Post your Savage Worlds questions below.  As these questions are answered and sorted out, they will be added here to an ever increasing list to help others as they discover and enjoy this system.

While not technically a rules question, it is a question that might make life easier on everyone as the games are played here.

Is giving the players certain knowledge about opponents and enemy wildcards a good idea on the forums?  Things like toughness, defense and other information, while good to keep away, allows the players to fight the battles almot by themselves with little intervention from the GM.  However, it does take away from the mystery of your enemies.

Which do you think is better in the long run?

I would think that, for a reality check stand points, it shouldn't be that hard for a guy to know how high his foe's parry is; you can tell how good their defenses are.

as for toughness, yeah, you really wouldn't know that, but you might be able to tell how big they are.  Eventuyally, they'll figure out both of those if the fight goes on long enough.

I would let players know what they need to hit something or not - Then they can describe their successes or failures at hitting something. However, whiolst they know the bullet hits the target, they may not know how badly the creature gets hurt.

If it keeps things fast but doesn't hide the intrigue, I'm all for it. But if it doesn't keep combat fast or make things more interesting, then scrap it.

This is just a simple question on ranged damage, and I think I know the answer,but would like confirmation.

I know when you use melee weapons, it it your strength plus an additional modifier.  But with ranged weapons, numbers like 2d6 and 3d8 confuse me just a little.  I'm thinking you roll the dice and add them together, in order to compare to the target's toughness.  Any raise above that number of course causes a wound.

Not sure if that made sense, but I believe that is how the ranged damage works.  Am I right or wrong?

correct.  and they are openended, you reroll max

Ok...On the note of the open-ended roll...

Is it open ended on a roll of 12 for 2d6, or for eac individual 6 that is rolled?  Just want to make sure I understand that correctly before everything gets out of control later on *grins*

This is about the only thing that confuses me, since it doesn't follow the standard attribute/skill + wild die combination.

Each d6.  So a roll of 4 and 6 on 2d6 results in rerolling the 6 and adding it.  If that re-roll is a 3, your total on that 2d6 roll would be 4+(6+3)=13.  That's my understanding anyway...

That is correct. Open ended rolls are always whenever you roll the maximum value of a dice, not the total value of all your dice added together.

So, if you were firing a shotgun at point blank range for 3D6 damage, if any of those dice rolled a 6, you roll again and keep going. It's even better if you ace the attack roll, where you get +1D6 damage! So having 4 dice to try and kill someone with is likely to end up rolling again.

The same would apply to a Wild Card where they are rolling 1D6 for the Wild Die, and then whatever their skill die is. So if they had a D4 in Persuade, whilst they would roll a D4 and a D6, both have the potential of aceing and rolling again, with you picking the best afterwards.
And when attempting to prove this on the die roller, both dice ended on a 2! What a sucky roll! If it was something critical in game, that would be a benny use right away.

I'm not sure if this is a DLR quesiton or a Rippers question

Gatling pistols have a ROF of 3 in rippers, and 2 in DLR.  so in DLR, you can use one to suppress, but you can't in Rippers (because it requies 5xROF shots, and they only has 12 shots.  Plus, you get 6 bursts in DLR, only 4 in rippers.

http://www.peginc.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12804

seems to me they should be the same, esp since Rippers takes place "later" than DL.

I don't think you can really draw a direct comparison between the two games, for more reasons than one. Although the rules are compatible, there are considerable tweaks for the setting. I think specifically in this case that the gatling pistol in DL:R an arcane (weird science) item while in Rippers it is a normal firearm.

I originally just wanted to be able to suppress in Rippers.  It was suggested by Clint to simply change the Rippers ROF to 2.

If not, would it be reasonable to do a small burst template, or mabye give the targets a +1 on their Spirit roll in a medium one, since the Gat Pistol only has 12 shots and should have 15 for suppressive fire?

what skill covers making things?  what in d20 is called crafting.

would Repair include making a spear, bow, raft, dugout canoe, explosives... or would they be under specalized knowledge skills?

I would deal with it as a knowledge skill.  It has always struck me as strange that there was no craft skill or perform skill but really they can be dealt with effectively with knowelege.  I think in the long run it does make more sense.  A generic craft would allow someone to make a suit of armor, a cake or a computer at the same level of success.  I know this is kind of what shooting does but craft seems even more extreme.  Better to make it a byproduct of an area of knowledge.  If I take knowledge of a trade like blacksmith or armorer that is my skill for crafting something. If I take knowledge of piano that is my skill for an effective performance.  I would really only have a chance at crafting something related to my area of expertise.

something might be "common knowledge", like tying a knife to a stick to make a spear.

But making a bow needs a real skill

This could just be me but in a rules light system the damage/combat seems overpowered. I have played systems in my time both complete fantasy and down right realistic and I would have to say Savage World ranks up there in the realistic category. It almost seems like the chance to die is higher than any other system I have seen since heroes normally only have three wounds.

The only other system I have ever played that has combat as dangerous as Savage is L5R which can pretty much take a person down with a single swipe of a sword. My question I had was about soaking rules.

Do you think in a mostly fantasy system it would be too over powering to allow soaking as a reflex action to attacks? I mean it seems like it should be in the game  without spending bennies. I can understand realistic settings not allowing it but it seems like in fantasy settings character's can get taken out in less than two actions which is pretty damn fast.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:10, Tue 25 Sept 2007.

It is a reflex, I mean, it doesn't take an action.

But I think you mean, to get a free soak roll for every hit that gives wounds.

I don't think that's all that important, I ran a shortish fantasy game and no one ran out of bennies to fast, and I wasn't all that generaous as handing them out.  GIving a free "soak" for every hit means hero's will last forever, and it'll be darn hard for them to take out a bad guy wild card.

the one problem we found, is the occasinal exploding dice that deals 6+ wounds.  It doesn't really matter how many bennies you have at that point, you are going down.

As with all things, it depends on what you throw at them.
What is the average Toughness of the PCs? 5? 7? 10?
What is the average attack you are hitting them with? 2d6? 4d10?

Remember that a hero who takes 3 wounds from 3 separate attacks... or 40 wounds from 40 separate attacks, isn't dead. You need to do multiple wounds in a single blow to actually kill a wild card, which means getting at least 2 raises on your damage roll (if the WC isn't shaken already).

Take an average person with a Toughness of 5. With no previous wounds, you need to do 4 wounds to kill them on a single on a single attack. That means rolling a 17 for damage. Even if they already had 3 wounds, you need to do at least 3 more wounds in a single attack to get them "bleeding out". That means rolling a 13 for damage. You'd only need a 9 if they were already shaken. Even a .50 caliber rifle rolling 2d10 for damage has only roughly a 50% chance of killing an average, unarmored, wounded, but unshaken person with a single shot. That's hardly deadly or realistic. AND that isn't even counting the possibility of a WC to soak some damage.

In general, Savage Worlds is fairly cinematic. You can do the kinds of things you see in action movies (and related media). I find the Wound Table a little gritty, given the possibility of permanent damage. And it is always possible to make that incredible damage roll to kill a PC with one blow. So, I generally call SW "gritty cinematic."

Ummm, that's not correct at all, actually. It doesn't matter how you get 4 or more wounds. Getting more than three total wounds makes you incap. It could be a bunch of 1 wound attacks, a single huge multi-wound attack, or anywhere in between.

The only difference is between the Revised Knockout Blow table and the new Explorer's Edition rules. In the old rules, taking single wound attacks over and over had a chance of not making you incap, but that's it. Under the new rules, it doesn't matter how many wounds were caused by the attack that made you go over 3 wounds.

And also, one thing that I didn't see brought up, regardless of how badly incap a character is, they are vulnerable to a Finishing Move. All it takes is one action by an enemy and poof you're dead.

I don't have my Explorer's edition yet. But let me quote from the revised rules, page 70.

A hero who suffers more than 3 wounds must check this table to determine his fate.

Note that taking more than 3 wounds does not automatically kill a character.

Remember that you’re checking the number of wounds caused by the blow that sent the hero to this table—not the total number of wounds he has.

It makes a huge difference if the hero goes from 0 to 4 wounds or from 3 to 4 wounds. [However, as Clint has pointed out on the forums, no WC ever really has "4 wounds"--they just have 3 wounds plus the effect of the knockout table.]

1 Wound-Battered & Bruised
If your hero was previously Incapacitated, this result has no further effect. Otherwise, your hero’s had the wind knocked out of him. Make a Spirit roll at the beginning of each round. If the roll is successful, he becomes Shaken and can return to the fight.

So, if you were at 3 wounds and took another wound, you would not be dead. Nor would you be incapacitated (see below). You would be reeling and must make a Spirit roll to improve to Shaken.

If you continue to take single-wound hits, you would still be at this level of wound, without ever being incapacitated.

2 Wounds-Incapacitated
Your hero is beaten badly enough to take him out of this fight. He’s incapacitated and must roll on the Injury Table.

So, whether you have 2 wounds and take 2 more wounds, or have 3 wounds and take 2 more wounds, you end up incapacitated. Sure, then someone can come along and give a knockout blow, but that's true in most games, even D&D.

Therefore, everything I said was correct based on the rules I had.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:37, Mon 01 Oct 2007.

the best thing to do is play test it.  Before you house rule something to fix a problem, make sure the problem exists