Savage Worlds Quibbles...am I correct?

[Gundark]

Hmm I bought savage world as a lot of you here on enworld have recommneded it. I did so not because I have anything against d20. I want to run a IK game and hate stating up guys without etools (too lazy to enter the IK data into etools myself). So I was drawn to the easy "stating" of SW. Also I thought it would interesting to play some other rpg mechanic as I have played d20 for the last 4 years. I have not played the system yet, however I have a few quibbles. Correct me if I'm wrong.

!) find that SW is almost too streamlined. Granted this may change but I think there just isn't the options that I was hoping for....it's late were I am and the brain is having a hard time with examples.

2) The whole "rolling to wound" part of combat favors packing bigger weapons. This reminds me of Rifts where everybody needed to be "Bigger, badder, better" . In a SW fantasy game you would need to have a high strength and powerful weapon to hurt some eniemies. I was looking at trying to convert my wiife's invisible blade character. It seems that fighting with daggers would be pretty useless in SW. ie. an Ogre has toughness 11, you would have to roll max with d10 str packing a dagger.

3) The whole being able to call headshots seems wrong..yes there is a penalty. But I could see this mechanic abused.

Anyhow like i said I have not played the system yet. But expect to soon. This come from just a reading of the rules. Just wanted to check and see if these where correct assumptions

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

In general I agree about the last two:

Str-based damage is open-ended, like other stat-based rolls, but IIRC, exploding dice actually only add something like 1 to the average. So yea, your knife-fighter is at a serious disadvantage fighting an ogre.

This can be a boon or a bane for the system, depending on the person you ask, I guess.

And yes, the mechanic for head-shots immediately becomes abused. I ran a whole zombie-hunting game whose success was dependant on this fact.

--fje

 

[Templeton580]

*

 

[Turjan]

Well, as Cutter said, SW is about streamlining. If you don't like combat to be mechanically very simple, the game might not be for you.

The toughness issue seems to be a real problem of SW. I hear a lot of complaints about that. Unfortunately, there seems to be no easy solution. You probably have to live with it .

 

[Romnipotent]

Its lethal, thats what Im told
I like lethal. I feel uneasy if a characters living more than a few sessions... I'm just a water wheel of characters

 

[Michael Tree]

Your third complaint solves your second complaint. If you play SW like D&D ("Roll to hit, roll to damage. Roll to hit, roll to damage") then you'll have a hard time hurting many things. But if you use all the various maneuvers, combat is much more interesting, and it becomes possible to hurt tougher opponents.

As for daggers... yes they're lousy weapons, but without the Invisible Blade PrC they're lousy in D&D too. Why not create some edges that reflect the invisible blade abilities, like one that lets you use a Trick maneuver with one hand while attacking with the other hand at no penalty.

As for the shot to the head, the biggest problem I have with the called shot rules is lack of player creativity, not game mechanics. IIRC they refer to "head or other vital area", so it would be more interesting if they shot for the heart, the throat, the eyes, the spine, etc, rather than just going for the head every time they want to kill something.

 

[Bretbo]

Some folks have a problem with the exploding die, but it really isn't that big a deal. The complaint is that you can roll a 4 on a d4 easier than rolling a 12 on a d12 (which is certainly true), but the probability still leads to a d12 begin better than a d4. Your just more likely to roll over a 9 on a d12 than roll a 4 and then another 4 on a d4. There can be a very slight advantage at a lower die, but it all washes out. Saw someone crunch the numbers once, but can't remember where.

 

[Gundark]

Some folks have a problem with the exploding die, but it really isn't that big a deal. The complaint is that you can roll a 4 on a d4 easier than rolling a 12 on a d12 (which is certainly true), but the probability still leads to a d12 begin better than a d4. Your just more likely to roll over a 9 on a d12 than roll a 4 and then another 4 on a d4. There can be a very slight advantage at a lower die, but it all washes out. Saw someone crunch the numbers once, but can't remember where.

Well there was this problem with Action dice in Spycraft 1.0 (don't have 2.0 yet). Your action dice where a lot more likely to explode with a d4 than with a d8. But yes you are correct about the dice, a d6 is going to generally roll better than a d4.

I like streamlined (my first post was made when I was pretty tired), and I like how SW is fast and furious. I like that you can make a character pretty quick. I like how combat is quick. What I see from merely reading and not playing is that I could see the characters being basically the same...ie. you need the high strengh, big weapons thus all the characters have these characteristics. This is probably due to the whole toughness issue. Spellcasting throws a little variety in the mix. And there are things that you could do with SW that you can't do with d20. But there is way more variability with characters in d20...even without the Prcs glut. I was hoping to see that in SW. I guess the toughness mechanic IMO limits the type of characters that one could play. OTOH it has been mentioned that you could use edges to help with this.

 

[WSmith]

Do yourself a favor. Play SW for three, no less than three sessions. To really appriciate this game you have to play it. When I read the rulebook, I almost put it down. You really discover how awesome this game is through game play.

The wounds, IMO, are the single best feature of the system. No HP to track, espically for the worthless minions that are they strictly to die a swift death.

 

[Aaron2]

They don't call it Fast! Furious! Fun! for nothing.
<snip>

Are you trying to make me not want to pick this up? I'm worried about any game that makes so much effort trying to tell me that playing it is "Fun!". Its the whole reason I didn't pick up the original book. I've been trying to find a revised edition but have had no luck thus far.

Has anyone worked out a way to have the players roll all the dice (ala SAGA)? For example, instead of having the bad guys roll Fighting against a PC's fixed Parry, have the PC make a Parry roll against a fixed bad guy attack. I've become enamored with this lately.


Aaron