Savage Worlds Pathfinder - how it went?

Hi. I like Savage Worlds system a lot (but somehow ge to play it much less then other "populars") and I'm interested in its conversion/adoption to Pathfinder setting/classes and so on.

So wanted to ask - those that like Savage Worlds system and have played the original Pathfinder 1/2ed: how the adoption went? Do you consider moving your games from Pathfinder ruleset to SW (and use i.e. Pathfinder modules with it?) ? Yes? No? Way?

Thanks in advance for your opinions.

I ran one adventure which you was a part of. It seemed to work out good, though not well enough that I would bother to do an conversion (not that it was that hard). It was my first experience running Savage Worlds and I don't know if I got all the rules right.

In the interim I have run a short Deadlands Reloaded campaign for my face to face group and I'm not sure I am fully sold on the system. It sold itself on running big combats with 20-30 combatants (or at leas the Adventure I ran had a couple such fights), but my group just found those kind of encounters tedious. And even with 20 enemies they never really felt threatened. I struggled with finding the right balance to make an exciting combat where they are on the edge of their seat, but still seems possible. Everything was either no threat (and boring way to spend an hour) or so bad they had to run away (again tedious). I imagine the same would transfer to Savage Pathfinder, though for skill challenges and roleplaying the system works well with very little overhead. While my experience with it was so-so, I am willing to give the system another test.

There is a strong element of randomness (due largely to the exploding dice and the wild die), but I think that works in favor of the system, and remember that the exploding dice go both ways. I've seen a group of Novices successfully take out a creature that should have, by all rights, been too much for them, but I've also seen a group of Heroic characters thoroughly challenged by a group of kobolds. Battles shouldn't take too long because only Wild Cards get a wild die and can take more wounds. My tabletop group numbers eight people and our battles seldom last more than 15 minutes, even with large groups.

Thanks for all opinions!

As for SW alone... I must say its core rulebook is one of my favorites. I liked reading all those ideas a lot, and how each of the system fit with each other. I like rolling against TN and exploding dice. But... I'm also not sold on the combat system... yet. Was trying it few times, and it came as flat. You either kill instantly or can't seam to harm the oponent. But probably I'm not experienced enough to handle it good. It really look like good proposition for war-games-like battles, with more opponents, but didn't provided to much incentives/triggers for nice narrations. As HP may seam as "strange" idea - that you are as capable at 1 as at 50 points - it provides some nice granularity. So combat is more "personal" with big enemies, at least for me. But probably I was doing it wrong:)

That's why asked - as Pathfinder seam to be famous from it's crunchy combat system (but too long for me) - I thought it may be the main difference in "feel" between vanilla Pathfinder and SW conversion.

And it seams that vanilla Pathfinder still wins for the fans... :)

SW has a dedicated Sci-fi book and a descent amount of support for it. Since it is SW you can add in fantasy elements pretty easily. Now I am not an expert with SW but I know the authors and that it is versatile and designed to allow combining of genre.

Actually, you take a penalty equal to the number of wounds you currently have, so you do lose capability as you become wounded. Just wanted to point that out.

WhtKnt - yes, I know about it. It's what I LIKE about SW system, that the more hurt you are the less capable you become.

It is what is lacking with straight HP approach.

But the drawback - for me - in SW is that it looses a lot of granularity with their wound system (3 steps, if I rememeber correctly? ). I like i.e. Traveller approach where you loose attribute scores with the damage, and thats why you are becoming weaker, but it has many possible steps. But than... again the rest of Traveller's rules systems is not as interesting(exciting? ) as in SW...

Ehh... is there a "perfect" system (for me)? Almost everone seams to have some things that bothers me... ;) ;) ;)

I don't know if you have considered it, but if you prefer Traveller, there are several books that you might find useful.

Low-Tech Weapons
Flynn's Guide to Magic in Traveler
The Sword of Cepheus
Non-Humans for the Sword of Cepheus