Reach and Closed Spaces

    There are no penalties on fighting in a small space with a large weapon, I've decided to remedy that.

    When engaged with an opponent, you take up roughly 5 sq ft of space on the board. This is to represent the back and forth and moving to or fro of combat.
    Even when you have a pole-arm and a sword fighter has closed in on you, you don't fight with penalties because you have space to move around, however that is not always the case. It's only when you get backed into a wall that things start to become a problem.

    For example: these two fighters are battling out in the alley behind the tavern because the sword fighter (blue) insulted the pole-arm fighter's (red) girlfriend. Blue is using a long sword (3 1/2 foot reach) while Red is Halberd (7 foot reach).
    While there is a lot of debris in the alley, they still both have enough space to maneuver their weapons so even though Blue's token is touching Red's, Red fighter without a penalty as he's choked up on his weapon and has enough enough space behind him to work with.

     However, if you are pushed up against a wall or another person fighting or really anything that keeps you from having the space you need to fight, problems start to arise for the bigger weapons. If your character is against some behind them then they get a penalty to their attack, defense, speed, and damage equal to how many feet over 5 ft their weapon is.

     Continued example: Red and Blue continue to exchange blows. Realizing that the cramped conditions could give him an advantage, Blue bull-rushes Red, succeeding in diving him back against the wall.
     Now that his back is blocked, Red is less able to move his Halberd about to attack or defend and takes a penalty of 2 to his Attack, Defense, Speed, and Damage because his base reach is 7.

     Being pushing into a corner is bad for everybody, not just weapons with longer reach. When up against a wall, the situation can turn dire even for the smallest weapon.
     Should your opponent score a knock-back on you while your back is against a wall, then you automatically take 2(d4p-2) +1 for every point of damage over what was needed to knock you back originally -1 for every foot traveled to get there, as your character is slammed against the wall. You can make a Feat of Agility to half that damage by half the amount of damage you initially took is added to the opposed roll, so the harder you were knocked back, the less likely you are to avoid the damage.

     As you recover, your attacker can then press forward, further pushing you against the wall. He halves whatever remaining fighting space you have (rounded up). So, the first time he limits your fighting space to 3 feet, then to 2, then to 1.
    Not that this is without cost for him, as it limits his fighting space by the same amount as well as he has to get in close and personal to force his advantage.

    Continued Example: Red knows that he's in trouble unless he turns the tables soon so he begins to Attack Aggressively. Blue, knowing how badly a Halberd can if it strikes true, decides to give him the ground and begins to shuffle back.
    Spurned on by the move, Red closes the gap and swings, scoring a double knock back and sending him against the alley. He drops his dagger and charges Blue.

     The charge is successful. Red is a pretty swole dude and even with the dagger, he does 9 damage, which because he charged, counts at 18 damage for the purposes of knock backs, throwing Blue into the wall behind him.
      Blue then makes a FoA vs d20p+9 because even though the dagger technically only did 9 damage, it was still counted as 18 for the purposes of knocking him back.
      Blue makes it and takes half of 2(d4p-2)+3. Still, he was thrown back into the wall and Red moves up with his dagger.
   

      Now both fighters are fighting in a smaller space. Blue is finding it a tad bit difficult to maneuver his long sword in the cramped conditions, but he's doing alright for himself only taking a penalty of 1 to his Attack, Defense, Speed, and Damage, while Red is having no trouble in the these conditions to wield his dagger.
     The battle continues with neither side gaining or losing ground until Red, spurred on by his fury at Blue's insult, does a particularly powerful blow with his dagger, knocking Blue back further and limiting him to 2 feet of fighting space.
     Because the Longsword's reach is 3 1/2 feet it gets a penalty of 2 to Attack, Defense, Speed, and Damage, really putting a damper on Blue's ability to pull out a win.

     If the tables had been turned and Red was still fighting with his Halberd in 2 feet of space then he'd be fighting at a penalty of 5 to Attack, Defense, Speed, and Damage but since he's using a dagger he's breathing easy.

     Red delivers the final blow, gutting Blue and letting his body slide down the wall. He wipes his blade on Blue's tunic, retrieves his Halberd and disappears into the night mist. To be fair to Blue, Red's girlfriend is pretty ugly.

Clerical Sects: An Example

     In reality, no god in our world has ever been a cut and dry figure. Even the most peaceful ways of thought have lead to blood conflicts in that god's name. In this way, clerics and priest of the same god have been able to take different sides of multiple issues, allowing for a deep conflict within the faith on some very fundamental levels.

     In order to reflect this I've stripped the alignments from the deities in my campaign and given them rough spheres of power. Usually, each gawd will have two: one that represents the good things about the gawd, and one that represents its wrath, allowing the gawd to use a carrot-and-stick method with its followers and heretics.
     For example: the healing badger, Mortitagus, primarily the gawd of healing and nature. His spheres include anything to do with those two things, including plagues, which he sends when he feels his Houses of Healing are not being frequented enough. This has lead to a more radical faction within his faith that jumps people in the streets, beats them to an inch of their life, and then takes them to get healed by their priest. Their thought is that beating up a few people in the street is worth not having a terrible plague ripe through the land so therefore it's an act of mercy.

    This conflicts somewhat with the Hackmaster system, which uses the Kingdoms of Kalamar pantheon on its basis for clerics. There is an easy fix to this.
    Each different cleric represents a way to worship your gawd of choice. The best way to show this is an example I feel.

    The Andalish gawdess the Morrigan has three major spheres: Sovereignty, Death, and Honorable Warfare.

    A player wanting to focus on the Morrigan's power over Sovereigns may choose the Courts of Justice, changing (with the permission of myself) his ornate god armor in constantly buying new crow-feather cloaks or ceremonial swords.
   Additionally, a different player may also want to focus on sovereignty, but not having a cleric of noble birth, he decides that instead, he'll focus on being a councilor to a ruler. He needs to be as wise as possible and to have a variety of skills that will benefit his king, so he picks the Order of Thought.

   Both players worship the same gawdess and are part of the same faith, both even revere the same power, but both approach their faith differently. One is LG and the other is LN.

   While some churches may make more sense and are easier to fit to a particular gawd and gawdess but it's only limited by your imagination on the matter and what you can make sense of theologically.
   You can also, with permission make minor changes to the church to make it fit better fluff-wise. Like having a cleric of Mortitagus using the Church of Everlasting Hope use a mace instead of staff as his preferred weapon, but only allowing him to casting his heal spells by bludgeoning his victims patients.

   Continuing on with the example:
   Another player wants to focus on the Morrigan's death aspect. She picks a cleric from the Congregation of the Dead, which is NE in alignment. She see's the gawdess role as a necessary one and that dead should be a glorify part of life. She could do that but she could also pick the Cathedral of Light, which is LG, and still focus on the Death aspect.

   Now remember that alignment is a meta-game concept. Even if she were to go NE, that would mean that she couldn't travel with a paladin of the Morrigan, or be shunned from society. Remember, at the end of the day, she still is a representative of her gawdess and deserves respect. Of course, she may have some theological disagreements with a Crow that uses the Cathedral of Light but that wouldn't always mean that they'd come to blows over it.
   That also wouldn't mean that they wouldn't come to blows (after all, the Catholics and Protestants burned each other at the stake). It would simply be on a case by case basis.

Changes to Weapons: THE MASTER LIST

Because it's just easier to have all the changes to weapons in one place, I'm creating a master list of the modifications to the Hackmaster weapon list:

Hand Axe/Throwing Axe
      Hand axes and throwing axes are now considered the same weapons. You'll need to purchases the throwing axe proficiency but any Specializations or Talents apply to both, though you don't gain any bonus damage from them while throwing, even at a jog or run.
      You can switch between either at anytime you are in combat, but remember that if you already have them out it still takes 5 seconds to aim before throwing.

Battle Axe
      This is a two handed weapon but doesn't suffer the penalty to speed or the bonus damage. It can be paired with a buckler but attacking Aggressively negates the shield bonus.

Knife/Throwing Knife
      Knives and throwing knives are now considered the same weapons. You'll need to purchases the throwing axe proficiency but any Specializations or Talents apply to both, though you don't gain any bonus damage from them while throwing, even at a jog or run.
      You can switch between either at anytime you are in combat, but remember that if you already have them out it still takes 5 seconds to aim before throwing.

Flails
      You roll a d20p-4 when defending against a flail, even if you're using a shield. Regular flails now also come in an additional variety:
      Peasant flail: +2 to reach, it requires two hands giving it a +3 to damage and +2 to speed.
   
Military Pick/Warhammer
      The Military pick and the warhammer are the same weapon, it just comes down to what side of the head you are using. Any Specializations or Talents apply to both. It takes 2 seconds to switch sides.

Scourge
       The scourge is particularly effective at triggering ToP saves. Any damage done with the scourge counts as double when considering whether it triggers a ToP, however, if it only triggers one because of this fact, the defender tries to get under his full Con score, instead of the standard half.
       This ability to negated by armor.

Two-Handed Sword
       Arguably the worst weapon, the two handed sword now has one thing in it's favor.
       The two handed sword now has a jab attack with a speed 12 and damage of a d12.

Warhammer/Military Pick
      The Military pick and the warhammer are the same weapon, it just comes down to what side of the head you are using. Any Specializations or Talents apply to both. It takes 2 seconds to switch sides.

Throwing Axe/Hand Axe
      Hand axes and throwing axes are now considered the same weapons. You'll need to purchases the throwing axe proficiency but any Specializations or Talents apply to both, though you don't gain any bonus damage from them while throwing, even at a jog or run.
      You can switch between either at anytime you are in combat, but remember that if you already have them out it still takes 5 seconds to aim before throwing.

Throwing Knife/Knife
      Knives and throwing knives are now considered the same weapons. You'll need to purchases the throwing axe proficiency but any Specializations or Talents apply to both, though you don't gain any bonus damage from them while throwing, even at a jog or run.
      You can switch between either at anytime you are in combat, but remember that if you already have them out it still takes 5 seconds to aim before throwing.

Glaive
      Glaives have 1 less damage die and get a +1 to their speed.

Near Perfect Attacks

While Near Perfect Defenses get all the glory, with their free unarmed attacks with awesome damage, the Near Perfect Attacks get a measly +1 to damage, which in my opinion, is slow low that it's almost worth just dropping it entirely.

It further pales in comparison when considering that the NPD gets 2(d4p-2), or if your a thief, full dagger damage. This shouldn't be.

When scoring a natural 19 on an attack, the attacker gets a Near Perfect Attack, and, should he hit, he adds an extra 1d4p to his damage.

This 1d4p has auxiliary effects like a penetration.

It doesn't receive its own attack roll like a NPD to speed up combat.

Example: Brian is using a longsword while fighting a goblin. During the exchange he rolls a NPA and totals 24 as his attack roll, while the goblin rolls a 13.

Because he hit he then rolls damage. He rolls his normal 2d8p + 1d4p + 2 for damage. 2d8p from base damage, 1d4p from NPA, and a +2 because there was a difference of 10 between attack and defense. He has no modifiers from strength, specializations, or talents.

He rolls a 7 on the d8s, a 2 on his d4, which gives him a total of 11 points of damage, 4 of which were considered penetration, giving the goblin a -2 to Str and forcing it to make a Str check or drop its weapon.

Attacks and Damage

In real life, the more precises your strikes, the more damage you do. In the base game how well you attack has no reflection on your damage. So to increase the verisimilitude I'm adding a new rule:

For every 5 full points on your attack roll over your opponent's defense, you get a +1 to damage.

So if you roll a 15, while your opponent rolls a 3, you get a +2 to damage. This is in addition to any other effects from fumbles, crits, or so on.

On top of this, if there is a penetration, this bonus damage is added that when considering auxiliary effects.

I feel like it shouldn't need to be said but to cover my bases: enemies also gain this bonus.

Weapons: Knife

     You're probably wondering what's the point of having a knife and a dagger, especially when the dagger is superior to the knife in every way.
     That's because they're different. Where your common dagger was built and refined specifically to shiv people in dark alleys for war, the knife is your common kitchen utensils used to cut meat. It's not made to puncture armor or parry other weapons.

     Why then would they include an otherwise useless weapon when there are clear choices? Because when the cook is sick of your crap, he's going to grab the nearest object and attack you with it and in all likelihood, it wouldn't be a sword or dagger, it'll be his kitchen knife.

     Knifes are pretty much universal.

Weapons: Flail

     The flail is a surprisingly brutal weapon that evolved from an agricultural tool of the same name. While it's use was never truly wide spread like other more iconic weapons, it did seem popular use in a number of peasant rebels through the ages.

     The flail itself comes in two varieties, a longer two handed version and a shorter one handed version that was developed later to be used on horse back. Both consist of a weighted end attached to a handle. Variations within that are based on whether it was a converted tool or actually forged as a weapon. Often times the weighted end would include nasty spikes and the leather that connected it to the shaft would be replaced by a chain.

     The weapon's really advantage was it's ability to get around or entirely ignore the opponent's shield. When fighting an enemy who is using a flail you loose any bonuses you would get from your shield and you defend with a d20p.

     Hirudeans make extensive use of the flail in combat to break up shield formations and the flail in Hackmaster is closer to their flail then it is to a real world one. The main difference is that they've further modified it to have a shorter shaft that still gives them the benefit of reach while still allowing them to use it one handed.
     Because of landscape, Hirudean cavalry are almost none existent, as such the horsemen's flail is not available to them.

     In the Free Cities flails are used by freed Sashai auxiliary units as cheap ways of equipping an army. The Hexen flail is closer to the tool having a longer reach (+2 to reach) and requiring two hands (+3 damage but there is a penalty to speed). It's also less effective in narrow spaces as it doesn't work like a normal pole-arm and needs to be swung either up and down or left and right to be able to used effectively. It doesn't see much use because of these limiting factors.
    The rest of the Free Companies see flails as a peasant weapon and so it has not been widely adopted by for their horsemen though it's not unheard of. Horsemen's flails cost double for Hexens.

    Raiders don't use the base flail as most everyone has a better weapon. When it is used it has the same statistics as the Hexen flailp. They also have little to know cavalry force so the horsemen's flail is unheard of. Both cost double it purchased.

     While Andals don't field infantry that are trained with the flail, many conscripted levies quickly outfit themselves with things laying around the farm and so the flail is the unsung weapon of choice for many Andals going off to war. The Andalish flail is has the same penalties and bonuses as the Hexen flail.
     Andals from the low countries have embraced the horsemen's flail for it's unique properties and ability to break shield formations and it is considered one of the weapons knights are allowed to train in.