; this basically gives you a list of magic-user archetypes in case you're stumped or just trying to get a quick NPC personality.  New skills and talents, such as Penmanship, Speed-Reading, and the heinously dangerous Fast Caster and Spell Razor enhance magic-user's usefulness to the party.  Though the most important part of the chapter is the Priors and Particulars: Magic-User School Days.  With a bunch of dice rolls, your magic-user character's schooling history can be determined.  Did he or she attend an elite academy in the metropolis, or a down-home wizard's shack?  Was the master good at nurturing, or was the character basically a domestic servant?  How good of an educator was the instructor?  What was the size of the classes when the character went to school?  How about the character's graduation rank?  Besides studying, what did your character do in years of schooling?   The end result of the table is one very important roll, the quality of education roll; this can give your character significant bonuses or penalities and is the culmination of schooling.  Tables for Honor, starting money, and the commencement speaker also enhance the schooling experience.  This section is Hackmaster at its best, taking winks at the real world with notable collegiate events during apprenticeship such as becoming a bohemian, great internships, and the freshman 15.  Tying the nurturing of the master to their degree of specialization is also an interesting twist, since there are a number of specialized people in the real world who aren't kind to their students.  I enjoy rolling up a variety of magic-users just to see what the tables give me.Chapter 6, Magical Academies and Organizations, describes the typical curriculum of magical academies.  It also details 13 magical organizations in Garweeze Wurld.  Some comments on post-graduate (i.e. after 1st level) associations with magic-user academies are also provided.  This is the weakest chapter, unless you happen to be a KODT fan and like details of organizations in Garweeze Wurld or are looking for how to make up a magical organization.Chapter 7, Rules of the Road, is a very useful chapter.  It begins by discussing spell classes, such offensive, defensive, enhancement, reconnaissance, and hindering, and provides suggestions for chosing which spells to memorize.  Details on casting spells while hearing-impaired, less able to move, and finally a system for casting a Magic Missile at the darkness are provided.  Rules on ley lines, spell component substitution, and cramming also enhance the power of your magic-user.  You can also get alternate familiars with better abilities.  The two best parts of the chapter follow: some quick rules on spell research, spell licensing, and spell cracking, and the rules on spellbook construction.  In Hackmaster, any spell with a name on it, such as Zarba's Fist of Rage, must be acquired in licensed form or it fails badly.  Thus a market for cracked license spells exists, as does a market for sharedweomer, shareware spells that raise the creator's Honor and work for a while.  Your magic-users can create their own spells, and in a nice touch of magic-user politics, all spell licenses are handled by the Church of Thrain, gawd of Wisdom, since all the magic-users don't want their enemies and their toadies to get spell license granting privileges.  Spellbook creation details how to create a spellbook and also what random spellbooks NPC mages have and what your starting mage character begins with.Appendix A contains spells.  It is poorly edited, since many spells in the tables in chapter 1 do not appear in it.  Nonetheless, the spells are interesting and more specialized than the general Hackmaster spells.  A number of them, particularly the Vengeance spells, are incredibly nasty and powerful.  Appendix B lists what monsters are good for using for spell components.  Given that Hackmaster spreads its monsters out over 8 Hacklopedia of Beasts volumes, this table is great for your magic-user as he searches for that component for his web spell, or as she looks for a component that would make her Fireball more lethal.Appendix C is a spell planner so you can wisely chose your magic-user spells and quickly determine their range, casting time, magical college, and duration.  Unfortunately, it has some of the editing errors that plague Appendix A.Between the last page and the inside back cover is a sheet of 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 free spell books, free spell book cases, and a number of coupons that make the magic-user or his associates better.  They are all humorously titled, as usual for Hackmaster coupons.  For example, the coupon "Remember That Lab Accident?" gives the magic-user a fireproof spellbook cover and "Twelve Secret Herbs and Spices" grants 1d6+1 points of healing.A table of contents and an index are very helpful, but the coupon sheet makes the index on the inside back cover difficult to find.The Spellslinger's Guide has little artwork.  It is a text-heavy book.  Nonetheless the Fraims and other artists contribute excellent pictures enhancing the appearance of magic-users, their spells, and their spellbooks.  While there are a number of typographical and editing errors, most of them do not detract from the overall high quality of the book, which is written in a humorous manner emphasizing the power of the magic-user (as the back cover ad shows).Overall, the Hackmaster Spellslinger's Guide to Wurld Dominiation is an excellent product.  Even if you aren't a fan of the Hackmaster system, the humorous discussions of magic-users, the detailed background tables, and the magical academies and specialities can enhance a fantasy game and make you think about those larger issues.One discussion on the Hackmaster GM forum was how large the market was for licensed spells.  The attention to detail in the Spellslinger's Guide brings out questions like these which you can answer to develop a rich world.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 if your local gameshop still has one.Andrew Wayne FranklinHMGMA#OK-1-00193-01</blockquote>

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