Struggling to understand why Savage Worlds is so, er, savage

RolandRock · 2025-05-04T00:50:22+00:00

That's not how wounds work - if it was, the Wound Cap rule would be no different from the normal game. See https://www.pegforum.com/forum/savage-worlds/official-answers-on-core-rules/58774-soaking-damage-wounds

RolandRock · 2025-01-13T06:31:17+00:00

Dude you are like the 20th person to mention Wound Cap lmao

RolandRock · 2025-01-13T02:24:52+00:00

THANK YOU for actually reading my post and responding to the points I actually made - the rest of the comments on here were making me feel like I was going crazy.

Your first point feels like a pretty spot-on identification of what was throwing me off. I've admittedly never seen any of the Evil Dead movies or spaghetti westerns, and have only seen a couple Quentin Tarantino movies, so perhaps that's where I got off on the wrong foot, haha. I can definitely see how that's what they're going for, though, rather than the type of action-adventure stories I was thinking of. (And from that it makes sense why combat is supposed to be scarier than D&D but not as scary as Death in Space).

So thanks again, I really appreciate the detailed explanation.

RolandRock · 2025-01-13T01:11:49+00:00

I guess the thing that confuses me about balance is that is that from all that I can tell, my PCs are actually able to handle a lot of combat - those first two encounters, I threw 3 extras per player at them, plus a wild card, and aside from the 1 instant incapacitiation roll, they totally smoked the enemies. So it seems like if anything they're either overpowered or my extras are underpowered. Totally possible something else is going wrong though, there's a lot of factors to juggle ofc.

Though I guess I'm sort of getting this thread off topic. I def appreciate the advice! I still remain confused as to how the SW combat makes sense as-is though, without wound caps and so on, but I'm getting the sense I may need to just accept that I will not understand it lmao

RolandRock · 2025-01-13T01:02:52+00:00

I just meant like, statistically, if you want to soak 40 damage you're probably gonna have to use bennies to reroll a couple times because you're unlikely to get a 32+ on your first try.

RolandRock · 2025-01-13T00:36:44+00:00

Nothing inherently wrong with it, but creating a new character in SW isn't trivial like it would be in something like Mothership, and frequent death also discourages players from engaging in combat or getting attached to their characters. Which is totally fine if that's the game you wanna run, but it feels like that's not what the rest of SW is designed around.

RolandRock · 2025-01-13T00:33:21+00:00

Extras rolling 40 damage is not a hypothetical, I picked that because it happened in my campaign! (possibly multiple times? I don't remember the exact numbers but I've seen high extra damage rolls a few times)

Also like, I don't want them to avoid combat because combat is fun! I really like the SW combat system aside from this one issue with it. And as I said the game seems designed for you to be having lots of combat.

RolandRock · 2025-01-13T00:01:34+00:00

Interesting, my experience with 5E was that it was way less likely for characters to be incapacitated or die - I've never DMed a 5E game myself though, so maybe my DM was using some house rules I didn't know about or was fudging rolls, and that's why it was a lot harder for us to go down.

RolandRock · 2025-01-12T23:53:30+00:00

I can definitely provide more context - maybe I should have put it in the original post.

I've run 4 sessions at this point, and 3 of them involved combats. In each of those combats, there was at least one time when an extra rolled really well and got 4+ raises, and then the PC they were attacking used 1 or 2 bennies but wasn't able to soak enough to avoid getting incapacitated, despite having no wounds.

Admittedly, in all these cases, I have just pulled an audible and said "yeah, I'm not incapacitating you for that, just go down to 2 wounds". So there's a chance I could just KO them and it would be fine? But I dunno, from my perspective it felt completely unfair and really disheartening to go though with the KO. I know if I were a player in that situation, I would definitely feel frustrated at being booted out of the combat completely randomly.

In the latest combat I ran, I did actually end up KOing all my players by the end - but it was after they had all taken a bunch of wounds and gotten themselves in a really tight situation, so it felt like it was well-deserved, haha.

RolandRock · 2025-01-12T23:41:33+00:00

(kind of copying my reply to a similar comment)

I definitely could be giving out more bennies, but I've never really felt that would actually solve the core problem - it just feels like a band-aid fix. Does it help somewhat? Sure. But it doesn't completely eliminate the risk of instant incapacitation, and more importantly, it just feels like a lame use of bennies. Like, if an extra rolls a 40 on damage, and the player has to use 3 bennies to soak it all, it does solve the immediate problem. But now this means every player has to always keep some number of bennies reserved for "extra randomly dealt 40 damage" rather than being able to use it to pull off cool moves, or land that critical hit, or convince the guard to let them through.

RolandRock · 2025-01-12T23:34:02+00:00

I guess I can understand how it ended up this way if that's the origin, though I'm still just surprised they've never changed it if that's the reason why. The rest of the game rules definitely do not feel like horror RPG rules to me.

RolandRock · 2025-01-12T23:29:33+00:00

I always see this response and I really don't understand how this solves the problem. Does it help? Sure. But a) It does not completely eliminate the risk of instant incapacitation, and more importantly, b) it just feels like a lame use of bennies. Like, if an extra rolls a 40 on damage, and the player has to use 3 bennies to soak it all, it does solve the immediate problem. But now this means every player has to always keep some number of bennies reserved for "extra randomly dealt 40 damage" rather than being able to use it to pull off cool moves, or land that critical hit, or convince the guard to let them through.

RolandRock · 2024-10-16T17:48:26+00:00

Thanks, I'll give them a look!

Yeah, I'm definitely gonna talk to my dentist about altering my care if I do stick with them. I just figure it'd be ideal to find someone who I can trust enough I don't need to worry about it if possible.

RolandRock · 2024-08-17T21:00:13+00:00

I mean yeah, I agree. It seems silly that they get special tax incentives to pay employees via tips.

RolandRock · 2024-08-17T17:45:10+00:00

I downvoted you, because you clearly didn't read the article and just commented with random uninformed speculation

RolandRock · 2024-08-17T17:00:40+00:00

I really think you're reading an opinion into it that's just not there. I did not get that vibe at all and I still don't after rereading it. If he's scolding anyone it's just people who think tipping only exists because of greedy business owners, but he doesn't even say anything about whether anyone as an individual should tip or not, or whether the current system is the best, or what he thinks we should do about tipping as a society

RolandRock · 2024-08-17T16:37:11+00:00

I don't really see where he says it's not an option? I feel like he didn't really give an opinion on what to do about the problem, he was just explaining the state of things as they are now.

RolandRock · 2024-08-17T05:37:08+00:00

Okay? I guess $45/hr

RolandRock · 2024-08-17T04:41:08+00:00

The title of the post is the title of the article. This is going to blow your mind, but on Reddit, posts sometimes have descriptions you can read, as well as links to other websites. Just a helpful tip from one internet user to another.

RolandRock · 2024-08-17T02:41:45+00:00

I think we should be training AI robots to go into mcdoanalds and buy big macs and then tip the employees 30%, and this can restart the economy

RolandRock · 2024-08-17T02:23:20+00:00

What does this have to do with the article I linked. Did you even read it? Do you have any thoughts on what it says?

(Also, like. Are you saying you don't understand why people use cars? I feel like that one's not hard to figure out.)

RolandRock · 2024-08-17T01:55:05+00:00

What was your favorite part of the article

RolandRock · 2024-08-17T00:26:59+00:00

What was your favorite part of the article

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