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!

 

[nevin]

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.

i think they painted themselves into a nasty corner. the people that wanted "balanced lower magic more gritty" jumped to 2e and never looked back. I think the people that stayed were the ones that would probably have been ok with staying at 3.0 or 3.5 but just moved with thier friends and to where the new content was. I don't think those people are ever going to a 2e style system.

 

[Ace]

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

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

Even better. Thanks for the correction.

 

[Bacon Bits]

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

Then the mechanics will be a poor match to the genre and setting of the AP, or the AP will be pretty unrecognizable. That's my point. I think there's an impedence mismatch between SW and RotR.

Pathfinder is the kind of system where the PCs can bathe in literal dragonfire and come away essentially unscathed. Savage Worlds is not that kind of system. You can change SW to make it more like that style of system, but I think the core mechanics do not reinforce that style of play. Indeed, I think they actively undermine it. If you're saying that they're going to modify the core mechanics... are you really making it for SW at all? If you're saying they're going to modify the tone or genre of the AP... are you really remaking RotR?

Maybe they can make it work, but the more I think about it the more skeptical I get.

 

[dbm]

I haven’t played any of the APs as I don’t play PF. But several people in this thread who have played them say they have filler-fights. The most likely first step of adaption is to cut the filler? That reduces the sources and need for attrition.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Then the mechanics will be a poor match to the genre and setting of the AP, or the AP will be pretty unrecognizable. That's my point. I think there's an impedence mismatch between SW and RotR.

Pathfinder is the kind of system where the PCs can bathe in literal dragonfire and come away essentially unscathed. Savage Worlds is not that kind of system. You can change SW to make it more like that style of system, but I think the core mechanics do not reinforce that style of play. Indeed, I think they actively undermine it. If you're saying that they're going to modify the core mechanics... are you really making it for SW at all? If you're saying they're going to modify the tone or genre of the AP... are you really remaking RotR?

Maybe they can make it work, but the more I think about it the more skeptical I get.

The core SWADE mechanics handle bathing in dragon's breath just fine, without any changes. Not exactly the same as a d20 game, but it does.

(For those not familiar with SW, every 4 points over a character's Toughness inflicts one Wound. The character, if not a "mook" Extra, can take 3 Wounds before becoming Incapacitated on a fourth. Each Wound give the character a -1 on any of his rolls.

Damage dice can "explode", meaning if the max value is rolled on any die - a 6 on a d6, for example - then you roll it again and add to the total. Dice can explode multiple times.)

A dragon in SW does 3d6 damage with its breath weapon in a cone area. Average damage will be 11 points without an Acing (exploding) die.

Let's take a middling example character, Bob, with d8 Vigor and chain mail, giving them Toughness 9.

Bob is "essentially unscathed" by dragonfire in the following situations:

• Initial activation of the breath weapon (d10 and Wild Die vs Target of 4) has a small chance of missing targets altogether
• Success on an Evasion roll, which all characters get unless surprised. A character with the Improved Dodge Edge has a +2 on this roll.
• Any damage less than Bob's Toughness
• Damage from 9 to 12, Bob is only Shaken
• Damage 13 to 16, Bob takes a single Wound. Bob spends a Benny and succeeds on a Soak roll (odds are good), removing it.
• Damage dice exploded and rolled 16 or higher, inflicting two or more Wounds. If Bob can't Soak all of these (likely), he's now got a problem. Luckily, the spellcaster can cast Heal. He does so, touching Bob and removing all his Wounds.
• The party's spellcaster knew they were facing a dragon, and cast Environmental Protection on everyone, which prevents 4 Wounds from fire. Now the dragon's 3d6 would have to explode for at least 29 points of damage to inflict a single Wound. (37 points if the spellcaster got a Raise.)
• Bob has a Wound or two and drinks a Healing potion* to get rid of them.
• The spellcaster is out of points, but he does have the Healing Skill and Healer Edge. If Bob has a couple of Wounds, the caster can still patch him up after combat, with a good chance of him fully recovering.

*Okay, a Healing Potion isn't covered in the Core SW, unless you're an Artificer, but they'll definitely be part of a fantasy setting, as they already exist in the current Fantasy Companion.

Now, if Bob and/or the party are low on resources (Bennies, power points, potions, still have Wounds), then he'll fight more cautiously, or even consider retreat. Probably not much different than a PF character with low HP knows a failed (or even successful) Save against the breath weapon will probably kill him.

I'm not saying gameplay of the AP in each system will be the same; it definitely will not be. But you can see that there's also some similarities. Even in just the above examples, there's a lot of the same fantasy game tropes (evasion, protection from elements, healing, etc.) I think SW can handle a Pathfinder fantasy AP just fine without trying to be PF mechanically, and still maintain the flavor of the setting and adventure.

I mean, the PEG team adapted frikkin' Rifts to great success, so I think they can handle something slightly less gonzo like Pathfinder.

 

[mikeawmids]

I think the best outcome for Paizo here is that Pinnacle create a toolbox that shows how easily Pathfinder content can be adapted to Savage Worlds. I doubt many SW die-hards are going to make the jump to PF/PF2 (sooo crunchy it literally hurts) but Paizo could still sell a lot of adventures and setting materials.

 

[Retreater]

I think the best outcome for Paizo here is that Pinnacle create a toolbox that shows how easily Pathfinder content can be adapted to Savage Worlds. I doubt many SW die-hards are going to make the jump to PF/PF2 (sooo crunchy it literally hurts) but Paizo could still sell a ot of adventures and setting materials.

I think the likeliest outcome is what happened with Pinnacle (SW) and Palladium (Rifts). Pinnacle converts old material and Paizo gets a percentage. Some fans of the SW Pathfinder might buy less crunchy sourcebooks for the setting, producing a slight uptick in the sales for the parent company.

 

[dbm]

I think the best outcome for Paizo here is that Pinnacle create a toolbox that shows how easily Pathfinder content can be adapted to Savage Worlds. I doubt many SW die-hards are going to make the jump to PF/PF2 (sooo crunchy it literally hurts) but Paizo could still sell a lot of adventures and setting materials.

I don’t know how many of the APs introduce new monsters etc however I would anticipate the ‘Savage Pathfinder’ base set to include the core creatures, treasures etc. And the community will quickly produce some guidelines on how to convert an AP from PF to SWADE if that isn’t already addressed by Pinnacle explicitly.

So the full range of Pathfinder APs will come in to play for people willing to invest a bit of time into conversion, with ready-made conversions coming over time.

 

[mikeawmids]

Pathfinder (1) has 6 bestiaries/monster manuals, each with 300+ monsters and each book in an adventure path (of which there are usually 6) usually contains a few new monsters unique to that volume, as well as stats for all the name d NPCs who crop up. There are some awesome/classic monsters in there, but also some really weird ones I can't imagine anyone has ever used.

Not a month goes by on the Paizo forums without someone pointing out that an NPC has been built wrong and is not rules legal. A big bonus of Savage Worlds is that NPCs can be built far more quickly and with less adherence to the rules (advise in the book is to give NPCs whatever skills/edges you think they should have, regardless of prerequisites or power levels).

Sadly, I doubt I'll be kickstarting this project, as I have already converted and completed Rise of the Runelords and I would sooner run another of Paizo's 20+ great APs than return to this one - although I'll definetely get the Savage Pathfinder toolbook when you can buy it individually.

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

Then the mechanics will be a poor match to the genre and setting of the AP, or the AP will be pretty unrecognizable. That's my point. I think there's an impedence mismatch between SW and RotR.

Pathfinder is the kind of system where the PCs can bathe in literal dragonfire and come away essentially unscathed. Savage Worlds is not that kind of system. You can change SW to make it more like that style of system, but I think the core mechanics do not reinforce that style of play. Indeed, I think they actively undermine it. If you're saying that they're going to modify the core mechanics... are you really making it for SW at all? If you're saying they're going to modify the tone or genre of the AP... are you really remaking RotR?

Maybe they can make it work, but the more I think about it the more skeptical I get.

There was a lot of similar concern about Rifts too. Original Rifts is a high powered, unbalanced, complicated, obtuse and nearly unplayable mess of a game system with super unbalancing class character options... And Yet they pulled it off for Savage Rifts.

They took a game that's a class and level game, full of bloated hit points, and Savaged it successfully.

Pathfinder isn't the same unbalanced mess that Rifts is. PF is another class/level game that has a lot of high powered fantasy, yet the underlying structure of PF1 is much more balanced overall compared to Rifts.

Plus Pinnacle has been working on this translation for a year. I'm feeling secure in their ability to Savage Pathfinder.

This will also fill a niche of a fantasy dungeon crawler that's sort of been missing from Pinnacle's line of Official Savage settings.