I hear many good things about the Savage Worlds version of Pathfinder. Some players who loved collecting and reading the books but found the 3.5 rules too heavy for their time and schedules say, "This is the Pathfinder world I dreamed of."
They can finally play in the world they imagined and were fans of for such a long time, which is a great thing. Worlds and adventures are stories and content; the game used to play them is just a format or distribution network (like Steam, Apple Store, Epic Game Launcher). The gamers win whenever an adventure or world is ported to another system.
The Kickstarter for Curse of the Crimson Throne looks very successful, and there is a lot of excitement there, and I hope these continue and the books and adventures keep coming for Savage Pathfinder. I am 100% on board for all of them.
It is also nice to see Paizo adopting the cross-licensing model to maintain interest in the Pathfinder 1e world and adventures. I would love to see a 3rd party-license for this cross-platform game so publishers with Pathfinder 1e content can convert over to Savage Worlds and see renewed interest in some of the classic adventures and supplements.
I bought an adventure path for PF 1e rules just to play it with this game. I got a few 1e background books too. So it is working.
Savage Worlds is a unique game; it models a movie-like experience rather than detailed blow-by-blow realism. Instead of doing 5 hit points damage to a goblin's 6 and having to do another combat round, the goblin is "hit" and falls down movie-style. Savage Worlds is more concerned with flow and feeling than realism or simulation. As a result, it feels like you are playing a Pathfinder: The Movie Game with larger-than-life heroes and doing incredible feats of heroism and daring.
My dream for this is to have most every adventure path converted, every bestiary reproduced, and all the major expansion books recreated. Oh, and please reprint the 1e pawn sets!
But until then, this is my go-to game for playing in classic Golarion. I still collect and am subscribed to the 2e content, and I will use that one day.
Legacy Adventures
I love my legacy worlds, adventures, and modules. The question is, do I convert them all to Savage Worlds? I don't want to since I enjoy playing the original experience with d20-style rules. I don't like the cruft and complexity, such as all the 3.5 gears, grease, and grit that come with playing that set of rules. I want rules that mainly work with the old AC, damage, and attack modifier scales. So that means a B/X game or Castles & Crusades.
Castles & Crusades is my choice since it throws out most of the legacy cruft and is more simplified than a B/X set of rules. All skills save, feats, class features, and dozens of charts are thrown out, and you just have the character, class, and ability scores. The game is very focused on the core experience.
I did a conversion of Dark Sun last week and realized I was throwing out more AD&D 2e legacy cruft than I had to add support for anything I needed. I had everything I needed in the C&C rules. What was remarkable is that my conversion felt like I was playing the original Dark Sun, and I could use all the monsters, special weapons, and armor materials. The original books were used more for flavor and background than rules reference.
I could have converted this to Savage Worlds and had a Dark Sun: The Movie Game experience, but since everything worked perfectly in C&C, all the AC, damage, and attack and defense data. I felt I had a closer experience to the original AD&D 2e game in a C&C game. I could fight one of the iconic Dark Sun monsters and have the actual challenge and combat tactics applied. With Savage Worlds, the conversion is a "close enough" feeling. That does not always give you that "original edition" experience where you would better understand why a giant sand worm was such a terrifying opponent in the original game.
I know, if you want to truly understand the balance of each monster and fight, you will have to play AD&D 2e. The giant sand worm example is a good one, let's say you had an AD&D monster that had a paralysis poison and then could dive under the sands and burrow, and about the size of a bear. If you played AD&D and ever got paralyzed as that big thing dove under the sand and all you could do was lie there, you know how terrifying that monster is. If you never played against it like that, you may convert it in without those key features, or not understand the attack pattern and dangers enough to do it justice.
C&C gets me 90% of the way to an AD&D experience for 10% of the complexity.
And it includes a decent magic resistance mechanic.
There are times I want that AD&D feeling. I am not into the exploding dice or the shaken conditions, the bennies, or the wild cards - I just want something close enough to the original but without all the complexity. No saving throw or thief percentage charts. No strange mechanics for class abilities. No skills and limited or no feats. A unified roll-high ability check system. No converting anything. Characters that fit on 4x6 cards.
C&C is AD&D Lite.
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