Hammer & Anvil Reactions

Hammer & Anvil, along with the not yet completed sister work Mortar & Pestle, are the latest 5e vault products from Cubicle7. I’ve looked at Uncharted Journeys and A Life Well Lived previously, and I’m slowly going through Broken Weave while working on other projects. 

This book offers a crafting system for players which builds on the downtime and camp craft activities in A Life Well Lived. I like this consistency, which lets me just roll these systems together. Additional camp craft activities are great for giving your players interesting and flavorful things to do during these resting periods.

The main mechanic, which is featured in previous titles, is extended tests. These require three skill or tool checks which are compared against both a difficulty class, as normal, and a goal number. In addition to succeeding at the DC, the total over the DC on the check is tallied up and results determined based on how much or by how little the goal number provided.

This core mechanic really is why I think will make this system easier to implement in your own game. Bespoke, often complex resolution mechanics for crafting systems can make them difficult to implement. I think the system here is simple enough to implement, and modular enough to alter yourself should you choose to do so. The other piece of crafting systems that can be complex is crafting components because it creates more complexity as simple components are used to create more complex components, which in turn allow something else to be made with enough diverse components (i.e. Monster Hunter). This system largely abstracts this, but does provide some example attributes for equipment and items that you can create with potential components that enable a given attribute. It is similar with the enchantments system. The great thing about this is that you can then create your own traits for equipment, or you own enchantments, based on the examples in the book, and assign components. You can do this when your player comes to you with a zany idea that should work, but lacks a template. Then you go through the crafting or enchanting process to see if it is actually possible for them to produce it.

The enchantment system also introduces the idea that you can only learn a certain number of enchantments as a character, balancing against the mundane crafting rules for equipment quite well. The lists of enchanted items available also provide a good sample of how to set your own costs, requirements, and components for existing magic items. They’re also additional items that you can hand out in your games, some of which are quite cool. Even better, they have provided a table with the information for every item in the 5.1 SRD, which was literally the one thing I would have asked if it wasn’t here. 

The majority of the book them is made up off artifact level magic items. These are all really cool, with developed backstories and adventure hooks for you to throw into your own game. Nothing to complain about here.

So this system checks pretty much all the boxes as far as my asks and expectations. I really need to see it in play to make any true or final judgments, but having used downtime activities from A Life Well Lived with the same resolution mechanic previously, I think this book will be very valuable as a resource going forward, especially to help players using artificers or wanting to engage the fantasy of producing their own items and equipment. I might even use it in Planegea to encourage hunting and gathering behavior appropriate to the setting. Resources in that case would be a great motivator to go adventuring. So as an initial reaction, I would definitely recommend Hammer & Anvil.