# The Spellslinger's Guide to Wurld Domination



## Messageboard Golem (Jan 1, 2002)

This is it! The HackMaster complete guide to magic-users for BOTH players AND GameMasters! This thoroughly researched and finely crafted tome includes everything you ever wanted to know about the masters of this craft. Included are details concerning the eight magic specialists, over a dozen specialist sub-classes, spellware, ley lines, spell research, familiars, academies, magical organizations, background packs, careers, new spells (yes, including the woeful spells) and much, much more than you can shake a wand at! Whether you progress to be the greatest spellslinger, or need to need to gird yourself for battle with such a power-wielder, this is the book for you!


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## baakyocalder (Dec 3, 2002)

The Hackmaster RPG provides a new type of classbook for high fantasy games.

This new look is illustrated in the first of four classbooks, _ The Spellslinger's Guide To Wurld Domination: Crushing Empires for Fun and Profit.

Released in October 2002, the Spellslinger's Guide to Wurld Domination dramatically enhances the abilities, backgrounds, and lives of magic-user class player characters and NPCs in the Hackmaster game and provides ideas suitable for use in your d20 game as well.

This 144-page softcover book has seven chapters and three appendices and retails for $19.99, if your retailer still has a copy.  The first printing has already sold out.

Chapter 1, Specialization, provides an excellent discussion of the types of specialist.  It uses a medical school analogy to explain the differences between generalists, standard specialists, double specialists, sole practioners, holistic practioners, and unorthodox practioners.    Generalists are like family practice M.D.'s, specialists are like podiatrists, double specialists are like the brain researcher, and sole practioners are like surgical cardiologists.  Holistic practiners acheive the same effect with a different method and unorthdox practioners are like faith healers, doing stuff that the normal mages don't get (p.6-7).  Spell acquistion tables and details on specializing in each school of magic are also provided.

Chapter 2, Sole Practioners, discusses the magic-users who focus only on one type of effect within a specialist.  For example, a good NPC class, the Sniper, studies Invocation with the intention of being a lethal Magic-Missile user and can figure out who the leader of any group is with a round of study.    Sole practioners for each college of magic are discussed and their experience tables, since Hackmaster uses different experience tables for each class, appear in that section.

Chapter 3, Holistic practioners, brings the Elementalist from the 2nd edition AD&D  Tome of Magic  into the Hackmaster system and improves it.  Elementalists specialize in one particular element, and at the risk of spell failure, they can cast a spell from that element at 1d4 levels higher.  For example, a dwarven fire elementalist, G. Ford Pinchot, could cast a Fireball with 1d4 more levels of effectiveness.  Battlemages, arguably the best magic-user class in Hackmaster, are also considered holistic practioners.

Chapter 4, Unorthodox Practioners, adds three magic-user classes to Hackmaster.  The blood mage from the KODT comic finally graces the Hackmaster scene, and is a scary foe.  With the ability to cast Necromantic spells Woefully, that is in a way where there is now way to resist them, the Blood Mage can take down any foe.  This is counterbalanced by the fact they draw life energy from themselves and those around them and if they cast a spell Woefully they fall into a coma and risk losing Constitution permanently.  The Wild Mage from  The Tome of Magic  returns, but is given the ability to memorize more spells, just like other specialists.  The Wild Surge table has been adjusted to give more variation, as has the level variation table.  Only the Wild mage can use Wild magic spells (with some notable exceptions).  There's a kewl kritter in one of the Hacklopedias for Wild Mages to hunt that allows them to be even more chaotic.  The painted mage adds tattoo magic to Hackmaster.  Based off the idea that pixie-fairies, which have tattoos, developed a magic system based around them, painted mages tattoo themselves with arcane symbols allowing them access to a number of spells.  Since painted mage spells are near instantaneous and non-disruptable, this class is actually viable in combat against the crazy fighter-types Hackmaster players can churn out.  A side bonus is that their spells are harder to Dispel.

Chapter 5, Magic-User Character Priors, Particulars, and Options, is the meat of the book.  It adds new flaw tables to represent bad things that happened to your magic-user during training.  For example, a magic-user with a Wuss Mentor can't learn combat spells.  A magic-user with a College Rivalry has gone too far in hating another school and will NEVER use its spells.  Magic-users can also have spell allergies.  Of course, the new flaws (quirks as well for mental problems), can be avoided per Hackmaster rules by smart players.  Several optional packages are included; these resemble the AD&D kits and are rather stale.  Only one is interesting, the Militaristic Magic-User, and it is far too cheaply available for its benefits.  Another option is magic-user personalities; this basically gives you a list of magic-user archetypes in case you're stumped or just trying to get a quick NPC personality.  New skills and talents, such as Penmanship, Speed-Reading, and the heinously dangerous Fast Caster and Spell Razor enhance magic-user's usefulness to the party.  

Though the most important part of the chapter is the Priors and Particulars: Magic-User School Days.  With a bunch of dice rolls, your magic-user character's schooling history can be determined.  Did he or she attend an elite academy in the metropolis, or a down-home wizard's shack?  Was the master good at nurturing, or was the character basically a domestic servant?  How good of an educator was the instructor?  What was the size of the classes when the character went to school?  How about the character's graduation rank?  Besides studying, what did your character do in years of schooling?   The end result of the table is one very important roll, the quality of education roll; this can give your character significant bonuses or penalities and is the culmination of schooling.  Tables for Honor, starting money, and the commencement speaker also enhance the schooling experience.  This section is Hackmaster at its best, taking winks at the real world with notable collegiate events during apprenticeship such as becoming a bohemian, great internships, and the freshman 15.  Tying the nurturing of the master to their degree of specialization is also an interesting twist, since there are a number of specialized people in the real world who aren't kind to their students.  I enjoy rolling up a variety of magic-users just to see what the tables give me.

Chapter 6, Magical Academies and Organizations, describes the typical curriculum of magical academies.  It also details 13 magical organizations in Garweeze Wurld.  Some comments on post-graduate (i.e. after 1st level) associations with magic-user academies are also provided.  This is the weakest chapter, unless you happen to be a KODT fan and like details of organizations in Garweeze Wurld or are looking for how to make up a magical organization.

Chapter 7, Rules of the Road, is a very useful chapter.  It begins by discussing spell classes, such offensive, defensive, enhancement, reconnaissance, and hindering, and provides suggestions for chosing which spells to memorize.  Details on casting spells while hearing-impaired, less able to move, and finally a system for casting a Magic Missile at the darkness are provided.  Rules on ley lines, spell component substitution, and cramming also enhance the power of your magic-user.  You can also get alternate familiars with better abilities.  

The two best parts of the chapter follow: some quick rules on spell research, spell licensing, and spell cracking, and the rules on spellbook construction.  In Hackmaster, any spell with a name on it, such as Zarba's Fist of Rage, must be acquired in licensed form or it fails badly.  Thus a market for cracked license spells exists, as does a market for sharedweomer, shareware spells that raise the creator's Honor and work for a while.  Your magic-users can create their own spells, and in a nice touch of magic-user politics, all spell licenses are handled by the Church of Thrain, gawd of Wisdom, since all the magic-users don't want their enemies and their toadies to get spell license granting privileges.  Spellbook creation details how to create a spellbook and also what random spellbooks NPC mages have and what your starting mage character begins with.

Appendix A contains spells.  It is poorly edited, since many spells in the tables in chapter 1 do not appear in it.  Nonetheless, the spells are interesting and more specialized than the general Hackmaster spells.  A number of them, particularly the Vengeance spells, are incredibly nasty and powerful.  

Appendix B lists what monsters are good for using for spell components.  Given that Hackmaster spreads its monsters out over 8 Hacklopedia of Beasts volumes, this table is great for your magic-user as he searches for that component for his web spell, or as she looks for a component that would make her Fireball more lethal.

Appendix C is a spell planner so you can wisely chose your magic-user spells and quickly determine their range, casting time, magical college, and duration.  Unfortunately, it has some of the editing errors that plague Appendix A.

Between the last page and the inside back cover is a sheet of coupons.  My copy is sheet #4 of 4.  These coupons, like other Hackmaster coupons, have game effects.  For example, my sheet of nine coupons has free spell books, free spell book cases, and a number of coupons that make the magic-user or his associates better.  They are all humorously titled, as usual for Hackmaster coupons.  For example, the coupon "Remember That Lab Accident?" gives the magic-user a fireproof spellbook cover and "Twelve Secret Herbs and Spices" grants 1d6+1 points of healing.

A table of contents and an index are very helpful, but the coupon sheet makes the index on the inside back cover difficult to find.

The Spellslinger's Guide has little artwork.  It is a text-heavy book.  Nonetheless the Fraims and other artists contribute excellent pictures enhancing the appearance of magic-users, their spells, and their spellbooks.  

While there are a number of typographical and editing errors, most of them do not detract from the overall high quality of the book, which is written in a humorous manner emphasizing the power of the magic-user (as the back cover ad shows).

Overall, the Hackmaster  Spellslinger's Guide to Wurld Dominiation  is an excellent product.  Even if you aren't a fan of the Hackmaster system, the humorous discussions of magic-users, the detailed background tables, and the magical academies and specialities can enhance a fantasy game and make you think about those larger issues.

One discussion on the Hackmaster GM forum was how large the market was for licensed spells.  The attention to detail in the  Spellslinger's Guide  brings out questions like these which you can answer to develop a rich world.

I rate the book four out of five stars and urge those of you who haven't tried it to take a peek at it if your local gameshop still has one.

Andrew Wayne Franklin
HMGMA#OK-1-00193-01_


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## dcas (Apr 1, 2003)

[This review was originally published on RPG.net. I have tried to correct errors in the review, as well as make a few updates now that some errata have appeared for the book.

_The Spellslinger's Guide to Wurld Domination_ is slated for reprint by Kenzer & Co. and is due
to be released in May of this year.]

Let me begin by saying that I think HackMaster is the best role-playing game to come along for some time. I am also a certified HackMaster GM. I say this not to toot my own horn, but only to make clear where my biases lie.

I had been eagerly awaiting the _Spellslinger's Guide to Wurld Domination_ (the book is subtitled "Crushing Empires for Fun and Profit") for some time. Those of you who own the HackMaster _Player's Handbook_ (_PHB_) will remember the curious omission of the blood mage character class from its pages. Its further omission from the _Game Master's Guide_ (_GMG_) was even more disappointing. Keep in mind that I am not expressing dissatisfaction with
these products as a whole; they're packed with information and I'm guessing the blood mage was squeezed out for lack of space. Soon after the release of the _GMG_, Kenzer announced that the blood mage would be included in the forthcoming_ Spellslinger's Guide_.

If it seems to you as if I bought the _Spellslinger's Guide_ just for the blood mage, you'd be mostly right. But in addition to the blood mage character class, the Guide also includes rules for magic-user specialists -- derived from the 2nd Edition AD&D rules -- double specialists, sole
practitioners, etc. More on that below. Also included are rules on "holistic practitioners" (elementalists), "unorthodox practitioners" ("painted mages," wild mages, etc.), scores of new
spells, and new magic-user quirks, flaws, skills, and talents.

The book is divided into seven chapters and three appendices. The first four chapters deal with the new character classes (see above). The fifth chapter deals with "priors and particulars" for magic-using characters, including quirks and flaws but also information on education and apprenticeship. The last two chapters cover additional rules for magic-users, such as magical academies,
spellbooks, ley lines, familiars, and so on. The three appendices cover spells, spell components, and a spell planner, respectively. One page of player coupons -- which allow a player character to modify a certain result -- is also included. With respect to quantity, the _Spellslinger's Guide_ has
144 pages printed in a very small font (I would estimate 8 points). Contrast this with TSR's _Complete Wizard's Handbook _at 128 pages in medium font, or WotC/Hasbro's _Tome
and Blood_ at a meager 96 pages -- for about the same price! For ease of reading I will discuss each chapter in turn below. These comments will be followed by my remarks on style -- layout, design, and art.

*SPECIALISTS*
The standard specialists from 2nd Edition AD&D are all included here: abjurers, conjurers, diviners, enchanters, illusionists, invokers, necromancers, and transmuters. A welcome change from 2e is that each specialist class has its own experience table, so that a magic-user specializing in a weak school (such as Alteration) advances much more quickly than one specializing in a strong school (such as Conjuration/Summoning). In fact, conjurers advance more slowly than "generalist" magic-users.

Each school of magic has its
opposition school(s). While 2nd Edition AD&D (and, in fact, the HackMaster _PHB_) forbade specialists from learning and casting spells from their opposition schools, the _Spellslinger's__
Guide_ instead assigns them massive penalties on their "chance to learn" percentile rolls. For example, a conjurer has a –81% penalty when attempting to learn spells from the school of Invocation/Evocation. Even if he has a very high Intelligence score, such a character has almost no chance of learning spells from this school. Likewise, an illusionist has a monstrous –84% penalty
to learn spells from this school, so your 1e munchkin dream of a _Fireball_-casting illusionist most likely won't come true.

Also covered in the chapter on specialists are the *double specialists*. These characters are similar to their single-specialist colleagues but are even more limited in their choice of spells. For example, a double-specialist illusionist cannot learn Evocation spells at all. However, a double specialist is very powerful within his chosen school. A double-specialist invoker could cast a _Fireball_ spell at 3rd level of experience, because he can cast Invocation/Evocation spells
as if they were one level lower (so he would cast _Fireball_ as if it were a 2nd level spell; he can also memorize _two_ first level spells of his chosen school for each first level spell slot). Furthermore, he casts the spell as if he were one level higher than his actual level, so his _Fireball_ would do _four_ dice of damage.

All double specialists, including gnome and gnomeling illusionists, are prohibited from multi-classing.

*SOLE PRACTITIONERS*
These classes continue along the same path as the double specialist (see above). The difference is that they specialize in a _type_ of spell from a particular school, rather than the entire school itself. A shadow weaver, for example, is a type of illusionist who "creates quasi-real stuff out
of shadow." In other words, he concentrates on spells like _Shadow Magic_, _Shadow Monsters_, _Demi-shadow Monsters_, etc., and eschews the use of _Light_ spells and electrical
effects. These characters also gain some unusual abilities -- the shadow weaver can Hide in Shadows like a thief -- but they suffer from even more disadvantages than double specialists.

*HOLISTIC PRACTITIONERS*
This is a brief chapter dedicated to elementalist magic-users, those who specialize in a certain
element (air, earth, fire, or water) rather than a school of magic. I believe much of this material is cribbed from TSR's _Tome of Magic_ and the concept is not as fully developed as it could be. There
are no 'para-elementalists' or 'quasi-elementalists,' for example.

*UNORTHODOX PRACTITIONERS*
Three types of "unorthodox practitioners" are described in this chapter: the *blood mage*, *the painted mage*, and the *wild mage*.

As I noted above, the blood mage was my chief reason for buying this book. I was not disappointed. The HackMaster _PHB_ describes the blood mage briefly (p. 40): "Instead of drawing errant magical energies from without and channeling them, the blood mage derives his power and casts his spells by drawing upon the life-energies of his own body (and those around him)." The _Spellslinger's__ Guide_ runs with this description, enumerating the possible effects of a blood mage casting a spell. The blood mage's other special ability is the ability to
cast a spell *Woefully*. These spells ignore saving throws, magic resistance, etc., but the caster pays a price: he loses 1d3 points of Constitution (some or all of which may be permanent) and falls
into a coma for 36 hours.

Blood mages are specialists in Necromancy. As their spells draw on life-force for their power, there is a significant chance each time a blood mage casts a spell that he and those around him are injured. This chance increases with the power of the spell. The most devastating effect (which can be caused only by 9th-level spells) is that the blood mage and all living matter within 10d12 feet lose _all_ life force. Fortunately the chance of this happening is very small.

Painted mages -- who are also specialists in Necromancy -- are magic-users who have developed a refined form of pixie-fairy tattoo magic (see the _PHB_ for more details). Alone among
all the classes described in the _Spellslinger's Guide_, painted mages cannot spell-jack (that is, memorize more spells than normal at a risk of having a spell mishap).

The distinction of the painted mage is that his spells are tattooed on his own skin in the form of sigils. Instead of memorizing a spell, the painted mage "activates" one of his sigils. Eventually the mage's entire body will be covered with tattoos, and the _Spellslinger's Guide_ notes that only members of huge races or very fat people can ultimately become successful high-level painted
mages. Unfortunately, the image created in my mind while reading the description of this class is that of Hennett, the leather-fetishist Sorcerer from the d20 _Player's Handbook_. Not pretty,
and it might be enough for me to restrict this class in my own campaign.

The final unorthodox practitioner to be described is the wild mage. As with the section on holistic
practitioners, most of this information is taken directly from the _Tome of Magic_, though the wild mage Level Variation Table goes to greater extremes. A 20th-level wild mage's casting level can vary as much as _eight_ levels in either direction.

*MAGIC-USER PRIORS AND PARTICULARS*
Most of the fifth chapter is taken up by new features that fit in with HackMaster's underlying framework -- quirks, flaws, skills, and talents. The real value of this chapter, in my opinion, is the new (for HackMaster, anyway) concept of _packages_. Taking a cue from 2nd Edition AD&D's "kits," the folks at Kenzer & Co. have developed a number of packages for magic-using characters that can speed character creation. Where these packages differ from those detailed in 2e is that they are not created equal -- each has an associated Building Point cost, varying from as low as six to as high as 22 -- and they are more flexible than their 2e counterparts.

The other "new" feature presented in this chapter is the list of "personality types" for magic-users. Frankly, HackMaster's character creation process already goes along way toward helping a player develop his character's personality, so the value of this section is dubious.

*MAGICAL ACADEMIES AND ORGANIZATIONS*
I am truthfully not at all prepared to comment on this chapter because the subject has not come up in my own campaign. In addition, HackMaster GMs who do not set their campaigns in Garweeze
Wurld (I know of a few who have set their campaigns in the Kingdoms of Kalamar, for example) will probably not find this material all that vital.

*RULES OF THE ROAD*
The seventh chapter illustrates the "rules of the road." Here we see information on "Magic-users
and Hack" -- "hack" meaning combat -- ley lines, "alternate" familiar rules, spell copyrights, and spellbooks. Some of these rules are welcome additions -- the long list of possible familiars
comes to mind, as does the discussion of the magic-user's "arsenal" of offensive and defensive spells -- while others are amusing but perhaps unnecessarily complicated -- for example, the rules on spell copyrighting (i.e., if you want to copy the spell _Drayton's Hidden Stash_ into your 
spellbook, you must pay a licensing fee to Drayton or his estate. Huh?).

The rules on spellbooks are interesting but cumbersome. Personally, I recommend instead the spellbook rules from _Unearthed Arcana_ (pp. 79-80).

*THE APPENDICES*
Appendix A gives descriptions of over 200 new spells, while Appendix B lists all of the monsters from the 8-volume _Hacklopedia of Beasts_ that can be used (whole or in part) as spell components. Appendix C is a spell planner listing all of the magic-user spells from the _Player's Handbook_ in addition to those found in the _Spellslinger's Guide_.

By my count are well over 200 spells described in Appendix A -- 235 to be exact. Admittedly, some of these are simply spells normally available to clerics or druids and listed in the _Player's Handbook_, while others are spells that Kenzer & Co. probably forgot to include in the _PHB_.
In any case, there is a huge amount of new spells, some of which are silly but most of which are useful and creative. There are 24 (!) new "power word" spells, along with new restrictions on their casting -- a caster of 6th level or below who attempts one of these spells must make an Intelligence check or suffer a spell mishap.

Also interesting is the Vengeance class of spells. There are two of these of each level, 18 in all,
from the 1st-level _Blood Missile_ to the devastating 9th-level _Blood Curse_. They are the sole province of the blood mage, just as Wild Magic spells are the sole province of the wild mage.

Taking a cue from the d20 _Player's Handbook_, the list of spells is in alphabetical order rather than level order. (Why not? Even I'm prepared to admit that some good ideas went into the creation of 3e.)

*LAYOUT, DESIGN, AND ART*
As with all of the HackMaster books so far published, layout leaves little to be desired. Tables are prominent and easy to read, as HackMaster follows the old AD&D convention of using alternating colors for tables (which 3e so regrettably abandoned).

Art is copious and for the most part well-distributed and relevant to the text. My only complaint is that some of the art -- especially that of HackMaster standbys Brendon and Brian Fraim -- seems to have been scanned in at low resolution, and appears pixelated and blurry in parts (see p. 11 for a particularly egregious example). I expect to see this sort of thing in the HackJournal, but a production-quality work ought to have higher standards.

All in all, the _Spellslinger's__ Guide to Wurld Domination_ is a very solid product that should not be overlooked by aficionados of HackMaster and AD&D. The writers at Kenzer & Co. have demonstrated once again their exceptional ability to push an already-great system to its limits.


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