Savage Pathfinder & The Pathfinder Adventure Card Game

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.

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.

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.

Mail Room: Pathfinder Adventure Card Game

The Pathfinder Adventure Card Game is a game I always wanted to get into, and they say you can play this solo, so it looks fun. The game is revised, and this is the new version, and the reviews say the entire experience is polished and a lot smoother to play.

These sorts of things are why I went back to Paizo. This company delivers fun and exciting things to do on a consistent schedule. They also put a lot of excellent game design and joy into every release. Instead of a cable package, I keep a few subscriptions up and enjoy the boxes I get until the next one arrives. They are not perfect, but right now, they fit my vision of fun and keep delivering me new experiences to have.

vs. Magic: The Gathering?

Also, I am not into Magic The Gathering or all the spin-offs and one-offs, so those are outside my experience and world right now. My brother was more into that than me, and I never really saw myself getting into that game. We did buy sets and play, but they went out of print so fast and were unsupported that we never felt we could keep up or have any chance of getting cool cards.

With this game, from what I know, you get all the cards, and there is no rarity game. There is even a custom-card creator over on Drive Thru RPG that sounds cool and lets players expand the game. I love the idea of a card game that fans can support and develop.

Month after month, I see a lot more I want on Paizo's site than I do Wizards, so I gravitate to where my interests are. Also, I didn't play 5E and missed that boat when my brother passed away, that was going to be our next game together, and we never got the chance. I respect 5E and love that people have fun with the game, but I don't play it and chose to check out 6E when that comes out.

Otherwise, I have too much to do with the things I do have.

vs. B/X?

I wish there were B/X companies that did this much work as either Wizards or Paizo and could put this much effort into the main rulebook and consistent product support with roadmaps and product innovation. I want everything: expansion, new classes, adventures, worlds, new mechanics, card games, plushies, figures, pawns. Many of my B/X books are now on my storage shelves; I don't really have much to do after playing through them. I collected as many expansion books for B/X as I found. As a result, my collection feels disjointed and for several different games.

The only company that comes close to Paizo's level of support in the retro-space is Goodman Games with Dungeon Crawl Classics, and I can always count on them to keep the adventures coming. I wish they did more in terms of expansions and other product support. I think Goodman Games' philosophy aligns with my feelings on B/X, use the past to create something entirely new - but don't be too beholden to history. I feel a lot of B/X games are satisfied with history and stop there. We may get a game that has a few differences and better presentation, but nothing really new and nothing extraordinary to look forward to seeing next month.

I want them to think big!

I feel myself drifting away from B/X just a little as a result. While I love the classic rules and they will always be fun, I like to read and play with new things as a reader and avid hobbyist. Would I love an adventure card game based on B/X? Hell yeah! If I could find one...

vs. Pathfinder 2e?

This is not a card game and is not meant for solo play. This is more of a social game, and that is cool. I love the character building and tweaking. This game feels like you can lose yourself in a unique character much more than a 5E or B/X, and from what I see, it plays better than on a tabletop with battle maps.

On the downside, the complexity feels higher. While yes, I am used to Pathfinder 1e, and this is supposed to be streamlined, I have been playing D&D 3E, 3.5E, and then 3.75E since the first books came out for each. I plan to run duo groups until I get used to the system and increase complexity until I find my happy place.

The card game feels more "crack open the box and play" than a solo oracle system with a full pen-and-paper game. This is why I tend to like hex-crawls with my solo games since if I am at a total loss on what happens next, I have unexplored hexes and a few random charts to get me started. Stories and missions can then be spawned from filling out a hex, and each one can generate a new story arc.

A Pickup and Play Game

Last night, I looked over the rules PDF, and the game feels like a highly simplified version of Pathfinder 1e. You have a set of target numbers on the cards, pass and fail results, and characters have dice in different abilities they roll for combat and challenges. Damage is the difference between the check and the target number and forces you to discard cards. Discard more cards than you have, and your character dies.

Simple. We always thought health counters and countdown dice were a bit extraneous to card games, and I like the health pool as the number of cards in hand mechanic.

One thing that feels strange to me is checking off boxes on cards to level up feats and powers; um, yeah, not doing that. They recommend using a character sheet. Okay, this feels strange and makes the game more like a "card RPG," but I will give you this as your "one thing" you can do outside of a regular card game-style playstyle, which is fantastic.

I thought checks were on a d20 for some reason. Apparently, they are straight d4 to d12 style checks with modifiers and extra dice added due to powers or gear. There are also rules for continuing campaigns and improving characters.

Expanding the game on Drivethrurpg with professional print-and-play user-created cards? A genius and bold move. Thank you!

This one looks like a lot of fun, and I am happy I dove in and looking forward to cracking this open when the box comes.

Great Article: Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Strategy #3

Check this out:

http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5lja4?Pathfinder-Adventure-Card-Game-Strategy

This is a part three of a strategy guide for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, and it has some interesting discussion of card game mechanics. Part of me sees this and wonders if this isn't a better way of implementing D&D 4's "card based" powers with a deck, hand, and draws for powers during an adventure - mixed in with d20 rolls and other bonuses that change and flow through the game.

With D&D 4, you build your character with a collection of 'card like' powers and those either can be used from turn-to-turn, once per encounter, or once per adventure. With Paizo's game, you build a deck with all sorts of allies, equipment, powers, and other cards that can be used in the situations that come up in the adventure. With D&D 4, your hand is your character, and you have no draws or shuffle mechanic. Paizo's manages to create a deck and shuffle mechanic, with your character's power being the cards they have in their hand.

I will have to admit there is a fun and interesting element of hand strategy and chance with Paizo's handling of card-based powers over the D&D 4 model, and this looks like a next generation of the 'cards as character' mechanic introduced in D&D 4, and advances the idea of 'deck building as character' that I feel D&D 4 never quite achieved.