Savage Pathfinder Pathfinder Adventure Paths Are Coming To Savage Worlds!

Pinnacle Entertainment Group has announced that it will be bringing Paizo's Pathfinder adventurer paths to Savage Worlds, starting with Rise of the Runelords. They will be launching a Kickstarter in January 2021.

The Kickstarter includes a core ruleset called Savage Pathfinder, and a Rise of the Runelords boxed set.

 PRESS RELEASE

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It’s Thanksgiving here in the United States. For our international friends, that’s a time when we come together as friends and family and tell everyone what we’re thankful for.

Today, Pinnacle Entertainment Group is INCREDIBLY thankful to our good friends at Paizo for letting us play in their amazing world of Golarion, setting of the phenomenally successful Pathfinder Roleplaying Game!

Following the incredible reception we had with Kevin Siembieda’s phenomenal world of Rifts®, we’re bringing Pathfinder’s fantastic Adventure Paths to the Savage Worlds™ system, starting with the best-selling Rise of the Runelords™!

The Kickstarter begins mid-January, 2021, and will feature the Savage Pathfinder core rules, a boxed set with all the usual Savage Worlds accessories, AND the Rise of the Runelords boxed set with all six books of the Adventure Path and other deluxe accessories!

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I would like to see the PF APs converted to:
FATE
Freebooters on the Frontier
Savage Worlds I don't play, but glad for those who do...

 

[Lefi2017]

Who knows, though. Maybe 5e is next. My guess is that none of the staff wishes to work on converting APs to other systems so they will depend on 3rd parties. It may be just a matter of time before a 3rd party is willing to convert these APs to 5e and Paizo will give them a license to do so.

I hope so

 

[imagineGod]

I don't think you would have seen this happen during the Pathfinder 1E era. I think it's definitely a financial decision, including them trying to not embrace the double-edged sword of converting their content to 5E, which would send a signal to at least part of their fanbase that they don't need to convert to Pathfinder 2E, when they could just convert to D&D 5E instead, which is already a problem for them.

To be honest, Pathfinder 2nd has some great games mechanics. But, honestly, why would anyone bother with it, when 5th Edition D&D is still so good. Plus, those who like 1st Edition Pathfinder have enough Pathfinder Adventure Paths for decades to replay.

 

[marv]

I am very happy that more people will be playing in the Lost Omens Campaign Setting, one of the best (if not THE best) settings to ever be created. Paizo’s overall Quality is high, most of their material feels like it comes from the same voice, is self consistent, gives plenty of hooks for GMs/DMs to run with, has mature themes, and has interesting NPCs with actual motivations.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Initially my reaction was really positive, but thinking about it more I'm not so sure.

I like my fantasy RP to create characters that feel powerful enough to take on armies, dragons, demons, gods, whatever. D&D and Pathfinder do that pretty well. High fantasy is about individuals being inherently powerful.

I like my modern and sci-fi RP to create characters that feel much more fragile. Like 3-5 hits and you're done. Modern is about always being able to be outclassed by absurdly powerful weapons and equipment weilded by people of even middling skill. Simply put, Sam Colt's equality means traditional character levels don't feel right. Sword and sorcery games are the same. Any game that's high pulp or includes ubiquitous guns shouldn't have PCs with 120 hit points. It's going to feel like you're nuking the fridge. Savage Worlds fits this design where not being in cover is just a death sentence most of the time.

I don't feel like the narrative of the APs is going to be well supported by the design of Savage Worlds because the high fantasy style of D&D or PF feels opposed to SW.

 

[Charles Dunwoody]

This confuses me. I’m assuming this was agreed to by Paizo out of some mutual love/passion and not for significant financial reasons.
No offense intended to Savage Worlds (I’ve never played it so have no opinion) but if Paizo wants to get the most $ out of their IP then more 5E conversions (like Kingmaker) would be needed, rather then converting to some other minor game system. And history has shown that more 5E generates more PF (it’s definitely not a zero sum game).
But I’ve converted a lot of PF1 and PF2 content to 5E and it is very easy to do (especially if you use ToB, CC, and ToB2 from Kobold Press to help you reskin monsters) so I’m not complaining. And in such a small market as TTRPGs, a good passion project is a beautiful thing. Might get me to check out Savage Worlds (but likely not because I am fine with both 5E and PF2 systems).

Pinnacle is publishing. I assume Paizo is just getting a cut.

 

[Superchunk77]

Initially my reaction was really positive, but thinking about it more I'm not so sure.

I like my fantasy RP to create characters that feel powerful enough to take on armies, dragons, demons, gods, whatever. D&D and Pathfinder do that pretty well. High fantasy is about individuals being inherently powerful.

I like my modern and sci-fi RP to create characters that feel much more fragile. Like 3-5 hits and you're done. Modern is about always being able to be outclassed by absurdly powerful weapons and equipment weilded by people of even middling skill. Simply put, Sam Colt's equality means traditional character levels don't feel right. Sword and sorcery games are the same. Any game that's high pulp or includes ubiquitous guns shouldn't have PCs with 120 hit points. It's going to feel like you're nuking the fridge. Savage Worlds fits this design where not being in cover is just a death sentence most of the time.

I don't feel like the narrative of the APs is going to be well supported by the design of Savage Worlds because the high fantasy style of D&D or PF feels opposed to SW.

Savage Worlds has a lot of levers you can adjust to suit this type of campaign style. Have you tried SWADE at all? It does all of the things you're looking for, you just have to know which levers to pull or push.

 

[Superchunk77]

To be honest, Pathfinder 2nd has come great games mechanics. But, honestly, why would anyone bother with it, when 5th Edition D&D is still so good. Plus, those who like 1st Edition Pathfinder have enough Pathfinder Adventure Paths for decades to replay.

Well, that's your opinion. IMO 5e is just "OK". But I love Savage Worlds and their new SWADE edition is fantastic. PF2E never interested me, but I love the Paizo adventure paths so this will be a no brainer for me to pickup.

 

[Vinicius_Zoio]

Savage Worlds has a lot of levers you can adjust to suit this type of campaign style. Have you tried SWADE at all? It does all of the things you're looking for, you just have to know which levers to pull or push.

That's exactly what I would say.

One of the strongest points of Savage Worlds is that it is much more modular than D&D or Pathfinder. One can easily adjust and change dials, while not having to rebuild the entire system from scratch as some changes would demand on a typical D20 system.

For example, using a Wound Cap, faster natural healing, and giving a free Soak once per encounter would greatly enhance PCs survivability on a Fantasy setting, and are some of the typical Setting Rules you will find in the core book or other supplements for the system.

I'm actually curious about which of these dials they're going to tap to adapt Pathfinder!

 

[Haffrung]

I like the idea of this, as I'm not sold on PF2, and Savage Worlds seems like a much easier system to run. I'm preparing a RotRL campaign for PF2 anyway, so it might be worth holding off.

One of the things I'm curious about is if this will be a straight conversion, with no content revised (other than mechanically) or removed. Because Pathfinder and D&D are very grindy systems, built on lots and lots and lots of combats to harvest XP for the extremely long level ladder. The Savage Worlds content I've read has much less combat grind and a shorter level ladder. Combats are fewer, but more dramatic.

The Savage World of Solomon Kane full campaign, for instance, has 28 one-session adventures in it, each featuring 2-3 combat encounters. There might be 65 combat encounters in the entire campaign. The first chapter alone of RotRL has 34 combat encounters. I'm skeptical about how well the campaign as written will mesh with a 'fast, fun, furious' pulp system.