The Savage Worlds Pathfinder game is a really impressive swords & sorcery adventure set. It has a specific focus on simulating the 3.5-isms of Pathfinder, so they added edges, moved edges around, and created a new category of class edges. They updated the powers, added new ones, and tweaked weapons and combat. This is not a direct conversion, but more of a spiritual one that takes a Pathfinder-feeling world and rules which converts this over to a Savage Worlds setting.
It feels very similar to the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game's "dice for stats" system and these two games feel like distant cousins to one another. Where the card game uses your "hand" for gear, powers, allies, and hit points, Savage is more your traditional "character sheet" style of game that removes the need for cards, decks, and hands. If you really like the feeling and simplicity of the adventure card game and wish you had "Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: The RPG" check out Savage Pathfinder and you may find exactly what you are looking for.
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| Quinn, from the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game |
Both games use "dice for stats" in that the card game has characters with a die rating in each ability score, like STR, INT, WIS, and so on. Savage Pathfinder sticks to the Savage Worlds ability scores, but rates them similarly, but also adds a skill system which the card game does as a flat modifier to an ability score. Where in the card game "experience" are you adding marks to abilities, starting deck cards, and hand size; Savage Pathfinder is a more traditional RPG with an advance awarded at the end of a session used to raise attributes and skills, gain edges, buy off hindrances, and so on.
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| Lem, in Savage Pathfinder |
Savage is more the traditional RPG, less so that "card cinema" based gameplay a card game throws at you with the unpredictable draw and you have no idea what you are starting with, and what is coming up next in your hand. It could be you draw your armor last and you go without it for most of the adventure. The card game does have the concept of a "favored card" meaning you draw a starting hand until you have at least one of those items in your first hand, such as a weapon card.
With the RPG, your gear is your gear, and you can lose it and buy new things normally. I do burn a lot of gear in my regular games, and players need to be prepared to lose their stuff. Such is the cost of being an adventurer.
One thing I always loved about Savage Pathfinder is that 1-for-1 character sheet. Got a d4 in strength and a d8 in agility? Wow, that agility die is larger, you must be really good at that! Remember to roll your wild die with that and beat a 4 on either die! Skills are the same way and the list of edges and abilities can be played straight from the character sheet without any book reference. With new players I always go for Savage Worlds first, and they pick everything up nearly instantly no matter their previous experience. The rules do not need you to "be in the tabletop RPG mindset" at all, and the game can be played almost like a Monopoly-style set of rules.
Wanna hit something with your ax? Roll this. Wanna kick down the door? Roll that. Once most players make two rolls they understand almost everything about how 80% of the game works.
Resource Burndown
The card game does make you "burn down" your resources faster than the RPG, as you may sacrifice an ally, spell, or unneeded weapon when you are forced to discard cards in your hand. So it is inherently like action or spy movies where most of your gear and resources are used a few times or sacrificed regularly, like a spy laser watch being only good for one scene in the movie before it is discarded and is no longer used or seen again. Or maybe the soldier ally takes a wound and is sacrificed so your mission can continue. Maybe you lose your concealable pistol in a fight, you didn't want to, but it is better than taking a wound.
Burndown of gear in the RPG is typically done with critical failures (a roll of 1 on both the skill and wild dice), and instead of an external bad thing happening the GM rules an item is lost. I also include mook allies as the bad things that can be affected by the critical failure results.
I also (when it is appropriate) allow a "push it to the limit" rule in my Savage games where if you sacrifice the gear you are using for the task, you can reroll a failed check. Climbing a fortress wall with a rope and failing the climbing roll? Want to "push it" and try again? If so, roll again, and lose the rope either way. I do this for all rolls EXCEPT combat rolls, just to put extra value on standard gear and create the burn-down economy where you go through an adventure and lose things regularly and have to deal with the outcome of your choices.
If you are doing "fail forward" you can simply ignore the reroll mechanic, assume success, and sacrifice the gear. There are times, especially when the adventure stops to a dead halt if they fail, I will ignore push it and just fail forward. There are other times I want to put the decision in the player's hands and treat the loss of a gear item as a bennie for that task. It depends, is there another way in and the players don't want to lose the rope? Then I leave it up to them.
Special Gear
The card game does have a fun concept of special cards that give you a bonus to certain actions, but this can also be simulated in the RPG by directly linking task difficulty to the available equipment. In both games, you can say "fancy clothes" give you a bonus to interactions in social situations. In the card game, it would be a flat bonus, such as a +2. In Savage, you would base the difficulty on the situation, and modify it for having the proper gear. Wearing plate mail that smells like sweat and oil to a high-society function? Yeah, prepare for a +4 difficulty modifier to any social skill rolls there. Got "fancy clothes?" Then your checks are at the base target level of 4.
Equipment in both games can be flat bonuses or allow rerolls. I prefer flat bonuses since it is less dice rolling and enhances the "push it" and "fail forward" mechanics in a direct way.
Similar Games, One Minus Cards
If you love the Pathfinder Adventure Card game but always shied away from the core Pathfinder (1e or 2e) game, give Savage Pathfinder a try! The concepts are incredibly similar and the games share the same design language. The RPG frees you from deck management and setup and opens up the situations for random play, hex-crawls, published adventures, or GM-guided scenarios. Also, the range of the things you can do is not limited by cards or lengthy scenario setup and multiple guided deck building and positioning of locations.
You just kind of grab a character sheet, some funny dice, listen to the GM, and play.
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