Quote(I had a player in my Beasts and Barbarians game - who was built to take on scary shit *die* of a heartattack while being jumpscared by a rat. FREAKY).

There are death-by-fear rules in BnB? Nice.

I find with all this shit about the OGL that converting some DnD sheep to Savage Pathfinder has been easier than ever. I got one of my regular groups to convert. They always go on about how all other games are "more complicated than DnD." . But having a lot of DnD terms converted to SW was really useful in finally convincing this group to give SW a go. We're doing a kinda sorta Ravenloft campaign.

Quote from: King Tyranno on January 16, 2023, 01:55:35 PM
I find with all this shit about the OGL that converting some DnD sheep to Savage Pathfinder has been easier than ever. I got one of my regular groups to convert. They always go on about how all other games are "more complicated than DnD." . But having a lot of DnD terms converted to SW was really useful in finally convincing this group to give SW a go. We're doing a kinda sorta Ravenloft campaign.

Give it a go but be very careful about homebrewing. SW Maths are very tight.

Quote from: King Tyranno on January 16, 2023, 01:55:35 PM
I find with all this shit about the OGL that converting some DnD sheep to Savage Pathfinder has been easier than ever. I got one of my regular groups to convert. They always go on about how all other games are "more complicated than DnD." . But having a lot of DnD terms converted to SW was really useful in finally convincing this group to give SW a go. We're doing a kinda sorta Ravenloft campaign.

Them thar players be sufferin frum sunk cost fallacy. 95% of RPGs out there are markedly less complex than D&D.

I've been doing the 1/day Character Creation Challenge for January this year and ended up trying out Savage World last week, and loved it so much I've been making every character SW since then to really get a feel for the ins and outs of it. I was amazed at how fast I could make a character on the first go and how easily customizable the system seems to be.

I'll definitely be trying to sell my group on this system, since there's been complaints about D&D combat taking so long in the past, and enemies seem to be quick to dispatch in this game. Plus the system seems to simple, yet customizable and versatile in general, it should be quick to grasp even for the most casual, non-rules oriented players, while adaptable enough for me to do whatever tha hell I want with it.

I prefer a setup where characters can't just chew on bullets for half an hour before going down.  SW essentially has a regenerating shield in the Shaken concept, the ability to instantly remove Shaken with a benny, and the ability to soak with bennies, which all adds up to a pretty fair degree of resilience.  If a bad guy happens to roll insanely well and a player burned all their chips, sometimes that just happens.  Especially in Star Wars, if someone gets lightsabered real good they're right out of the fight and probably missing a limb or two, that's just how it goes.  Ditto for catching a blaster shot in the head or whatever.  You don't just walk it off for a lot of those weapons.  Capping it so you only get lightly wounded at worst if Darth Vader impales you with a lightsaber seems to be heavily diluting any risk.

You do you, of course.  If you want it to be impossible to go from unscathed to incapacitated in one hit, that's easily done by ignoring any raises beyond the third.  It's an exceedingly simple house rule to apply.

I don't wanna roll every round for every character or enemy that gets Shaken, or to track which injuries are "Shaken" or actual Wounds, particularly since I've been looking at this game as a faster combat alternative to D&D. So I've been thinking of getting rid of the Shaken condition and give everyone one extra Wound instead, then capping damage raises to 3 Wounds or so, since I don't want Wild Cards to get one shotted either.

I also might end up using my own initiative system, since I don't like rolling initiative, and treating all Edges reliant on drawing Jokers or specific cards as 1/encounter abilities or something like that.

Quote from: Wrath of God on January 16, 2023, 01:18:02 PM

Quote(I had a player in my Beasts and Barbarians game - who was built to take on scary shit *die* of a heartattack while being jumpscared by a rat. FREAKY).

There are death-by-fear rules in BnB? Nice.

They're part of the core SWADE rules. Fear checks. And they're no joke. You can scale them up/down based on the Horror factor, but if you fail your check it can get wild n' fun very quickly.

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 16, 2023, 04:27:03 PM
I don't wanna roll every round for every character or enemy that gets Shaken, or to track which injuries are "Shaken" or actual Wounds, particularly since I've been looking at this game as a faster combat alternative to D&D.

Couple of things (don't know if you've started running games yet). The Shaken Condition is kind of a big deal. It's a partial abstraction to mitigate what in d20 would be your HP pool. Since you only get 3 Wounds, the Shaken condition is supposed to act as the onramp to the Death Spiral which d20 doesn't really use. Players can *absolutely* mitigate it further by burning a Bennie, or trying to shake it off every round, but it absolutely adds to the tempo of combat. There are corollary abilities that work off of the Shakened Condition that can require some minor rework, but it can be done.

If you want faster combat - you'll get it. Even with Shakened. Don't forget Monsters (and PC's) can get more Wounds based on Size. But mostly they'll get more Armor and Toughness that just mitigates Wounds altogether.

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 16, 2023, 04:27:03 PMSo I've been thinking of getting rid of the Shaken condition and give everyone one extra Wound instead, then capping damage raises to 3 Wounds or so, since I don't want Wild Cards to get one shotted either.

Could be done. But I do the opposite - I don't use Wound caps at all. There is an *option* to allow PC's that get WTFdropped to instead of dying outright, to roll on the Death and Dismemberment Table... which will... uhh... leave them with memorable results... but not necessarily kill them. Mainly because I find most PC's get their Armor/Toughness up to a range where Shaken becomes very scary (because it's all Wounds from there forward if they can't recover) but Wounds happen only against real bad mofos (Wildcards).

And also remember you don't roll for Shakened results for non-Wildcards - they're just knocked the fuck out. This is why PC's can take on lots of minions and heroic fray them (but you'll get Gang Up Rules to abuse them and keep them honest).

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 16, 2023, 04:27:03 PMI also might end up using my own initiative system, since I don't like rolling initiative, and treating all Edges reliant on drawing Jokers or specific cards as 1/encounter abilities or something like that.

I've been toying with this this idea myself... but my players have come to love the initiative system... and so for now, it's safe.

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 03, 2023, 12:36:45 PM
I swear a result of s+4w came up at least once a fight even when we scaled the damage down to 2d8. The acing rules just make damage very volatile and it's landed on what was supposed to be a boss fight (oops it's down in one shot... so dramatic) or dropped a player out of the fight (soak to make it s+3w... base TN 7 because of the wound penalties basically mean you're done unless you've got some instant healing both in the setting and available).

Not sure of this was already mentioned, but the Soak roll in this example would not suffer from Wound penalties. If you are attempting to Soak Wounds, you don't apply penalties you WOULD receive from the attack, since the point of a Soak is to see if the damage never happens in the first place. You would only apply Would penalties from previous (unSoaked) Wounds.

So in the example, someone gets hit for three Wounds and wants to attempt a Soak. Assuming they have no other Wounds or Fatigue, the TN to Soak one Wound is 4, with every 4 points more on the roll removing another Wound. Hitting TN12 Soaks all three Wounds and also removes the Shaken condition as a bonus.

Quote from: Wrath of God on January 16, 2023, 01:18:02 PM

Quote(I had a player in my Beasts and Barbarians game - who was built to take on scary shit *die* of a heartattack while being jumpscared by a rat. FREAKY).

There are death-by-fear rules in BnB? Nice.

There are in Savage Worlds core, too. If someone fails a Fear check they need to roll d20 on the Fear Table. Getting 21+ results in a heart attack and instant death. Of course, getting "21" on a d20 means the object of the Fear check must have a fear modifier. It's gotta be one scary fukken rat.

Quote from: tenbones on January 16, 2023, 11:13:17 PMAnd also remember you don't roll for Shakened results for non-Wildcards - they're just knocked the fuck out. This is why PC's can take on lots of minions and heroic fray them (but you'll get Gang Up Rules to abuse them and keep them honest).

I'm not sure what you're saying there, Tenbones? RAW there is no difference between Wild Cards and Extras in terms of being Shaken. Irrespective of character type they get a free Spirit roll to come out of Shaken at the start of their turn, and a benny can be spent at any time so the character is immediately no longer Shaken.

There are other rules outside of Shaken that make a difference (Wild Cards have their own supply of bennies, they get a Wild Die on their Spirit Check, they have Wounds) but those don't directly make being Shaken different.

Quote from: Effete on January 17, 2023, 12:01:02 AM

Quote from: Wrath of God on January 16, 2023, 01:18:02 PM

Quote(I had a player in my Beasts and Barbarians game - who was built to take on scary shit *die* of a heartattack while being jumpscared by a rat. FREAKY).

There are death-by-fear rules in BnB? Nice.

There are in Savage Worlds core, too. If someone fails a Fear check they need to roll d20 on the Fear Table. Getting 21+ results in a heart attack and instant death. Of course, getting "21" on a d20 means the object of the Fear check must have a fear modifier. It's gotta be one scary fukken rat.

  Could have been a Critical Failure on the Spirit/Guts roll, which applies +2 to the table, but you still need a 19 or 20. That's the kind of dice-rolling event that lives in legend.

Quote from: tenbones on January 16, 2023, 11:13:17 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 16, 2023, 04:27:03 PM
I don't wanna roll every round for every character or enemy that gets Shaken, or to track which injuries are "Shaken" or actual Wounds, particularly since I've been looking at this game as a faster combat alternative to D&D.

Couple of things (don't know if you've started running games yet). The Shaken Condition is kind of a big deal. It's a partial abstraction to mitigate what in d20 would be your HP pool. Since you only get 3 Wounds, the Shaken condition is supposed to act as the onramp to the Death Spiral which d20 doesn't really use. Players can *absolutely* mitigate it further by burning a Bennie, or trying to shake it off every round, but it absolutely adds to the tempo of combat. There are corollary abilities that work off of the Shakened Condition that can require some minor rework, but it can be done.

If you want faster combat - you'll get it. Even with Shakened. Don't forget Monsters (and PC's) can get more Wounds based on Size. But mostly they'll get more Armor and Toughness that just mitigates Wounds altogether.

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 16, 2023, 04:27:03 PMSo I've been thinking of getting rid of the Shaken condition and give everyone one extra Wound instead, then capping damage raises to 3 Wounds or so, since I don't want Wild Cards to get one shotted either.

Could be done. But I do the opposite - I don't use Wound caps at all. There is an *option* to allow PC's that get WTFdropped to instead of dying outright, to roll on the Death and Dismemberment Table... which will... uhh... leave them with memorable results... but not necessarily kill them. Mainly because I find most PC's get their Armor/Toughness up to a range where Shaken becomes very scary (because it's all Wounds from there forward if they can't recover) but Wounds happen only against real bad mofos (Wildcards).

And also remember you don't roll for Shakened results for non-Wildcards - they're just knocked the fuck out. This is why PC's can take on lots of minions and heroic fray them (but you'll get Gang Up Rules to abuse them and keep them honest).

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 16, 2023, 04:27:03 PMI also might end up using my own initiative system, since I don't like rolling initiative, and treating all Edges reliant on drawing Jokers or specific cards as 1/encounter abilities or something like that.

I've been toying with this this idea myself... but my players have come to love the initiative system... and so for now, it's safe.

This is something I am definitely gonna have to consider. I figured Shaken simply added an extra step, and was too punishing because it basically locked down character's from taking action, which increases their chances of taking a wound (and becoming Incapacitated if they're an Extra) before they're able to do anything in the encounter. So I thought maybe making Shaken just another Wound would make things more straightforward and avoid extra rolls, unless the character actually gets hit by something that Stuns them or inflicts some other condition, like crowd control powers and such.

But I guess it acts like an extra buffer of health that replenishes itself every time someone shakes off the Shaken condition. Though, I also figured that Healing abilities would be able to mitigate that--specially if I add an extra Wound level--since even conventional healing can restore two Wounds on a raise. But I haven't played it yet, so I'd have to try it out.

Quote from: dbm on January 17, 2023, 07:37:47 AM

Quote from: tenbones on January 16, 2023, 11:13:17 PMAnd also remember you don't roll for Shakened results for non-Wildcards - they're just knocked the fuck out. This is why PC's can take on lots of minions and heroic fray them (but you'll get Gang Up Rules to abuse them and keep them honest).

I'm not sure what you're saying there, Tenbones? RAW there is no difference between Wild Cards and Extras in terms of being Shaken. Irrespective of character type they get a free Spirit roll to come out of Shaken at the start of their turn, and a benny can be spent at any time so the character is immediately no longer Shaken.

There are other rules outside of Shaken that make a difference (Wild Cards have their own supply of bennies, they get a Wild Die on their Spirit Check, they have Wounds) but those don't directly make being Shaken different.

Yeah, that's what I thought I read in the books. So I figured "if mooks get taken out in two hits anyway, then why not just make Shaken an extra Wound and avoid making extra rolls or keeping track of two different damage conditions?" But like I mentioned above, I guess Shaken works like a replenishing buffer, so I'll have to think it through before I try it.