This is a site for discussing roleplaying games. Have fun doing so, but there is one major rule: do not discuss political issues that aren't directly and uniquely related to the subject of the thread and about gaming. While this site is dedicated to free speech, the following will not be tolerated: devolving a thread into unrelated political discussion, sockpuppeting (using multiple and/or bogus accounts), disrupting topics without contributing to them, and posting images that could get someone fired in the workplace (an external link is OK, but clearly mark it as Not Safe For Work, or NSFW). If you receive a warning, please take it seriously and either move on to another topic or steer the discussion back to its original RPG-related theme.

Author Topic: Anyone playing Savage Worlds Pathfinder  (Read 18801 times)

tenbones

  • Poobah of the D.O.N.G.
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6164
Re: Anyone playing Savage Worlds Pathfinder
« Reply #75 on: November 29, 2022, 11:06:43 AM »
Sure! For me the setting has to represent the conceits of elements in there. Having magical healing available to the degree that later editions of D&D assumes, would make most of the D&D settings from 1e/2e impossible. Or at the very least they would look nothing like how they're presented.

3e's Setting Hunt - which Eberron won (I made it into the semi-finals on that!) sought to alleviate that internally.

Savage Worlds natural healing rules are generous, so much so that Magical Healing is *really* powerful. The Channel Energy ability in Savage Worlds Pathfinder is really over the top and frankly, ridiculous notion that undermines the entire cosmological idea that as beings who are vessels for divine powers, the idea that divine powers even have "portfolios". Gods of Murder and Death are probably not "healers" by nature.

I'll steel-man that idea a bit. Something that doesn't get talked a lot about Savage Worlds magic is Trappings. And I actually liked the Deluxe edition rules for Trappings a bit better, than the SWADE ones. It's a superficial difference but players like specificity. So you could have Healing from the Murder God have the trapping of 'Excruciating Pain' where the act of healing feels likes getting stabbed by a hundred knives, or something - and make the player do a Fear Check or something to force the idea that while Magical Healing is real - it's not always a pleasant process.

Personally I'd rather just nuke it - and save those Trappings for edge cases with Gods with portfolios that might have "healing" as part of their schtick.

King Tyranno

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 291
Re: Anyone playing Savage Worlds Pathfinder
« Reply #76 on: December 01, 2022, 07:45:41 AM »
I've only just heard about Savage Pathfinder but I am quite interested in it as a conversion kit for DnD 3.5 stuff to Savage Worlds. I wouldn't mind playing or GMing something like Mystara, Ravenloft, or Dark Sun in Savage Worlds. My only experience of SW is in the Robotech version so I don't know how practical it'd be to convert. But the fact they converted so much of Pathfinder 1e seems to suggest it wouldn't be too hard to at least convert 3.5 specific splatbooks.

oggsmash

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4007
Re: Anyone playing Savage Worlds Pathfinder
« Reply #77 on: December 01, 2022, 08:09:55 AM »
  I bought the box set and I use some things for conversions (the monster book for instance is extremely helpful to me for fast conversion and reference) rather than playing full on PF in SW.   I think some of the monsters are nerfed compared to what I expected though, but at the same time I guess the band for what a novice would face is much closer to the level 4 range versus the level 1 range.  I think some of the monsters I would expect a group of heroic level characters to face are not going to hold up well at all without armies of underlings.     I am looking forward to the fantasy companion, I own the previous edition version and I always thought it was fantastic.   I like the modifications to clerical abilities as well as some of the tweaks to make more powerful versions of the existing powers for spells.   

    I am currently running a long dungeon crawl for my players in SW, and they have just now cracked the 3rd level of the complex after 7 or so sessions.   They lack a mage and I think this is going to end up getting them killed, as in TPK'd.   They have been close a couple of times and they keep pushing in despite dealing with supernatural threats every time (it is a liches lair and he resides down on the 5th level).   I considered tossing an NPC into the crowd, but in my campaign mages are extremely rare and feared, so I decided it will have to be a PC or no go. 

   I like GURPS the best as a game system for any setting...but I have to admit SW can be tweaked easily to represent any genre and it is MUCH faster and easier to run regarding player knowledge level.   My next idea is to run a Rogue Trader style game (players are all part of the trader's "expeditionary team") set in WH40k, savage rifts showed me that SW can easily run that sort of setting.   

   Overall, regarding SW pathfinder (box set) I recommend it.  I will probably never run SW PF as written, but it is a great resource for some tweaks to make SW a "little more" D&D.   

oggsmash

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4007
Re: Anyone playing Savage Worlds Pathfinder
« Reply #78 on: December 01, 2022, 08:14:27 AM »
I've only just heard about Savage Pathfinder but I am quite interested in it as a conversion kit for DnD 3.5 stuff to Savage Worlds. I wouldn't mind playing or GMing something like Mystara, Ravenloft, or Dark Sun in Savage Worlds. My only experience of SW is in the Robotech version so I don't know how practical it'd be to convert. But the fact they converted so much of Pathfinder 1e seems to suggest it wouldn't be too hard to at least convert 3.5 specific splatbooks.

   I personally think it is extremely easy.  I have a few conversions that are a bit on the lethal side (life draining undead), but the PF versions of these are a bit more survivable.  Before I had the pathfinder supplement I could convert most encounters on the fly reading from the original material.   The PF bestiary allows me to not even have to do that much.   The tone will be different with regard to the almost paranoid feeling of constricted resources, as casters are able to recover their powers at a much faster rate.   The threat of failure/death however is also different as acing dice can make a big bad into a running joke afterwards or a cautionary tale.    I am probably not as good at dealing out bennies as I should be, but my players burn those things like kindling. 

tenbones

  • Poobah of the D.O.N.G.
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6164
Re: Anyone playing Savage Worlds Pathfinder
« Reply #79 on: December 01, 2022, 10:28:05 AM »
Yeah - Savage Worlds Pathfinder and Fantasy Companion can **EASILY** convert over any of the D&D settings from any edition. You just have to decide what Setting Edges and if you want to do Class Edges/No Class Edges. And if you don't want to do Class Edges, the Fantasy Companion has vastly most of that covered as discrete piecemeal abilities.

If you want to keep Class Edges - then you're going to have to familiarize yourself with the values of Edges and cooked in Hindrances and figure out Progression abilities for Seasoned/Veteran/Heroic ranks. It's not really that hard, to be honest. It's actually kind of fun. Consideration should be given, as well, to Prestige Edges instead of a Class Edge.

Savage Worlds can devour anything D&D-related without missing a beat. Personally, I'd never run Savage Pathfinder IN Golarion. But I'd certainly use those rules (and I do) to guide me on conversion projects for the Realms, and other settings, including my own personal stuff. The Fantasy Companion in particular is an immense help in this regard.

Shrieking Banshee

  • Narcissist Undead
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2507
Re: Anyone playing Savage Worlds Pathfinder
« Reply #80 on: December 01, 2022, 10:56:55 AM »
Just a warning from personal experience: Savage Worlds Maths are allot more deliberate then one would think on first glance.

mudbanks

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 162
Re: Anyone playing Savage Worlds Pathfinder
« Reply #81 on: December 01, 2022, 09:50:52 PM »
Just a warning from personal experience: Savage Worlds Maths are allot more deliberate then one would think on first glance.

Yeah it gets very heavy when you start piling on Edges like Trademark Weapon. Still manageable of course, but definitely a bit to keep track of.

Of course, the upside is that it makes you feel like a badass when you have those ++++bonuses.

tenbones

  • Poobah of the D.O.N.G.
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6164
Re: Anyone playing Savage Worlds Pathfinder
« Reply #82 on: December 02, 2022, 10:25:01 AM »
Yeah if you take your time with it - like with all systems - once you assimilate the various strands of character development and put them to use: the Dual-wielder melee/ranged, the Berserker, Spellcasting, etc. all those bonuses sink in naturally.

I'm going to experiment in my next campaign with going back to XP progression but not making Ranking up tied directly to four Advances. Instead I'm going to make Ranking up purely arbitrary to me. This means PC's will spend more hang-time at each Rank and not feel "panicked" that they're not well rounded. It will also reduce the accumulation of mechanical bloat (somewhat) by slowing progression without slowing character growth. The difference is the characters will become more rounded.

My players are actually very enthused about it (I thought they'd balk). It'll be a while, before I can report back as I'm currently playing, not GMing.

Effete

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 666
Re: Anyone playing Savage Worlds Pathfinder
« Reply #83 on: December 02, 2022, 05:16:45 PM »
I'm going to experiment in my next campaign with going back to XP progression but not making Ranking up tied directly to four Advances. Instead I'm going to make Ranking up purely arbitrary to me. This means PC's will spend more hang-time at each Rank and not feel "panicked" that they're not well rounded. It will also reduce the accumulation of mechanical bloat (somewhat) by slowing progression without slowing character growth. The difference is the characters will become more rounded.

One of the things I've done while running Savage Worlds is to change Ranking-up to every five Advances rather than every four. It really does give players more breathing room as they no longer need to strongly debate over taking an Edge versus increasing an attribute, etc. It actually felt more natural, and I'd argue it should become an official change. For something like PF or Rifts, where there is a whole bunch of new Edges on top of what the core rules provide, I might even consider stretching it to six Advances per Rank.

I'm unsure what your mean when you say you're going to "arbitrarily" decide when characters Rank up, but I'd suggest providing a more rigid structure. Players should have expectations for when they will gain a new Rank so they can properly outline their character progression.

tenbones

  • Poobah of the D.O.N.G.
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6164
Re: Anyone playing Savage Worlds Pathfinder
« Reply #84 on: December 03, 2022, 04:24:19 AM »
Well I run long term campaigns, and it's arbitrary because ultimately I'm the one that decides when it's appropriate. Consider what it means to be a Novice, or Seasoned, or Veteran - and the inherent abilities that the system opens up to you. Those things, like all Edges, Stats, and Hindrances have deeper meaning than say D&D. This is because while everyone can stare at the numbers and engage the mechanics, first and foremost Savage Worlds is a game of tropes.

So it becomes more meaningful if the players organically rise in accordance to the flow the campaign vs. mechanically ticking of checkboxes in accordance to sessions played. A session might only cover a couple of days in a dungeon, or crossing a region. It doesn't imply that Spellcasters are doing quality work researching or a warrior is practicing advanced maneuvers in accordance with the next Ranks abilities, "just because". My games can literally account for nearly every day that passes, and I make my players justify their Advances.

And they feel good about it. I try to make time for "downtime" - wintering in somewhere when it's too cold to go out adventuring. Sometimes someone has found a trainer for some obscure ability, and so we use the Downtime rules for those that want to do side-stuff, to pass the time. They earn contacts, money, etc. Or maybe they have their own training to do?

In this regard I can easily justify the longer advance-routine to ranking up, because I don't do linear adventures, I do open-world sandboxes. Stuff happens, and the players drive the tempo.

Effete

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 666
Re: Anyone playing Savage Worlds Pathfinder
« Reply #85 on: December 03, 2022, 11:41:38 PM »
Well, it sounds like you got it figured out. :)

oggsmash

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4007
Re: Anyone playing Savage Worlds Pathfinder
« Reply #86 on: December 12, 2022, 08:53:41 AM »
  My hope is the SPF brings people into SW and they go more for a free form fantasy like will be shown in the fantasy companion (I look forward to that book big time, I thought the explorer's edition was one of the best rpg supplements I have ever bought.  I like some of the ideas from SPF, the "class edges" give me ideas for players to take edges from those class edges to further define a character (though I think the fighter was sort of goofy with its edges, but the barbarian and cleric seemed very iconic) and I also liked the options for turning up spell power/damage a bit.  I thought it was odd the PF version of many creatures (that are in the fantasy companion explorer book) seemed "nerfed" to a good degree compared to what I expected as a "level conversion" from PF.  I have not seen the new edition of the fantasy companion and its bestiary, so I guess maybe all the creatures are nerfed a bit, but I felt the creatures from the FC were pretty spot on as to the "threat level" I assumed from D&D/PF to SW. 

    I was always a much bigger GURPS fan but there is a curve and buy in from players with regard to optimizing their play, and the contested rolls can slow play a bit.   SW I like as much at this point because it is A LOT faster with regard to making characters, making content for players to adventure in, or for players grasping how to play at a decent level (I do want my players to understand the concept of using support and tests better though, as these things I will be using against them more and more as they deal with more organized and intelligent antagonists) and less asking what they are rolling for.   

   So far the big projects from SW, rifts and pathfinder, have been big wins in what I was expecting in a game/conversion.   There were disappointments (Juicer for rifts and Fighter for PF were sort of nerfed/vanilla) but for the most part I thought both were excellent runs on a property I wanted to see a good conversion of.   I think  the thing with SW is when reading it the die rolls seems "too swingy".   Playing it.... I do not really have that happen in the sense of threat assessment for players.   There have been some crazy rolls both for and against the players, rarely though is it the lone goblin braining the barbarian 1v1 though.  It tends to be the players or the big bads landing some very telling blows and bennie burn ensuing.   Over all however.... the flow is pretty smooth on most rolls.   This is regarding a more fantasy setting (we have only played a few sessions with Rifts and no other settings with a lot of fire power/guns, so can not comment on how the balance there plays out) so maybe the swing can show up elsewhere.   I won't likely play a game using neither the SPF rules as written or the established setting.  But I will gladly buy the products to use what so far are some excellent ideas to use in a SW game.

tenbones

  • Poobah of the D.O.N.G.
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6164
Re: Anyone playing Savage Worlds Pathfinder
« Reply #87 on: December 12, 2022, 09:31:13 AM »
One of the things that I think causes "old school" gamers to pause is the interpretation-factor of the dice. On one hand, we come from a background where everyone grounded in D&D pre-3e understood, generally what every single roll *meant*. Sure we'd have literal scads of debate on "what IS HP?" and "what IS AC?" etc. But the mechanics of the game expressed the mechanical expression of the Task Resolution within D&D to the point where we could all sit at the table and play.

The introduction of expressly "narrativist mechanics" has created an allergic reaction amongst the playerbase. But I think that experiment is largely played out.

That d20 task resolution mechanic has proliferated until the perceived "fixes" to the overall system with iterative editions until you have what we see today. There is this explicit understanding that a Hit is a Hit and it does Damage. And the Target loses HP, where HP is the abstract amalgamation of creature toughness, and the fights go on like a videogame where the Health Meter dwindles to zero. While I will fully admit, GM's (good ones at least) would describe what the combat looks like, what the wounds look like etc. the vast majority or players just roll to hit, and state damage etc. and whatever happens in your mind to describe the fight, if anything at all, is strictly your own until the GM tells you the creature drops and dies.

Whereas in Savage Worlds - new GM's will face this too, and it feels WEIRD because everyone has 3-HP. And most new SW GM's go... whoa! what? Savage Worlds encourages both players and GM's to describe what they are doing, and how they're doing it and let the dice tell you how well you do it - and the GM *should* add as much narrative flair to that roll to fully express what that roll meant based on its degree of success.

This also includes whether a "Hit" is actually a "Hit". Consider, an attack can succeed, but because of the Damage roll is not enough to do actual Damage, it gets the Shaken Result. Does that mean the bullet bounced off the PC's head? Does it mean it hit them and they're momentarily staggered? Does it mean that the bullet didn't actually hit the PC but instead hit the wall behind the PC spraying them with debris which causes them to be momentarily suppressed. Well... it can mean *any* of those things, but the end result if the PC is in the Shaken condition. The tempo of Savage Worlds IS fast (once you get the hang of it) and GM's *should* be describing and narratively interpreting the dice rolls but the *facts* of the result are never in question.

This is a large departure from where D&D is currently played by the majority of players, though I want to stipulate before people start protesting: Yes, GOOD GM's do this in D&D too, and yes, BAD SW GM's don't do this in Savage Worlds. But the facts are interpreting the results of task resolution is easier and more fun in Savage Worlds because it's meant to be done implicitly as a game about tropes.

This system lets you have all the seriousness and humor you want in-between the give-and-take of combat. It lets PC's win big and lose hard on good/bad rolls. But you always have a fighting chance to escape. This "swinginess" is a feature not a flaw. I don't have to pretend to dick around "CR" I can toss in whatever feels right and the PC's can feel like big damn heroes, or risk going down like chumps. But they *always* have a chance.

Several members of my group play in other groups on the side... and they have all been converted from 5e and Pathfinder to Savage Pathfinder, because my players have introduced them to it. ALL of them were staunch D&D/PF groups. And they all resisted until they played it. Now they're converts. And of course... they all play in other group too and are pitching it to those groups.

Based on the chatter I see and contribute to on the Pinnacle Discord, there are a ton of PF players that have moved over. As long as Pinnacle keeps converting over the Adventure Paths from Pathfinder, it will only get bigger. Plus the Fantasy Companion is doing its job giving GM's a means to move over from expressly "class-based" play to more free-form SW play.

It's a good train to be on and I'm glad my instincts were on point. Savage Worlds ain't perfect, but the flaws that exist in it are easily dealt with. It's a great system for beginning GM's and advanced GM's alike, and it's a godsend to new players. You can explain the system in like ten minutes. I could probably do it in five.

oggsmash

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4007
Re: Anyone playing Savage Worlds Pathfinder
« Reply #88 on: December 12, 2022, 10:52:43 AM »
  I had the books for a good while, I don't remember what the edition before the explorer's edition was called but I had that one.  I remember when they changed the way melee weapons do damage (a strength roll and a weapon roll versus the strength plus a flat modifier) introduced in the supplement Solomon Kane (which is a really good book as well) and adopted into explorer edition.  I can say this, every new edition actually improves the game from the prior versions, I dont know that I can always say that about lots of other RPGs I have on the shelf.   The chase rules have always been funky to me, and I honestly end up using pilot/driving tests between the two parties to resolve those with a need to get to a number of "wins" net to get away or run down.   I guess some people like those rules, I can say I have never used them on any of the three editions of the game I own. 

    I agree about how easy it is to explain and get the game rolling to new people.   I like that there is more to it as well with regard to forcing tests and essentially accomplishing many, many things with using tests and a little creativity that are often seen as feats or the like in other games.  It benefits from both an easy entry as well as a deeper level of play if the players and GM want that.

Corolinth

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • C
  • Posts: 172
Re: Anyone playing Savage Worlds Pathfinder
« Reply #89 on: December 15, 2022, 03:42:48 AM »
I have recent experience with new players and Savage Worlds, and unfortunately it's not quite as new player friendly as I would like to believe.

The concept of exploding dice is tricky for some people to get their heads wrapped around.

The system is inconsistent. Sometimes you roll several dice and take the highest. Sometimes you roll several dice and add them all together. Sometimes you do a mix where you roll these two dice and take the highest but then you add that to these other two dice.

In all of the WotC editions of D&D, you add up all your dice and then add some other modifier. The number and size of the dice might change, but the basic mechanic stays the same. You roll dice and add. Every time.

A dozen or so sessions later, our new guy still gets tripped up by trait checks vs damage rolls, and when he takes the highest die versus adding all his dice together. I ran the group through Castle Ravenloft in 5E, and he had those rules nailed down after two or three rolls.