A Beginner's Guide to Savage Worlds (Chapter 3: Combat Basics)

 

Welcome back to my beginner's guide to Savage Worlds. Last week I looked at basic character creation. This week, I'll be looking at the basics of combat. One thing I love about combat in this system is the more cinematic feel it can provide, along with a lot more freedom than Dungeons & Dragons; things that often require Feats in D&D are often common moves in this system. I've actually used the system to choreograph fight scenes in some of my books.

Anyway, let's get started. I'll be talking about initiative and turn order, actions, movement, attacks and damage, and Incapacitation.

Initiative

Combat encounters are divided into rounds, which last approximately six seconds each. In each round, all characters have a turn, during which time they can move and perform actions (such as attacks). While it’s turn-based, it’s assumed that everyone is acting simultaneously. One big thing this system does differently to D&D is that there's no rolling for initiative, and there aren't any skills or Derived Statistics relating to initiative (although there are some Edges and Hindrances that affect it). Instead of rolling, initiative is determined using Action Cards.

At the beginning of a round, all Wild Cards are dealt a playing card (which players share with allied extras), while enemy extras are split into groups which share a card. The value of your Action Card determines when you take your turn, with an order that runs from Aces to Twos. If there are multiple cards of equal value on the table, those characters act in descending alphabetical order of suit. Once everyone has had their turn, the round ends and new cards are dealt for the next round.

The deck also contains Jokers. If you’re dealt a Joker, you can choose to act any time you want (even interrupting somebody else’s turn), and gain a +2 bonus to all Trait and damage rolls for that round (including rolls made outside your turn). Additionally, if a player is dealt a Joker, all players gain a Benny. If an NPC gets a Joker, the GM and all Wild Card NPCs in the scene get a Benny. If a Joker was dealt in a round, the deck is shuffled when the round ends.

Once all cards are dealt, but before the first action is made, you can choose to spend a Benny for a new Action Card. This isn’t subject to any Edges or Hindrances that affect initiative (unless explicitly stated). You can choose which card you act on, and can spend more Bennies for more cards.

Actions

You can perform up to three actions on your turn, but you must declare how many you want to perform before you make any rolls; each additional action after the first imposes a -2 Multi-Action penalty to all actions made that turn. That’s two actions with a -2 penalty on both, or three actions with a -4 penalty on all three. And that’s on top of any other penalties.

Some actions are considered free actions. These do not count towards the number of actions you take, and do not incur – nor are they subject to – Multi-Action penalties. Free actions include talking. Anything that involves dialogue, whether it's a quip made as a free action or part of another action (which I'll talk about in a later post), has to be something you can say within six seconds.

Furthermore, some actions - often granted by Edges - are known as limited actions or limited free actions. You can only perform one limited action and one limited free action per turn.

Movement

Assuming you’re playing on a battle map, you can move a number of inches on your turn equal to your Pace (this is not considered one of your actions). Each inch is the equivalent of two yards. If you’re climbing, crawling, swimming, or moving across Difficult Ground (such as scrambling over rubble or wading through thick mud), then each inch moved uses two inches of Pace. 

Climbing or swimming may also require an Athletics roll (this is a free action) if the conditions aren't ideal, such as a steep cliff or a fast-flowing river. Success means you make progress as normal, failure means you don't make any progress that turn, and a Critical Failure means you fall (and likely take damage) or tire yourself out to avoid getting swept away (gaining Fatigue).

You can also run, rolling your running die and adding the result to your Pace for that turn. Running doesn't count towards your total actions in a turn, but you have to declare it before rolling as it imposes a -2 running penalty to all your actions (this is in addition to Multi-Action penalties). The running die does not have a Wild Die, nor does it Ace.

Jumping is also considered part of movement. You can jump 1" (two yards) horizontally, or 0.5" (1 yard) vertically. These distances are doubled if you run on your turn. You can also make an Athletics roll as an action to increase the distances by an additional 1" horizontally or 0.5" vertically (double that on a raise). Jumping does not let you exceed your Pace for the turn.

Unlike D&D, you don’t have to move and attack or attack and then move; you can break up movement with your actions, as long as you don’t exceed your Pace for that turn. That means you can move three inches out of cover, take a shot at someone, and then move another three inches to the next piece of cover.

Readying Weapons

"Readying" is a collective term which covers both drawing and holstering weapons. Since you're likely to be doing this at the beginning of combat, I'll talk about it here.

You can ready up to two weapons on your turn as a free action, providing that they're being drawn or holstered from an easy-to-reach location. This includes drawing from a scabbard or holster worn on a belt. It's also a free action to simply drop a weapon.

However, each weapon readied beyond those two is an action. It's also an action to ready a weapon from an awkward location, such as drawing from an ankle holster or picking up off the ground.

For Example: A pirate draws a flintlock pistol as a free action, fires it as an action, and then holsters it as a free action. It would be an action to draw their cutlass in the same turn, so they would have to had declared that before they made their shot (and thus suffer a -2 penalty on the attack). If they dropped the gun after firing rather than holstering it, then their cutlass would be the second weapon readied as a free action (thus avoiding a Multi-Action penalty).

Attacking

Attacking is an action which uses standard rules for Trait rolls as outlined in the post on Dice Mechanics. A success on the appropriate Trait means the attack hits and you roll for damage. A raise on the attack roll is the equivalent of a critical hit and means you roll an additional d6 with the damage. You only get one bonus die, regardless of how many raises you got on the roll. 

For melee attacks, you roll your Fighting skill, and you're rolling against your target's Parry. Damage is typically your Strength die, plus a damage die appropriate for your weapon (or just Strength if you're not using any weapons). 

Ranged attacks are made using your Shooting skill (or Athletics in the case of thrown weapons). They use the standard Target Number of 4, but they also tend to incur more penalties, such as Range or Cover, as outlined below:

• Range: All ranged weapons have a maximum Short Range, which is doubled to calculate the maximum Medium Range, and then doubled again for the maximum Long Range. For example, a bow has a Range of 12/24/48, meaning that 1-12" is Short Range, 13-24" is Medium Range, and 25-48" is Long Range. The Range penalty is zero for Short Range, -2 for Medium, and -4 for Long.
• Cover: If a target is behind cover, there's a penalty based on how much of their body is concealed by the cover. Light Cover obscures less than 25% (such as a shield), Medium Cover obscures up to 50% (such as standing behind a waist-high barricade or lying prone), Heavy Cover is up to 75% (such as peering around a corner), and Near-Total Cover is more than 75% (such as behind a firing port on a vehicle). Cover penalties are -2 for Light, -4 for Medium, -6 for Heavy, and -8 for Near-Total.
• If you fail the roll, you then remove the Cover penalty. If that turns it into a success, you still roll damage, but the cover provides additional armour for the target (this is to accommodate shooting through cover).
• There are plenty of other modifiers, such as Scale (which is a penalty incurred when attacking a smaller target, or a bonus when attacking a larger one) and Speed (which is incurred when the relative speed between you and your opponent is greater than 60 mph). These can apply to both melee and ranged attacks.

Damage

Unlike D&D, Savage Worlds doesn't use hit points. Instead, damage uses the same mechanics for Trait rolls, but using an enemy's Toughness as the Target Number. Damage rolls aren't Trait rolls, so you don't roll a Wild Die with them, but the dice do Ace and you can spend Bennies to reroll them.

If the damage roll is successful, the target is Shaken, which means the attack has left them rattled but isn't enough to hurt them. Each raise on the damage roll causes one Wound. Wild Cards suffer a -1 penalty to all Trait rolls and Pace for each Wound they have (to a maximum of -3), and are Incapacitated on their fourth Wound. Extras are Incapacitated on their first Wound.

If you’re Shaken, you can be Wounded by a standard success on a damage roll (basically meaning it’s easier to hurt you). You can un-Shake by making a Spirit roll at the beginning of your next turn as a free action. If you succeed, you’re no longer Shaken and can act normally. But if you fail, you remain Shaken and can't perform any actions on your turn except for movement and free actions (in other words, you can’t attack). You can also un-Shake by spending a Benny at any time (even when it's not your turn), without needing to roll. You can actually do this when somebody’s just hit you and is rolling for damage.

Resolving damage is where you’ll see one of the other major uses for Bennies; Soaking. When you take damage that causes at least one Wound, you can spend a Benny to Soak in a bid to mitigate it. This requires a Vigour roll, which doesn’t include Wound penalties from the damage you’re Soaking (although it does include Wounds you already had before then). Each success and raise on this roll negates one Wound received from the attack (it doesn’t affect existing Wounds). If you managed to Soak all the Wounds from an attack, you also un-Shake (even if you’d been Shaken by something else).

Healing and Incapacitation

You can heal Wounds using the Healing skill, providing that you do so within an hour of receiving them. But you can't do this during combat, as each attempt takes ten minutes per Wound level (and a round lasts six seconds). If you can't heal the Wounds within the hour, you can recover via Natural Healing, which requires a Vigour roll which you can make every five days. In either case, a success removes one Wound, a raise removes two, and a Critical Failure causes an additional Wound through complications or infection. 

When you're Incapacitated, you can't move or take any actions, gain a random Injury (which can lower an Attribute or give you a new Hindrance), and have to make an immediate Vigour check. If you succeed, your Injury goes away when all Wounds are healed. With a raise, the Injury automatically goes away after 24 hours if you don't heal all Wounds before then. On a failure, the injury is permanent and you're also Bleeding Out, while you die immediately on a Critical Failure. 

When Bleeding Out, you're still dealt in, and you have to make a Vigour roll each turn. If you fail this roll, you die. You can be stabilised by another character (which requires a Healing roll as an action), or by getting a raise on the Vigour roll. If you stabilise, you no longer have to make the roll.

Well, that's probably enough for this week. Please join me again next week, where I'll be looking at some advanced character creation, including alternate ancestries and Arcane Backgrounds.

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