Custom mechanics for Savage Worlds

[Niles]

My gaming group is playing Savage Worlds setting and so far, we really love it. I was wondering however, how difficult it would be to change the mechanic of wounds within the game. I'm not entirely sure I like the wound system and wondered how we could incorporate hit points whittled down by attrition till you reach zero like d20 games. An extension would be great but for now, I'm just looking for some quick adjustment within the game where we could maybe try that and see if we like it better.

[Doswelk]

My gaming group is playing Savage Worlds setting and so far, we really love it. I was wondering however, how difficult it would be to change the mechanic of wounds within the game. I'm not entirely sure I like the wound system and wondered how we could incorporate hit points whittled down by attrition till you reach zero like d20 games. An extension would be great but for now, I'm just looking for some quick adjustment within the game where we could maybe try that and see if we like it better.

The whole point of the wound system in SWADE is up down or off the table, (for extras at least). Up - fine, down - shaken (lie down the mini), off the table - wounded, it keeps games fast and means GMs do not have to keep track of hit points, for wild cards you either place their wounds on their init card or a system some GMS use is place red poker chips under the mini. (of course this is face-to-face) FG tracks wounds for you.

The whole system is built around Wounds not hit points, how will you determine when to apply a -1 penalty using hit points. Adding hit points back in is madness! (but that's just my point of view)

To answer your question though, you would be better off using CoreRPG with MoreCore and writing your own system from the ground up, I think

EVERY SWADE/SWD/SWPF module will not have hit points for the NPCs, to be honest if you want HP go play 5e or PF2e.

[kronovan]

As already stated, wounds are at the very foundation of SW and they're therefore hard to unravel from the rules. Damage dice as reflected by dice types and bonuses, is one of the few things that have evolved through the various editions of SW, mostly to create better balance for the wound system. Wounds have also been tweaked and IMO improved in the SWADE edition, which now allows monsters of significance size to have more wounds than in previous editions. As well, the wound cap is now clearly stated in SWADE as an optional setting rule, as opposed to something that was just discussed by modders and homebrewers.

[Edit] Then of course there's the whole challenge of creating an extension that would actually allow you to replace them with HPs. I can't imagine that wouldn't be anything less than a significant coding effort and project.


to be honest if you want HP go play 5e or PF2e.
For a RPG that features HPs that has multi-genre support and plays a bit more like SWADE, I'd recommend the AGE series of games - Fantasy Age and Modern AGE. Cortex Prime with the Life Points option might be another good choice to explore. Unfortunately neither of those have rulesets available for FGU, and I'm not aware of any fan-made extensions.

You might try making a post in the homebrewing forum at the official Savage Worlds forums (www.pegforum.com), to solicit some suggestions. A lot of modification and rule tweak idea pass through those forums, so you might get some good feedback and ideas.

[Niles]

The whole point of the wound system in SWADE is up down or off the table, (for extras at least). Up - fine, down - shaken (lie down the mini), off the table - wounded, it keeps games fast and means GMs do not have to keep track of hit points, for wild cards you either place their wounds on their init card or a system some GMS use is place red poker chips under the mini. (of course this is face-to-face) FG tracks wounds for you.

The whole system is built around Wounds not hit points, how will you determine when to apply a -1 penalty using hit points. Adding hit points back in is madness! (but that's just my point of view)

To answer your question though, you would be better off using CoreRPG with MoreCore and writing your own system from the ground up, I think

EVERY SWADE/SWD/SWPF module will not have hit points for the NPCs, to be honest if you want HP go play 5e or PF2e.

I'm not trying to break a ruleset with madness, just trying to be creative and see if something like that would work. I've come up with lots of custom modifications in rulesets, some work, some don't. I see that modification wouldn't. I like the mechanics of SW, but I also like HP. Just seeing if I could marry the two.

[Doswelk]

I understand that, what I as trying to say was the whole ruleset is hardcoded NOT to work that way, hence I was saying you will have hard time and lots of extra work trying to hack the ruleset to even do it, and then you will need to modify EVERY NPC manually for your game.

Hence the suggestion you would be better off not using the ruleset due to the fact all the automation is designed not to use hit points and make your own with CoreRPG as that will support any RPG you can make as there is no automation to fight against.

[Niles]

I understand that, what I as trying to say was the whole ruleset is hardcoded NOT to work that way, hence I was saying you will have hard time and lots of extra work trying to hack the ruleset to even do it, and then you will need to modify EVERY NPC manually for your game.

Hence the suggestion you would be better off not using the ruleset due to the fact all the automation is designed not to use hit points and make your own with CoreRPG as that will support any RPG you can make as there is no automation to fight against.

Yes sir, I came to that conclusion yesterday when I opened up FG and Savage Worlds and racked my brain with how I could tweak it. Conclusion...let the ruleset be the ruleset. Thanks for the advice with CoreRPG. I like to tweak mechanics, so maybe that would be an option.

[Jiminimonka]

My gaming group is playing Savage Worlds setting and so far, we really love it. I was wondering however, how difficult it would be to change the mechanic of wounds within the game. I'm not entirely sure I like the wound system and wondered how we could incorporate hit points whittled down by attrition till you reach zero like d20 games. An extension would be great but for now, I'm just looking for some quick adjustment within the game where we could maybe try that and see if we like it better.

Then you would be playing a different game.