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.

More 4x6 Printable Cards

My second go at a Castles & Crusades card came out pretty nice, and while yes, it does have that "tutorial text" taking up the center of the card, that is a good thing to have as you learn. If I did a "pro" version I would use that space for something better, maybe scoot the whole side block in and have the entire right side open for information. I omit things like race and sex, height and weight, those can be noted anywhere or shorthanded (HM for a human male, EF for an elf female, etc.).

The AC data went on one line, with the most used AC being its own space, and grapple and touch AC getting a split line. Everything else is tightened up, and there is a space for languages now. I also added lines to the bottom half just to keep things organized. The abilities area is both for race and class abilities. If you are not a caster, use the Spells & Magic area for anything you want, potions, consumables, magic items, or more gear.

My second try at a Savage Worlds Pathfinder 4x6 card tightened up considerably, with the addition of a PP line and a powers area to record those. There is a little less room for gear than I normally like, so I made the top line usable. The system has 20+ skills, and while most characters never have them all, they take up a quarter of the card space. 

I could move powers under skills, but I would need to give it three lines to equal the space, so I would need to push the section up and crowd ability scores, which I am trying to avoid because I like white space around attributes for clarity and impact.

This may also be a Savage Pathfinder thing since without the Class Features section I would have four more lines on the right side. Savage Pathfinder is by default a lot more structured in terms of characters and record sheets, so you pay a lot in space to split things apart how the game wants you to. With Fantasy Companion, you are using the simpler Savage Worlds character sheets, though I would keep Ancestry or combine it with Edges.

Skills are an interesting subject. A lot of games just go way too hard on skills and provide infinite choices that often drift into the obscure and unfocused, and that drags the game down. GURPS is a notable example, along with Rolemaster FRP. I like C&C because it gets rid of the notion of needing skills, while still providing a one or two random profession system just in case it fits a character concept. As a result, the character cards are much cleaner, and this would be true in a system with limited skills, such as Star Frontiers.

I find myself moving away from skill-heavy games and towards ones that use more inventive solutions than putting all that bookkeeping and reference on players. When you look at traditional RPG skill systems, they are primarily meant to force you to pick a narrow range of actions your character is capable of and discard 60-90% of the list. Yes, it is character customization, but in many cases, it feels like the designers are giving up and throwing choice paralysis at the players and referees.

Savage Pathfinder: 4x6 Printable Cards

Making a 4x6 printable character card for Savage Worlds Pathfinder is not easy. The skills take up a lot of space since there are 20+ in the game, and while you do not need them all you still need an open list. And the SWADE skill defaults are on there with "Com Know" being the common knowledge skill.

Ancestry for humans is one item, but for other races can be a long list of items. Edges and class features get six spaces each, whereas hindrances get four. Gear gets the rest with 12 spaces, but you can go straight across if you want. I may make gear straight-across lines like the top ancestry line.

I do not have a power section on this card so that is a problem.

My C&C design uses a lot of space for the save types, and that is a lot of wasted space, so I may be revising that design. This is a design and space optimization challenge, and it is fun to try and be efficient while still being able to write on the card.

Savage Pathfinder, Module Conversion

So one thing I wanted to do with the Savage Pathfinder system is play in the original Golarion setting, the official game world, but borrow classic AD&D modules and put them in the world. If I have the old modules, I am using them, so my world will be a strange mix of original edition content plus adventure paths.

I suspect this is what many people did when Wizards dumped 3.5 for D&D 4+; they kept playing their 3.5 worlds and adventures with the newer Pathfinder 1e rules and did not skip a beat. I also suspect many D&D 3.5 game worlds, including Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms, got converted over, and the campaigns continued.

Plus, there is a lot of room in this world for fun places like the GDQ series, the B-series, the S-series, and the A-series modules. Put the Isle of Dread in the ocean somewhere; it would work.

Now, excellent idea, but is it practical?

Converting is Worldbuilding

I would grab my World Builder and Game Master's Guide for this one since this is a beneficial resource when converting anything into the game.

I would be careful with scripted adventures and use their content as guidelines. The Slave Lords modules in the A-series are good examples. Would I convert every room description, ensure every area and monster were accounted for, do a 1-to-1 map conversion, and ensure my adventure followed the exact same encounter and key matrixes as the originals?

We did this thing before with other games, such as D&D to Aftermath, a gigantic task that is rarely worth all that effort. After a while, things break down and begin to not make sense. The entire game turns into this hours-long slog where you realize if you had converted everything over loosely and not worried about the details, you would have never spent days of work prepping a module conversion that came out horrible anyways.

Often, there is just way too much to deal with. The encounters are too big, made for a game that simplifies combat and heavily relies on sleep, fireball, and other area spells to clear rooms.

Very Real Tournament

The Slave Lords A-series are interesting to study because one thing they did was convert these from simpler tournament modules to fully stocked dungeons and adventures to "add more value" to them. You will find the first two adventures expanded from simple and straightforward tournament maps to massive dungeons with many encounters and expanded content.

I dare say the more straightforward tournament maps look better for Savage Worlds Pathfinder to play since they capture the essence and narrative of the adventure, keep the number of encounters down, and avoid confusion and needless bloat. In the first module's tournament version, A1, you get all the classic encounters, the best areas, and the essential experience of the module without too much sidetracking or artificially lengthening things in that typical AD&D way using quantity over quality.

On a downside, due to tournament play, the modules are often a single track of encounters with no bypassing. Some caution is advised, but as a roadmap of the best the module offers, start with the condensed tournament content first.

They Are Not Perfect!

A reminder, the old modules are not perfect. They have a lot of flaws. If you look at the differences between the A1 tournament and vs. A1 expanded, you will see a vast "mapping challenge" in the expanded version. Many groups don't even "map" these days the way they used to. The number of rooms and encounters in all modules is significantly expanded, leading to many long combats and grinds. There are rooms to soak area-of-effect spells and resources. Places to burn divination spells. Lots of save-or-die parts. Plenty of slow hallway crawls with 10-foot poles in the lead. 

Some of this stuff is great for a B/X game, but a Savage Worlds game is different.

There is also this "video game" mentality. They will respond if an operation, like a slave-trading group, is hit. They won't casually sit in the dungeon waiting for the characters to return after they rest up and recharge spells. They may clear out and move elsewhere. They may follow the characters to town with some of the forces they have left and hit the party back before they rest. We were kids when we played these modules and cleared rooms like stand-alone videogame encounters to "solve." We allowed infinite resting in the town, even if the last room was the boss battle and the entire dungeon around them cleared. 

We were really dumb, but hey, we were kids.

From a  pulp-storytelling point of view, having the organization active in the nearby cities and a good amount of fights and encounters outside this dungeon makes a lot of sense. You could go all Indiana Jones and have a vehicle chase with a slaver caravan for a good time. Do not let the modules and maps constrain you. These are more story seeds than monsters and mazes.

And as far as I am concerned, that "respond to multiple incursions and make it harder" applies to all modules, even the Tomb of Horrors. What if, on the second foray in, things changed? That is true horror and makes venturing in there repeatedly a perilous proposition. If the groups and boss monsters had the magic and creativity to build these places and call them home, then they would have the same interest in defending them and self-preservation, especially once they know what they are facing. And if the dungeon is high-level enough, the boss must have a few wish or limited-wish scrolls lying about.

That 15-minute adventuring day should come with a considerable cost, with failure being just the most apparent price.

Railroad Crossing

One word of warning the tournament modules are very railroaded, so I would use them as guides only, and if the players found a way to bypass them, or there was a way to in the expanded version, I would let them. The entire goal here is to figure out what the essential encounters are in the adventure, what ones are needed to tell the story and build the Savage Pathfinder experience around those.

Like the World Builder's Guide says, less is more.

I would use this "pick the top 9-12 encounters" in every module conversion, even Tomb of Horrors. There are those signature moments you are trying to simulate and those memorable encounters you want to experience again, so why throw in the fluff? If the designers wanted to fluff out a fort with 6 extra rooms of hobgoblins, why put them in if there are already one or two great fights with them here? Let those signature moments tell the story of the adventure, and get rid of the extra filler.

Also, do not be afraid to "change the module" dramatically. If my group has been through the Tomb of Horrors so many times, they can recite the room descriptions and point to every trap and secret door like they were reciting lines from their favorite movies; well, it is time to change things up. Rooms will be shuffled, secret doors moved, new traps and puzzles laid down, and new deadly save-or-die horror moments added everywhere. The essence of the module is supposed to be a horror movie where the party needs to pay attention and figure things out, so make it your own and have fun.

And if you can't think of good traps, head on over to the Goodman Games store and pick up this:

Your players will not love you if you mix up Tomb of Horrors with some of these classics, I guarantee it. Even some of the ideas in this book can be combined with the traps in Tomb of Horrors to make the assumed solutions quite deadly. But allow clever play to figure things out. If someone tosses sand across the pit trap and discovers the wall of force, magical push trap, pane of invisible steel, or the illusion of a hallway over there, let them be smart. The sand won't set off the spring-loaded plate that shoves them into the spiked ceiling on the other side.

Take the solution they know works, and make it kill the characters.

And the suffering doesn't need to end with death; if a character "dies" in this dungeon, they wake up remarkably healed in a particular deeper part without their gear. With more traps that will kill them this time, or if they can figure out how - escape. Just trip that revelation to the "supposedly dead" party after the last one falls or flees and keep the fun going.

A big part of the module conversions is to simplify things to fit the pulp-action style of Savage Worlds. You can use that to add fun and your own ideas, so go ahead and make these adventures your own.

Savage Pathfinder: Curse of the Crimson Throne

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/545820095/pathfinder-for-savage-worlds-curse-of-the-crimson-throne

Yes! Savage Pathfinder and original edition fans, it is time to show some support for the next Kickstarter. We are getting the following adventure path, Curse of the Crimson Throne, converted over, and the Savage Pathfinder Advanced Players Guide in this release!

More stuff, the amazing line is continuing, and if we come out in force and support this, the chances are good these will keep coming. More bestiaries, please!

Spread the word, turn up, show our support, and let's make this happen in a big way.

I still support 2E, I cherish my 1e books, but I love seeing the original world and adventure paths find a new audience and love from the Savage Worlds fans - and I am one of them.

Savage Pathfinder, part 3

I was sorting through my library and saying yea or nay, to different books on my shelf, and I came up with a few more to add to my list for the ones that would be helpful for Savage Pathfinder. 

Inner Sea Races

This is an odd one, low rated on the store because there aren't many rules here, making it great for Savage Pathfinder. This is the place to start if you want more lore-friendly race options. This is a beneficial book on lore, how their culture works, how others see you, and a lot of other soft data useful in roleplaying. You also get a wide variety of human subtypes and a great selection of the more rare races such as aasimar, tieflings, drow, and many others.

This is highly recommended just to get your mind out of generic D&D style races and into the Golarion and Pathfinder mindset for how everyone lives with each other and gets along. This is an excellent book and can be seen as the hidden "race expansion" for Savage Pathfinder. And if you dip into the race design rules of Savage Worlds and remember Savage Pathfinder races are 4 points instead of 2 - you can design them pretty quickly and have a vast expansion in both lore and options.

As a supporting resource for the Inner Sea World Guide, this is excellent. I would consider this book, the Inner Sea World Guide, and the Inner Sea Gods books as the three must-haves for running Savage Pathfinder beyond the core rulebooks. No other book puts you in a world like this and gets you excited to live there. This is truly an underrated gem of a book and a must-have for Savage Pathfinder.

Advanced Race Guide

The previous book's sister book, the Advanced Race Guide, has more variety, far fewer background data, and more rules. This is a good add-on book for the above if you want many options and subtypes. This is sort of the book the community wished for, more rules options, more powers, but way less on actual roleplaying and cultural data.

For Savage Pathfinder, the Inner Sea Races book stands head and shoulders above this one, just in the background data that excited you to get into the world and play. This one is more 3.75 rules-focused but has some rare and uncommon options that may appeal to some. Honestly, you could do without this book and be fine since it is a "more races" sort of "stuff book" that massively expands options and does not really do much for lore and roleplaying opportunities.

This is not on my supporting books shelf, but it is notable for the expansion of types and the discussion of subtypes offered. When I have my support shelf loaded up, I only want the best of the best. This is a third-tier reference-only book for me for running the game. If I were using Pathfinder 1e rules, this is on my second-tier list of nice-to-haves. For Savage Worlds, I look for books with less 1e rules crunch and more background since we have little use for the original rules.

GameMastery Guide

This one is easy to overlook, but the plethora of world-specific advice, adventure-building tips, world creation, NPC advice, rewards, play tips, and GM tips are excellent. And you get a bunch of random tables for ideas. While I would not say this one is a must-have, the book is mainly free of rules and packed with good advice in the Pathfinder style, so it will be handy in running your games. In its time, this is one of the better "dungeon master guides" out there and a handy book on running Pathfinder games, all while keeping the great art and style of the books that inspires me whenever I open it.

This is another that is heavy on the advice and inspiration, much like the Inner Sea Races book, but more for game masters and adventure creation. This is a nice-to-have, not critical, but a good resource and will improve your games and play.

I would be careful and still lean heavily on the original Savage Pathfinder GM section with this book since there are many Savage Worlds ceremonies to maintain and encourage the use of, such as dramatic tasks. I saw dramatic tasks used in the Rise of the Runelords conversion adventure, and  I was like, "Oh yeah!" So things like allies, chases, dramatic tasks, creative combat, downtime, fear, hazards, interludes, mass battles, networking, quick encounters, social conflict, and the travel/encounters system should all be encouraged and used by Savage Pathfinder GMs when appropriate.

I dare say even treasure and reward generation can be done with the deck of cards if one gets creative enough. This is the Savage mindset; if you see a "ceremony" type activity in another game, try and turn that into a Savage Worlds style minigame given the tools you have - dice, raises, tokens, cards, result charts, random tables, and all the other cool toys in your Savage Worlds toolbox.

There is a "corruption" system in the Pathfinder 1e book Horror Adventures that is pretty simplistic with just three stages, some saves, and some manifestations. I could pull open the old Savage Worlds Horror Companion and look for something that works there, or I could create a unique Savage Worlds ceremony around corruption using resistance rolls, a corruption token system, and random tables or cards to determine the specific corruption effect. Put a system in for removing the tokens through good deeds, penance, purification, or other things that could remove these tokens.

Now, instead of a ported in Pathfinder 1e system for corruption where you make a note of a number and move on, players are accumulating "corruption tokens" and worrying about what happens when they get the next one. They look for ways to get rid of them. Bonus points if you use little skulls, curios, or evil eye tokens from a craft store that look like they signify corruption.

Use your Savage toybox!

It is easy to go to this book first and lose your way in the Savage GM-ing style, so default to the original rules and use this book as a secondary inspiration source. A good exercise is to read this book and think about how the Savage gaming conventions can be used to make things work in a more Savage Worlds fashion from different sections of this book.

All in good jest, my friends! Now go and adventure!

And it is Aroden, the God of Game Masters approved. I am keeping this joke going because this is how my campaign rolls. In my game, he is the one responsible for all this.

Savage Pathfinder, Part 2

There is a lot to play with the Savage Pathfinder set, especially with Rise of the Runelords done out as a complete conversion, so that is six entire modules that your group has to start with, which is a heck of a lot. But where do you go from there?

Since Paizo still sells a lot of 1e content, let's fill up our PDF shopping carts and figure out the best books to buy to support a long-term Savage Pathfinder game. I suppose this is why we have Savage Pathfinder, so Paizo has people buying1e materials for a completely new game, and they can keep the older edition content earning money. It is an intelligent strategy, and I hope the Pinnacle and Paizo team does more adventure path conversions and possibly more bestiaries and supporting books for the system.

I will be there to buy.

More Kickstarter! Advanced Player's Guide, Bestiary 2! After that, the Ultimate collection and Bestiary 3! I am sure you guys could work up "seasons" of tiered content to make into boxed sets and Kickstarter them one at a time.

Please more!

Inner Sea World Guide

https://paizo.com/products/btpy8ief?Pathfinder-Campaign-Setting-The-Inner-Sea-World-Guide

What else do you recommend first? Yes, some world information is presented in the Savage Pathfinder companion, but nothing beats having the original campaign guide to the setting to get the grand view of things. This is also one of those books heavier on raw information than its rules. As a general rule, I recommend against books that are more rules than information - unless you are grabbing a bestiary for inspiration and different types of monsters you could convert into. Maps, nations, history, geography, and setting info are all great and instantly usable in a Savage Pathfinder game, so this is an easy recommendation.

Inner Sea Gods

https://paizo.com/products/btpy94wj?Pathfinder-Campaign-Setting-Inner-Sea-Gods-Hardcover

Another good book, especially if you are interested in pantheons and the world's religions, is the Inner Seas Gods book. This one is more info than rules and gives you a good overview of the world's belief systems if these will play a significant part in your game. This one is a little less useful than the World Guide but still compliments that book nicely with an overview of the divine pantheon.

Aroden, God of Gamemastery

And where else are you going to find the God of Gamemastering, Deadlands huckster, and the one responsible for this campaign, Game-Master of the Gods, Savage Aroden?

"Fun is what I decree, and fun is what shall be had by all! - GMG Aroden"

Location Books, As Needed

https://paizo.com/store/pathfinder/setting/campaignSetting

There are quite a few books focused on one location, and those will be helpful if your campaign swings by those places. These would be number three on my list to get, but only if you need them. They rank high because they are excellent guides to many areas, but I can't give a list since your game may be located anywhere in the world.

Get them and use them if they are helpful to you. Otherwise, they are skippable if you are just playing through adventures and not doing continuing campaigns in these locations. They will be more useful if you plan on flipping the adventure paths on their heads regarding outcomes and plots.

Adventure Paths, Great, Some Work Needed

https://paizo.com/store/pathfinder/adventures/adventurePath/first

From here, I would start collecting PDFs of other adventure paths. After you finish Rise of the Runelords, you will probably have a good idea of how to convert things and how to present a good challenge level to different ranked players and parties. And the paths never directly convert in one-to-one; the designers said if there were series of rooms bunched together, make them all one fight and sort of doing some intelligent optimization of encounters and fudge a lot if the challenge is too complex or too easy.

Treat them as stories to play through and settings to visit, and when an encounter comes up, you should make up a good and exciting fight without worrying about getting the conversion perfect. Reskin a griffon to be the hell beast monster you need, use those stats close enough, give it a breath weapon and some immunities, and done. Again, once you complete Runelords, you will have a better idea of balance, and those boss monsters can be reskinned and tweaked as needed to build challenges.

You have many to choose from, and while you could use the 2E adventures to keep the game classic feeling, I would stick with the classic 1e adventures. Luckily all adventure paths start at a low level and take you up in levels as you go, so they should scale and present a more straightforward progression of conversion.

And yes, the above is the "mythic" adventure path, but honestly, the story is more important than an "extra power" subsystem they tacked onto the base game. Just say, "the heroes are the heroes, " use the story, and don't worry about mythic power.

Beware the Railroads!

How I am running these is never to assume success. The adventure paths are always written in this single path mentality, and they tend to tell you "what happens if you fail." And typically, the next one in the series assumes victory over the previous. I will let players fail these adventures and continue their lives. Even if they wipe, bring in a new group on a new arc and continue the story another way.

With Savage Pathfinder and God of Game-mastery Aroden running the show, the fun will be seeing how everything gets derailed and off-track. This also creates a dynamic living world that does not assume success and solving all the problems.

[Spoiler] The Worldwound path also has this apocalyptic ending should the players fail, and even I would treat that as a possibility and not set in stone. Things will worsen in the area, but not to world-ending levels of campaign-wrecking destruction. 

There is one section where the demons fight the orc nations where they should have left room for the orcs to be the ones to go in and solve the demon problem, given help from the characters, and that would be an epic follow-up to a failed ending that the book never takes into account. 

They assume the orcs lose, and that is it, but it is much more fun to take the ending and turn this into a new beginning, and perhaps even an orc-focused campaign with Savage orc PCs, like a World of Warcraft Horde experience. [End Spoiler]

If the adventure path railroads an ending or outcome, kick it off the tracks and make up a better one that is savage, pulp, and fun. If the players go another way, let them go! 

Aroden decrees all shall have fun and experience grand adventure! Aroden also does not believe in predetermined outcomes! Now go forth, and be heroes! The world is yours!

Hardcovers, Use Care

https://paizo.com/store/pathfinder/rulebooks/first.

I would use care for a lot of the hardcover rule books. The bestiaries are probably the best pickups of this group, but you will need to convert things. There are online tools to do some of the essential work to get you started, so you won't have to do a lot of heavy lifting, but you still need to account for special powers, attacks, defenses, and if the monster is a wild card.

The NPC Codex and Villain books may be helpful for basic types of NPCs, which should convert by their levels to the system pretty straightforwardly. The stats will be worthless, but the writeups, classes, and gear will be helpful. They may be beneficial as starting points and for pictures of NPCs, so get them if that interests you.

I would stay away from technology books since you got everything you need in Savage Worlds Core and Deadlands, gunslingers, and sci-fi gear. And this is if you allow any of it in your world, or you want to keep it more fantasy and down to earth. Personally, I am happy leaving Pathfinder 2 to the steampunk setting, and 1e is supposed to be a fantasy setting, and that is how I am keeping it.

Pawns, If Needed

If you play with pawns, I would recommend getting any you like. You can even use 2nd edition pawns in a pinch, so don't worry about picking up 1st edition ones unless you are collecting. Most of the time, you need something cool to represent PCs and close enough ones for monsters and NPCs.

That is if you are playing offline. If you are on a virtual tabletop, you will be doing something else entirely. You may have these from your other Pathfinder games, and you can easily make do with figures or pog-type markers.

Hard Data and Stories over Rules

Maps, world data, towns, NPCs, and other system-neutral background data should be a higher priority over rules. You can probably skip a gear, magic, and class expansion books. Stories are always great since those are what you will be retelling with the new system.

The basic Savage Pathfinder books are 90% of what you need to play. Everything else is background data or story content.

And remember, you are not "wasting money" if you have a total party kill, fail an adventure path, have things not come out how the adventure path says they should, or have the players devise a better way to solve something that changes everything. The rules system is already completely changed, so the adventures and outcomes should also be. Leave the adventure path half-resolved and come back to it later if you wipe. Make up a new part and insert a new group of heroes there.

"Next time, we solve it a different way."

Maybe team up with the bad guys. Maybe go Kingmaker on a path where you aren't supposed to. Maybe ignore everything and just adventure in the area. Maybe join a faction and mess things up, betray them, and take over yourself. We felt like preset computer game scenarios when we played these adventures, and we had to follow them beat-by-beat.

Not anymore.

The rules have changed.

Literally.

The fun of a second playthrough is this: seeing how crazy things get, changing things, screwing everything up, breaking the adventure, finding new paths and places to explore, and generally making the experience your own over the module writer. This is like a second playthrough of Grand Theft Auto where you get silly and try to break everything and do new things, so have fun with these adventures, and do not be afraid to try something that ruins everything and forces the referee to take things in a new and fun direction.

Savage Pathfinder Character Sheets

 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/351805/PathfinderR-for-Savage-Worlds-Form-Fillable--NonForm-Fillable-Character-Sheet

If you are looking for Savage Pathfinder character sheets, the above is one of the best you can get. One of the nice things about this one, besides it being free, is in Acrobat Reader you can turn off layers, like the background graphics, page graphics, and logo; and they even included a printer-friendly text layer you can turn on instead of the artsy-text layer.

The end result is a super clean and toner-saving character sheet you can print a dozen of and not feel your printer is going to run out of ink or toner.

Savage Pathfinder, part 1

This is what I am going with.

I had a fun campaign going for Savage Worlds and the original Fantasy Companion, and it was a fun one. This was in the world of Savage Thule, and it was a sort of Conan-inspired game with survival and mysterious ruin exploration themes. It was a fun game that got me into the system. When I saw the Savage Worlds Pathfinder game announced, I backed the crowdfunding and kind of put the game on hold. At the same time, I checked out different games, such as Castles & Crusades, B/X versions, Pathfinder 2, and a bunch of other fantasy games that I wanted to read and experience.

Primeval Thule is a fantastic setting, a mix of Lovecraft and Conan sort of horror and pulp adventure with a nod to the open fantasy standards. It is sort of a world you can pick any spot and make your own, which is excellent and allows you a lot of flexibility when coming up with adventures. I have the Pathfinder version, but they do have a PDF version of this for Savage Worlds. I just want the maps and descriptions; I can do without many rules since I have everything I need.

If I go back to Thule, I get this feeling that I want the new Fantasy Companion in my hand to do it right. That leaves me with my current book in hand, Savage Pathfinder.

Would I stick to Golarion in the 1e version, pre-Steampunk 2e timeline? Honestly, this was one of the most incredible runs of a setting in roleplaying history when you consider every adventure path and book made for Pathfinder 1e. I love that the 1e world still feels like a fantasy world. We have not advanced into the Starfinder era of robots, machine companions, androids, anything-goes ancestries, technology, flying machines, guns, and modern technology replacements. The Pathfinder 2e world feels like fantasy Starfinder without starships.

Explaining Savage Pathfinder

If I do stick to Golarion, how do I explain away the whole Pathfinder 2 thing? Well, there is always this guy...

Aroden

Well, the rumors about the god Aroden's death were greatly exaggerated. And he is a Savage Pathfinder fan. Being the god of history and innovation, he likes Savage World's ability to play in any historical era, and he also likes how innovative the rules are. Likely, he was off being a cowboy in Deadlands, giving the system a try.

...found you!

With the other gods distracted, Aroden discovered how to become the god of rules systems and gamemastering so he could impose his will on everyone and let the chips fall where they may. He walks around the Realm of the Gods like Matt Mercer and calls the other Golarion gods his players. He even narrates in the same way, "Your followers discover an evil plot to..." And yes, that pisses everyone off. But there is nothing they can do about it since without Aroden around, nobody plays anything.

Aroden's followers, who were left, became regional gamemasters of the world. I am guessing Aroden will not have an official church or religion. If they exist, they will operate in secret like a group of gamemasters secretly fixing rules, setting up adventures, and keeping abnormalities from messing up the new reality. You could have fun playing a religion that treats the Savage Worlds rules as a religion and treats bennies as a holy blessing, but then again, that is just describing most Savage Worlds fans.

Granted, with Savage Aroden back, many things in the timeline are changing. If you replay the adventure paths, I am betting things like the World-wound closing will not happen (or will end very differently) because of the war this guy returning will cause. You think, well, the ultimate good guy is back, things will be easy mode, right?

Not exactly. He is the new gamemaster in town, and things are gonna change. He sold all his 3.5 books and has moved onto a new system. He wants pulp adventure.

In this alternate world that follows Savage World rules, I am probably free to break all the plates and glasses, screw up the timeline, change the outcomes of adventure paths, make entire kingdoms fall, and raise holy hell with the timeline. Maybe because this guy returns, Asmodeus comes to  the world, makes himself King of Cheliax, and says, "Screw you, Aroden."

Nethys, god of Min-Maxing

Think of every god in the setting as a disruptive, obstinate, rules-lawyer, power gamer, flowery roleplayer, min-maxer, overly careful, or otherwise stereotype of a pen-and-paper gamer, and you will get how the gods act under this system. And then translate those behaviors to the plots they cause for their followers. And the players have to deal with all the chaos this causes. Adventure paths will be created just because of fights between "players" in the Realm of the Gods. This is Pathfinder 1e on crack.

Fun stuff.

I can create 100 first-edition Savage Pathfinder adventure paths just off the chaos this guy coming back and changing the rules of the game causes. No adventure path will ever end like you think it will. You are free to make the endings of each one make things worse in some way and create more adventures as the entire world slowly descends into madness and hell.

Crossovers will be fun since we will go to Deadlands, ETU, Flash Gordon, Sprawlrunners, Wiseguys, and other cool places instead of World War I. The rule is no crossover unless it is a Savage Worlds setting. Aroden wants to get some use out of his book collection, just like the guy running this campaign.

There will be those wanting to go back to the old ways (which will never happen, Aroden has a Deadlands ace up his sleeve); those who miss 3.75; those who know Pathfinder 2 is impossible now; those who lament the loss of Starfinder; those who know their 675 hit points and AC 40 are gone forever; and those who are just afraid of a new and uncertain future.

Let it rip.