Tell me about Savage Worlds

[Masked Otaku]

Another question, the Test Drive rules don't give any rules for the effects of weight/encumbrance as far as I can see. Did I miss that?

There are no encumbrance rules, period.

Oops, yes there are. Sorry, I over looked them.

Load Limits, A character can carry 5 times his Strength die type with out penality.

5 x St die = no penalty
10 x St die = -1 to Str & Agi skill rolls
15 x St die = -2 to Str & Agi skill rolls
20 x St die = -3 to Str & Agi skill rolls
character may not move with a penality greater than -3, but may lift something up to a -4.

Strength d8

5 x 8 = 40 lbs = no penalty
10 x 8 = 80 lbs = -1 to Str & Agi skill rolls
15 x 8 = 120 lbs = -2 to Str & Agi skill rolls
20 x 8 = 160 lbs = -3 to Str & Agi skill rolls
25 x 8 = 200 lbs Max lift

 

[BluSponge]

How does dealing initiative work? Do players get multiple cards?

Yup, everyone get's one card. Unless you have a few select edges, which let you draw multiple cards and act on the better of the two.

The Joker is special. Anyone dealt the Joker gets +2 to all actions that round, and can interrupt any action. It's basically a wild card.

Can you get the same results just by rolling d12s?

Yup. It's an option outlined in the rules.

Plus, isn't there a problem with granularity? FWIR, all character have skills with only 5 possible values (d4-d12)

Not really. The target number for any action is 4 (except in combat), so the die-types work. And once your character reaches a certain rank, he can start piling on Legendary Edges that can take these values from d12 to d12+1, d12+2, etc.

Tom

 

[BluSponge]

By the way, I suppose it must be easy to use Savage Worlds with setting published by GURPS (I was considering Planet of Adventures, that I could buy too when at the FLGS...)

Absolutely. Once you have the system down, you'll probably find you can convert most settings in a few hours. The trick is to stick to the broader concepts than to convert every single nuance.

Tom

 

[BluSponge]

I've got a rules question. From the Test Drive:Then it says:I don't get it. By this method you could never get the 4 you need to be successful. Does this mean you can never do anything untrained, unless you have a modifier of at least +2?

AH! But you're missing the best part. In SW, dice explode. In other words, when you roll a 4 on a d4 (or 6 on a d6, whatever), you roll again and add the second roll to your result.

Also, in even unskilled tests, the player rolls his wild die. So what you are really doing is rolling a d4 and a d6, take the highest result, subtract 2, and hope it beats 4. But that sounds a LOT more complicated than it really is.

So no, it's possible to pull off an unskilled action in SW without a +2 mod. I've seen people do it with a -2 mod. It's just not very easy.

Tom

 

[Masked Otaku]

Also, in even unskilled tests, the player rolls his wild die. So what you are really doing is rolling a d4 and a d6, take the highest result, subtract 2, and hope it beats 4. But that sounds a LOT more complicated than it really is.

The only time you don't get to roll a wild die is for ranged damage.
Yup that's right, you get the wild die on melee damage.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

How does dealing initiative work? Do players get multiple cards? Can you get the same results just by rolling d12s?

My system was different from the SW one, just inspired by.



For me, each +3 regular-style initiative bonus equates to +1 card drawn. So +2 Init bonus is 1 Card, while +3 Init Bonus is 2 Cards.

In SW, you have an Edge that lets you re-draw if you get 5 or less, and another trait that lets you draw two cards. 2 cards is statistically better than a redraw on 5, but for my own game I didn't want to get too complex and I wanted something that nestled into the established d20 Rules.

For my GT/Modern games the Joker gave a free Action Point that had to be spent that round in some way or another. It also went first.

The Suicide King went on King initative but all actions had a -2 penalty.

And instead of trying to keep track of suits, for tied cards we went "Left of the dealer" like a hand of poker. The GM is the dealer, and in the case of ties the GM would thus always go last, favoring the players, which the players always love.

Sort of an aside, but I wanted to share as the dealt init was such a wonderfully intuitive thing in SW that I yoinked it and made it my standard methodology for init.

You COULD roll d12 ... but the beauty of the cards was that the player had his init face up in front of him on the table in a highly visible and standard format. Instead of Billy writes his down on a dry-erase board, Sally keeps hers in her head, Johnny scribbles them in the margin of his character sheet, etc etc. This way, as the GM, I can glance at the table and I KNOW who's next ... there's not the call and response of rolled init in D&D ... "I've got a 30." "33 here." "28".

It's also fun because we can quickly and easily redistribute init every round, giving a real fluid nature to the combat.

--fje

 

[BluSponge]

Hey Blusponge, a question:

Could I possibly get you to post one or two "Attack Maneuvers" from the book? People keep referring to them as an answer to very high toughness beasties, but I have no idea what one would look like.

Sure!

Defend: +2 to Parry; can take no other actions
Disarm: -2 to Attack; defender must make a STR roll vs. damage or drop weapon
Touch Attack: +2 Fighting
Wild Attack: +2 Fighting, +2 Damage; -2 Parry until next action

There are plenty more.

Tom

 

[BluSponge]

The Suicide King went on King initative but all actions had a -2 penalty.

That's a pretty sweet idea, actually. If I wasn't playing with the SW Action deck (I dunno if that has suicide kings), it would be worth adding!

Tom

 

[Particle_Man]

That kinda sucks, because now the occasional rare "ULTRA-EXPLODE!" doesn't give you any benefit. In the demo I played in, I rolled something like a 45 on a 1d6 attack roll once, and the whole table was freaking out!

d6 from a raise can roll an ace, so there is still that chance of ultra explode.

 

[Particle_Man]

Actully that can make it worse, as that 1d6 explodes. All dice rolls explode in Savage Worlds.

It *can* explode, but we are talking longer and longer odds, here. 1/6 for one explode, 1/36 for 2, 1/216 for three, etc.