Hackmaster

Randomly rolling the remaining five requests we get Hackmaster for this week. Now when I run it I have various house rules to reduce the reliance on flawmongering (taking large numbers of character flaws) to boost stats and starting talents and skills. Plus limitations on how high starting stats can go. But for this exercise we'll go strictly by the book. Which means seven rolls of 3d6 and d00 to start for starting stats...

Strength: 12 (83)
Dexterity: 13 (23)
Constitution: 11 (28)
Intelligence: 14 (100)
Wisdom: 13 (71)
Charisma: 12 (59)
Comeliness: 14 (02)

Wow. For me, thats a remarkably good set of rolls. Of course nothing really stands out for picking a class. As for race, lets go with one unique to the system. We'll make a Grunge Elf or Grel (violent, semi-barbaric and known for eating faerie kin to steal their magics). So that means standard elven bonuses to surprise, 60' infravision, 90% resistance to sleep and charm spells, detection of secret and concealed doors and free movement thru undergrowth. Plus the Grel specific bonuses to being surprise, +1 to hit with spear or bow, Grel War Cry. Also this gives a +1 to Dex (to 14) and a -1 to Con (to 10) and Com (to 13)...

Ok, looking at those stats we'll go with a Magic-User/Thief combo. So as of right now starting build points are 13 for race and 12 for class (picking the best of the two) giving a total of 25...

Next we do the generic character priors. Starting age for an elf is 100 + 5d6 then +2d8 for magic-user and d2 for thief. All those dice give me a 27, so 127. Don't need to roll for handedness, since all elves are ambidextrous. Height and weight are gender affected, so I'll go ahead and flip a coin. Heads, so male. 60" tall and 99 lbs. Sounds skinny. Social class next. Being grel pulls a -40 on this outside of home culture. So a 76 means Upper Middle Class, but only to other grel. Everyone else he's strict Middle Middle Class. No modifiers later for that. Circumstances of birth is a modified 61, making him a legitimate birth. Mother is alive, but father is dead. A result of loving parent for the mother earns a bonus 5 build points. A 16 on the Family Honor Table gives an Average Honor result meaning they are non-notable. A 68 gives four siblings with a 63 putting him at 2nd youngest. Next the dice give him a two older brothers, an older sister and a younger brother. The oldest one having died already. The surviving older brother and the younger brother both are devoted to him, while the older sister is a bitter rival. Next would be starting money, but I'm going to use the class books so we'll push that back for now...

That means potential flaws are next. I'll skip the class book ones since most of them really suck and I don't want to choose between the two classes. I'll choose to randomly roll 3 times on the Flaw tables. A 76, 92 and 96. So a roll on Tables 6G (Major Mental) and 6I (Major Personality) twice. 6G: 47 - Psychotic Aversion to Monster (11). Not terrible. 6I: Multiple Personality (11) and 40 - Truthful (11). Hmmm. That second could be awkward for a thief. I guess my Grel will be more the outdoor scout kind of thief...

So now I've got 63 total build points. I like to put 1/3 towards stat bumping, 1/3 towards talents and a 1/3 toward skills. So twenty points for stats. Each point earns .25 on those percentile numbers. I'll bump Intelligence to 16 (25) for five points. And Dexterity to 16 (23) for eight points. The last seven I'll dump into Charisma, putting it at 14 (34). That gives a +1 to Comeliness and a +3 to his starting Honor...

So now we break out the class books. We'll go with the Spellslinger's Guide first. No wait, have to roll for that 2nd personality. 96 - Add another personality. *glares at dice* The last time this happened I ended up with a dark elf with 9 personalities. I liked LeJean though. Stupid bunny rabbits. Right. Rolling twice more. 03 - Young member of the opposite sex. 93 - Add another personality. Ok, yeah this is looking familiar. 53 - Dwarf. 08 - Elderly member of the opposite sex. Right. A little Grel girl, some Grel granny and a dwarf. Interesting. Also another 10 build points. I'm going to take a break now, before cracking the class books. Hackmaster can take a bit of time as you may have guessed. Which is why the sometimes ludicrously lethal GM vs. Player attitude the books and the designers encourage can be frustrating...

Hackmaster, part 2

Right, back to continue the creation of a Grunge Elf Magic-User/Thief with MPD. So the next step is breaking out the Spellslinger's Guide to Wurld Domination. Yeah, I know. Spelling world with a u is when the alternative spellings go from quirky to stupid...

We begin with starting spell selection. All mages get Read Magic and Detect Magic and then as a generalist three more. One offensive, one defensive and one misc. Offensive: 57 - Light. Defensive: 89 - Smell Immunity. Misc: 85 - Remove Thirst. Wow. Grel boy must have skipped all the good class days...

Ok, as a multi-classed character we skip all the specialization, double specialization and other alternate magic-user types. And we can't pick up a package, though most of the MU ones aren't the good anyway. So we go right to the section on schools. First off, school location. Family honor and social class give no modifiers being average. A 14 puts the pc's schooling at an average size town. For type of school we've got a +2 for being in a town and +1 for high Intelligence. Modified roll of 18, so a full University.

Next Quality of Master: Nurture and Education. Nurture is +2 for Charisma but -4 for being at a University for a total -2 modifier. And a modified roll of 14 for Absent-minded. For Education we've got a +1 for Intelligence and +4 for being at a University. A modified 15? Bleah. We'll blow a build point for a reroll on that. 16? We can do better. 24? There we go. Caring & Gifted. In addition to the bumps to some of the next table rolls, that gives +2d6 skill percentage points and a free academic skill. So our mentor was a classic absent-minded genius. Which might explain the weird initial spell load-out...

We've got a -6 on Graduating class size, which gives a modified roll of -2. So an over-crowded graduating class. Classroom equipment has a +5, with a modified roll of 25 for "anything needed". Another bonus 2d6 skill points and free skill. A +10 on Graduation Rank, modified roll of 22 and Magna Cum Laude, 2 pts shy of Summa. And next a d1000 roll for overall Quality of Education with a total modifier of +390. 716? Nope. Thats a bad result. Reroll. Ok a 1223. A +5% on learning 1st level spells? Not great but I'll take it...

Then we check to see what happened that was interesting while enrolled. A d3 roll gives 3 events. 94 - School was land-grant university. Meaning the pc had to train with the local militia. Some extra fractional points to Str and Con, gain a year in age and lose a spell (no loss with his selection and we'll give up Smell Immunity) and get another skill. In this case Entrenchment Construction. Enh. A free skill is a free skill. Next event is Freshman 15. So the scrawny elf ate too much fried food. Though with the militia training it could be good bulk. Last event is Part Time Job. Another year in age and from his job as a Farmer (really?) more free skills. Agriculture and Farming...

Lastly are Honor Modifier and Starting Money Modifier. +13 on the first, nothing on the latter. A +6 to starting honor and a +35 on the Starting Money roll. I could roll up the starting spell book construction, but unless it came up something weird like stone tablets or bundles of rune sticks its not that interesting...

So on to the thieves' back history. Which probably happened before the magic school bits...

Away with the Spellslinger's book and out with the Griftmaster's Guide to Life's Wildest Dreams. Once again we skip all the alternate classes and packages. Though the rogue's book has some of the cooler packages, like Jesters and Loremasters and Pirates. But past all that right to the Urchin Days background tables...

First off is Reason for Turning to the Street. Middle class and general thief mean no modifiers to most of these charts. So a straight 7 - Parents were petty crooks who got locked up early and mostly gave bad advice. A -3 to the next table but an extra build point. A modified 11 gives joined a youthful street gang. For Type of initial training we get +1 for the street gang thing and a +2 for Charisma. A modified 14 - Guild membership...

For Quality of Mentor: Technical Expertise we've got a +5 from Guild membership and Intelligence. A modified 19 means an excellent mentor. Another +3d6 skill points (which can be used for Thief specific skills in this case) and 2 more bonus build points. Next Quality of Mentor: Knowledge of the Street, +1 for Wisdom but -1 for Guild membership. A straight roll of 11 - Average. Does give another bonus build point that can only be used for social skills. Then its overall Quality of Training. We've got a +6 here. Modified 17 - Above average for another +1d6 skill points and +4 build points (social or musical instrument skills only)...

Now its event time again. d4-1 gets a 1 so nothing. Pity. With rogue classes you want to get events and then to get arrested as often as possible. You can pick up the best stuff in jail. Two tables left, Contacts and Loot stashed. Guild membership means a +1 on contacts, and we roll a modified 21. Which is a contact who is a Lord. Could be interesting. Loot Stashed is a 65 for 80+d8 G.P. stashed...

Still to go skills and talents. Time for another break. Told you this took a while...

Hackmaster, part 3

Right. Lets finish this. Before we hit the Talents and Skills, lets figure out the starting Honor and roll for hit points. An average of all seven starting stats is a 13. With a +6 from the Magic-User university and a +3 from Charisma. So a start of 22. Which is actually a little high. When play started you'd want to find a way to burn some of that off, maybe buying a +1 on a die roll or something. But that 22 Honor means another 9 build points. For hit points at start its 20 + (d4+d6)/2. Which ends up being a 22...

First off lets figure out those bonus skill points. Thats 4d6 from Hogwarts and 4d6 from the school of hard knocks. 11 on the first and 16 on the second. Next bonus skills. For the academic two, we'll grab Appraising and Alchemy. Adding that to the Agriculture (automatically at 50 because its a prerequisite for Farming), Farming and Entrenchment Construction. We also get Tracking free for being a Grel. And we'll take Grunge Elven as starting language for free. Plus of course Thieves' Speak for free, which is basically street slang and hand signs. For those five build points for social skills we'll take Berate, Diplomacy, Idle Gossip, Street Cred and Parley...

Next we'll go away from skills to grab some Talents. Starting with Photographic Memory. At five points it allows an extra spell to be memorized for every spell level. A must for any magic-user. Then Perfect Grooming. Two points to skip taking the Grooming/shaving skill and an automatic +1 to Comeliness. Another two for Simultaneous Backstab, allowing the pc to dual-wield a backstab attack. And we'll than double up on Dagger Bonus, giving him a +2 to hit with daggers. Thats nineteen build points...

Back to skills, taking Modern Languages twice (Common and Elven), Reading/Writing, Upkeep, Weapon Maintenance, weapon proficiencies in Dagger and Rapier and Arcane Lore. All that comes to thirteen build points. So we're now at twenty nine left. We're going to want Spellcraft as you can use it try and identify magic items. But that has a prerequisite of Arcane Lore, so we need to get that to 50. Each skill has a starting stat and a skill modifier die. You roll the die, plus your honor die and add that to the starting stat for the beginning value in the skill. And those dice explode, meaning if you roll max you reroll at -1. We'll just figure Arcane Lore for now. Thats Intelligence (16) with a d6. The honor die for 23 Honor is a d3. So we get a 3 and a 2 on the first buying of the skill. For a starting value of 21. But we've got those 11 free points from University so we'll toss those on. So we're up to 32. Arcane lore costs 5 build points, while Spellcraft costs 2. We've got 16 skill points from Urchin days, but I'd like to use those on the thief skills. Still, we'll drop six of them into Arcane Lore, leaving 10 for improving stuff like trap detection and hiding. Ok, up to 38 now. d6 +d3 = 5 again. 43 total. Once more. 2 +3 +2(-1)= 6. 49. Last time. A six total. So Arcane Lore at 55%. Leaving four build points. Enough to take Spellcraft twice. Int (16) +2d4 +2d3 = 33. d4s explode fairly often. Which is why a battle axe (2d4 damage vs. medium size) can end up doing a lot of damage...

Then we just spread the 65 +10 points thru the eight thief skills. Then starting money. -2 on the roll for being 2nd youngest, but +35 from the magic-user tables. 74 +33 = 107. 170 +d20 G.P. And inherited family weapon and armor. And of course the 80 +d8 G.P. of stashed loot. Meaning the character will be well equipped to start. Still have to figure out the rest of the starting skill percentages and buy equipment. But thats minor book-keeping at this point...

Needs a name. Timoth "Nightwolf" Crispin. And make his alignment Neutral Good. I've got the general ideas for his back stories. Parents being traveling petty crooks who were caught in a decent sized human town. They were imprisoned, where the father died. Kids spent several years on the street running with (and probably running) human youth gangs. Timoth eventually joined the local guild, probably caught the attention of guild's wizard contact. Who sponsored him to the local mage university. Then figure out where in all that he developed M.P.D. Maybe something that happened during his militia period? Which is why he was then sent to work at a farm? Have to think on that...