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Unless this makes the game boring for you as a GM, don't make it a goal in itself to have the players vary their characters. The players won't like being forced into roles they don't want to play, and the game can be a lot of fun even with a homogeneous group. Draw your inspiration from westerns and other action movies where all of the characters are ...

This has changed as the rules have been refined over the editions. Test Drive v6 (Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition era) Edges are optional at character creation, and can be bought later when you've earned enough experience points for an Advance. However, at character creation you have the option of taking Hindrances, which give you either one or two points ...

I tend to look at the resolution to this problem more from a stand-point of visualization than system. In a slightly off-color blog post last year I called it, 'Premature Imagination.' The key point of that entry was to say that a major failing in approach that can lead to increasing dissatisfaction with, and growing focus on, the problem of whiff & ping ...

If the game is going to be combat-heavy, players should have a copy of the one-page Savage Worlds Combat Survival Guide handy. Players new to the system usually overlook the combat options that aren't straight-up "attack" since the bonuses they give seem so small. But they're not! The ganging-up bonuses (most often used by monsters) are not to be ...

Having recently ended my first turn as a Savage Worlds GM, I think I have some insight: Unlike many games, you don't roll Stat Die + Trait Die - you roll just the Trait Die. A Trait is a common term that includes both your Primary Attributes and your Skills. Your Wild Die is not added to your roll - it's an alternate die. Stat rolls without Skills are ...

This is a system-agnostic recommendation: Play your bad guys smart! I want to direct you to what I consider the bible on the topic, John Wick's Play Dirty. But here are some examples of what I mean: Remember that most of the time, PCs are invading a territory the monsters / bad guys / enemies know like the back of their hands. A dungeon is the NPCs home. ...

Here's a good blog article about tweaking the lethality of Savage Worlds at The Geek Life Project. In summary: Be generous with bennies. Really generous. Give them out like candy. When you spend bennies as a GM, don't spend them to "beat" the players, but to increase drama. Use them to re-roll encounter-turning skill rolls like Notice or Stealth, not for ...

I'm going to split your question into two parts: - Does a weapon that gives +1 to hit and +1 to damage increase Parry? I'm afraid your DM is correct, and Parry is not increased. Parry is calculated directly from the character's Fighting Trait, and the only weapon modifiers that can increase it are those that specifically state that they increase Parry. ...

The process for determining whether a target hit for damage is shaken and/or wounded can be summed up as follows: If the target is not Shaken A success on the damage roll = Shaken 1 Raise = 1 Wound and Shaken 2 Raises = 2 Wounds and Shaken 3 Raises = 3 Wounds and Shaken And so on... If the target is Shaken Success = 1 Wound and remains Shaken ...

Yes - Wild Cards (like PCs) take the highest of the roll of the normal die and their Wild Die (often a d6, but can actually be larger based on various Edges) and apply skill/attribute/other modifiers as normal. So your total would be 8 in this case. And yes, you can roll an Ace on the Wild Die (it can explode).

This is a general question having to do more with your play style, the same question has been posed over time with D&D Wall spells. Do you want your mode of play to be legalistic? Are you concerned about "game balance" above all? If you "let" your players do this, then will you have a problem saying no when they take this justification and abuse it to ...

My understanding is that extras don't get any of the effort or thought that includes things like "wounds." They are either 1) fine, 2) shaken, or 3) gone. Less to track that way. Only wildcards have wounds, individual bennies, etc. If you want the extra that was healed by the PC after the battle to become important, it doesn't really matter whether the ...

I think there are some suggestions I can offer, but first I wanted to check with one of the comments that you have made. You say that characters with a d6 in shooting can't hit. This seems a little off because the odds for hitting a TN of 4, i.e. a target at short range with no cover, are 75% for a Wild Card. I certainly have players in my games with d4s ...

There are a few mitigating aspects which have limited the Edge's use for the player who has it in my game, which is Deadlands Reloaded. Firstly, Gadgeteer with RAW is limited to powers of the character's rank or lower that are available to Mad Scientists. This actually reduces the number of powers available significantly. Also remember that the device ...

I believe what you are looking for is on Page 55 of the Deluxe rules. Snapfire Penalty: Certain weapons, such as sniper rifles, are very inaccurate if fired “from the hip” rather than using their excellent sights or scopes. If the character moves in the action he fires, he suffers a –2 penalty.

No, the end-of-session xp award if for PCs only. Extras advance in a different manner. SW Deluxe Edition p 43: Don’t create your Extras with the character creation rules. Just give them what you think they ought to have in their various skills and attributes and move on. While that says nothing about their advancement, it most assuredly sets a ...

Yes, it does The only penalty from using a rapier in your off hand is that you can't use that hand for something else. The +1 parry still applies. Source: Official Rules Forum Also, I second @aramis as another former SCA fencer. Makes total sense.

The question in the title is a little different than the question in the body. As a result, I'll answer both. Can powers do Suppressive Fire? Sure, if the description of that power allows it. Can the Bolt Power do Suppressive Fire? No, not as written in the core rules. A GM would probably be more than willing to work with a PC who wanted to create a ...

Yes, you can fire at two different targets with each barrel. Any ranged weapon with a RoF of greater than 1 can be fired at two separate targets. ("Ranged Attacks, Rate of Fire", p. 67, Savage Worlds Deluxe edition) The double-barrel shotgun is special in that it has this additional rule (page 50): Double Barrels: Shotguns with two attached barrels are ...

To use a CO2 fire extinguisher for general obscurement, I'd suggest having it be in a Cone Template and having the the area sprayed grant "Light Cover", because that's described as "half or less of the target is obscured, which sounds about right for a light, gaseous propellant that moves quickly. Against humans, I think the easiest thing to do would be to ...

Generally when I write my stories, I'm more focused on making orcs be plausibly orcs, and then letting the PCs figure out the best way through whatever made sense in the context of the setting. It is a philosophical departure from D&D, but I've found you see a lot more clever avoidance of fights by PCs when the world is designed that way. That said, ...

Focus on the differences, not the similarities Think "Seven Samurai" - the important part was how the guys dealt the breakdown of the society and the fall of their way of life into unimportance, not which one could fight a bit better or worse. Design your campaign around the characters This should be obvious, really. That doesn't mean you should make ...

The rules don't cover details like this, leaving them up to the fiction of the "rules of magic" in your setting. Consider things like "wizards (do/don't) need both hands to cast (most) spells" to be a trapping that applies to the entire Arcane Background in your setting. You can either work this out as the GM beforehand or as it comes up, or you can invest ...

There have been five stand-alone† editions of Savage Worlds: Savage Worlds was printed in 2003 and was the first edition. Savage Worlds (Revised Second Edition) was printed in 2004. Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition was printed in 2007 and brought a significant rules revision. This also brought a smaller form factor and a low price, with the intention of ...

Whether something is a Wild Card or an Extra is a matter of game plot and story, not about the fictional game world. It is entirely possible to have adults Rocs that are Wild Cards right beside other adult Rocs that are Extras, so long as that makes sense for the encounter design. The default Roc in the book happens to be a Wild Card, but it's not a rule ...

The number before the brackets represents the total Toughness including any protection given by armour. The number in brackets is the proportion of this given by the armour alone. This often comes into play where damaging attacks include an AP or armour piercing value. If an attack does, you subtract the AP from the armour part of the Toughness before ...

The setting that springs to mind is Hellfrost. It is based in the realm of Rassilon, a fully detailed world with an extensive Gazetter and Bestiary in addition to the Player Guide. The world is varied and interesting, with plot hooks liberally sprinkled through the published literature, and although it adheres to many of the common fantasy tropes, there ...

No, you cannot activate more than one Power per turn. Activating a Power is seen as a single generic action, and as you cannot use the same action twice in a turn, you cannot activate two Powers in the same turn. See here for official confirmation of this. However, there is nothing stopping you activating Smite on one turn and then Deflection the next, ...

I'd allow it. It's clever, it overcomes the obstacle and it moves the game along. Certainly there might be a few drawbacks, like mxyplk pointed out. Most importantly, however, the PCs get to win that one through clever use of what they've got. And aren't we all at the table to have a good time and be awesome for a while...?

There are a number of approaches that come to mind, but the big caveat with all of them is that it depends on the setting you are working in and what you're GM does and doesn't allow. It is very important to note that Edges from different settings are not intended to be 'plug and play', and they are not guaranteed to be balanced if you start mixing and ...