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!

 

[stadi]

Wow, this was unexpected. I would have preferred an original fantasy world for Savage Worlds, but I will give this a try.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I also admit to be surprised. I wonder about the inverse step, Pinacles' IPs adapted into Pathfinder or Starfinder system. What do you think?

 

[whimsychris123]

My curiosity is piqued as I love the APs but dislike Pathfinder. Who has played Savage Worlds? What’s it like?

 

[imagineGod]

Never saw this coming. But truly awesome news. Firstly, the art of Wayne Reynolds is my very best of the modern fantasy art, since the covers of the first Keith Baker's Eberron and after the era of the old greats of Larry Elmore and Todd Lockwood of AD&D fame.

Secondly, the Adventure Paths from Paizo are great fun to read, and play at low levels (Booklets 1 to 3), but at higher levels, that is Adventure Path Booklets 4 to 6, become slugfests of hit points attrition.

With Savage Worlds, we can finally have Adventure Paths that are both fun to read and to play all the way from Booklet 1 through to 6.

 

[Vinicius_Zoio]

My curiosity is piqued as I love the APs but dislike Pathfinder. Who has played Savage Worlds? What’s it like?

It is certainly more simple and agile than traditional D20 rules as seen in Pathfinder.
It is geared towards pulpy, high-octane gameplay.
You should definitely give it a try either before or after the KS launches!

 

[dbm]

I’m super excited about this, as it implies a whole swathe of fantasy materials like arcane backgrounds, edges, equipment, treasure and bestiary.

It’s basically ‘fantasy companion’ for SWADE.

 

[Davies]

Oh, this does not bode well.

 

[imagineGod]

No to be cynical, but I think financially, drove this outcome. I am guessing with Pathfinder 2nd Edition taking out any hope of more Pathfinder 1st Edition content, and Paizo not wanting to recycle the 1st Edition Adventures Paths for 2nd Edition (apart from KingmaKer Anniversary Edition), a new revenue stream was needed for the old APs.

Ideally, 5th Edition D&D should have been the go to, but I am guessing Paizo did not want to boost D&D even further.

Anyway, Savage Worlds is a great choice for the recycling of the Pathfinder 1st Edition Adventure Paths. Steady revenue stream for Paizo too, without needing new art or story , just making the necessary rules changes especially stat blocks for NPCs.

 

[Retreater]

My curiosity is piqued as I love the APs but dislike Pathfinder. Who has played Savage Worlds? What’s it like?

I've run games in Savage Worlds Deluxe and SWADE, so I can answer a lot of questions if you'd like anything specific answered.

Basically, it's a rules-medium game (about the same level of design complexity as 5e). The tagline "fast, furious, and fun" is kind of inaccurate. It's no faster than 5e and gets bogged down quickly with rules like soak (that means your attack does damage, but doesn't actually do damage), you have to count levels of success after subtracting from difficulty levels, you track penalties from how many levels of damage you've taken, etc. Initiative is done each round by dealing playing cards and ties are broken by suits. Bennies, the metacurrency, have various mechanical effects based on your feats (and there are dozens of them that impact the game in numerous ways). There are frameworks - not classes - basically it's a classless system.

It's also an extremely swingy system - which is something that gives me pause about trying to do an adventure path (or any long term campaign). Exploding dice (the equivalent of crits) are very common - and it's not rare for a minion to kill a PC or a PC to kill a BBEG in a single turn.

I don't know what setting rules are going to be made with this Pathfinder set, but I'm hesitant.