Savage Pathfinder: Meatier Enemies

I was doing some test plays with Savage Pathfinder, and wow, the enemies are "meatier" than your typical B/X enemies. They display quite a degree of toughness and resilience, and even though most foes are "extras" in SW and get incapacitated on just one wound, getting them to that point is a lot tougher in a one-on-one fight.

It comes down to getting an extra into the shaken condition, winning initiative on the next turn, and shaking them again (with damage, not a condition). It is far easier with a 2-on-1 situation, but I had this test fight between my barbarian character and a gnoll, and there was a long back and forth where the gnoll would get shaken and throw the condition off on the next turn.

And the toughness values ensure you need an excellent damage roll to inflict a shaken condition, which is more challenging than it first seems. And the game adds the "resilient" and "very resilient" monster special abilities that allow you to throw one or two extra wounds onto an extra (not wild cards) onto extra to simulate higher hit point monsters.

The Savage Pathfinder Bestiary was created by some really talented monster designers who know the Savage Worlds rules inside and out, and the designs are a masterclass in taking a 3.5E style monster and translating the difficulty and challenge of that creature into a new rules system and keeping the experience intact while working within the rules of the new game.

But meatier monsters mean you need less of them, and you get a lot of B/X adventures and classic D&D and AD&D monsters that equate challenge with quantity. Many classic D&D modules will think nothing of throwing 6-10 goblins in a room as the "guard post." If you are trying to convert this into a Savage Pathfinder adventure, you would probably reduce the numbers in the encounter and always remember to group them up into groups of at least three, so they can get the +2 "gang up" bonus to their fighting rolls when they attack (and also remember, this can be canceled out by a similar number of defenders on the other side).

Also, Savage Worlds has the option of "one roll per group" for skill rolls - but in combat, the rules assume "one roll per group member." Savage Pathfinder, page 133, emphasis mine:

If three goblins attack a single hero, for example, each of the three goblins add +2 to their Fighting rolls.

B/X and C&C can handle large combats pretty well, with a single d20 vs. AC roll plus hp damage, and the AD&D game has its origins in a wargame, so there is that "mass battle lineage" in the rules. Savage Worlds is a much more cinematic game, and it does better with those "one on one" battles and fights with a fewer number of more formidable enemies and the tense back-and-forth swings of combat. You can do mass battles with Savage Worlds, but to avoid each combat from turning into a night-long slog, I would reduce the number of enemies, give the flavor of the challenge, and keep the story going faster.

If you halve the number of goblins in a room, you can always throw those extra ones in or have them run in as reinforcements if the encounter is a complete blowout in favor of the players. Or have them as a hall encounter if you feel things are moving too quickly.

Again, Savage Worlds is a game that simulates a "movie reality" instead of a "reality simulator" like a GURPS or a Champions. Focus on the pace and beats of the story instead of worrying about the encounter challenges, and adjust on the fly as you referee the group of players and gauge their combat power. Forcing the players to "burn resources" in non-story encounters is the goal since that heightens the tension and raises the stakes of end-boss fights.