SWADE Fantasy Companion

[Reynard]

Since I decided to hold off on running PF2E until the remastered books come out, and I recently received my hardcopy of SWADE FAC (not a soccer team), I think I am going to run some Savage Fantasy in the interim.

So what has everyone been doing with the Fantasy Companion, or plans to do with it? I hear good things about the Eberron conversion available on itch.

 

[Randomthoughts]

I've been playing in a sci-fi SWADE setting (Seven Worlds) so hoping to scratch a few itches on the fantasy side.

First, I got a (fairly inexpensive but on discount) SW fantasy scenario on Drivethrurpg. It's a dungeon crawl, but will use that to try out how SWADE handles fantasy.

Second, I've considered a few conversions including the Eberron one you had mentioned and there's a Dark Sun or Dragon Kings conversion out there.

Finally, though, I'm landing on a small homebrew where the PCs inherit a keep from a past adventurer friend/mentor. Sort of an abridged Keep on the Borderlands. But my goal is to have a ton of Extras and test out the Mass Battle rules that I haven't yet played or run.

 

[overgeeked]

I ran a playtest game of SWADE using the Fantasy Companion and Savage Pathfinder. There's a heap of overlap between those two so no real need for both, but the FC has more options, like race building and ritual magic, so that might be worth it on PDF if someone already has the Savage Pathfinder book. And vice versa for SP and the extra bits there.

I really liked the non-combat stuff in SW. It was nice to have overlapping mechanical support for things. If one subsystem didn't sing for you you could pick another that did and use it instead. Dramatic tasks, quick encounters, interludes, hazards, etc. But the more I play SW, the less I enjoy the task resolution. Roll a varying-sized die vs TN4 just gets old before too long plus the weirdness of having a greater chance to ace the smaller the die you're using just rubs me the wrong way.

I ran the old Pathfinder Society module The Confirmation. It went well. There were a few hiccups and pauses to check the rules, but the players seemed to enjoy it. They were all mostly new to the system. It's fairly simple and we used the SP pre-gens so they weren't bogged down with character creation.

I haven't checked out the Eberron conversion, but if I remember correctly Keith Baker has said on his blog and podcast that Savage Worlds is his preferred game to run Eberron. I think one of the co-hosts of the Manifest Zone podcast is the same person who wrote the Eberron for Savage Worlds book.

 

[Reynard]

Roll a varying-sized die vs TN4 just gets old before too long plus the weirdness of having a greater chance to ace the smaller the die you're using just rubs me the wrong way.

I have been trying to figure out how to integrate FitD style resolution mechanics.

 

[overgeeked]

I have been trying to figure out how to integrate FitD style resolution mechanics.

If you mean the success ladder, then you could drop in 1-2, failure; 3, mixed success; 4+, success. And keep the raises from acing as is.

If you mean literally using a dice pool of d6s instead of d4-d12, then that might be a really hard sell to any players.

Take whatever I say with a big grain of salt. I've only played SW a handful of times with months to years between most of the sessions.

 

[mamba]

Roll a varying-sized die vs TN4 just gets old before too long plus the weirdness of having a greater chance to ace the smaller the die you're using just rubs me the wrong way.

regardless of die size, acing basically adds a +0.6 on average, so I would not be overly concerned about that

 

[dbm]

We are about 10 sessions into a fantasy campaign, primarily using the Savage Pathfinder rules since these came out first, but also cherry picking from the Fantasy Companion.

It’s been a great game so far. We were playing a campaign set in the Forgotten Realms using 5E, but we’ve fallen out of love with that system, so the GM decided to try moving his game over to Savage Worlds. The system does have great support for a wide range of encounters, including combat (naturally) and other things like chases and non-combat dramatic tasks, which really add to the enjoyment.

The one small niggle, which only really applies to one of our players, is that the magic can feel a bit vanilla unless you add your own flavour. My character is a wizard and even though he only has four powers I picked really flexible ones and so he feels broadly capable like a typical D&D wizard would. The other caster is a cleric and his player has chosen to apply limitations to his powers, which he feels represents what he feels his character would typically do, but this has meant his abilities are very limited and he has started to feel dissatisfied with his character. We’ll see how things go over the next few sessions, hopefully that will improve for my friend. My top tip is to remember that the power system in Savage World is very different from the system in D&D, so make your character with that in mind.

My other top tip for anybody wanting to really make Savage Worlds their own is to create some custom edges that emphasise the types of characters you would see in your campaign. Make these edges a little more powerful than the standard edges to encourage people to take them, and by doing this, they will build characters that are in keeping with your vision for the campaign. Making new edges is really easy once you get a hang of the existing standard edges, and I have found looking at some of the official PEG game worlds like Savage Pathfinder, Savage Rifts and Deadlands really helps with calibrating your expectations for what an edge can do at different ranks.

 

[Reynard]

If you mean the success ladder, then you could drop in 1-2, failure; 3, mixed success; 4+, success. And keep the raises from acing as is.

If you mean literally using a dice pool of d6s instead of d4-d12, then that might be a really hard sell to any players.

Take whatever I say with a big grain of salt. I've only played SW a handful of times with months to years between most of the sessions.

Yeah, I a. More talking about how to turn successes and raises translating to partial and full successes in order to increase the narrative influence the dice have.

My favorite PbtA-like mechanic is the core mechanic from Ironsworn/Starforged, but that would be tough to integrate. But, off topic, it is totally doable with Fate Accelerated.

 

[Rogerd1]

The good thing about Savage Worlds is that as soon as you get Heavy (+2) for a power you're doing mega-damage, which for me knocks most other systems out of the park. So it would let your characters easily transfer to Savage Rifts, if you wanted.

 

[aramis erak]

Since I decided to hold off on running PF2E until the remastered books come out, and I recently received my hardcopy of SWADE FAC (not a soccer team), I think I am going to run some Savage Fantasy in the interim.

So what has everyone been doing with the Fantasy Companion, or plans to do with it? I hear good things about the Eberron conversion available on itch.

I'm 4 weeks in on SWEx Deadlands Reloaded. I've not got Fantasy Companion yet; I've been getting ideas, and am considering Red Sands or Flash Gordon for next. Maybe Pirates of the Spanish Main.

I'm surprised at how much I am enjoying the mechanics. Only a handful of games recently have hit that - Alien, Dune, T2K 4e. Wish I'd tried it sooner.