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Hammerfast: A Dwarven Outpost Adventure Site (4th Edition D&D) |  | Author: Mike Mearls
Brand: Wizards of the Coast
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $8.49
as of 7/31/2010 12:58 CDT details
You Save: $6.46 (43%)
New (31) Used (6) from $8.49
Seller: pbshopus
Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 78772
Media: Paperback
Pages: 32
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 10.6 x 8.2 x 0.3
MPN: 25519
ISBN: 0786955341
Dewey Decimal Number: 793
EAN: 9780786955343
ASIN: 0786955341
Publication Date: March 16, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
WOC25519 Hammerfast Adventure - 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons RPG by Wizards of the Coast
Need an exciting adventure location for your heroes to explore? Look no further.
Hammerfast presents a fully detailed, ready-to-use dwarven town, complete with secret locations, maps, adventure hooks, monster and NPC statistics, ready-to-play encounters, and a full-color, double-sided battle map. The book is perfect for Dungeon Masters looking for an intrigue-laden adventure location that fits instantly and easily into their existing D and D campaigns.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Hammerfast is Interesting April 24, 2010
Jacob E. Blackmon
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Hammerfast describes a dwarven outpost that was given a small amount of detail in the original 4e Dungeon Master's Guide. This town is given far more detail, and even a colorful map showing the outpost in its entirety. Not only is the outpost described, but also important and interesting areas of adventure in the surrounding territory of the Dawnforge Mountains.
Hammerfast itself is a place of intrigue, with multiple factions -- dwarven, orcish, and undead -- trying to take the town for themselves. The plots and goals of these factions is given enough detail that they can be added to a game with ease. There is even a story arc described towards the back of the book giving detail to how a story can be introduced to the PCs to get them involved in the intrigues of Hammerfast.
Several NPCs are given detail, including backgrounds and motivations; however, only a few of these characters are given any game statistics.
There is a double-sided fold-out map. One side is a rough-and-tumble tavern within Hammerfast useable with D&D Miniatures. The other side is a full-color map of the entire outpost (not to scale with D&D Minis).
I like Hammerfast as it is a game suppliment that a GM can use even if they are not running a 4e game. Few things have actual game statistics, so descriptions are left up to an individual GM. This is primarily a fluff book, but one that is done well, in my opinion. The small price tag was an additional bonus. I hope to see more books like this in the future.
A new spin on a classic idea. April 19, 2010
S. Martin
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
The foreboding dwarven mountain fortress. As classic a fantasy concept as the elven tree village. But this is 4th Edition D&D we're living in, and this isn't your father's dwarven city.
That suits me fine. With the move away from the attitudes of classic races towards one other (elves and dwarves disdain for each other for example, is no longer a defining characteristic for either race) in 4th Edition, we also move away from the concept of the xenophobic dwarven city. These dwarves actually conduct business and the daily chores of life out in the air, rather than a mile underground, and that accessibility means other races might actually stick around for longer than it takes to sell their goods and get back out under the sky.
Setting aside the shift away from older stereotypes, Hammerfast is a unique city with interesting seeds for plots and the people doing the plotting. The skeleton of a major storyline is presented, but the focus of the book is more about the city than on any one story taking place within it. A few unique enemies are presented with actual stat blocks, but for the most part this supplement is all fluff.
If you're a Dungeon Master and want a dwarven city with some interesting wrinkles to drop into your campiagn, this book is for you. If you want inspiration for making your OWN dwarven city, this isn't a bad place to look for it. If, on the other hand, you are looking for a fully written adventure, look elsewhere. There are many story seeds given, but none of them are fully fleshed out. Even the one that is focused on as a heroic tier-spanning story requires the DM to fill in a lot of blanks. If you are looking for player oriented material, this book will be a complete waste of your money. Absolutely no new power, feats, or other such character options are presented.
 Unique Dwarven Outpost April 8, 2010
Steve Blodgett
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is not a standard generic dwarven settlement. Mike Mearls does a great job of putting together a unique dwarven outpost that is filled with many plot hooks and role-playing opportunities. The outpost is home to a rival faction of dwarves and orcs who are bound by a divine peace treaty. This arrangement creates a tense atmosphere great for intrigue, espionage and role-playing as well as combat(Just be careful you could have two major Gods join in).
The interior black and white art is well done and a hex map on the inside of the interior cover shows the area surrounding Hammerfast, also a full color poster map is included.
I am looking forward to the next supplement in this series.
 Disappointed March 31, 2010
Lance (Maryland, USA)
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
As the previous poster, I was looking forward to a settlement of Dwarves and being immersed in their culture. Instead, Hammerfast is a city like any other, populated by nearly every race known to D&D. Very few of the NPC's are Dwarves. In fact, the back-story makes little sense, in this regard. After my first perusal (take it for what it's worth), Hammerfast was a necropolis created by Dwarves that was settled when Dwarves were forced there by necessity. So where are the Dwarves?
Please keep in mind, this is not a module. It is a good primer, for a DM who wants to create his/her own adventures but needs/wants some of the basics laid out to help start their thoughts. Although I knew it was not a module, I did expect the same quality of production as one, when I purchased it. I was slightly disappointed that the written material is in black-and-white, rather than the nice color printing that comes in modules or rule-books.
Aside from that, I think that Hammerfast could be made into a very cool place from which to base adventures (which can take place in or around the city). It has some interesting twists and opprtunities for role-playing, skill challenges, as well as hacking and slashing. I am defintely thinking of ways to get my party to visit Hammerfast, or perhaps making it the setting of my next campaign.
 Can be useful March 24, 2010
Daniel Masucci (New York)
11 out of 19 found this review helpful
As a long time fan of dwarves, I was anxious for this product to be published. After receiving it, I'm a little less enthusiastic. It's as if the folks from Wizards of the Coast are afraid of alienating anyone who doesn't enjoy dwarves and their mythic culture. Instead of this being a setting that serves as the home base for an entirely dwarven population, it is a former necropolis turned dwarven outpost peopled with an array of Player Races. With a few exceptions, it feels like it could be any ready made town in the Dungeons and Dragons environment. In my opinion, they should have created a complete environment for an entirely dwarven population. This way it would give PCs the chance to visit a realm they know little about. Besides the history involving the dwarves (which could be replaced with most other races with very little creative effort) there is little race specific flavoring.
That being said, by being creative, a DM could tailor this to his or her own purposes with ease. There are some interesting campaign ideas. I'm sure the author was given specific guidelines so I don't blame him. I'm hoping the campaign adventure site for the old Tiefling empire that will be released later this year doesn't cater to all races, rather creates an entirely Tiefling realm of old for PCs of all races to explore!
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