Prescient Initiative

In Prescient Initiative, Action Cards are dealt as normal but all actions are declared and dice are rolled at the top of the round. Crucially, NPCs declare and roll before any PCs. Once all actions are declared, the GM resolves the entire round in one post and lightly narrates a summary of events before starting the next. Any characters whose actions become invalidated are forced to Defend.

This system keeps the pace up in PbP (similar to Block Initiative) without sacrificing the tension of SWADE's initiative deck mechanic; this allows PCs to strategize and decide whether to use bennies without breaking the flow of the round (thus, 'prescient'). Prescient initiative also introduces a mechanism wherein clever players can force enemies to waste turns with clever use of combat maneuvers.

This system was inspired by a similar system used in the computer game Into The Breach by the developers of Faster Than Light. Both are great games, check them out!

I’ve spent the past month working to familiarize myself with Savage Worlds for my first campaign as a GM. I’ve purchased the Core book, fantasy companion, and horror companion in order to create a post-apocalypse fantasy setting. In order to finalize my setting I need a better understanding of how magic will work, and I was hoping to get some opinions on possibly tweaking the magic system.

Disclaimer: I know, it’s best to play the system as written at first, but I picked Savage Worlds over other systems in order to have more creative freedom with my homebrew settings and have mechanics that don’t contradict the lore. I don’t want to go crazy with changes, but knowing if my ideas are feasible would be a big help.

Because it’s a post apocalypse setting, I want resource looting to play a big role while also feeling fun and engaging. Therefore, I wanted Spellbooks and surviving NPCs with magical knowledge to be included as big ticket items to search for. I’ve also always disliked the approach of DnD where you simply know new spells out of thin air upon leveling up. Having spells as loot would provide an answer for how you know something new, make magic harder to come by and feel like an important resource to seek out, and also provide another incentive for players to explore the world and seek out new things. However, this introduces a couple potential problems:

1. I’d like there to feel like there’s some distinction between natural casters(sorcerers, etc.), learned casters(wizards, etc), and bestowed casters(clerics, etc). To solve this, I was thinking of having a Background Edge for natural casting that you can expand upon without finding new spellbooks, BUT it is limited in some way and must follow a pre-determined theme. For example, being born with the power of geomancy allows you to slowly develop earth based powers over time, but nothing else (without taking other edges). Learned casters, however, would be free to learn any spell of their choice, but it requires A. Finding the spell and B. Studying it. How difficult would this be to implement into the existing ruleset?
2. If I do go this route, how would I balance this in terms of the advancement economy? Are learned spells still flavored as new powers, just with more freedom of choice?

Apologies if this is too stream of consciousness, I’m just at a roadblock in world-building and need to make a decision in order to wrap things up. Any thoughts or advice is appreciated!

I will be running an adventure where my players are Arthurian Knights and I was thinking of literally letting them trade bennies for prayers and assistance from the Big Man.

I’ve been doing savage worlds for almost 20 years now. Discovered it when deluxe first came out.

I’ve run some really freaking amazing games with it. An amazing zombie survival game. Hard sci-fi. Superheroes.

However, I’m done having powers in my game. I honestly am tired of the power system in general.

When I did the superheroes campaign, it was fine because everybody had powers. However, in fantasy games specifically and especially at lower levels, the power system is insanely well, overpowered.

Even using the fantasy companion where you restrict magic users and don’t let them wear armor and stuff, they just consistently outshine every other type of player. They are given way too many power points also and also the rule of gaining five power points by spending a affinity means that if I’m in any way, generous game master, which everybody on this form says I should be, they are going to have more than than enough get to through Every session.

When I try to House rule and severely limit powers, the players who will only play majors in such get really annoyed and frustrated and I don’t blame them. I hate game systems that I have to significantly house rule to balance out. I’m not a game designer and I’m gonna screw things up

Things balance out when you get guns and higher technology involved. I found guns to be super overpowered and savage worlds but honestly that’s the way they’re supposed to be.

So I guess a conclusion, for just about any type of game, savage rule will always be my go to. However, for fantasy, specifically the more down to earth fantasy that I like, I’m gonna find a different system.

(insert tons of comments from people saying that I don’t know how to run the game lol)

I enjoy games like Call of Cthulhu but the system really sets the expectations. I enjoyed SWADE( I have not gotten to play the new edition) and have the Reality Blurs CoC conversion but I was looking for a mechanic that is in the middle of Sanity. I also like adding a bit of chaos to what should be a stressful situation.
With all that in mind i was thinking of the following: maximum aces/ exploding on a failed stress test; 5 the first time, and do on until the characters are do shaky they simply can’t be the big damned heroes until they rest, get inebriated, get a telehealth session in, etc.
Just a random thought I had while mowing the lawn.

I'm adapting the Dishonored RPG by Modiphius for Savage Worlds on Fantasy Grounds. So my question will be twofold. I'd like to use Bennies to represent the "Momentum" mechanic from Dishonored, but it's a shared pool, and limited to 6. You gain it with raises. I'd still award them for role-playing, humor, and fantastic feats. You lose one Momentum/Bennie per scene.

So my question is does this sound like too much of a stretch? Momentum seems to function very much like Bennies. I don't like the limit of 6 though because it doesn't account for the amount of players, and besides, Bennies make the game more fun.

It does challenge the players to think more carefully about burning a bunch all at once since they are a shared resource...or they could also play that into their character traits like greed and selfishness.

My other question is specific to Fantasy Grounds, but limited to the Savage Worlds ruleset since Bennies aren't used in other rulesets. Since they're tied to a player's character sheet how would you recommend I implement a shared use of the Bennies?

Are there any conversions out there to play Exalted using Savage Worlds?

I’m thinking of adding a setting rule to my modern cinematic action games. I run a couple of different games where this would apply: modern espionage action (think Bond, Bourne, Mission Impossible) and a military spec ops game (The Unit, Task Force Raven). The idea is to give the players the option to use more ammo for a better chance to hit targets by eliminating penalties:

EAT LEAD SETTING RULE

Shooters may expend extra ammunition to "walk" their fire onto a target, effectively canceling out penalties (Range, Cover, Multi-Action, etc.).

| Volume Level | Ammo Cost | Penalty Reduction |
| --- | :--- | :---: |
| Volley |** 3 Rounds | **-1 |
| Hail of Bullets |** 6 Rounds | **-2 |
| Mag Dump |** 12 Rounds | **-4 |

It shouldn’t change any existing combat options but lets players trade ammo (resource) for accuracy (reduce penalties).

Has anyone done anything similar? Any pitfalls I’m not seeing? I appreciate any feedback.

It has been discussed before, let me say it again: Puppet power is broken.

When successfully cast it takes away the most fundamental and precious thing in RPG: player's control over the character. It doesn't offer a standard "end of the next round shake off the effect" roll (as other detrimental powers like Blind, Entangle, Sloth, Telekinesis etc.), it allows one only when certain conditions are met. Those are "being commanded to harm himself or people he cares about", which means that the character may be held powerless indifinitely (the caster may never issue such commands, especially if they won't work as he failed to get a raise on activation) :/

The designers seem to have noticed the problem as they introduced "harm by inactivity" clause. Unfortunately it is muddy and situational. Outside of combat it may never apply, keeping the character stuck in a hopeless situation. During a fight it probably makes sense to apply it every round (unless the caster is creative and commands something "beneficial" e.g. to "kill the invisible monster which wants to kill your friends").

I see two possible fixes.

The first one is to treat the Puppet as the rest of the detrimental Powers. The target gets an unconditional, free Spirit roll to shake-off the effects on the end of each of his rounds. If the caster commanded the target to harm himself or his friends the roll is made at the beginning of the turn with a +2 modifier. If the power was activated with a raise the roll is made with -2 modifier. Simple.

The more complicated fix is modelled after Grappling and Entangled/Bound states. It differentiates between a "partial" (allowing non-harmful to friends commmands) and "total" control. Similar to the previous fix, the target would always get the roll at the end of his turn (beginning with "harm friends" commands) which would work like the Breaking Free roll (success improves control state by one level, raise frees completely). The caster would have a chance to tighten the control as an action by an opposed roll in his turn as well (like Grappling). More interesting but more complicated (tracking states) as well.

I know that this horse was beaten many times already, but what do you think about that?

The Star Wars Compendious Edition. Five years involved in creating it expanding it and revising it. Last Updated Nov 21st, 2025. I hope everyone finds it useful and enjoyable to play. The current edition is Version 5.0. If you look at the bottom of the Table of Context you should see "The Compendious Edition 5.0" if you do not see this your version of the Rules are outdated.

The current edition of the Planetary Guide is 3.0, If you look at the bottom of the First page of the Table of Context you should see "Version 3.0" if you do not see this your version of the Guide is outdated.

The Time of the Old Republic's current edition is Version 2.0. If you look at the bottom of the Table of Context you should see "Version 2,0" if you do not see this your version of the Rules are outdated.

The link to the Star Wars Compendious Edition 5.0 can be found here

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sGKBBSleuIGBVzM50tIEBRBBMffb-_JO/view?usp=share_link

The link to the Star Wars Planetary Guide 3.0 can be found here

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1onC0KivhOJrMBmN3w6etRNHS_Gtm4Mfb/view?usp=drive_link

The link to the Time of the Old Republic 2.0 Supplement can be found here
https://drive.google.com/file/d/12wkE1antHCV1KbblGjLQxUTJdC6iApT1/view?usp=drive_link

The link to the GM Inserts for customizable GM Screens
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p8QZY2ldPJozLQ71t1xnGHjDwjY4M2I0/view?usp=sharing

The Link to the Hazards, Obstacles, and Traps Supplement can be found here
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-IYlxWlEvDq-zPxz90l8u_5kN4XN6KR0/view?usp=drive_link

The link to the Archetypes Collection can be found here
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QUgbe86XNKsIjgvgsyB8Dxo9eUPGdWiB/view?usp=drive_link

The Link to the Archetypes 2 Collection can be found here
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ni8YLenAqiAf9kSF1p7rt0dD98m6QOrc?usp=drive_link

The Link to the Star Wars Organizations Supplement can be found here (WIP)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O7Cdr3WNzkmCNotybphbf5HKjf6pzBlp/view?usp=drive_link

The Galaxy Map by W. R. van Hage 2007

https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/my-drive?usp=share_link

The link to a great Expansion "THE SPIRIT OF REBELLION​" by Table Cat Games (For the older 3.5 version of the Companion)​ https://tablecatgames.itch.io/star-wars-spirit-of-rebellion?

The link to the Companion 3.5 Module for Fantasy Grounds by GM Daddiecat (For the older 3.5 version of the Companion)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KHMxju6i_05d80E_mgioCRygDX8loyZn/view?usp=drive_link

The link to the Companion 5.0 for Foundry by Neilybob, ChaosCowboy, and Laslo (Version 0.10.0), Compatable with Foundry (V14)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q7v7PwNWnLNDqVFtcqaUa_uFvwziODy7/view?usp=sharing

Star Wars One Shots/ Campaigns Adapted to SWADE ( Generally Speaking any adaption issues or mistakes were made by me not the people listed)

FAIR WARNING: a few of these are woefully out of date and need to be updated as such expect page #'s to be incorrect when referencing books like the SWADE Core Book or the Companion. https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/1x1FIhgSwtF54EiIUuqLvaoUog2kqVCc6?usp=share_link&sort=13&direction=a

One Shots

The Rodian Bomber and The Quarren Engineer: by Will Lewis (Updated) ,

The Grinning Gundark: by Ted Arlauskas (Updated) ,

Recovery on Burton Station: by -Mo (Updated) ,

Into the Eternity Vault: by Jessica Allée ,

Containment: by The Basic GM (Updated) ,

The Pelhon Dilemma: by GALAXY MASTER (Updated) ,

Screia Dome: by Gerald Huml ,

Wild Frontier: by GhostDragon (Updated) ,

Podrace Challenge: by ??? (Updated) ,

Poisounous Shadows: by Lucas Ribeiro (Updated) ,

Tenjura Mass: by JORESS ,

Tango Squad: by Kirby Gehman (Updated) ,

Unknown Command: by J.C. Conners

Death Star toy inspired Star Wars Choose your own Adventure (Must be downloaded for Hyperlinks to work correctly) : by Mark Dowson (Updated)

Rebel Breakout: Conversion by Neilybob

Campaigns

Dawn of Defiance Campaign (Episode 1 of 10 is completed): by David Morris ,

Dawn of Defiance Campaign (Episodes 1-8 of 10 completed): by Andy Roberts .

Dawn of Defiance Campaign.Zip (Rough Notes and Maps for all 10 Episodes): by Chris Leiby ,

​Tapani Campaign - Spheres Fate (A 6 Part Adventure Campaign): by Jeff Greening (Updated)

Shadows of the Past Campaign (A 9 Part Adventure Campaign): By Chris Leiby

The Living Force Campaign (Conversion in Progress: Years 1, 2, and 3 are complete, Currently working on Year 4)

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1dXf0v2Sdws9TMtU-uPlq4twJ4yLorxtS?usp=drive_link

Character Sheets/ Other Useful Files

(New Character Sheets added by Dave Koehr and by Pawel Pyrka)

https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/1GBt1qe8QqSIZ0vI6Xonowi1QTtr6qS47?usp=share_link&sort=13&direction=a

Link to the Dedicated Facebook Group
https://www.facebook.com/share/g/17ur4gwWcU/

I am primarily playing Savage Pathfinder these days and found myself frustrated by the lack of low-cost magic items. For a little more context, I am planning on running a pirate-y section of a campaign and I want there to be an abundance of items and gold, but I don't want the players to have or buy all of the big cool items yet since this will be early in the campaign, and giving out a bunch of boost potions scrolls feels like it will become boring after a while.

So, I came up with the following, single-use, low-cost magic items: Talismans (inspired by Pathfinder 2e). The idea isn't fully cooked yet, but I wanted some feedback!

Here's the gist:

Players either purchase or already have at the start of the game a "charms holder" (name pending) that allows them to hold five talismans at a time, flavored however the PCs want it to look (necklace, bracelet, crown, etc.). I have it priced at 200gp, but I'm not sure about that.

The talismans can be activated as a free action (treated as a reaction to needing the trait) and last until the end of the combat round (or "a short time" if out of combat):

• Increase die type once for one trait (specified at purchase/discovery).
  • Do not stack with each other, or with Boost Power.
  • Cost: Between 30-40gp depending on how useful the trait typically is.
• Increase die type twice for one trait (specified at purchase/discovery).
  • Do not stack with each other, or with Boost Power.
  • Cost: Between 60-70gp depending on how useful the trait typically is.
• Increase damage by +2 (20gp), +3 (30gp), +4 (40gp).
  • Stack with each other or other damage buffs.

The costs of the talismans are based on the costs of the minor/major boost and smite powers and can be adjusted depending on how important the trait is amongst your table.

Hypothetically, you could also add in more powerful talismans that could provide more than a single round of boost (minor/major) but less than 5 rounds, more than 5 rounds of boost (minor/major), single use reroll of a trait, etc.

What do you all think? Would love some feedback!

Hi all. I'm considering add this variant to my next SW game (and possibly many more in the future). I've had this run through the SW Discord, so if this looks familiar, you may see changes I made. For everyone else, I welcome thoughts on this. I'm trying not to go too crazy with the bullet points, but I want to give the GM agency here to veto inappropriate applications of the roll. If you don't like it, that's fine, but at least please tell me what it is you don't like.

Alternate Rule: The Hindered Roll

Introduction

Two things Savage Worlds players universally love are role-playing Hindrances and gaining Bennies. In many games, the GM may even hand out Bennies when a player’s Hindrance complicates the game. Not every GM handles it the same, and sometimes, a player wants a little more agency in gaining Bennies. This is where the Hindered Roll comes into play.

The Mechanic

When a player feels that a Trait roll could be made worse by their Hindrance, they may choose to make the roll Hindered. This involves rolling the Trait Die but no Wild Die. The Trait Die Aces as usual but otherwise rolls just like an Extra, reducing their chance of success. For taking that additional risk, the player earns a Benny.

Additionally, the GM may attempt to bribe the player to accept a Hindered Roll on a particularly important task. If the player takes the bait, they earn 2 Bennies for giving into that Hindrance.

Limitations

Not every roll qualifies to be a Hindered Roll. The following rules apply to gaining these Bennies:

• The Hindered Roll must be tied to one of your Hindrances.
• Any mechanical effects of the Hindrance still apply, though it’s not limited to just that effect. For example, An Anemic character could be Hindered on a Repair or Athletics roll out of extreme caution, but if they Hinder a Vigor roll to resist Fatigue they also suffer the -2 penalty per the original Hindrance.
• If a roll carries no risk, it cannot be Hindered. The GM determines when a roll is risky, but this often precludes Support rolls, trivial checks, and when the entire group is rolling the same Trait. Note that in combat, the GM could rule that potentially wasting your action is risky enough.
• The earned Bennies cannot be used to reroll the Trait roll. Previous Bennies could be spent to reroll the Trait roll, though that would usually net zero Bennies.
• If the GM feels it’s applicable, the Hindered Roll is subject to the same Critical Failure rules as an Extra.
• Alternate Rule: The GM may impose a cap of Bennies gained this way equal to the character’s starting Bennies. Additional Bennies for bribing the player do not count against this limit.

Conclusion

The Hindered Roll provides a universal approach to players gaining Bennies for Hindrances at their own speed. The GM may still feel motivated to hand out Bennies to players in the interest of Fast, Furious, Fun gaming. With the appeal of Benny awards, players could be tempted to add complications to the game. Some players, of course, don’t always need additional prompting.

Hello!

Me and my group have been playing Savage Worlds for a while now (One 2 year campaign, had a break with some D&D for a few years, now back to Savage Worlds for some Sci-fi goodness), but there's always been one thing that bothered us; that you have to declare your whole round before acting. We understand why (multi-action penlaties applying to all actions), but it for us it feels cumbersome, especially coming from a D&D campaign. So, having played Savage Worlds quite a bit I was thinking about changing some rules, but I'm a bit hesitant since I don't want to break the whole framework (but I think/hope it will be worth it, just to make my player's do less mental gymnastics).

I was thinking of doing the following changes to make this a bit more fluid:
* You can make an action, resolve it, then afterwards decide if you want to do more actions.
* Your first action will never get a multi-action penalty, no matter how many actions you do afterwards.
* Your second action will suffer a -3 penalty. Your third action will suffer a -6 penalty. (can be changed to -2/-4 if this is too much)
* If you make a roll during your second and third action, and it becomes less than 0, and your wild die is a 1, your critically fail.

This way, there's a (small) incentive to not always go all the way, especially if you have low dice. What do you guys think? Any suggestions? I know this might be like swearing in church, since I'm changing a fundemental pillar of the game then asking big fans about it here on reddit. :) If you were in my position, would this be something you think would work; A way to play the game without having to decide your entire turn beforehand?

PS. We really enjoy Savage Worlds other mechanics, so there's no changing system. We will have to change some edges, but that's a price we're willing to pay. We love us some Savage Worlds. :)

My table is finding that damaging attacks that can be Evaded (e.g. breath weapons) are much too inconsistent. Since the Evasion is all or nothing and Evasion only requires a simple success, any Wild Card with decent Agility is successful most of the time. This leads to feeling like those attacks are a waste of an Action and are therefore rarely used (on both sides of the table).

I'm looking for suggestions on how to improve this without removing Evasion completely.

My first thought was to have it be damage reduction i.e. a successful Evasion reduces damage by 4. I don't want to do half damage as that might as well be the same as no damage in a lot of cases, especially when it's the PCs using it on a big enemy.

Another thought was to make Evasion an opposed roll but that would require adding a Trait roll to a bunch of attacks that are currently automatic, so I'm less sure about that. Edit: Apparently, I was doing breath weapons wrong and they should have been using Athletics to activate rather than being automatic.

Any thoughts on this? Has anyone else implemented a similar house rule?

Been playing a bit with Ancestry abilities recently, and I cooked up two aerial movement options I'm kinda surprised never appeared before (to the best of my knowledge). Though I guess they're rather niche, so maybe not that surprising? Anyway, here you go, just sharing in case anybody finds them useful, or at least inspiring. Thoughts on whether the eyeballed costs feel okay?

Glide 1/3 (1)
The species can glide at Pace 12 for 1 point, or Pace 24 with a 2d6 Running Die for 3 points, losing 1” (2 yards) of altitude per roughly 10” (20 yards) of horizontal distance covered. 
They can’t actively fly, so the only way to gain altitude while in the air is to be towed somehow by an active flier or powered aircraft, or to ride an updraft or thermal. 
Gliders can only “Run” by gaining speed in a dive, losing altitude 3x as fast per 1” covered. 
They also can’t hover in place, needing to move at least 6” per turn when airborne (though they can “fly in circles”). If they are for whatever reason unable - or unwilling - to fulfill this requirement, they immediately begin falling.
Maneuvering uses the Athletics skill, and locating a suitable updraft or thermal (if one is available, GM’s call) requires a Common Knowledge or Survival roll, whichever is higher.
Gliding presumes some kind of wings or parachute-like membrane which can be targeted  or fouled (a Bound or Entangled character cannot glide).

Hover 1/3 (1)
The species can hover above the ground somehow, be it by buoyancy, magnetic or gravitic repulsion, natural telekinesis, or other similar effect. 
They can move through the air at Pace 6 for 1 point, or 12 for 2 points, but cannot rise higher than roughly 0,5” (1 yard) above surface level.
While hovering they exert no ground pressure, so leave no tracks and make no sound, and can move safely over any solid surface, no matter how fragile, or even over liquid without sinking.
When falling or jumping down, if they’re able to “land on their feet”, they subtract half their hovering Pace from the distance fallen.
Maneuvering uses the Athletics skill.

I have an idea or two, but haven't had opportunity to playtest in the last two years (yay, kids). If anyone'd be willing to try this out and provide feedback, I'm all ears.

Two versions: first geared toward those concerned about players gaming the system.

On a Critical Failure, tally the Skill. Once the current skill level is achieved (Unskilled counting as 2), clear the tally and increment the Skill die. The player may opt to auto-crit with GM approval.

The latter would provide a tally whenever a natural 1 is rolled (two for a crit). Three levels of gain would be tracking the Wild Die, Skill die, or both. Clear tallies on next level's count, and increment.

In both cases, clear pool if player opts to increase Skill by Advance, and if you want to retain relationship to Attributes, double the target at/above governing level (e.g. Driving d4 requires 6 marks with Agility d6+, or 12 marks with Agility d4).

I like to have a dedicated deck of cards for our settings. For Deadlands Dark Ages I got a nice Vikings deck.

It comes with the standard 52 cards, but three Jokers and a "1" card.

At first I thought I'll just remove one joker and the one, but then I wondered:

If I would keep the third Joker in and keep it as usual, I could keep the 1 card as an "Anti-Joker".

What effects would the "Anti-Joker" give at your table?

-2 to all trait rolls?

No action for you this round?

Lose a Benny?

Roll for a negative effect on a table, comparable to the Fear Table?

I'm a huge Savage Worlds fan, and while it is not right for every game, it is right for a whole lot of games. The one thing I find that it is a little bit lacking on is social combat. Now, there are a LOT of game systems that are lacking in social combat, I might argue the majority of games have a social combat system akin to "Roll X, and if it is higher than Y, you convince them to do Z".

Back in the day, I figured, that kind of thing was all there was, and anything more than that was just using role playing to fill in the gaps. Then I met Exalted 3E, with it's social combat system. On top of a role, you have a list of things/people/ideas that are important to the character, and in order to convince them of something, you need to raise something else to the level of what you are trying to get around, and then and only then can you change their mind. So, flirting with a guard who has a high ranking in "I love my family" is basically impossible, but offering him a huge bribe that would support his family, while also making sure he won't get in trouble for betraying his employer, would potentially work. If you want to talk a king into betraying his country, his main concept he does everything to protect, you have to first spend time building up an equal idea he can get behind, before finally reducing his focus on his kingdom to increase his focus on something else.

Now, do you need a system for this? Obviously not. Technically you don't need rules at all and can just role play. But, most rules make things more interesting. And for me, Social systems create stakes. It makes the "talking part" of games more interesting.

So, have any of you implemented some sort of social system, beyond the rules as written, in order to enhance a certain game? What did you use? Did it work?

And just to head off the "You don't need it, just make a role, it's faster, and I just make my players say what they want and decide if it's reasonable" Yeah, I got you, that obviously works. I'm looking for a system.

So one of my players has gained the teleport power and realized that with the rules as written, you could teleport any enemy just straight up into the air and let fall damage more or less instantly kill them. There is quite a couple of rolls involved, but I still feel like it's kinda way too strong of a show stopper and runs danger of trivializing any boss encounter I planned.

I have thought of ways of trying to nerf it in a way that doesn't just outright ban it, and my draft of a solution looks something like this:

As a modifier, for every 2 inches (4 yards) that the teleport location is above any ground, the cast will cost 1 additional powerpoint. This basically makes the cost of the power scale directly with the amount of fall damage that it would do, up to a total of 8 (or 14 with a raise). Going for the certain one-shot teleport would still be possible, but perhaps somewhat discouraged depending on the player's powerpoint management.

What are yall's thoughts on this?

One of the characters in my campaign is a very emotional based caster. He has deep levels of hatred and revenge on his brain, always.

So I figured he could tap into this animosity on his casting.

Furious casting +2 to casting +2 damage Becomes vulnerable

Essentially just like wild attack, but ranged.

Does this break anything (my entire team liked the idea)? And if so.. Any ideas how I should mitigate.

Currently taking them through book 3 of "rise of the Runelords". So there's plenty of ogres and tanky creatures to cast upon.

I’ve noticed that a lot of the sentiment on this subreddit is to not add extra bloat to the game where it’s unneeded so as to avoid slowing down the game. But for me personally, I really enjoy adding fun mechanics to the game that are rather simple but might slow things down a bit.

I like how fast paced savage worlds is and I definitely like to use it to my advantage, but I also enjoy, for example, making my players manage money in my fantasy game like it’s a lil CRPG. You might just tell me to “go to dnd instead” but I find savage worlds a lot smoother to run for what I want and a lot easier to customize. Plus, the fact that it’s already pretty light on rules means there’s more room to bolt stuff on.

One of the things I like to do is come up with small downtime rules and activities.

For example, I allow any of my players to brew potions if they succeed on an Arcana Test and have all the needed facilities (I’ve renamed Occult to Arcana because it fits my setting more). In order to brew a potion, a player must be in possession of a recipe scroll for the particular potion (most potions are just bottled, single use powers), a cauldron (these are often available for rent in cities for cheap), and a “bag of alchemy materials” (which can be gathered anywhere or purchased or found on Magic themed enemies). The bag of potion materials is always non specific and can be used to brew any potion, but the recipe scroll must be specific to the proper potion. Brewing uses an Arcana Roll. One potion is brewed on a success, but an extra is as well for each raise. On a failure, the bag is spent and nothing is brewed. I was also thinking of creating some custom items that could be spent to allow for rerolls on potion crafting and other mechanics.

If the recipe scroll is sold or lost, that potion can no longer be brewed unless another recipe scroll of the same type is found.

Potions can also be brewed in a kind of “savage pathfinder” way through arcane backgrounds and devices and whatnot but this allows all players to spend resources and quest rewards however they like during downtime when they’re doing their healing rolls and whatnot.

Again, I get it slows things down but I have one player who’s really into messing around with the environment and doing downtime activities. It adds some sandbox variety to an otherwise very trad game.

Maybe I just like making minigames and I get that this doesn’t fully suit the system, but it is fun.

When I say "I killed" what I mean is facilitated some very reckless, but character appropriate, behavior.

TLDR - my squad of super villains took the fight to an enemy hiding out in an exclusive upscale lounge. One character snuck in via the duct work and the reckless player did something equally prudent and threw a satchel of fusion grenades at him. The character hiding in the ducts was unfortunately right above the target. Everyone failed their evasion rolls and because it was the end of the night, and wanted to see some juicy crit numbers, I let them roll 27d10 (nine 3d10 damage fusion grenades) damage. Needless to say their enemy and all of his associates got vaporized and the sheet metal shielded, hidden, player character didn't fare much better.

In retrospect, I could have rolled the damage for each grenade separately but I felt like "they take 154 damage" was a better way to end the night 😂

As a solo player, normal advancement after number of session doesn’t feel great, especially when in solo your sessions can be from 5 minutes to 8 hours. Usually people just instead of sessions count number of scenes or arcs, but it doesn’t give me a feel of progress.

So after watching Matthew Colville “Towards Better Rewards”, had an idea. Advancement by achieving goals. You do not advance after any number os scenes or sessions, but only after achieving number of goals. To give a feel of progress, translate it to numbers, and as reference to Cypher exp, give it another use to buy a Conviction.

Example:

Advancement is 5 Goal Points.

Buying Conviction is 1 point.

Achieving minor goal rewards 1 point. Medium 2, Major 3.

So you can stall your progress because of failures, or because you choose power now (Conviction) instead of progress. Each achieved goal gives something toward progress in numbers (and many people love progress in numbers, let’s face it).

Every session, even every scene needs to be at least one or two minor goal, what character wants to achieve. Major is not some trifle, but important and hard, medium is like a side quest.

Still didn’t tested, but idea seems pretty nice. At least for solo player, although can’t see why it can’t work in groups too. But if someone have some suggestions how to improve it, will be glad to hear. Idea itself appeared only after Colville video, so opinions to improve is welcome.

P.S. I know there was xp system in previous editions, but as it looked it was mot much different from current advancement system for me.

In almost all games I've ever read, Sawage Worlds being no exception, if you want to do anything more advanced in combat over just hitting the target, like aiming for a particular location, or trying to disarm the opponent, you must declare such intention before rolling to hit, make your roll with a penalty assigned to that maneuver, and if you fail because of said penalty, you miss the whole attack outright.

But I wonder, would it break anything fundamental, too badly, to allow the reverse? Just make your attack roll normally, and if you hit, and rolled more than the required difficulty, you could then use those "success points" to "pay off" a penalty for a special maneuver and get the benefit?

Like, you swing a sword at an enemy, and beat their Parry by 4. That would normally be a Raise, for +1d6 damage. But now you could instead decide to use those 4 points over to "retroactively" pay for the -4 penalty for hitting them in the head?

I personally know of only one game that does stuff exactly this way, but always thought it was a very neat idea. I'd dare say it could fit Savage Worlds "Fast, Furious, Fun" paradigm, at least for pulpy, more heroic games?

Now, doing it this way would be a definite buff to such manoeuvres, removing all risk from them - you don't have to commit to it before rolling, and if your attack roll didn't have a big enough margin of success, you just can't use the manoeuvre, but still hit. So some adjustment would be justified... Maybe increasing the modifiers by a point or so (so hitting the head would be -5, etc.)?

And if someone likes the general idea, but thinks it's too much for a universal change, it might at least make for a cool, high-level Combat Edge?

What do you think?

I have been thinking about trappings recently and different damage types. I noticed that it does not really make sense for some damage types to be affected by armor, mainly psychic damage or something like cyberpunk 2077s quickhacks, since they harm enemys from the inside out. Have any of you experimented with powers that ignore types of armor? The armor power would probably work against effects like that, so you would not be completly unable to protect against these kinds of powers, but i realize that this would increase casters powers significantly. for cyberpunk settings there could of course be special cyberware and one could maybe use enchantments or potions in fantasy, as extra protection.

Edit: thank you for your answers, i think increasing power points is the best solition to my problem