Savage Worlds - Our First Game

[Connorsrpg]

After some threadjacking elsewhere, I decided to start my own thread (as I did with Deadlands) for Savage Worlds - where I can ask my own Q's, etc.

We are currently in the middle of a 4e conversion of 'Red Hand of Doom'. I am the DM and started reading a lot about Deadlands )have since purchased Reloaded and other Savage Worlds books. I really wanted to try the system, but our books won't arrive for some time.

So, I downloaded & printed the Test Drive rules and ran the free Pulp! adventure from the Pinnacle website. We have never played a Pulp! style game. The pregens were great and the roleplaying kicked off immediately

We had a lot of fun. Did not quite finish the adventure and hope to next week.

A couple of Q's that came out of the session:

1. You can remove the Shaken condition and remain wounded right? Being wounded doesn't mean you stay Shaken does it. Otherwise the penalties for being wounded would only ever apply to your checks to remove the Shaken condition. I am pretty sure we got this right & we realise if you receive another wound the Shaken condition returns.

2. With rate of fire, such as with machine guns, you get to roll an attack dice for each # under Rate of Fire right? (But only 1 wild die still). Do targets have to be adjacent or do all rolls have to be vs same target, or can you spread the attacks vs everyone in range?

Thanks. C

 

[clip]

1. That's right. You can be wounded but not shaken. Otherwise, as soon as you became wounded you would be ineffective until healed.

2. As far as I know, you can shoot at multiple targets with automatic fire. One thing that did come up in a session was that the RoF was only an abstraction of the actual amount of ammunition expended and the GM took this to mean that you could hit with all your shots and the wild die too.

I'm relatively new to SW as well, but have refereed about 6 games - pulp, RoC and Necessary Evil. I think its a great system, but you need to understand where its coming from, and how the details of it relate to the various settings - especially with regard to bennies and starting experience levels. One other thing I noticed is a "death spiral" effect you get in SW due to characters deteriorating rapidly after being wounded (the -1 per wound) and quickly getting their butts kicked in a longer fight, once the tipping point is reached.

 

[amerigoV]

2. With rate of fire, such as with machine guns, you get to roll an attack dice for each # under Rate of Fire right? (But only 1 wild die still). Do targets have to be adjacent or do all rolls have to be vs same target, or can you spread the attacks vs everyone in range?

You have to pick the targets before you roll (so up to 3), but you assign the hits after the rolls (ie, you do not have to say the red die is target 1, blue is target 2, green is target 3). Just remember the -2 for autofire unless you got Rock and Roll.

And welcome, new Savage. You have taken your first step into a larger world.

 

[AngryMojo]

2. With rate of fire, such as with machine guns, you get to roll an attack dice for each # under Rate of Fire right? (But only 1 wild die still). Do targets have to be adjacent or do all rolls have to be vs same target, or can you spread the attacks vs everyone in range?

It's also worth checking the rules for three round bursts and suppressive fire. They're two rules that get ignored a lot, but are exceptionally useful.

 

[Water Bob]

1. That's right. You can be wounded but not shaken. Otherwise, as soon as you became wounded you would be ineffective until healed.

Eh? Wassat? Stirred but not shaken?

Oh, they were playing pulp. Ian Fleming, I suppose?

 

[Connorsrpg]

Thanks everyone. I thought we had those two things covered.

@ Angrymojo: I too am unfamiliar with three round bursts and supressive fire. Is this possible b/c they are not on the Test Drive Rules? Though supressive fire sounds familiar - I think it is on the DM Screen inserts I have for Deadlands.

Cheers, C

 

[AngryMojo]

Thanks everyone. I thought we had those two things covered.

@ Angrymojo: I too am unfamiliar with three round bursts and supressive fire. Is this possible b/c they are not on the Test Drive Rules? Though supressive fire sounds familiar - I think it is on the DM Screen inserts I have for Deadlands.

Cheers, C

Suppressive Fire is basically spraying an area with rounds. You lay down a MEdium Burst Template and make a Shooting roll, with standard modifiers for range, auto fire penalty, etc, but not cover. If you beat the TN of 4, all the targets inside the area must roll Spirit with positive modifiers for cover. Anyone who fails is Shaken, anyone who rolls a 1 on their Spirit die is hit by the attack. This uses five times the ROF in bullets.

Three Round Bursts use three rounds, and grants a +2 to hit and damage for one shooting roll.

 

[amerigoV]

And Double Tap - semi-auto weapons allows you use two bullets for a +1 to hit and damage (I think damage - I am away from by SWEX - but it should align with the 3 round burst posted above).

 

[TheClone]

And Double Tap - semi-auto weapons allows you use two bullets for a +1 to hit and damage (I think damage - I am away from by SWEX - but it should align with the 3 round burst posted above).

Yep, it's both to hit and damage. But iirc it goes along with a -2 for shooting more than one bullet per round.

 

[AngryMojo]

Yep, it's both to hit and damage. But iirc it goes along with a -2 for shooting more than one bullet per round.

Nope, neither double taps or bursts incur a shooting penalty.