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!

 

[Sir Brennen]

1) Because it's a license and Pinnacle may not have asked.

2) Paizo's biggest issue at the moment is to get people to move from Pathfinder 1E to Pathfinder 2E. Creating an easy on-ramp for them to switch to D&D 5E instead isn't really the best business decision they could make. If they do end up going all-in on conversions to 5E D&D, I would take that as a sign that they're throwing in the towel, effectively, on having their own system and just going back to being the best D&D adventure writers around.

Maybe they would license a conversion to @Morrus 's Advanced 5E when it comes out

 

[Morrus]

Creating an easy on-ramp for them to switch to D&D 5E instead isn't really the best business decision they could make.

Yeah. That sounds like spending a lot of money on a big "exit here" sign.

 

[Superchunk77]

An unexpected development, but a good one, IMO. I'm not sure why they aren't doing this for 5E as well?

Pretty sure it's because Pinnacle paid/asked Paizo to do it and Paizo agreed. Pinnacle doesn't publish 5e content to my knowledge. It's pretty much all Savage Worlds from them.

 

[aramis erak]

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.

Quite true - many people don't love 5E. 5E is, however, still doing well enough to lead the sales charts after 6-7 years? And having outsold, per WotC staff, the sum total number of core books for all prior editions including 3.0 and 3.5... and it was one of the singularly most opinion researched games out there.

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.

The "Up, Down, or Off the Table" is a key element of Savage Worlds... and, with the exploding dice... Any character is potentially dead from one attack.

For many, that's a feature. For many others, that's a major problem.

And I'll note as well - I've watched several sessions of Savage Worlds - Fast it wasn't. Furious? I suppose. Fun? when a majority of hits did nothing... that, to me, isn't fun. And is why, despite having legit copies of it, I've not run it.

There is a lot to like about Savage Worlds, if one can swallow the swinginess, the U/D/OtT damage system, and the classless-levels system...

 

[CubicsRube]

I've played savage worlds a handful of times and loved it. I may be quite interested in this...

I wouldn't worry about the "swingyness" of combat as there's a ton of dials for this. If they want to capture that high level high HP feel there'll be options, like new soak mexhanics, extra wounds and the like they can implement. Personally i'd be quite happy with a popular fantasy setting with risky combat. Either case, I'll be quite interested to see what they do with it.

 

[Inchoroi]

However, for some reason I get fairly annoyed if that's all they do. There always seem to be references in the text to the old monster which don't match the new one, tactics which no longer make sense, or spells/rituals which don't exist in the new version. (Which is not usually the fault of the person converting the stat block.)

I did appreciate the fact that the last PDF I bought from Drivethru actually said in the description that it was converted to OSR from 5th edition and might have a few "5isms" in it.

Yeah, there is a lot of opportunity for that; for me, I always made sure my writing matched up to the adventure text as much as possible, even if I had to make new spells and/or abilities. I knew other writers that did not, however; and there were times when my 5e fixes were cut out by the editors. Never did understand that one.

 

[Bacon Bits]

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.

Yes, I own SWADE. Yes, I have read SWADE. Yes, I have played SWADE. Yes, I enjoyed playing SWADE. I still I would not use SWADE to mimic D&D or Pathfinder styles of high fantasy.

Setting aside Savage Worlds and just talking about systems in general, then I don't think it's ever a good idea to take a modular RPG system and swap it around to replace another RPG system that was purpose-built for a given setting and tone. I think generic game systems are almost always generic in terms of setting and not remotely generic in terms of genre, theme, pacing, or tone. I simply don't find it possible for any system to be appropriate for every conceivable game.

I think the benefit of SW is that it's very swingy and that combat feels very chaotic and is typically over very quickly. If we change SW to be a system like D&D where it's much more attrition-based where attacks are used to more slowly wear down opponents over many rounds, then the core resolution mechanic of SW becomes immensely unappealing to me. Why? Because of it's math bug.

For those unfamiliar with Savage Worlds: the standard target number in the system is a 4. When you roll an 8 or better, that's called a "raise" and it indicates one extra success or an extra degree of success. The math bug is that it's easier to roll an 8+ on an exploding d6 than it is to roll an 8+ on an exploding d8. Traits of d6 and d8 are extremely common, and a d8 trait is supposed to be an explicit improvement on a d6 trait. The d6 should always be worse than the d8, and it isn't when rolling for one of the most important target numbers.

Now, I don't care if the core resolution mechanic has a math bug if the system is very pulpy and swingy. Indeed, a bug almost supports that narrative since SW is generally all about embracing chaotic die rolls! That's the tone of the system! I don't care when there's only one or two rolls needed to take out any target or overcome any challenge. However, if I intentionally move to a system where more and more die rolls become necessary to resolve something, then the math bug of the core resolution system becomes a bigger problem. The more rolls you need, the more the system regresses to the mean, and the more significant the bug becomes. Yes, I can simply subtract 1 from the result the first time a die explodes, but since the benefit of the SWADE system is that it's elegant and simple and fast, adding a fix to the problem feels like subverting the whole benefit of system. Furthermore, it would add a ton of feelsbad moments to the game when you explode your d6 and roll a 2.

 

[Ace]

I think it suggests that Paizo is in serious need of the quick cash infusion that the license will give them, which in turn suggests that their product lines aren't doing all that well. As a fan of PF2, I find that concerning.

I think there is a some truth there.

Now "All that well" is a bit relative in that they company may be profitable and solvent but not doing as well as it once did simply because a lot of the Pathfinder player base went over to 5E instead. I know my groups did, me especially, one look at that behemoth of a PF2 core book and I went "nope."

Opening up a new fan base to the IP will give them a bit of money but may also encourage new people to try PF2 which may suit them. Its not a bad game.

Also conversions to Savage Worlds are really easy so the money/time ratio is in Paizo's favor .

I think its a sound decisions myself. More fans is good thing.

As a last thing. Kingmaker would be a very unique experience for Savage Worlds players. SW while have crazy levels of support (top of the non D&D games help I'd say) structured "rulership" has little support.

 

[dbm]

If we change SW to be a system like D&D where it's much more attrition-based where attacks are used to more slowly wear down opponents over many rounds, then the core resolution mechanic of SW becomes immensely unappealing to me.

There’s no indication at this stage they will do that?

Also conversions to Savage Worlds are really easy so the money/time ratio is in Paizo's favor .

Pinnacle will be doing the conversion, so the time component for Paizo is just approvals, really.

 

[Goliath Coins]

Like others have said, WOW. Didn't see that coming.