Great Review. I like to see reviews by people who actually try the game out. HMB is one of those games in which you really can’t fully appreciate the rules without playing it. In play, you get to see how all the concepts work, it’s more than just adding mechanics, they all just mesh so well.

And yep, I agree with those who say the Shot Clock didn’t need to be in HMB or AHM(Advanced HackMaster).

The defensive roles are also really nice. It adds a lot more variability to combat. Also, it was touched on but the “perfect defense” and “near perfect defense” are also quite fun. That’s when you roll a natural 20 or 19 on your defense… if you succesfully defend, then you get a counter attack (on perfect defense) or an unarmed strike on near perfect. Also, if you roll a 1 on defense or attack, your opponent could get a free attack on you. We’ve had some pretty interesting battles where the tied turned quickly due to a defenders roll…

I wish there were a better way of handling it; that initiative system would great for the giant robot combat system I’m developing, but I think I’d rather avoid the wheel. Hmmm.

The way they did it was to have a segmented wheel and a counter for each combatant and one that showed where the “current” initiative was. Each segment of the wheel was one combat second, and each second you moved the “current” counter ahead a segment. If there were other counters on that segment, those combatants got to act. When you acted, you moved your counter forward the correct number of seconds. (If you took an action that took 10 seconds, your counter moved ahead 10 spaces. If you took an action that took 3 seconds, you moved ahead 3 spaces.) The only hairy part is making sure your wheel has enough segments that combatants can never confuse everything by taking massively long actions and “lapping” the current initiative counter. My guess is that for the most part, actions would fall within a certain maximum time, and actions like ritual casting that could take longer could be noted by a number of chips under them to be removed each pass or something similar.

You start at the 1st second of combat and continue to go up 1 second at a time. I will give an example of mid-combat, as the opening of combat is not quite as interesting:

Count: 15
Orc 1: Moves 5ft towards Fighter
Orc 2: Moves 5ft towards Cleric
Fighter: Attacks with sword. (Now adds 10 to his count based on weapon speed. Acts next on Count 25).
Cleric: Moves 5ft towards Orc 2

Count 16:
Orc 1: Attacks Fighter with Sword (Acts Next on Count 26).
Orc 2: Attacks Cleric (Acts next on Count 26).
Fighter: cannot act (next action on 25)
Cleric: Attacks Orc 2 (Adds 8 due to weapon speed, acts next on 24).

Count 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23:
No one acts

Count 24:
Orc 1: cannot act
Orc 2: cannot act
Fighter: cannot act
Cleric: Attacks Orc 2 (goes next on 32)

Count 25:
Orc 1: cannot act
Orc 2: cannot act
Fighter: Attacks Orc 1 (goes next on 35)
Cleric: cannot act

Count 26:
Orc 1: Attacks Fighter
Orc 2: Attacks Cleric
Fighter: cannot act
Cleric: cannot act

Hopefully that makes sense. So faster weapons can actually attack again in the count, before heavier weapons, which is pretty cool.

Can you explain a bit more about how the initiative system works during combat? How do you keep track of who’s coming up next, practically speaking?

I envision a game where everyone has a separate “countdown” — player one says, “I have 10 seconds until my next turn,” player two says “I have 7 seconds,” the GM says, “I have 3 seconds,” etc., so you then fast-forward to the next available turn (in this case, 3 seconds from now), so everyone has to subtract that number of seconds (in this case, 3) from their countdown. Is that how it works?

Modifiers were pretty few. There are a few cases where you need to know what sized defensive die to use so that part was easy enough.

As for specialty rules there are a few rules that you have to use in running combat: Knock Back, Perfect and Near-Perfect defense, etc. Those are not hard but did require a little page flipping to check during combat.

There are some other offensive and defensive moves: Using Reach, Setting for a Charge, Yielding Ground, etc that you could use or not during combat. Most of my players did not used them, but I suspect in a few more combats, they would have started trying them out as well. Those required a quick review as well.

It sounds like you found combat easy enough to run the first time through [though there's a learning curve as the poor wizard found out]. Other than counting up, were there lots of modifiers or specialty rules to consult, or was combat pretty streamlined?

Personally if I were running it I’d roll at the same time, preferably playing some gun showdown music (which I have no idea what it’s called). If only for the lol factor.

I really was impressed with the combat system for HackMaster Basic. I am anxious to see how the combat rules expand in the Advanced book, because there are a few hints that additional rules are forthcoming, including Crit Tables.

On the flip side of that, a player on a bad rolling streak is going to get some extra lumps. But that is what the Dice chapter is for.

As a note, D&D 3.0 can work just like this. The Arcana Unearthed, shows you that the formula for AC 10 + modifiers, is a Take 10 on a defensive roll. So for 3.x players out there that want to try Defensive rolls, almost no changes to your game are necessary.