[OSSR] Kingdoms of Kalamar Player's Guide

[Libertad]

The concept of a Divine Right to Rule can be applied interestingly in D&D. But instead of it being part of some hereditary race or bloodline, you have the god(s) appoint people based on merit. So you can totally end up with some bureaucrat in charge of the empire because he has a good heart and a great head for numbers which will optimize food production. Or some crippled general who held off the Demon Lord's army gets 7th-level Cleric spells and can regenerate her wounds and get back to what she does best.

It plays nicely into the idea of the gods choosing people who match their dogma, but also removes the middleman of mortal institutions who may end up gating off power and privilege in arbitrary ways.

As for all of the totally OP magic, maybe Kalamar subscribes to the "make magic insansely OP so it appears even more wondrous when it does show up" line of thought.

Also this book got a 3.5 upgrade. I cannot attest as to how much things changed or improved.

And there's a misleadingly named "Player's Primer" which is all fluff and random tables but no mechanics. And as far as I can tell neither sourcebook has a holistic list of realms and countries in the setting, which is in the KoK Campaign Setting sourcebook which is not sold on DriveThruRPG.

Oo it's very likely one of those lines where you have to buy multiple sourcebooks to get the skinny on the setting.

[ColorBlindNinja61]

The concept of a Divine Right to Rule can be applied interestingly in D&D. But instead of it being part of some hereditary race or bloodline, you have the god(s) appoint people based on merit. So you can totally end up with some bureaucrat in charge of the empire because he has a good heart and a great head for numbers which will optimize food production. Or some crippled general who held off the Demon Lord's army gets 7th-level Cleric spells and can regenerate her wounds and get back to what she does best.

And that might be a good way to handle the idea.

But KoK is grimdark, so I very much doubt the rulers will be anything but Game of Thrones-esque assholes.

As for all of the totally OP magic, maybe Kalamar subscribes to the "make magic insansely OP so it appears even more wondrous when it does show up" line of thought.

That's possible, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case. I don't think they're self aware enough to realize how overpowered some of their content is.

Also this book got a 3.5 upgrade. I cannot attest as to how much things changed or improved.

And there's a misleadingly named "Player's Primer" which is all fluff and random tables but no mechanics. And as far as I can tell neither sourcebook has a holistic list of realms and countries in the setting, which is in the KoK Campaign Setting sourcebook which is not sold on DriveThruRPG.

I know that 3.5 copy fixed Irresistible Spell at the very least.

But interestingly enough, it's not official D&D content.

Note the lack of the D&D logo on the cover. That means the 3.5 version is actually 3rd party where the 3.0 copy I'm reviewing is not.

Oo it's very likely one of those lines where you have to buy multiple sourcebooks to get the skinny on the setting.

Yep, there's a setting book. I might do an OSSR of that next.

[ColorBlindNinja61]

Magic Items
To my surprise, this is the last chapter of the book.

KoK is one of those settings that insists that magic items are rare, precious things that can’t be purchased from shops. In other words, mages rule, muggles drool.

Let’s see if any of these magic items are any good…


Well, Dodging Death is a +1 armor enchantment that gives you an automatic Cure Light Wounds if you drop into negative HP. Not bad.


There’s a weapon that casts Dispel Magic on someone if it hits them and they fail a DC 18 WILL save. That would be useful if mages didn’t have good WILL saves and a hundred ways of avoiding melee characters. I guess it doesn’t specify it the weapon has to be a melee one, so put it in bow?


The Bow of Eagle Sight never incurs range penalties, so it’s useful for sniping. Too bad they never tell you what kind of bow it is, despite the fact it’s a specific magic weapon.


Sword of the Fey, functions as a normal weapon for anyone not of elven blood – wait a minute!? Why isn’t it called Sword of the Elf?


There’s a Ring of Improved Invisibility, but it has 50 charges and costs 30,000 GP! Invest in UMD and get a wand! It’s almost 10,000 GP cheaper!


The Rod of Continuity gives you a +20 to Concentration checks (requires 10 ranks in Concentration) and costs 4000 GP. +20. That completely pushes you off the RNG. But, you probably won’t need it, since most casters rarely need to make Concentration checks and usually do so without difficulty when they do end up making them.


We also get some bracelets that boost save DCs by +1, one for arcane casters and one for divine ones (2000 GP each).


Perhaps one of the oddest magic items is a cloak that gives the user a +8 enhancement bonus to CHA. The text informs us that the cloak isn’t “effective” against monsters, just humanoids. So, what the hell happens when I give it to my Sorcerer? Do the monsters ignore the boosted spell DCs? The fuck?!


The Dress of Temptation sounds like something out of the Book of Erotic Fantasy. It gives you a +4 bonus on Bluff checks when “seducing the opposite sex.” Nothing saying that your (male) Bard can’t rock that dress and woo the ladies. No mention of how this works with people of other sexual orientations is noted, but unsurprising.


Wait a minute! The Fey Robe doesn’t only function for elves! I call bullshit on the Sword of Fey!


Mosia’s Rings are a pair of rings. When a person wearing one is dying, they are teleported to the guy wearing the other ring to their side.

Was this literally made so that an NPC can give dramatic speech on their deathbed? Or is the idea that you heal the dying person to keep them alive? Either way, this item isn’t bad. Oh wait, it costs 144,000 GP for a pair! Fuck!


We of course get cursed items. A necklace that sends the wearer into a rage when they enter battle and they fight unarmed. Fuck you Monks! You lose your unarmed strike damage and get the default!

There’s a Chain Shirt that gives you a -20 to swim checks and a fur garment that deals 10d6 cold damage(!).

Cursed items are mostly just used for DM dickery and I suspect their presence in 3.X is a leftover from AD&D. The ones in KoK seem more likely to kill a PC than a -2 sword and that doesn’t shock me in the least.

The first artifact I see is staff that constantly shoots fireballs in a random direction. Fuck it, I’m done.


Final Thoughts
This book was a lot worse than I remembered it being. I said something similar about Call of Cthulhu d20, but the Kingdoms of Kalamar Player’s Guide was utterly abysmal.

The 1d4chan Wiki claimed KoK is one of the worst D&D books out there, official or otherwise, and I’m inclined to agree. This was bad. Really bad.

We got a few OP feats and spells, but the vast majority of the content here was awful.

The divine right of kings particularly pissed me off with how tone-death and stupid it was.

KoK tried to have its cake and eat it, too, claiming that normal people can shape the setting then suggesting the emperor has level 18 guards.

I could honestly do an entire series of OSSRs on Kingdoms of Kalamar. I don’t remember the Campaign Setting book being any better and given how this review turned out, it’s likely worse than I recall.

Who knows, maybe I can even do some of the adventures. That could be fun interesting. Maybe I could do the one where the PCs are hired as farm hands?

[Libertad]

Thank you for this review. It's been an interesting look at a setting which is overlooked by many.

Magic Items

I could honestly do an entire series of OSSRs on Kingdoms of Kalamar. I don’t remember the Campaign Setting book being any better and given how this review turned out, it’s likely worse than I recall.

Who knows, maybe I can even do some of the adventures. That could be fun interesting. Maybe I could do the one where the PCs are hired as farm hands?

Said adventure is If I Were a Rich Man, a mini-adventure in Perils of Pekal, according to this ENWorld post.

The print versions are stupidly expensive, but the KenzerCo store has it as a PDF: https://www.kenzerco.com/product_info.p ... cts_id=561

[Ancient History]

Kalamar pissed me off because when Hackmaster jumped the shark - again - Kalamar became the default setting for the new game.

(You can argue HackMaster jumped the shark the first time when they made an actual game, and then again when they kept producing books for it, but I found the original HackMaster series endearing for totally embracing it's bonkers over-the-tope AD&D aesthetic. I actually ran a HackMaster campaign for a brief period.)

[ColorBlindNinja61]

Thank you for this review. It's been an interesting look at a setting which is overlooked by many.

No problem. It's been fun so far.

Said adventure is If I Were a Rich Man, a mini-adventure in Perils of Pekal, according to this ENWorld post.

The print versions are stupidly expensive, but the KenzerCo store has it as a PDF: https://www.kenzerco.com/product_info.p ... cts_id=561

Weird, my brother bought a physical copy of the KoK Atlas for dirt cheap. I wonder why that particular adventure is so expensive in print form.

Kalamar pissed me off because when Hackmaster jumped the shark - again - Kalamar became the default setting for the new game.

(You can argue HackMaster jumped the shark the first time when they made an actual game, and then again when they kept producing books for it, but I found the original HackMaster series endearing for totally embracing it's bonkers over-the-tope AD&D aesthetic. I actually ran a HackMaster campaign for a brief period.)

I honestly know little to nothing about HackMaster aside from it being an AD&D style clone. It doesn't sound promising from what you've described.

[Ancient History]

HackMaster started out as the joke system of the Knights of the Dinner Table comic - which lampooned the kind of hack'n'slash roleplaying of the 1980s, and which is still being published today. When KenzerCo got their go-ahead to do Kingdoms of Kalamar d20, they also got the opportunity to release HackMaster as an actual game - quite literally a light revamp of the AD&D 2nd edition rules, with lots of comedic elements, call-outs to the comics, and the kind of shit that retroclones usually do accidentally, but this time on purpose - like carnivorous fairies, "Yield" entries for critters, magic items that helped you maximize yield ratios, magic sword bonuses that went up to +12, etc.

It was all in good fun...but they also took the joke maybe a little too far, because they kept releasing books for it, including an 8-volume Hacklopedia of Beasts, The Spellslinger's Guide to Wurld Domination, parody re-hashes of AD&D products (Robinloft, S1: Tomb of Unspeakable Horrors, B2: Little Keep on the Borderlands., etc.)

5th edition (released after they apparently lost the rights to reprint humorous re-vamps of AD&D products) switched to using Kalamar as the base setting and went to one of KenzerCo's house systems instead of being essentially AD&D with some humorous rules.

[GnomeWorks]

My folks ran HackMaster straight, by the book, for a couple years. That was a... very rough time to be a player, at their table.

[ColorBlindNinja61]

HackMaster started out as the joke system of the Knights of the Dinner Table comic - which lampooned the kind of hack'n'slash roleplaying of the 1980s, and which is still being published today. When KenzerCo got their go-ahead to do Kingdoms of Kalamar d20, they also got the opportunity to release HackMaster as an actual game - quite literally a light revamp of the AD&D 2nd edition rules, with lots of comedic elements, call-outs to the comics, and the kind of shit that retroclones usually do accidentally, but this time on purpose - like carnivorous fairies, "Yield" entries for critters, magic items that helped you maximize yield ratios, magic sword bonuses that went up to +12, etc.

It was all in good fun...but they also took the joke maybe a little too far, because they kept releasing books for it, including an 8-volume Hacklopedia of Beasts, The Spellslinger's Guide to Wurld Domination, parody re-hashes of AD&D products (Robinloft, S1: Tomb of Unspeakable Horrors, B2: Little Keep on the Borderlands., etc.)

5th edition (released after they apparently lost the rights to reprint humorous re-vamps of AD&D products) switched to using Kalamar as the base setting and went to one of KenzerCo's house systems instead of being essentially AD&D with some humorous rules.

Interesting, thanks for the information.

[Libertad]

Kalamar pissed me off because when Hackmaster jumped the shark - again - Kalamar became the default setting for the new game.

(You can argue HackMaster jumped the shark the first time when they made an actual game, and then again when they kept producing books for it, but I found the original HackMaster series endearing for totally embracing it's bonkers over-the-tope AD&D aesthetic. I actually ran a HackMaster campaign for a brief period.)

There's something amusing about a goofy, silly RPG being adopted into the blandest edgy setting of the D20 era.

[Username17]

Hackmaster's joke was that they actually made it. Like the movie Anna and the Apocalypse, or the book Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, the fact that they started and finished the project is the joke. Continuing it to have expansion material and new editions and stuff is just beating a dead horse. Like, I get it, you actually made Hackmaster, but you need new jokes if you're going to write new books. The overarching joke is good for exactly one project and not more.

-Username17

[Libertad]

So this is something on my mind. Do the god-granted supernatural abilities carry on via aristocratic bloodline, meaning we have noble babies with Spell Resistance, or do they only come into effect once the monarch is of age and/or replaced their predecessor?

[ColorBlindNinja61]

So this is something on my mind. Do the god-granted supernatural abilities carry on via aristocratic bloodline, meaning we have noble babies with Spell Resistance, or do they only come into effect once the monarch is of age and/or replaced their predecessor?

Here's what the book says:

A character becomes a noble in one of two ways: she is born one or she is granted a title by a superior noble. In either case, a ceremony of some sort usually accompanies the entry of a noble into the world, either a coronation or a birthing ceremony.
The families of ruling nobles are considered one step below the noble for the purposes of divine protection. Distant relations may have no protection at all.

It sounds to me like nobles would have their divine protection from birth or pretty close to it.