#hackmaster

[jackalopearts]

Regular guys, out on the town

#hackmaster #they’re gonna go try and rob some guy’s tomb this weekend :)

[doomboy911]

Theme Hackmaster (Loathsome Prowler)

Prompt List

Creature Codex Art Challenge

Commentary

Pinheaded evil punks that travel in packs? Time to make one good head and then use the brush tool. I made a big crowd of them and am in love with the on in the back who's too short to see. I also swapped the colors out for a softer green and am pleased with the result.

Imagine these things rolling up on you asking if you got games on your phone.

Palettes Picked

And the variant

#Loathsome Prowler #pixel art #year of art #year of art 2024 #Creature Codex #codexartchallenge #2-bit grayscale #2bit demichrome #Hackmaster

[justicegundam82]

Pathfinder 1E Conversion: Kangarai

Here you go, everyone! This is my first official attempt at creating a creature for the 1st edition of Pathfinder, a game I'm still pretty obsessed with. It's been a long time ever since I wanted to start writing conversions, but for some reason I never really got around to it.

You can thank the excellent blogs The Creature Chronicle and Creature Codex for setting a great example and giving me the inspiration to start this project. Of course, since I'm rather inexperienced with these, I would like to ask readers to tell me what they think, where I can do better, what errors I might have committed, and so on. A bit of constructive criticism, so that I can always do better. ^^

And we start off with a simple creature. This one comes from the Hacklopedia of Beasts Volume IV, for the Hackmaster roleplaying game. The kangarai scratches a lot of my itches when it comes to depicting an original humanoid race, so I decided it would have been my first attempt at a conversion.

Also, if anyone could tell me who the artist for this picture was, I'd be really grateful.

Enjoy!

KANGARAI

Unknown artist, © Kenzer and Co.

This creature looks like a well-built humanoid with an elongated mouse-like face and powerful clawed legs. It is covered in short grey fur and sports an odd leathery pouch on its abdomen. Its clothes and markings speak of a nomadic lifestyle.

KANGARAI CR 1 XP 400 CG Medium Humanoid Initiative +2; Senses low-light vision, Perception +5

DEFENSE AC 15 (+2 armor, +2 Dex, +1 natural) hp 11 (2d8+2) Fort +1, Ref +5, Will +1

OFFENSE Speed 40 ft. Melee spear +2 (1d8+1 / x3) or slam +2 (1d4+1) Ranged sling +3 (1d4+1) Special Attacks hop attack

STATISTICS Str 12, Dex 14, Con 13, Int 10, Wis 13, Cha 8 Base Atk +1; CMB +2; CMD 14 Feats Alertness Skills Acrobatics +10 (+14 jumping), Perception +5, Sense Motive +3, Survival +5; Racial Modifiers +4 Acrobatics (+8 jumping) Languages Common, Kangarai Special Qualities naturally athletic

ECOLOGY Environment temperate hills or plains Organization solitary, pair, gathering party (2-5 kangarai plus 1-3 kangaroos) or band (5-30 adults plus 50% noncombatant children, 3-12 kangaroos, 1 chief of 3rd-5th level and 1 druid/shaman of 3rd-5th level) Treasure NPC gear (leather armor, spear, sling with 20 bullets, other treasure)

SPECIAL ABILITIES Hop Attack (Ex): As part of a charge, a kangarai can leap over an opponent and strike from above. In addition to the normal benefits and hazards of a charge, a kangarai performing an hop attack gets a +2 bonus on weapon damage rolls for a successful melee attack. Naturally Athletic (Ex): A kangarai has a +4 racial bonus to Acrobatics checks. This bonus increases to +8 for Acrobatics checks involving jumping. Acrobatics is always considered a class skill for a kangarai.

Kangarai are a race of nomadic kangaroo-like humanoids. They wander great expanses of savannah and open plains, often in the presence of a herd of kangaroos. Strictly herbivores, kangarais gain most of their food by gathering and grazing. They live in small wandering tribes, composed of varying percentages of male and females.

Like the kangaroos they resemble, kangarais are marsupials - females give live birth to a joey that exits the mother's uterus in a still incomplete state and whose development continues in the mother's pouch, from which they emerge as fully formed young. Female kangarai exhibit a capacity for embryonic diapause, the capacity of halting an embryo's development in times of drought and areas with poor food sources.

Kangarai tend to be distrusting of other humanoid races, and give a wide berth to permanent settlements as a result. The exception to this tend to be halflings, and kangarais often have amicable, or at least cordial, relationships with nomadic halfling tribes in their same territory. They are also known to have rescued lone wanderers who were injured or weakened, and nursed them back to health, guiding them back to civilization in exchange for keeping their existence a secret. Evil gnoll tribes prize kangarais as both slaves and food, so relationships between the two races are almost invariably hostile. Kangarais have a natural life expectancy of about 50 years, but the rigors of their lifestyle claim most of them before they reach their 30th birthday.

Kangarais that progress in class levels usually do so as rangers or rogues, enhancing their natural scouting and stealth abilities. Fighters, barbarians and slayers are rather common as well. Kangarais tend not to gravitate towards specific deities, instead worshipping the abstract forces of nature, and clerics are therefore uncommon amongst their kind compared to druids or shamans.

#pathfinder #pathfinder 1e #conversion #hackmaster #kangarai #humanoid #tabletop games

[libraryogre]

Man, I simply cannot identify modern gnomes. They all have the littlest fucking noses. Plus, you know what? They're white as fuck. Walnut skin has become birch.

#gnomes #gnome #dungeons and dragons #advanced dungeons & dragons #hackmaster

[bloodnok91]

Been toying around with an idea for a new dnd campaign. Please excuse the ramblings.

I've been reading knights of the dinner table again, which makes me want to run hackmaster. But my players cant stand the system, it's too crunchy for them. I'm not going back to 5e any time soon, tho. So I'm thinking a middle ground might be appropriate. Something that lets me run the kind of adventure I want to run, while letting the players avoid the parts of hackmaster they like the least.

I'm thinking 3.5 dnd, but with a few rules from hackmaster. specifically I want the wound rules (each instance of damage is a separate wound that has to heal on it's own), the protegee rules (you can give an npc a chunk of your xp as a way to pre level your next character) and the leveling up rules (you have to find a trainer to level you up, or you level on your own but gain less from it).

I want to run a more open world sort of adventure. Like, skyrim or runescape or sunless sea sort of thing. There's a sort of main plot, but it's not urgent. The focus of the story is about the players exploring, leveling, and managing resources. The last campaign I ran, they wanted to focus on like, magic item creation, but there was always a force working against them to keep them moving. I want them to be able to spend a few weeks in a town just healing without the an army of giants on the horizon. I want them to delve a dungeon because they heard it could be a good payday, not because the fate of the world is at stake. I want them to do side quests to convince a mage with a weird prestige class to teach it to the wizard, just because they want it.

This'll be a huge departure from what I've done before. My focus has always been narrative and character arcs. I'll need to put a lot of effort into fleshing out the general shape of the setting long before I start the thing, and once it starts I'll need a lot of city and town flavouring and minutia. Plus dungeons, side quests, npcs. Fortunately 3.5 has about 5 and a half million supplements, and they're all a lot more detailed than anything 5e's put out this decade. So I'll have options to draw from at least. They really expected dms to do a lot more reading back then. And I can always rip off knights, I suppose. See how my players handle some of the stuff B.A.'s table was put through. Could be fun.

One thing about 3.5 is it was not a well balanced system, especially at later levels. I'm thinking higher cost to level up for casters might actually help. Also the slightly more brutal nature of the damage might keep the casters at a lower level. I dunno.

#dnd #knights of the dinner table #hackmaster #gonna call it 3.5 hardcore mode or somthing

[nournajjar123]

Index

Clicking on these hashtags will direct you into the section you desire. 

#hackmaster #reflection #designweek #reading #interdependence #biomimicry #plagiarism #thinkinginsystems #groupwork #emergence #reductionismandholism

[an-unimpressed-jackalope]

I like my voice again!

#i had to stop listening to recordings of myself a couple of months ago for dysphoria reasons #but i really wanted to get some dialogue right for a hackmaster comic i'm working on and i sound fine and normal to myself again #funnily enough the dialogue is about my character being offered the opportunity to cut out their tongue in exchange for a witch's boon #fine and normal stuff

[lawfulgoodness]

FREE RPG MASTERPOST (2023 Edition)

So it seems like a good time to update the list.  Recent headlines in the TTRPG community may have folks thinking about torrenting products from some heavy-handed publishers.  Since I’d have to change my Tumblr URL if I condoned that sort of behavior, how about sharing free alternatives & quick start guides for some alternatives instead.  Let me know of any other good ones I should include and I’ll update the original post with them.

FANTASY

FANTASY - OLD SCHOOL REVIVAL (OSR)

Labyrinth Lord

Swords & Wizardry

Osric

Dungeon World

FANTASY - POST-APOCALYPTIC

Earthdawn

ICON

Mutant Future (Compatible with Labyrinth Lord)

HORROR

HORROR -  ELDRITCH HORROR

Call of Cthulhu

HORROR - MODERN HORROR /  URBAN FANTASY

Witchcraft

Neverwhere

World of Darkness

HORROR - TRANSHUMANISM/CYBERPUNK

Eclipse Phase

SCIENCE FICTION

SCIENCE FICTION

Lasers & Feelings

Stars Without Number

SCIENCE FICTION - ATOMPUNK

Lady Blackbird

GIANT ROBOTS / MECHS

Lancer

OTHER

SCIENCE FICTION / FANTASY MASHUP

Shadowrun (Fantasy / Cyberpunk)

Rogue Trader (Warhamer 40K setting)

SETTING-AGNOSTIC

GURPS

Savage Worlds

FATE

SUPERHEROES

Four Color System

Mutants & Masterminds

Prowlers and Paragons

MISCELANEOUS ABSURDITY

HackMaster

#RPGs #dnd #ogl #TTRPGs #lawfulgoods

[thydungeongal]

I think I may have enough time in my calendar to consider running Rolemaster. Here are a few ideas I have:

Gonna run Classic. It's the simplest version and it's already a complete game; no need to wait for Creature Law like with unified.

Might use some of the optional rules backported into Classic from some of the Companions. Actually, might use some of the optional rules from the companions regardless. I love that there's a second-based combat system like in Hackmaster.

Not gonna use an official setting but instead something of my own creation. Working inside out: sketch a small region of the world and fill in the greater context of the world as needed. Something that can accommodate everything from Rolemaster mechanically but possibly with some things being reflavored.

To account for the fact that I don't want to make coordinating schedules too difficult I will probably run this using an open table format: I will run games intermittently (aiming at around once a month) and whoever can make it can come and play. I work a nine to five job so games will take place on weekends (probably Saturdays, starting no earlier than noon and going no later than 10 PM my time which is UTC+3 at the moment)

Also related to that open table format, I will try to prep enough content so players will have meaningful choices as to which places to explore. There'll be no grand overarching narrative as such, but a focus on exploration and adventure for its own sake.

Anyway tagging in @maniculum @hanavesinauttija @unseenphil @summoningspark because you four had at least expressed some interest uh how does that sound to you?

#rolemaster

[thestaticshow]

deltarune Recreated fanart

Alts

Fanart made by @existingkirb

Its fanart of DRR chapter 1s secret boss collector. And chapter 2s secret boss. hackmaster. comment what you think of it.

#deltarune #deltarune au #deltarune concept #deltarune fangame #deltarune fan character #deltarune oc #deltarunerecreated #deltarune secret boss #deltarune chapter 2 #deltarune chapter 1 #deltarune fanart #deltarune art

[thecreaturecodex]

Creature Codex 2022 Survey Results!

So the turnout for the survey was great! 136 responses on the Google form, but a few people sending asks. I’m not going to post all of it, but I would like to go over some highlights.

Also, to reassure folks: this was not intended as a lead in to major changes on the Codex. I’m still going to be writing monsters for PF1e, and the basic format isn’t going to change. But I wanted to see what folks were interested in.

I was honestly surprised by this result--I was under the impression that the art was a bigger draw to when and why people liked or reblogged my entries. But it’s the smallest result! Flavor text and background info are about evenly matched.

A lot of people had write ins for what RPGs they had played, and what they were currently playing. This was by design; I wanted to focus my options on D&D and Pathfinder variations, because there’s hundreds of different RPGs out there, and this is a Pathfinder 1e blog. There was a huge diversity of games represented, including some I’ve never heard of (Genesys, Lancer), games I didn’t know people still played (Mongoose Traveler, AD&D 2e and D&D 4e), and some games I had forgotten existed (Maid RPG). Notably, the most common game still being played was Pathfinder 1e, with 58 of 133 responses confirming. Followed by D&D 5e, with 56/133. I know there’s a certain amount of self-selection here because this is a Pathfinder 1e blog, but I was pleasantly surprised to see PF1e still so popular.

Unsurprised to see a majority of my voting followers do at least some GMing. And welcome, my 10% of non-playing followers! Glad you’re enjoying yourselves.

I got a number of write-ins for themes people wanted to see me cover. More people voted on what they liked than what they didn’t, and even for things that got a decent number of Do Not Want (Hackmaster and Starfinder were the top two there), there were more people who voted for them. I’ve recently done Hackmaster and Starfinder blocks, so I’m happy to leave them alone for a while.

Now, let’s look at creature types:

You guys like them weird! Aberrations are the clear winner here at 60%, but outsiders (52%) and magical beasts (43%) are no slouches either.

Not a good day to be an ooze or a vermin, it seems. Those types do have some limitations based on the PF1e rules set, so that makes a certain amount of sense. And tells me that an ooze or vermin theme block would not be a big hit. Which is useful information!

Again, useful information. I haven’t posted any playable races in a while, but have a prospect or two in mind. 

The overwhelming enjoyment of historical context is why I reblogged that tarasque folk art post. If you’re looking for book reviews, I’ve been posting those to my “main” blog that has far fewer followers, @demiurge1138. 

This post is probably long enough, but I do want to respond to some of the individual comments. In the interests of not completely destroying your dashboards, I’m gonna put my thoughts under the cut.

All of the comments I got were very nice! Thank you all so much!

Some to respond to:

i literally adore Creature Codex and i think you are perfect, i enjoy any content you feel like sharing and also i would kill a man to be able have a chance to play a tabletop rpg with you. :)

That's very flattering! And slightly intimidating!

Ran the spiral centurion for my party a couple of weeks back; it was well received, and they almost-but-not-quite figured they could just shove the thing over. There's a good chance they'll run into a blue slime next session.

I love this blog! It's very helpful. Right now, my players are interacting with Howler Wasps. They haven't gotten to the nest yet, but one player skinned one and made an outfit out of it. This weekend, they traded that outfit for future "favors". None of that would have happened without you.

I love your stuff! You've turned me on to a bunch of golarion lore, like mahadatari (technically starfinder but hush), the daemons, and qlippoth! I don't engage with your stuff as much as I should (in the social media sense), but I adore the blog in general. I'll fully out myself and say I'm monsterceiling! I actually took some of your advice to make a mahadatari build for Iron gods. She was a magus kasatha, but she died at the end of book one and came back as a duskwalker. I rebuilt her as a phantom blade/brawler with the (minor spoilers) juju zombie kasatha under torch as her phantom. She's currently spreading the gospel of Talavet across numeria!

I love hearing stories about how people are using my monsters at the table! I’d be happy to get those anytime.

I personally find Pathfinder too complicated; I enjoy CreatureCodex as a way to better understand the game without playing it and to see monsters from folklore I've not heard of before (and see new interpretations of ones I have!)

I enjoy all of your work with the Creature Codex, and it makes me want to try the Pathfinder system. I love the care and attention to detail that goes into each entry!

I’m glad I can help make the Pathfinder system somewhat more navigable. 

 I'm tempted to do something like the creature codex, but for Starfinder conversions. Any advice?

Develop a schedule. It doesn’t have to be near daily like my blog (for your sanity, it probably shouldn't be), but having a plan in mind for when to post definitely helps me manage workload. If you’re using tumblr, make use of the queue function; it’s one of the most helpful features of the site. And manage your expectations about engagement. Obviously, engagement helps me feel motivated and makes me feel good, but it takes a long time to get going, and the current culture of the internet makes it less common than it was even ~5 years ago (like when I started). 

I am curious to know why you write "mind-influencing effect" instead of "mind-affecting effect". Just a pet peeve of mine. I really like your work and I want to thank you for it.

It’s a 3.5ism. I feel like “mind-affecting effect” is a clunky bit of English. There’s some other formatting quirks I do that differ from Paizo’s official stat format; I put the Perception score alphabetically among the Senses instead of separating it out from darkvision, low light, etc. And I put Defensive Abilities in their own line instead of mixing them with DR, Immune, Resist and SR. 

Keep up the good work! I enjoy your blog immensely. End of the World week, in particular, was a favorite series of mine.

Thanks, but that wasn’t me. That was @monstersdownthepath​ who did End of the World Week. I have converted a bunch of those monsters, though. Check the “elder evils” tag. 

I do not play pathfinder myself, but have you considered creating a tag for Slaad Lords, Asura Rana, Empyreal Lords, etc (I think the term for them is demigods)? A player who wants to make a cleric of one of your monsters would have an easier time looking through the database if you marked which pages would be relevant for that.

That is an excellent idea. I haven’t gone back through my old posts and added “demigod” as a tag, but I will do so in the Not Too Distant Future. Thanks!

#long post #creature codex #poll #housekeeping #feedback #thank you

[jackalopearts]

“Listen I joined after the group was named so I’m not entirely sure what the acronym is but I’m pretty sure the I.M stands for incorporated murderers”

#hackmaster #these guys are here for a good time not a long time #also the time is not particularly good

[ask-de-writer]

About WIND MEETS THE ROM :

Part 4 of 27 and FIENDSHIP IS

MAGIC : Part 36 :

Age restricted 18+

@mordenheim who READ, LIKED,

and REBLOGGED both

WIND MEETS THE ROM : Part 4 of 27 :

and

FIENDSHIP IS MAGIC : Part 36 of ? :

Age restricted 18+ to

@nevermord who noted about WMtR :

Bag/Caraven of holding. I love Hackmaster's take on this type of thing. Type A is a basic bag of holding, turn it upside down, everything falls out, limited space within. Type B, however is more interesting. Turned upside down, nothing falls out and space is pretty much limitless because the "bag" is actually a portal to "Bag Wurld" (their spelling, not mine). A dimension where all of these bags open into. The opening "portals" and their stashes might be feet or fathoms apart in this dimension, but it can be quite interesting for thieves who know their way around.

Wind's bag won't lose things if upside down but the spell always has what you are looking for close to hand. It can in certain instances be a small portal to something that was not actually put into it.

Marchhares's caravan is a whole different thing. It is a nexus of the ENTIRE MULTIVERSE. With it, it is possible to go to anyplace at all, if you know how to use it. It has certain safeties built into it but even so, it can lead to some amazingly dangerous places.

About FIM he had this to observe :

Everyone seems to underestimate just how dangerous a pony like Pinkie could be. Open, happy, unassuming Pinkie who knows and is friends with practically everyone from the little filly on the street corner, to the princesses in charge of the entire kingdom, and even neighboring kingdoms. Plus, she remembers EVERYTHING. A very dangerous mare, indeed. :)

Oh, you noticed that did you? That is all needful to her being able to be the Element of Laughter and throw the perfect parties for every pony or other that can be helped by one.

That is not to say that under the right circumstances, she just might be one of the most dangerous ponies about, if she should twist her mind that way.

#@mordenheim #@nevermord #WIND MEETS THE ROM #Part 4 of 27 #FIENDSHIP IS MAGIC #Part 36 of ? #Age restricted 18+ #WORK IN PROGRESS #MLP Fan Fiction #Written by De Writer

[prince-atom]

[libraryogre]

2022 was not my year for writing. In addition to a 4 month writer's block, preceded by 4 months of faking it, I also had the art on a book, and its sequel, fall through, killing two projects that were almost completely done, and I just found out there was an official version of something I'd expanded published.

I've finished 4 books in the last 4 years, and fuck-all this year.

#ttrpg #writing #writblr #hackmaster #savage worlds #savage rifts

[warduke]

I started playing tabletop games as a kindergardener. I rolled up two fighters in Dnd 4th ed with my dad and played them through many many adventures. Over my elementary years I played with friends and cousins, always with my dad dming. Eventually we switched to pathfinder from 4th ed. But also threw in a few sessions of weird stuff like Universe (a pre-Traveller sci fi game).

At school I began running games for my friends ast the same time I was playing at home. These started as "flippy games" where the only mechanic would be flipping a flat woodchip to see which side it landed on (one had been marked black by scraping it on the blacktop). These games were any genre. The first was a fantasy world of anthro animals. Then a setting we based off of a Gamma World choose your own adventure book, (before knowing what Gamma World was). But we did wild west, pirates, space, and classic fantasy. Eventually we started to use dice and a copy of Hackmaster to play loose fantasy games with. These were really really fun. Dice would chip from being rolled on the asphalt, and we actually put together a small collection of models and handmade accessories for minis.

I was lucky enough to get to go to Gen Con fairly regularly as a kid. And in 6th grade I visited the Goodgame Games table and found Dungeon Crawl Classics. It started my interest in osr games and defined the type of things I like in a game I'm running. My friends and I played it alone thru middle and highschool, mixed in with horror one shots and brief 5th ed campaigns my dad would run.

Freshman year of highschool I joined a game my dad was starting for his friends. It was the fantasy flight star wars rpg with the weird dice. IT WAS FUN AS FUCK. but the system definitely strained and the dice were burdensome and not fun after the first year of playing it. But that campaign when thru almost all of highschool. Then we started an Aces and Eights western game that went for two years too. That was also pretty fun. They're some of the best shooting mechanics I've read, but the only ones I've actually played. They're really crunchy and slow. So the gimic of the shot clock is tedious for a whole campaign.

Now, 5th ed is the only thing I'm "playing" because for two years I've been in a curse of strahd campaign my dad runs for his friends over zoom. But I arrive pretty inconsistently. The only thing I've had time to run in the last year was a one-shot of Dread, which was sick as fuck. Throughout all of my life I've read more games then I've ever gotten to play, and mainly osr stuff.

My 2.5 years at college have trapped me in a state of coming up with games I can't run. I have a retrofuture spy game I've been thinking about. A whole dcc world I can't use. And a loose fascination with the idea of a game with a hundred or more classes. I've spent most of my time designing a half-baked wargame that would have role-playing elements and need to be played over years through a message forum. When I'm finally done with it it will probably not even be playtest-able.

Currently I'm reading the Chained Coffin boxset from 2014 goodgame games, and the latest Runequest core book. This latter one was chosen because i really wanna find fantasy rpgs that focus on social caste and the responsibilities that characters have to the rest of their society

#this whole post was reallt about the last paragraph but then i gave wayy too much background