Not a major thing but first up- all the stupid gambling/poker terminology.
The preference for minis/grid
Cards for initiative
Raises
Damage Soak
Bottom line- just don't like a game where It takes a couple rolls and a couple decisions (and possibly another roll) to arrive at an outcome.
Its not nearly as bad as EXALTED, for example...but it's not my thing.
1. There's an excellent gridless combat / TotM fan adaptation here:
http://www.pegforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=36098
2. Cards for initiative --- Feature, not a bug. Cards for initiative is one of the system's best features. Seriously. Once you try it, everything else feels weak in comparison.
3. Raises --- Feature, not bug. Adding even a single element of degree of success adds a freshness to the system that I never felt with D&D / d20.
4. Damage Soak --- This is admittedly a potential pain point for a lot of people, and I'll admit even now it's probably my least favorite part of the system ... but ultimately it allows for an entirely different kind of fiction in terms of combat damage, injury, healing, and recovery that isn't possible for other systems.
Namely, when you suffer an injury,
you know without a doubt that it actually caused physical damage. There's no Shrodinger's Injury adjudication after the fact; you don't have to try and rationalize what a "healing surge" is or does; you don't have to rationalize or justify away what hit points are.
Also, it allows for ongoing injury and fatigue effects. Ultimately Savage Worlds' approach to "soaking wounds" is identical to "healing surges" only in reverse---soak checks stop damage from happening "in the moment" in the fiction by basically pushing the "rewind" button; healing surges "restore health" after the fight is over. Ultimately you end up in the same place. The difference is, soak rolls allow for more plausible injury and healing conditions without all the hassles of hit point tracking and rationalizing the fiction along the way. Change the name of both "bennies" in Savage Worlds and "healing surges" in 4e and 5e to "Hero pool," and it's pretty close to functional equivalence.