Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea

• Astonishingly sturdy box containing:
• 252-page Player's Manual
• 235-page Referee's Manual
• 22 x 28-inch black & white map of Hyperborea
• 6 character sheets
• set of 6 uninked polyhedral dice
• written by Jeffrey Talanian, illustrated by Ian Baggley
• published 2012 by North Wind Adventures
• $10 PDF, $50 print, or $20 for just the Player's Manual

Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea (there are no good abbreviations for this title, but we'll go with AS&SH because that's what the publisher uses) is a game that I wound up not liking as much as I expected to. It's a fine set of rules and a fine setting that make an odd package.

The Rules

The rules can be summed up very easily. What you have in the AS&SH rules is a spruced up version of AD&D. The departures are many, small, and mostly improvements. A few examples:

• The "Open Doors" and "Bend Bars/Lift Gates" columns from AD&D's Strength table are renamed "Test of" and "Extraordinary Feat of" and extended to the Dexterity and Constitution tables, too.
• Clerics have a percentage change to learn spells similar to magicians.
• Turning undead is done with a d12, and Charisma affects the odds.
• Thief skills advance on a fixed schedule as in AD&D but are rolled on a d12. Having a score of 16+ in the attribute associated with each skill gets you a +1 on the roll.
• AC descends but starts at 9 instead of 10. An interesting twist is that medium armor also blocks 1 point of damage from attacks and heavy armor blocks 2 points.
• XP tables cover levels 1-12. Characters can build strongholds and attract followers at level 9.
• The combat rules give a knowing nod to Chainmail in their handling of weapon classes and first strike capability.
• Combat rounds are 10 seconds, not 1 minute.
• The section on Advanced Combat includes fun options such as disarming, parrying, and shield tricks.
• There is just one saving throw and it's the same for everyone, but each class gets bonuses in specific circumstances and there are further modifiers for high ability scores. 
• Characters are unconscious at 0 hps but can be awakened; stable at -1 to -3; dying at -4 to -9 (losing 1 hp/round); and dead at -10.
• XP are awarded for monsters and treasure as usual but also at a discretionary rate for roleplaying, being clever, attaining goals, showing up for the game, and other "soft" achievements, similar to 2nd Edition. 
• Task resolution is handled with the "Test of" and "Extraordinary Feat of" columns where the physical attributes are concerned. In other cases, there's a generic table assigning d6 values to simple, moderate, challenging, difficult, and very difficult tasks.