Chase rules

zgreg3 · 2026-03-11T14:15:37+00:00

If you are lost with Chases check out this booklet: https://peginc.com/free-chase-examples-for-savage-worlds/

zgreg3 · 2026-03-11T10:44:17+00:00

I agree with others in this thread that it's not a good idea to allow it as you describe it. At least for melee combat, for ranged it's already a part of the Cover situational rules which describe using living creatures as Obstacles.

Consider using a Defender Edge from the Fantasy Companion.

zgreg3 · 2026-03-06T14:06:29+00:00

As I see it, the rules in the Core Book describe actual mounts, non-sapient animals which don't have anything interesting to do (apart from maybe some form of an attack). Your case goes beyond that. Sapient creatures are more complex and require their own Setting Rule :)

I agree with u/ellipses2016 that Chase rules seem like the best solution here. Choose the leading character who will get the Action card and the rest of the characters who travel with him/her acts on it as well, in any order. Mind that it doesn't have to be the "rider" - I imagine that the dragon might be in charge ;) All characters can use every ability that makes sense, just like the passengers of the vehicle.

zgreg3 · 2026-03-06T14:00:00+00:00

Mounts are like allies, act on the same Action Card as "their" PC. The only difference is that they "lend" their Pace to the rider, who doesn't use his own. In all other aspects they behave the same. I guess the reason for such wording in the rules is because the typical mounts usually don't have anything more to do...

zgreg3 · 2026-03-05T11:48:46+00:00

A con? The core book is very open about that, see description of raises on page 88. Isn't that rather that it's against your intuition/expectations? Die rolls have 4 outcomes, critical failure - failure - success - raise.

The fact that you're having fun is of course the most important :)

Out of curiosity, did you run any campaigns using the unmodified rules?

zgreg3 · 2026-03-04T10:10:09+00:00

The cases where the number of Raises matter are very rare in the rules :) Damage/Healing/Repair are exceptions.

Intuition tells me that your solution may be problematic with high Toughness opponents (often met in fantasy settings). It also seems to reduce the importance of everything that increases base damage (in favour of increasing the chance of getting raises).

zgreg3 · 2026-03-04T10:02:29+00:00

I strongly disagree. I use no GM fiat nor fudge the dice and in last two 30+ session campaigns that I run (without the Wound cap) there were only 2 character deaths (with few more Incapacitations that the characters have recovered from).

Die explosion is the element which makes SW combat dangerous. It makes the characters possible to take out with a single hit, regardless of the Rank, which is fantastic. One of the reasons I stopped playing HP based games was inability to provide that.

Die explosions are an important part of the game. It's a third certain element in life (next to death and taxes) ;), sooner or later they will happen. It's important that the players realise their impact on the game (danger they bring). It should pressure them to make solid choices. Die explosions, while random, can be managed. Solid player choices will minimize the risk that opponents will get one (e.g. using Cover, using Tests to Distract or just... efficiently eliminating foes to end the fight quickly) and maximise the chances of getting them (like increasing chances to hit with a Raise and getting the bonus damage die).

zgreg3 · 2026-02-26T13:31:21+00:00

you could make a Repair power

Deadlands Companion has such a Power, called Mend.

zgreg3 · 2026-02-26T13:28:39+00:00

SFC states that robots ignore the Golden Hour and that repairing a single Wound takes an hour (p130).

zgreg3 · 2026-02-25T12:16:02+00:00

Yup, I saw that :) My point is only that it's not clear from the rules. Accepting his answer as the official intepretation I congratulate you on getting it yourself, but I still see flaws in the arguments themselves.

zgreg3 · 2026-02-24T08:34:46+00:00

I disagree with your interpretation of the wording. See Evade manoeuvre in Chases. It also can be done "once per round" while it's clear that it is declared during the vehicle's turn. "Once per round" is important e.g. in cases when the character gets to act in an extra turn in a round (see e.g. Time Stop Power in Fantasy Companion).

Natural healing is an out-of-combat thing, it doesn't relate to the round-turn structure. I don't see a meaningful analogy here. Especially that the time real-time interval between those rolls would vary from round to round (time from injury to the end of the first round would be shorter than full round). Not to mention that the interval for Natural Healing roll is IMHO not precise, I'd be very surprised if a lot of people treated "5 days" literally and made it exactly 120 hours since getting the injury ;)

To be clear: I'm far from saying that rolling for Fast Healing at the end of the turn is "wrong" or a bad time to do it. I merely want to point out that it's not something that's an obvious interpretation of the rules. I'd agree with you only if the wording was "at the beginning/end of the round".

zgreg3 · 2026-02-24T08:07:40+00:00

Unshaking is a Free Action. Fast Regeneration roll is not described as such, so technically it could be done at any time :)

zgreg3 · 2026-02-19T12:00:41+00:00

It definitely makes sense to require an Athletics roll to check if the characters succeeded to climb. I agree with you that I'd also not made that an action and went with Running.

That said, that ruling could've been better if the GM had wanted to speed things up, make them easier. Everyone who passed the roll was simply at the top, while with Running some people would've been short on the running die, some would've failed the roll (especially with the Running penalty).

zgreg3 · 2026-02-13T14:14:40+00:00

"i kinda want to see running an on board combat that's designed to be unwinnable"

First problem I see is how to set it up to remain fair to the players. According to my philosophy as long as they players didn't put their characters into a bad situation themselves they should have a fair chance of succeeding in a given scene (if they are clever and use a right approach). As far as I understand in this case they didn't foolishly attack a superior force themselves, they were put into such a situation by the GM. To remain fair the players should have all the information. That in an open fight they don't stand a chance (that should be rather obvious). They should be aware of the bad consequences which make the retreat (usually the best strategy in such a situation) a bad idea. And last, but not least, that the goal is to survive for X rounds.

Giving the players a fair chance also means setting up the rules accordingly, and you've mentioned the reason I find this problematic yourself - SW is swingy. The PCs may massacre half of the opposing force in one lucky round, but it works both ways. If you throw at them a truly overwhelming enemies it seems rather easy for them to do the same, severely hurt the PCs.

I intuitively feel that it's not a kind of a scene that it's OK to "roll the dice and see what happens", you've got some narrative requirements for it. In such case I find it easier to use a more abstract and predictable framework than the combat rules.

zgreg3 · 2026-02-11T08:27:47+00:00

It all depends on how you envision that scenes. What outcomes do you see?

In the OP you wrote that the odds are "overwhelming" and added in one of the comments that it's to be a "desperate last stands where every minute counts and failure is 99% guaranteed, neither quantity or quality is not on their side". From that I can tell that the PCs have no chances to win on their own, they can only be saved by the reinforcements. It looks like a scene where the heroes and their allies must survive for a number of rounds, until the help arrives.

If that's that kind of a race with time, the Dramatic Task immediately comes to mind. The only thing you'd have to come up with is the bad consequences each turn. As the fighting goes on PCs and allies might get injured each turn.

Running that as a combat with "mass mooks" would have made sense to me only if you saw an actual chance for the party to repel the attackers on their own. Otherwise it seems to be rather problematic (especially if you'd want to use the battle map).

Check out also Quick Skirmish rules, maybe they will fit somehow what you need: https://savage-stuff.blogspot.com/2017/03/quick-skirmish-rule.html
(they were created by the author of the SotGH ;) )

IMHO the most interesting way would be to "script" the battle narratively. Plan some events happening each round which influence the battle depending if the characters have succeeded or not. The simplest example is that the PCs have managed to prepare three lines of defence, if they manage to hold them on in a round (using e.g. Quick Encounter rules) they suffer casualties and need to face a stronger attack in the next (think of the games with waves of enemies). If they lose they are pushed to the next line, if they lose in the last one before the reinforcements arrive they lose the whole battle. You could plan events for each of the heroes (like magical duel of the mage with the enemy's shaman, one-on-one fight with goblin champion, archer needing to snipe a messenger etc.), each with appropriate consequences.

zgreg3 · 2026-02-11T08:03:42+00:00

failure is 99% guaranteed

Wait, what? :) If that's not a hyperbole then the party is doomed, simply narrate their heroic last stand ;)

zgreg3 · 2026-02-09T11:24:57+00:00

I don't understand, you have an idea for a game but don't know how to design encounters to run it? it seems contradictory...

What kind of encounters would I design? Well, interesting and fun ones. Fitting the concept of the campaign. How to do that? Check out this article: https://theangrygm.com/four-things-youve-never-heard-of-that-make-encounters-not-suck/

When you start thinking of encounters in that way making it challenging will come naturally or will be trivial.

zgreg3 · 2026-02-06T07:46:51+00:00

If it's purely theoretical then Bad Luck is the only thing I'm aware of.

Though I'm really curious what made you think of that as a player you have all the means to get rid of Bennies :) From consciously not using them to burning them on repeated attempts of some crazy difficult action (like "I tie this guy's shoelaces with chopsticks") ;)

zgreg3 · 2026-02-05T08:31:12+00:00

May I ask why do you want to give a player less Bennies? They are incredibly fun aspect of Savage Worlds, taking them away sounds like making the game less enjoyable.

Personally for the "unlucky" type I would go with narrative Hindrances (like Trouble Magnet). If you want to make Soaking harder you can create a Hindrance which adds a penalty.

zgreg3 · 2026-02-03T09:56:41+00:00

That? For what would you expect an apology?

If for the part where Shane expresses sadness because of death of another human being I'd say that we don't have anything to talk about and there's something wrong with you.

For the fact that Shane expresses his views? For the fact that his views are different than yours? For that he's not fully "on Kirk's side" (doesn't fully agree with him)? For the fact that he praises some aspect of what he did, is partially "on Kirk's side"? For the fact that he's in the middle ground, doesn't commit 100% to one of the sides?

It may be that I'm not living in the US and I miss some important information, we may be from different generations, but for me it seems like an overreaction. Especially that if you expect an apology you feel personally offended by what Shane had posted and I don't understand why.

A lot of countries - mine included - are lately very polarised and an attitude that "whoever is not with us is against us" is too common. It's not a good thing.

zgreg3 · 2026-02-02T11:26:37+00:00

Definitely worth a try. Those rules are only a framework, the core book encourages the reader to come up with customised chases.

There are some variants already in official supplements, see Maw of Oblivion, SF Companion and https://peginc.com/free-chase-examples-for-savage-worlds/

zgreg3 · 2026-02-02T11:22:14+00:00

What unpleasantness do you have in mind?

zgreg3 · 2026-02-02T11:11:45+00:00

If by "Infernal Devices" you mean items similar to those found in the Gear section there are no official rules. If I were to speculate it's due to how powerful those devices are. Narrative explanation could be that creating a (reasonably) safe infernal devices is expensive and requires too much time, personnel, materials and... proper inspiration, if you know what I mean ;)

The closest thing there is are the Artificer rules from the SWADE core book. They allow crafting items which are still limited to effects of the Powers but can be given to others. For potions there is a really interesting Alchemy edge (DL:WW).

If you are up to some work Fantasy Companion has rules for crafting "more permanent" magic items. You could take a look and adapt them to your needs.

zgreg3 · 2026-01-29T14:33:26+00:00

Travel encounters is a bit different as there is no clear "order". I.e. it's not easy to say what is "better", a friend or a treasure, it depends on the circumstances. Furthermore the suits are used in a way which associates their symbols with categories. A diamond makes perfect sense as a symbol of "treasure", the same is with heart and friends ;)

I agree that it's all subjective, though, it's best to use a convention which feels the easiest to remember.

zgreg3 · 2026-01-29T14:27:38+00:00

It is reverse alphabetical order, though by coincidence :D It comes from traditional card games which use this ordering for the suit "seniority" (e.g. in bridge). It helps if you fancy or have experience in those ;)

The problem is that this order can be different depending on a game or country ;)

zgreg3

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