Hammer & Helm

[Messageboard Golem]

The hammer-swinging, ale-gulping dwarf is a staple of any fantasy campaign, but there's more to these stout folk than horned helmets and a lust for battle. Hammer and Helm, a player's toolkit packed with character options, explores dwarf culture through a plethora of expertly designed rules by Dragon Magazine editor Jesse Decker. With new feats (including new types such as bloodline and bonding feats), prestige classes, subraces, spells, and equipment, Hammer and Helm lets you completely customize your dwarf character. The first of Green Ronin's Races of Renown sourcebooks, Hammer and Helm sets the standard for d20 race books.

 

[GameWyrd]

Hammer & Helm is the first in Green Ronin’s Races of Renown series. It is also the first book I’ve seen in the new OGL Interlink brand. Hammer and Helm isn’t the first in the OGL Interlink since partner publisher Paradigm Concepts used it first with their "The Lords of the Peaks: The Essential Guide to Giants". I’m not entirely sure that OGL Interlink is about. I know it was kind enough to change its name from OGL Interlock to OGL Interlink after minnow d20 publisher Interlock Games waved a flag and stamped a foot. I think the OGL Interlink aims to produce "related" books in a way which makes sure that Company A doesn’t write a rival book on similar subject matter to Company B. There should be a plus side of this deal to those of us who are merely players and DMs in that these two (or I guess, in theory, more) companies can actually make use of each other’s work in a more aggressive way than the humble OGL allows. For example, there’s a dwarf prestige class in Hammer & Helm called the "Stormhammer"; perhaps there’s a prestige class in Paradigm’s giant book called "Stormhammer Squasher", perhaps not. Hmm. I’m not convinced. Couldn’t that be done with standard OGL rules? Time will tell. That said, I’ll tell you what I am convinced about and that’s the potential to use the OGL Interlink name and logo as a quality assurance mark. There was a slim chance of me ever purchasing The Essential Guide to Giants before I read Hammer & Helm but I’ve been so impressed by the latter that the chances of me making a purchase of the former have significantly risen.

Flick through Hammer & Helm and you’ll be impressed. You don’t even have to pause to read anything. Just soak up the clever layout of the book, notice how much information has been tightly packed in without sacrificing readability, appreciate the artwork and even wonder if 10 pages of appendixes in a 112-paged book is a record. It’s a black and white book, held together between colourful glossy covers. At $19.95 it’s fairly priced too. I was surprised at how some apparently small layout changes can make such a difference to the appearance of the book. In these d20 days I’m used to books having sidebars of illustration on the left and right hand edges of an open book. I think the purpose of these sidebars is for appearance; text looks wrong if it runs all the way to the edge of the page and a reader needs somewhere to put his fingers so he can read without covering up what he’s trying to read. Hammer and Helm has moved these bars to the top and bottom of the pages where they decorate the current chapter name at the top and the name of the book and page number at the bottom. There are sidebars too, the text doesn’t run to the edge of the page, but the sidebars are simply white space. I like the resulting effect. It doesn’t come across as too blocky or even appear to reduce the amount of words per page. In a hobby that publishes pages after pages of tables and charts it seems only to be common sense to design the whole page in such a way as to help reduce the "glare" of any dark grey table of numbers that might be required and this is what the top/bottom bars seem to do.

I liked the appearance of the book. What about the content?

There are six chapters and lots in the appendix. The chapters are those that you’d probably expect. The first, "The Way of the Mountain", talks about the dwarf race, the second lists new feats and the third chapter introduces the expected prestige classes. Chapter four is given over to new creatures and comes before the "Spells & Magic" chapter and the last chapter runs through about 20 pages of equipment.

I really liked the first chapter. One of the nearly insurmountable problems with the dwarf race is that it is besieged by its stereotypical image of mountain warriors and smiths. In the section "Alternative Dwarven Racial Concepts" it pushes forwards, you guessed it, alternatives to the stereotypical image. Actually, the section starts off easily, suggesting conservative changes or emphasizing certain parts of the stereotype above others. "The Dying Race" is a commonly used concept since it is the sort of tragic heroism that fits nicely into many fantasy genres and appeals to a wide range of gamers. Despite their stamina and prowess the dwarven empire is crumbling under the constant onslaught of goblinoids or other forces. The "Isolationist Artisans" is another concept that will immediately be recognised by gamers. It’s a harder concept to use if you want non-outsider dwarves in your adventuring party but it does make it easier to keep dwarf artefacts and creations as treasure and rewards for your group rather than have them reduced to standard adventuring equipment. After these two Hammer & Helm starts to get adventurous and adds to the list; Desert Warriors, Light Haters, Lords of Battle, Skyfarers, New Arrivals or even Minions of Evil. You can get a pretty good idea of where the racial concept is going from the name alone but the book debates each one and then suggests what an archetypical encounter with such a dwarf culture might be like. Hammer and Helm also offers up alternative racial abilities to each of these possible cultures. Light Haters, for example, have their favoured class changed to Barbarian, drop the racial Craft and Appraise check bonuses but gain ones to Craft (trapmaking), Listen, Spot and Wilderness Lore when they’re underground.

The same chapter finds a corner for a brief discussion on a sample Dwarven Pantheon. Dwarf religion resurfaces throughout the book; in prestige classes, spells and even creatures but there’s little structure to it. Hammer & Helm picks up on the triumvirate of gods common to most clans, suggesting that you can take a generic "forge god" with typical domains and alignment but give him different names. You can do the same with a "merchant god" and an "earth mother". This is an idea I’ve seen in other books but where that’s then gone on to include temples and followers. Hammer & Helms seems to prefer to present the dwarf race as rather more elemental than they are divine. This might not be a bad thing.

The chapter of feats also introduces some innovation. That’s just as well. Feats and Prestige Classes are fast becoming a double-edged sword for publishers. I can’t be the only one out there who is fast becoming a little tired of discovering yet more feats and yet I’d be the first one to point out that something was missing if a book like Hammer & Helm was produced without them. There’s a big table of feats at the start of the chapter, it lists the feat and the prerequisite but not a summary of the bonus or a page number reference; I suspect that’s due to the impossibility of fitting all that onto one page. The innovation comes in the form of two new types of feats: bonding and bloodline feats. I’ve said previously that Hammer & Helm presents the dwarf race as rather elemental and this is especially clear with the bonding feats. Through long and fatiguing rituals a dwarf can bond himself to some aspect. The "Oath of Dreams" feat, for example, actually sees the dwarf bonding with the essence of the woodlands and becoming a fey, whereas the "Pledge of Flame" turns the dwarf into a creature of fire. The bloodline feats are great; they provide tangible game mechanics to back up the dwarven clan pride. Bloodlines open up a chain of feats available only to dwarfs of that bloodline. As with the bonding feats though some of the bloodline feats can be impressive and spectacular, better suited to flamboyant high fantasy than realism driven low fantasy.

Then, of course, there are prestige classes. The prestige classes are pretty good but then I suspect d20 authors write prestige classes as often as they reboot WinDoze. I like my prestige classes to be detailed through 10 levels but I’m willing to accept a few "special prestige" classes that only go as high as 5. That’s pretty much what Hammer & Helm offers, although I would rather the ratio of 10 level prestige classes and 5 level prestige classes was the other way around. There is an exception to this is that the Cavernsgaarder (their spelling, not mine) only has 3 levels of class. That’s the shortest prestige class I’ve seen to date.

Examples of the prestige classes include:
- Acolyte of the Crystal Path: A monk styled prestige class which sees the dwarf relish in the elementalism common in Hammer & Helm in hand. The Acolyte progresses through class levels, picking up such supernatural abilities as Emerald Fists, Earth Mastery and then Body of Crystal. Of course, the dwarf also gets increasingly heavy and likely to sink like a stone.

- Ironbound: This prestige class turns the wearing of armour into an art. The illustration that accompanies this prestige class provides a great summary, a block of metal, behind a shield and which might have a dwarf somewhere in side. The Ironbound lives the philosophy of "… if you cannot be overcome, you must eventually prevail."

- Spirit Stone Defiler: An evil prestige class. Some dwarves put their understanding and knowledge of ancient dwarf spirit stones (a creation of Hammer & Helm but described in chapter six) to their own good rather than that of the clan.

- Thunderthrower: These are battle hardy dwarves who begin by throwing axes and hammers out from behind the lines of shields but who then charge forwards to join the fray and finish off the foe.

There are very much more prestige classes in the book than I’ve mentioned here but the above are a fairly good representation of what you’ll get. Most of the prestige classes have plenty of special abilities to add flavour to the class rather than just bigger stat bonuses.

The chapter on new creatures presents an interesting variety. It’s not just a list of new bad guys. The "Defenders of Mar-Namor" are presented as a template for corporeal undead. In Hammer & Helm they fall into the slightly uneasy category of allies to the dwarves, created by the Forge God to fend off an attack. There are arcane dwarves, Eldlorns, who are really fey but with a distance relation to the dwarf and plenty of the standard racial preferences. In this chapter you’ll also find stats on those creatures and dwarves created through successful or unsuccessful rites and rituals. The Hammerstruck are the mindless results of dwarves and others who failed the "Test of the Forge God" – a spell detailed in the next chapter. The Hammerstruck are presented as a template to allow GMs to apply the results to a range of races. They’re not really suited for PCs. The Iron-Souled are also presented as a template and can be the result of the player ready "Oath of Iron" bonding feat. There are also a few attempts to provide the dwarves with some suitable riding animals. One of the more strange of these mounts is the large construct armour of the Thaneguard. The Thaneguard can best be described as magically animated "power armour". I think the Thaneguard would have been better suited to a steam-punk styled dwarf game.

There are nearly twenty pages of Spells and Magic. If you wish to make use of some of the rules given earlier on in the book, such as the Hammerstruck, you’ll have to pick up the trail here. There’s a new brand of magic, "Clanheart Magic" which is only available to those with the correct feat. There are also some new cleric domains. I like the suggested domains, very dwarven, although I do arch an eyebrow at each and every domain having "Campaign-specific deities chosen by the GM" as their entry for deities. There are plenty of new spells, it’s not just a token effort, many of the new additions though come from the school of magic "Clanheart" and they are rather powerful, I have a suspicion that GMs will have to rule its impossible to specialise in it since it’s presence will upset the balance of the Schools of Magic (Transmutation, Abjuration, etc) otherwise.

Dwarves are famed for their weapons and armour and so the equipment chapter on any "race" book is going to be a darn site easier to write for this race than others. There’s plenty of stuff in Hammer & Helm. I think there’s a risk that ever more impressive masterworks, magical weapons and armour and masterwork magic will lead to unbalanced games. Fortunately, so does the author and there’s a grey box that quickly points out this danger to GMs. Some people might think such an effort is a waste of space but I was appreciative of the effort. There really is a treasure trove of magical weapons and armour. Items like "golem plate" will make your players drool and its nice to see items like the "Lost Banner of Mar-Namor" tie in with earlier chapters and sections; in this case the undead defenders of Mar-Narmor. There is even a list of siege engines that are well suited to the combat style of dwarf defenders.

I mentioned the detailed appendix before but not what you might find in it. You’ll find neat and tidy summaries of stats for typical NPCs. That’s to say, a range of different NPCs, from fighters to priests and more specialised classes.

I really rather liked Hammer & Helm even though there are some parts of the book which I can’t ever see myself using. It has that balance between GM advice and useful rules to player friendly text (such as feats the GM is likely to approve, prestige classes which should fit into a few different campaigns and plenty of equipment). There’s just a short index but at least there’s one and the book is neatly organised and it is fairly easy to pick your way to the core concepts of the books. On the other hand, some of the less important points (such as the Hammerstruck in the creature section and then the matching magical/divine test a chapter on) can be harder to link together and may result in much frantic page flicking by a GM throwing something together quickly.

This GameWyrd review can be found here.

 

[GameWyrd]

Okay, okay... loads of people have pointed out to me that the Giant book isn't out yet. This is the first OGL Interlink. It was months ago that that Lords of the Peak was trailed in the news sites though.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

This review is for Hammer & Helm: A Guidebook to Dwarves by Jesse Decker. This is the first book in Green Ronin’s Races of Renown series and part of their OGL Interlink partnership with Paradigm Concepts. The book is 112 pages in length and retails for $19.95.

I have to be upfront and say that I believe this book is everything that Heroes of High Favor: Dwarves from Bad Axe Games should have been. This is an excellent sourcebook if you are looking for something more than a stereotypical dwarf. For starters, there are some well thought out alternative dwarven racial concepts that give a new take on dwarves as a race.

Chapter two presents dwarven feats. In addition to general and Metamagic feats, three new types are presented, bloodgift, bonding and spell channeling. Bloodgift feats are forces that come from ancestral ties to the stone where they dwell and are taken at first level. Bonding feats are forces acquired through hard work and sacrifice. Spell channeling feats tap into the innate magical abilities of dwarves. All of the feats in this chapter are well balanced and show imagination.

The prestige classes in chapter three are excellent extensions of many base classes but unique enough to create some interesting characters. There is the Acolyte of the Crystal Path, who ultimately assumes a crystalline forms and the earth subtype. Gemscribes use gems for Metamagic spells. Ironbound are essentially walking armored tanks who can even sleep in their armor without penalty. My personal favorites are the Stormhammer and Thunderthrower classes.

Chapter four is an collection of original creatures. A template that can be added to any corporeal creature starts the chapter off. There are three additional templates along with new creatures that may serve as dwarven mounts. My favorites in this chapter are the Iron-Souled Creature template, the Isen (Artic Dwarf), and the Thaneguard (Construct Armor).

New spells and magic comprise chapter five. A new type (some might say school) of magic is outlined, clanheart magic. Five new clerical domains are presented, Armor, Construct, Fortitude, Stonehearth and Sword. An impressive 57 new spells are detailed and they all appear to be, for the most part, quite balanced.

Chapter six is a meaty chapter in its own right covering many things. Mundane armor and equipment descriptions start the chapter off. Dwarven weapons follow with the next section devoted to magic items. Golem plate armor, Hammer of Anchors, and Beast Stone are my favorites here. There is also a brief section on siege engines and their use in combat. Let me say that there are some really original concepts here also. Lastly, the appendix lists typical dwarven NPCs.

Overall, Hammer & Helm is a fantastic book that breathes new life into some old stereotypes. All of the game mechanics and rules are balanced and well written. A great deal of thought and effort went into this book and it shows. I will be very interested to see if Paradigm’s forthcoming giants book is equally well done. If you love dwarves and are looking for something new, then by all means buy this book. In addition, this is a book that belongs in every DMs resource library. It will see a lot of use; that I am certain of.

To see the graded evaluation of this product, go to The Critic's Corner at www.d20zines.com.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Hammer & Helm
A Guidebook to Dwarves
Written by Jesse Decker
Published by Green Ronin Publishing
www.greenronin.com
GRR1101
ISBN: 0971438056
112 b & w pages
$19.95

The 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.

 

[Simon Collins]

This is not a playtest review.

Hammer and Helm is the first in Green Ronin's Races of Renown series. It is also the first OGL Interlink product, an excellent co-operative enterprise between Green Ronin and Paradigm Concepts to help reduce the number of 'race' books released on the market and hopefully ensure the survival of both companies - Paradigm's Races of Legend series will be alternating with GR's Races of Renown series to produce different 'race' books.

H&H is $19.95 for 112 pages. This is very slightly more expensive than average for its type and size. Use of space is fairly average, with decent font size for the main text and margins, but large subtitle fonts and a fair amount of space between paragraphs. The internal mono art is good, though I was less impressed with the cover art - good use of colour and light on the mountains but I did not like the skewed perspective or the lack of clarity on the climbing dwarven figures. The writing style isintelligent if a little nebulous at times, and editing is fairly good.

Chapter 1: The Way Of The Mountain, contains three sections:
1. Playing A Dwarf Character gives a brief overview of four dwarf archetypes - Stoic Soldier, Battlerager, Forge Priest, and Locksmith. These are useful for new roleplayers and serve as a counterpoint to the alternative concepts later in the chapter.
Brief advice is given on the core classes in relation to a dwarf PC, with some ideas given for changing things around - like a GM option for changing a dwarf's favored class to barbarian or paladin, to skew the feel of dwarves. Most of these ideas and the advice was a little fluffy or just plain common sense, but would still be relevant for those new to roleplaying.
2. Alternative Dwarven Racial Concepts gives eight ideas for changing the role of dwarves in a campaign setting:
* The Dying Race
* Isolationist Artisans
* Desert Warriors
* Light Haters
* Lords Of Battle
* Skyfarers
* New Arrivals
* Minions Of Evil
Each idea has some basic encounter hooks, and suggestions for changing dwarven racial abilities to better suit the concept. There is also a sidebar giving some ideas for creating idiosynchratic dwarven clans.
3. Sample Dwarven Pantheon. Short overview of three dwarven deities with their domains, for any fantasy campaign setting. Does not include specific information on favoured weapons.

Chapter 2: Feats, offers 61 new feats, also usable by non-dwarves. Many of these are linked to three new feat types:
* Bloodgift Feats - characters must take a single Prime Bloodgift at 1st Level, then build on it with further related Bloodgift feats as they gain levels. An example is the Prime Bloodgift 'Deepblood' (+4 to Spot checks with darkvision) with related Bloodgift feats of Deepsight (darkvision range increases by 10 feet, can be taken multiple times), and Shadowblend (increased Concealment in darkness or shadows). These can give a good specific feel for a dwarf or dwarves, and would make an interesting concept for creating different dwarven clans with different Bloodgifts, as mentioned in the sidebar in Chapter 1.
* Bonding Feats - each Bonding feat requires a lengthy ritual costing 1000 gp and 500 XP and characters are usually limited to one Bonding feat. A bonding feat is effectively a magically binding oath which links the dwarf with an Otherworldly force. An example is Oath Of Dreams, a feat which binds the dwarf to the Fey, making her a Fey being, and gaining the Trackless Step druid class feature. This one is better suited to elves to my mind, but others were more appropriate and some linked in with Bloodgifts by having them as Prerequisites.
* Spell Channeling - involves sacrificing spells to power other magical abilities. An example is Mystic Sight (where for every level of the spell sacrificed (or 'channelled') the dwarf gains a +2 bonus to Spot checks and at higher levels low-light vision).
Other feats include those which change the base ability on which some spellcasting bonuses are based, and combat feats for sieges and co-ordinated attacks.

Chapter 3: Prestige Classes, offers 16 new prestige classes, a mixture of 5 and 10 level classes, with one 3 level class:
Acolyte Of The Crystal Path - gains crystalline aspects, until entirely crystal.
Cavern Strider - can walk on cave walls and ceilings
Cavernsgaarder - experts in co-ordinated close combat tactics
Clanheart Disciple - arcane spellcaster with bloodgift-related class features
Gemscribe - uses gems to create metamagic effects
Immolated - character smolders and burns, devotee of fire and has fire-related class features
Ironbound - focused on maximising armour defence
Knight Of The Black Forge - slays Undead and gains their powers
Magesmith - benefits to magical crafting
Mountain's Fury Devotee - stone-related barbarian-type combat abilities
Spirit Stone Defiler - necromantic-types that use 'spirit stone' (stone that holds clan memories) to enhance undead servitors and necromantic magic
Stonesinger - uses magical song to communicate with stone and stone-related creatures
Stormhammer - Battlehammer specialist, can feely multiclass with paladin
Thunderthrower - experts in throwing hammers and axes
Tundrin - like the Immolated, but with ice

Chapter 4: Creatures, offers five creatures and four templates. The creatures are:
* Eldlorn - fey dwarves
* Gore Mole - giant mole with two horns, used by dwarves as mounts
* Isen - Arctic dwarf
* Stonestrider - spiderlike elemental with ethereal abilities, used as mounts by dwarves
* Thaneguard - armoured construct
The templates are:
* Defender Of Mar-Namor - undead lawful neutral guardians with mass combat abilities. A Ghoul Soldier example is given.
* Hammerstruck - those failing a quest demanded by the spell 'Test Of The Forge God' become mindless slaves of dwarves. A Hammerstruck Dwarf Ranger is given as an example.
* Iron-Souled - certain underground creatures who are born with an innate relationship to iron - they are slower but have increased natural armour, slam damage and magnetism. An Iron-Souled Gray Render is given as an example.
* Tempered - those succeeding in a quest demanded by the spell 'Test Of The Forge God' become temporarily 'tempered' - natural AC, increased Str and Con, holy smite, and treat armour as one category lighter. Alternatively, this can be applied to a creature from birth. An example Tempered Large Earth Elemental is given.
Sidebars give information on dwarven mounts, and summoning some of the creatures offered.

Chapter 5: Spells & Magic, offers 5 new domains (Armor, Construct, Fortitude, Stonehearth, and Sword) and 57 new spells. Spells range from the ubiquitous (and gross) Acid Burst (a shower of acid bursts from the caster's body), to more dwarf-specific spells like the aforementioned Test Of The Forge God and Ancestral Guidance. Various other spells cover animation of objects, armour enhancements, weapon enhancements (axes and hammers), and stone-related spells. The spells cover all the core spellcasting classes plus the new Clanheart spells, and are fairly well spread across the 9 levels.

Chapter 6: Equipment, begins by introducing a range of exotic armour and weapons including dwarven plate, throwing shield, helmet spike, and dwarven battlehammer. There is also a sidebar giving advice to GMs wanting to creat their own exotic armour. Special and Superior Items include such alchemical items as Crafter's Salve, which aids crating items by speeding the crafting process up. Magic items include a selection of armour, shields, weapons, rings, and wondrous items. There are various special abilities for weapons and armour including tempered armour (which actually temporarily grants the features of the tempered template to the wearer rather than it being tempered itself), and grafted weapons (an extension of a limb). All items are given a creation cost in addition to the standard stats. Various siege engines are also discussed, giving some new ones, discussing ways of improving siege engines (through masterworking and magic), and gives a unique siege engine (a giant flamethrower). The chapter ends with a brief discussion of three special materials - blending earth (infused with elemental earth), spirit stone (contains the spirits of dead clan dwarves), and steelstone (strangely enough, a kind of cross between steel and stone).

The Appendix contains stats for a range of typical NPCs including Legionnaires, Master Artisans, Forge Priests, Dwarven Fighter, Stoneborn Sorcerers, and Dwarven Rogues. Each covers their stats at all levels and includes likely equipment for those NPCs at each level.

Conclusion:
Inevitably draws comparison with Bad Axe Games' Heroes of High Favor: Dwarves since they were released so close to each other. Though they theoretically cover some of the same ground (feats and prestige classes), they are very different beasts. Whilst HOHF is compact, concise and craft/fighter-focused, Hammer & Helm is more expansive, more magically-orientated and covers more ground. Hammer & Helm really attempts to re-create the magical dwarf and largely succeeds. Thats not to say that there is not cross-over material - the formation fighting feats for example - but much of the material in the books is very different.

There is plenty to recommend Hammer & Helm, particularly if you want to have a dwarf spellcaster as a PC. A well-rounded work with some innovative ideas and covering a wide range of topics. Never the less, I would have liked to have seen more information on dwarven fortresses, building techniques (particularly traps and defences), the political makeup of a dwarf clan and other information that would have aided a GM in building on the blocks given in the book to create her own unique dwarven society for her own campaign.

 

[Psion]

Hammer & Helm

Given the number of d20 system publishers out there, some overlap in the subject matter of products is probably inevitable. The first major example of this was perhaps the trio of sailing-oriented sourcebooks. The latest topic to receive such lavishing of attention is dwarves. Hammer & Helm hits the market at about the same time as Mongoose Publishing's Quintessential Dwarf and Badaxe Games' Heroes of High Favor: Dwarves.

A First Look

Hammer & Helm is a 112 page book priced at $19.95.

The front cover of the book depicts several dwarves armed for battle against a mountain backdrop. A glance at the back shows that the cover is only one-half of a larger picture. As part of Green Ronin and Paradigm's OGL Interlink projects, Paradigm will be publishing a book on giants that will complement this book and bear a cover depicting the giants that the dwarves are facing.

The interior of the book is black and white. David Griffith, whose artwork you may recognize from various Mongoose titles, does all of the interior artwork. The detail of the artwork is very nice, but Griffith overdoes the stocky aspect of dwarves, making some of the depicted dwarves look somewhat comical.

The interior text is dense, though the paragraphs are single-spaced. The layout is attractive and uses space well. The fonts used are all easily readable.

A Deeper Look

The first chapter of Hammer & Helm is light on mechanics. The chapter begins by introducing a few classical character archetypes like the battlerager and the forge priest that a player may wish to use as ideas for a dwarven character. Unlike Mongoose's character concepts, these archetypes are fairly sketchy but have no mechanical implications or modifications.

The chapter also discusses the role that the different core PC classes may play in dwarven society. Though primarily a player tool, this section provides some thoughts for the GM on the implications of changing the favored class of dwarves in the game.

The chapter also presents alternative dwarven racial concepts as ideas for the GM to shift the flavor of dwarves in the game. These are not new subraces per se, but ideas for shifting the central concept of dwarves (or particular dwarven clans) in a game, including ideas for tweaking the dwarven racial abilities to support the flavor of the concept. For example, if you want to have a dying ancient clan of dwarves, they may possess ancient knowledge, and thus possess a bonus to knowledge checks vice appraise checks. Other alternate racial concepts include isolationist artisans, desert warriors, light haters, lords of battle, skyfarers, and minions of evil. As you can see, some of these concepts stray quite a bit from the classical dwarf concept.

Finally, the chapter includes a few sample dwarven deities and a sidebar on detailing dwarven clans.

The second chapter covers feats for dwarves, and is possibly the most mechanically innovative part of the book. A number of standard feats that dwarves might have are included, and three new types of feats are presented: bloodgift feats, bonding feats, and spell channeling feats.

Bloodgift feats represent ancestral ties that the dwarf has to elemental forces. A dwarf may take one (and only one) "prime bloodgift" feats at first level. This feat provides advantages related to the nature of the bloodgift and allows access to a small feat chain also related to the gift. For example, deepblood improves the dwarf's spot checks when using the blindsight ability, and the follow-on feats improve the range of the dwarf's darkvision and improves the dwarf's concealment category when in shadows.

Bonding feats require a special ritual to take that consume gp and xp, but return some fairly powerful benefits. Bonding feats can do things like grant a new type (like fey) or subtype (like fire).

Spell Channeling feats allow a spellcaster to use up a prepared spell in exchange for a specific benefit. For example, mystic endurance allows you to channel a transmutation spell that provides you with a +1 enhancement bonus for each level of the channeled spell.

There are a variety of other interesting feats, many of them focused on the tandem fighting styles of dwarves. The back-to-back feat prevents the character from being flanked if next to another character with the same feat. The shield wall feat gives you an AC bonus when next to an ally when you both have shields. The stoic feat gives a bonus against sense motive feats to read your emotional state.

The third chapter presents new prestige classes. The prestige classes thankfully do not fall into the trap of trying to assign a prestige class to a fairly generic concept. Each class has a few background assumptions that go with it. This could be a problem if dwarves are already well defined in your game, but generally, these concepts fit well with dwarves and provide you with a few possible adventure ideas that you can integrate with your game. Giving you ideas along with statistics seems to be Green Ronin's strong suit.

The prestige classes have a mix of 10, 5, and 3 level classes. Some of the more interesting prestige classes described herein are:
- Acolyte of the Crystal Shard: Members of a monastery whose close connection to the earth eventually give them a crystalline appearance, and abilities to go with it (such as a natural armor bonus and rock-hard fists. 10-level prestige class.
- Caverngaarder: A short (3 level) prestige class representing dwarven warriors specialized in unit fighting.
- Clanheart Disciple: An arcane spellcaster with one of the bloodgift feats may eventually qualify to become a Clanheart Disciple. The class abilities are determined by the nature of the bloodbond feat that the character possesses. For example, a character with the afore mentioned deepblood feat gains abilities relating to shadows and darkness. 10-level prestige class.
- Ironbound: An exemplar for the dwarven love of heavy armor, the ironbound learns to use many forms of exotic armor (described later in the book) and gains other abilities to enhance the utility of armor. 10 level prestige class.
- Magesmith: A conceptual must-have class for dwarves, the magesmith specializes in crafting magical arms and armor and possibly other magic items. The magesmith can learn to forego some requirements for magic items, and gain other benefits in creating magic items as they gain levels, as well as continuing to advance in spellcating at every even level. 10 level prestige class.
- Spirit Stone Defiler: The spirits of dwarves oft times settle in certain sacred stones, called spirit stones. Spirit stone defilers do the unthinkable, and use these precious artifacts of the dwarven people to empower undead. This class would make for a great villain in a dwarvish campaign. 5 level class.

Other prestige classes are Cavern Strider, Gemscribe, Immolated, Knight of the Black Forge, Mountain's Fury Devotee, Stonehound, Stonesinger, Stormhammer, Thunderthrower, and Tundrin. Some of the prestige classes are a bit esoteric for my taste, but many of them embody excellent ideas and seem mechanically balanced.

The fourth chapter regards creatures, and like the third chapter wraps up a lot of great adventure and campaign ideas with the rules material. There are a few dwarf variants, such as the Eldorn (a ancient race of fey related to dwarves) and Isen (arctic dwarves). There are also templates and elemental creatures with a relationship to dwarves. Defender of Mar-Namor is a template applied to undead to make them into loyal defenders for dwarves who found themselves under attack by mind flayers. Those who undergo a test to the dwarven god of the forge and fail become Hammerstruck, a type of undead that can be ordered by dwarves. Those that succeed temporarily gain the Tempered template, a blessed of the forge god.

The fifth chapter is new spells. This includes five new clerical domains: armor, construct, fortitude, stonehearth, and sword. In addition to these, there is a new category of spells: clanheart. Clanheart spells are available to divine and arcane spellcasters who have the proper feat, Clanheart Magic. Clanheart spells are useful in defense of the dwarven territories.

The spells generally follow dwarven themes, such as spells that concern earth or forged objects such as armor or chains.

The sixth chapter is equipment. This includes magical and nonmagical equipment, plus special rules on siege engines. In keeping with dwarven themes, a new type of armor is introduced, exotic armor. Exotic armor operates much like exotic weapons: they have superior characteristics to normal armor, but require a special proficiency to use without penalty.

The appendix details some typical NPCs, in the same fashion as the stock NPCs detailed in the DMG. Experts and warriors (legionnaires) are provided for 10 levels, while PC class dwarves are provided for 20 levels. The legionnaire seems a bit off to me. The legionnaire gets feats dealing with fighting as part of a group at relatively high levels (6th and 9th), levels at which the dwarf is likely to be considered exceptional and not a rank-and-file warrior.

Conclusion

I am not a big fan of dwarves, but I found there to be many intriguing ideas in here. The book does take some risks and in some cases it goes a little far from the classical concept of the dwarf. However, the book is presented in a "toolkit" fashion, and has a lot of useful ideas for characters, campaigns, and adventures. Overall, nothing struck me as extremely overpowered, though some of the feats may raise some GM's warning flags.

Edit: After considering this book for some time and comparing it to some of the current "4's", I think that the overall high content of the product earns it a "5".

Overall grade: A-

-Alan D. Kohler