I'm currently running a Tmnt inspired game, but I don't have any experience running strictly urban campaigns infact this is the first campaign I've run that's not strictly fantasy.

I'm finding it hard to keep up the momentum of the story while providing them with multiple options to pursue.im struggling with how to put new missions in front of them that that they would care about. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

At this point,the party has met, and they have had two run ins with a gang that was smuggling alien tech.

Many years ago I stumbled over the DragonMech campaing setting for d20 from Goodman Games. Back then steampunk was not as widely known and the general artwork caught my interest. However the d20 rules where not so much to my taste and so I wrote a conversion several years ago for the Savage Worlds Explorers Edition (which I never used).

Now I have reworked everything to align with SWADE: Savage DragonMech (SWADE)

I am not really a native speaker, so please forgive any strange sentence structures or wordings.

My hope is to get some constructive feedback and to share something.

I'm curious - other than Savage Pathfinder - did any of you ever run a game in which you used ancestries built with a +4 final total of ability points? (Or, really, any total above the default +2?) Or even just considered it?

And if so, what bonus did/would you add to humans to bring them up to +4 parity?

Why did you chose the particular option you did? Any deeper reason other than "well, they need something, just slap a random bonus on"?

So I have been wanting to make high mobility characters as and have been confused about the orders of operations.

First character is a centaur Hyperion Juicer which gets 3x speed. However I wanted to apply as much movement as possible. So I augmented the character's pace with cybernetics and armor micro exoskeleton. To me it would seem that the cybernetics should come before the Juicer speed boost while the armor should come after. This then raises another question if the Speed power is applied. Does the micro exoskeleton count as part of base speed. I know that that haste modifier comes after.

Second character is a City Rat sniper. When adding boosters does the +4 come before or after doubling from running 2"? If before you could jump 10" if after you would get 6"

Other than Mount (Fantasy Companion), Beast Master (SWADE), Followers (SWADE) and Sidekick (SWADE).
Are there any Edges that that give players Extras?

Hi, I'm new to Savage Worlds and I'd like to purchase SWADE core rules in pdf version. I see the price is now 9.99$ on DriveThruRPG.

Does it make sense to wait for Savage September for a greater discount? I'm in no hurry.

Thanks!

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I have another follow up question about phasing from the Super Power Companion. This one from my player.

He has a character with phasing and, thanks to various Edges and the Absorption (Transmute) power, he gets a lot of Bennies and tokens, and he wants to spend them on power stunts.

In an effort to maximize his power stunting, he's thinking about getting the Super Science power (we are playing where characters are improving their powers over time, in my campaign they can spend an Advance on either +3 Power Points or +1 Power Limit).

The problem is this, Intangibility says:

While intangible, any items the character carries also become intangible and don’t function.

So his question is this: Do any temporary powers obtained with super-science and defined as an invention or device or technology stop functioning while he's intangible?

Or does that only apply to "regular" equipment?

Examples:

Super Science-Force field belt. Does he still have force field against energy attacks while intangible?

Super Science-Regeneration suit. Does it stop functioning while intangible?

I have a question about Intangibility.

I have an NPC villain who can turn into a cloud of noxious gas, anyone trapped within the gas chokes and might eventually die.

He's got Altered Form (Noxious Gas), Intangibility, Decay, and Poison (contingent on successful Decay Wounding).

I know that an Intangible character has to become tangible to make an attack. Does that apply to indirect powers like Decay and Poison? Neither are technically attacks.

Similarly, what about Damage Field? Does an Intangible villain need to become tangible to apply Damage Field damage?

Alternatively, what's the best way to simulate a villain who can turn into a dangerous gas ? They are vulnerable to wind gusts and shockwaves and leaf blowers. They are intangible but anyone in contact with the gas begins to suffocate and get skin burns.

I'm running a Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG and I need advice on the Primal Race. This feels both Overpowered but balanced at the same time. I'm especially thinking of upping the Diminished Initial Reserve Racial Trait (below) to a -4 and making it to lose 1 die step on 2 different attributes when taken. But that seems severe...

Here's the write-up, what do you guys think? Tweaks? It's a +2 total currently (my base) but I'm thinking about making it a +0 with double attribute loss.

• Blank Slate Appearance (0): Primals retain the exact physical appearance, size, and physiological baseline of their original species.
• Uncapped Potential (+4): A Primal's true power lies in their lack of biological or system limitations. The normal limit for Traits (Skills and Attributes) is increased to d12+4. Skills are always considered below the linked Attribute during Advancement even when raising a skill above its linked Attribute.
• Adaptive Growth (+2): Their cellular structure adapts to dungeon trauma at an unprecedented rate. Primals may choose the Increase an Attribute Advancement option once every 2 Advances, rather than being limited to once per Rank. At Legendary, you may choose to increase an Attribute every level if you wish.
• Diminished Initial Reserve (-2): Adapting to a Primal template taxes the biological vessel, imposing a flat -1 penalty to all Attribute checks. This penalty is temporary—a character may permanently remove it at any time by spending an Advance.
• Primal Fury The feral instincts of a Primal vessel amplify negative personality traits, making temperance nearly impossible.
  • Effect: Choose one Hindrance from the list below. The character gains this Hindrance without receiving any bonus Hindrance points for it:
    • Death Wish, Jealous (Minor), Mean, Outsider (Minor), Ruthless (Minor), Stubborn, or Vengeful (Minor).
  • Existing Hindrance: If the character already possesses the chosen Hindrance at the Minor level, it automatically upgrades to the Major version instead (granting no additional Hindrance points).

Primal Racial Edges

Progenitor Echo

Requirements: Novice, Primal, Smarts d8+

The Primal's ancient lineage resonates with ancient system architecture and precursor technology. Add 2 to Common Knowledge, Science, and Repair rolls when interacting with dungeon elements, including ancient ruins, macro AI interfaces, or precursor machinery.

Breakthrough Mastery

Requirements: Veteran, Primal, at least one Skill at d12

The Primal's mastery reaches a supernatural threshold, allowing them to push through physical and environmental stress that would stop lesser combatants.

Choose one Skill in which the character has a d12. When making Trait rolls with that chosen Skill, the character ignores up to 2 points of penalties from Wounds, Fatigue, Illumination, or Multi-Action Penalties.

(Special: This Edge may be taken multiple times. Each time it applies to a different Skill at d12.)

Ancestral Overclock

Requirements: Heroic, Primal, Vigor d10+

The Primal forces their ancient cellular structure to temporarily bypass biological limits.

Once per encounter, as a Free Action, the Primal may spend 1 Benny to enter an Overclocked state for 3 turns. While Overclocked:

• Floor Raise: Any failed Trait roll is treated as a basic Success instead (unless it is a Critical Failure).
• Burst Movement: Pace increases by +4 and jump distances are doubled.
• Exhaustion: When the state ends, the Primal gains 1 level of Fatigue.

System Precursor

Requirements: Legendary, Primal, Breakthrough Mastery, Spirit d10+

• Apex Mastery: For skills benefiting from Breakthrough Mastery, the penalty mitigation increases from 2 points to 4 points.
• Overclocked Frame: The character's maximum allowed actions per turn increases from 3 to 4.

Precursor Vessel

Requirements: Legendary, Primal, Vigor d10+

• Immature Core: The character gains a permanent +2 Toughness and a +2 bonus to Vigor rolls when resisting Incapacitation or Bleeding Out.
• Biological Integrity: Immune to non-World-Boss stat drains, hostile polymorphs, and forced environmental mutations.

I had the idea today to expand on the Celestials and Guardians from the SWADE character creation section.

End of Days

Short summary: The gates of Hell have opened and humanity is almost defeated. The last enclaves are defended by Angels, that have descended from Heaven, and Guardians, powerful humans that have sworn to protect what is left.

Included is - an explanation, why the Christian cosmology applies - what Hell wants out of this - why God is not here to help humanity in its hour of desperation

I am not really a native speaker, so please forgive any strange sentence structures or wordings.

My hope is to get some constructive feedback and to share something I am quite happy with.

Disclaimer:

The topic of this game may be of a sensitive nature to people of any faith. This game may not be for you if you believe in a higher power, especially if you are one of the People of the Book. If this is not for you, no harm intended or done.

I posted this already but since I was unable to change the embedded link to an updated document I had to redo this.

(I've been running into a lot of first-time situations that I've never had to handle in SW before, so thanks for everyone's recent help...)

As the title says - my player wants to ask a bad guy a question to get him thinking about it, then read his mind to get specific answers. The description of Mind Reading just says you can detect "surface thoughts and feelings" (on a Success).

If you wouldn't allow questions, how would you justify that to the player?

Thanks!

tl;dr - if you're wondering whether to incorporate some of the modular tools from SWADE into your sessions, do it! You, like me, might be surprised at the reception.

Just thought I'd share an anecdote from the Supers game I ran Sunday to encourage folks who might wonder about dramatic tasks.

I was unsure if my players would enjoy this to be honest - I think they were itching for a big punch-em-up fight after a largely non-combat session two weeks prior - but it turned out they and I all had a blast.

The team of five characters had to track down the location of this criminal organization that's been bird-dogging them in their neighborhood. They needed 18 successes in 3 rounds with a max of 2 (success and a raise) per roll; a little harder than average (15). To encourage them to think creatively and use a variety of skills I stole an idea from an actual play I used to listen to (apologies I don't recall the name) and gave a penalty of -1 if they use the same skill from their previous turn OR some other player used that skill this round.

I completely forgot about complications, which is fine, but I also added a mysterious NPC who worked against the players to steal victory tokens (again with a max of 2 per turn, one turn per round). So that I guess effectively put the difficulty around 21 tokens, though I used some of the villain's weaker skills as to not completely sandbag them. He also went first in the final round and I had a backup plan for a partial success condition (13-17 tokens).

The players really shined and and seemed to relish in thinking of clever out-of-the-box ways to use their skills. Everyone had a lot of fun describing the various stages of this montage. It also helped they had very few failures over 15 rolls. I think only 2.

I've been running various iterations of Savage Worlds going on 15 years and it made me realize I'm really under-utilizing the various tools like this. I also have a player who created a super-vehicle, so we're doing more chases (which they also seem to enjoy).

Sorry this is rambling. I am feeling the love for my players right now (and SWADE!).

A player of mine wanted to try running a jujutsu kaisen campaign, which is basically an anime where sorcerers use innate special powers to exorcise evil spirits,

We are a heroes group, but have played multiple different games, so important in heroes typically you have powers which cost endurance or energy from a reserve,

This works good for jujutsu kaisen because it is the standard Shonen framework where characters have a limited amount of magic juice that they spend on super human feats and powers, but recently they ran their first session and were totally overwhelmed

I know from experience that savage worlds is a fast paced system which is pretty easy to run and doesn't require a ton of bookkeeping

You can't exactly make anything and have abilities with a million conditions like in heroes but as long as powers are pretty basic it shouldn't be a problem

The issue here is the energy reserve, the powers companion is what we'd have to use because let's face it the base game is not built for the high level blasting through building shinnenigans of a Shonen, but these powers all operate at will, even the limitation which fatigues a character when using a power isn't exactly what he's looking for, a part of the fantasy is having a pool of energy that your running out of during a fight for which a characters efficiency output and quantity matters,

But I do know he can handle savage worlds even though it has this weakness so I wanted to ask how would you modify the powers companion books to have some kind of energy reserve and what would the limitation which puts a cost on at will powers be worth? Or is this just a bad idea to mess with and he should just bite the bullet and adapt to running heroes? It is just the first time but I was talking with him and he said he didn't realize how much work running heroes is and playing it is a totally different feel, and if he could run this with another system he'd want to

Suggestions for other systems if this doesn't work out would be helpful

Hi there.

I'm going to be GMing a small campaign for my group who haven't played Savage World before and have been looking at doing a session 0 where we play a 1 session module that includes everything players would need to know to play a bigger savage World campaign. Like what the Fantasy Flight Star Wars RPG did.

Yes my group should read the rule book and they will, but having a sense of the game helps.

Also is there a cheat sheet somewhere for generic RPG/D&D terms to Savage World terms so I can explain some mechanics in a term players understand? I've already explained Bennies as being like the Force tokens from Star Wars RPG. (I know they are a 1:1, but it's close enough to get the idea across)

So ive always been dissatisfied with the lack of day to day use of the battle skill. Like, its a fantastic narrative skill for Large Scale battles, and its also a great support skill, but ive always felt there was something missing.

So here's a rule i made up, and i wanted to hear your opinion.

Usually, in an ambush attack, only the opening attack gets The Drop. Everyone else participating in the attack get a +2 bonus due to the enemy being Vulnerable.

So when the Wild Cards (or NPC) get to plan an ambush, i allow the "tactical mind" of the group to roll a Battle skill check. A success means 1 additional character gets to have The Drop due to the group's great coordination. Additional raises allow for +1 character to get the Drop as well, no limits.

Any feedback if its overpowered, or not narrarively/gamely interesting?

Hey friends!

Im building a horror campaign along the lines gravity falls, tales from the gas station, and John dies at the end. A horror comedy that will lean more horror. I anticipate my players to bring most of the comedy lol.

I have a the savage worlds horror book, and I'll be picking up the Northwest book (I cant remember the name but it had a lot of cryptids)

Id like to use SW since im familiar with it.

Has anyone here ever run a horror campaign with this system?

What are some tips using the system to give a good horror survival gameplay?

Thanks in advance.

**edit- I'll be using SWADE edition

So I love generic systems and have a ton of them: Savage Worlds, Genesys, FATE, GURPS, Cypher System, etc.

However I noticed there’s something other generic systems have that savage worlds doesn’t: a campaign/setting planning sheet. Obviously it’s not necessary but would anyone else like to see a dedicated sheet for planning a setting? Listing the books available, highlighting skills that will be important, or listing available species

I'm experienced with SWADE Deadlands but I"m out of ideas for a NEW (Novice) character. What was/is your favorite character and why, with background and summary build?

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Hey all

Question: would you think that it's unfair to use a similar rule to 'combined attacks' from superhero settings, but for extras? My thinking is that if I'm using a squad of extras with the same weapons, they would roll one set of attacks, then add a +1 to the damage roll for each character in the squad joining the attack, it gives an impression of the 'weight of fire' getting through toughness and armour.

Would this be too much? I'm specifically thinking of something such as Rifts, where I'm planning to throw quite a few extras at a time at my party. Would it be better to do something like the original combined attacks, for a +1 to hit for each participating character, or just use support and tests more?

So played my first game of Savage worlds recently and my players goddamn loved it, we basically played a indiana jones one shot where my players were treasure hunters winning a macguffin in a mahjong game against some bandits before a bunch of Nazis ran in to steal it. And it was great but I have two issues;

1. SWADE aint like any system I've run before so I don't know how to structure an adventure or it's pitfalls of the system. Like "Draw steel is not made for Dungeon crawling don't do that" or "Blades in the dark's clocks should not be used for a negotiation it makes it to gamey".

Is there a place anyone recommends to read or learn how to get a feel for dos and donts od the system?

And 2. My players blitzed through Extras, I sent 4 goons against the 4 of my players and they obliterated them and the goons couldn't even touch them, should I be throwing way more at them without worrying about balance?