Savage Worlds Adventure Edition
 

OK, folks!

At long last, the covers are going to get kicked off of the new edition of Savage Worlds:

Savage Worlds Adventure Edition!

The Kickstarter goes live on October 16th. Be sure to hop on board and support your favorite role-playing game as it embarks on a new edition!

Now, for you Hero Lab fans, word has it that yours truly will get his hands on a copy soon, do I can get to work on keeping Hero Lab up-to-date.

Stay Tuned for Updates!

I await with bated breath!

Kickstarter is up for anyone that may have missed it or forgotten: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...enture-edition

For an idea on timeline the KS ends on November 15th and the PDF version of the new book should be available to all KS backers usually about a month later, so likely mid-December. There is often a round of backers that will essentially do a crowd-sourced editing run and give Pinnacle lots of great feedback which they'll work on and update the PDF for everyone. Usually that may be another month, after which they'll also push that as a finalized version that will become the printed book and so probably another couple of months, possibly longer depending on the size of the print run and a bunch of other things, after that they'll ship out your stuff. In the meantime if there are any errata or anything else that gets found they will update the PDF further, if needed, so the PDF copy is always the "latest, greatest" version. There usually isn't much that doesn't get caught in that first crowd-sourced go around, though, from what I've seen.

And they not only already made their funds, unless I can't read, they already blew past all their stretch goals.

All the ones they've put up so far, anyway. The started with just two at launch earlier today but they added the others you see there today, and they've added still more. They may well add more still if the listed goals continue to be surpassed.

I don't suppose there will be an upgrade path of some sort to Savage Worlds Adventure for those of us who bought the current version and companion books in Hero Lab? I hear they're releasing conversion guides, but obviously that doesn't help us in Hero Lab.

I'm pretty sure there will nothing to more to buy. It should just be an upgrade to the ruleset not a wholesale replacement or anything. Nothing like changing versions in D&D.

That would be really nice. I was imagining a major jump like a D&D edition change.

No, if you look at the Kickstarter you'll see the changes they expect. I think the biggest change from a Hero Lab standpoint will probably be Athletics and whatever skills it replaces. The removal of Charisma also have a few tendrils to pull out, I think, but largely that seems to be it. There will probably be a lot of text updates maybe some new Powers, Edges, and/or Hindrances but most likely the rest of the changes will be for for changing the text of existing things to be clearer based on the questions they've gotten over the years and such.

In any case Pinnacle has clearly stated that, like all of their other editions, these will still be very much "backwards compatible", and everything we've seen so far would not, I don't think, require any kind of major overhaul to what HL already has running for the Savage Worlds ruleset. Definitely nothing like how D&D has done over the years.

Oh, no, as far as I know there will be no upcharge. Edition upgrades like this are included.

And I will make everything I change as clear as possible in the FAQ so you'll know what to expect. And I'l also try to set it up like I did when the released Deluxe and make everything switchable so you can enable/disable edition changes.

It's down to about 48 hours left on the Savage Worlds Kickstarter for the new edition. Make sure you are on board!

A day and a half to go, and it’s shattered the Savage Rifts KS. Wow.... and still going from what I can tell.

Wow. Just Wow. Over $524,000.

Savage Worlds just earned over a half a million dollars. Let that sink in.

Way to go, Pinnacle!!!

Crazy, right? I'm really glad to see the system remains as popular as ever.

I've seen a couple of others that did amazing business on Kickstarter (both the Scion 2e and new Fantasy Trip KSes did pretty impressive too), but yeah, that's--something.

And....... the pdf is available for backers. :)

So I just got done reading the SWADE PDF. I am wondering if it should not be made as a separate gaming system file like Shadowrun. I am sure some folks are still going to want to used the current deluxe edition, and it allos for addressing certain things like multiple arcane backgrounds

Salcor

Agreed. I am going to start adapting my Deadlands game. I think duplicating the game system and going from there is the way to go.

I just got done devouring the file. I think the hardest part will be the way Langues are now being done. But it should be doable.

Rethinking my position on this. Just changing the current file allows us to still use existing files as opposed to rewriting them all/repurchasing files.

Salcor

Nah, I'll do it like I did the Deluxe Edition upgrade. This will be the new normal, and I will re-id and tag the older material as Deluxe. I'll try to make it as smooth as I can. I shouldn't need to make a whole new game system set. That'll be easier now that there are 20-character unique ID's. I can just slap a prefix on the older material that gets replaced.

Didn't the ID's get reduced to 17 characters?

It looks like they did. Nobody ever tells me anything. lol
Same idea still applies.

Yeah, I just didn't want you to get caught out unexpectedly.

I appreciate it, thanks!

Reading through it, there's a lot of little changes, though some wouldn't show up in a character creator; most of that looks like things like the new or modified Edges and Skills, or the default Skills.

Oh, there is very little so far that hasn't changed in some fashion. Some only just slight changes to the text, but it still needs to be replaced. And then I need to keep up with the errata as they release corrections.

The updated version of Adventure Edition is supposed to be available tomorrow. I hope you guys can update Hero Lab quickly... we just can't build a character with pen and paper anymore!

No pressure to get work done quickly; especially motivating for a volunteer to be given a "soon" deadline :)

How can those of us not nearly as proficient with the editor help the conversion process?

The editor is primarily used for settings files. There's not all that much any of us can really do when it comes to modifying the underlying game rules setting (and definitely not the underlying program) code that will be needed for the SWADE update. Probably the bigger question those of us with settings files will need to consider will be if there will be anything we would need to do to our files. It may just be denoting on them someplace that they are set up under the SWD rules, but there's always the possibility of considering SWADE updates to the files. Although that may just largely wait on when PEG does some of the settings updates they have been talking about anyway.

My apologies. I greatly appreciate the work being done here.

OK, first thing: I am a paid contractor for LWD. So, no, for this work I am not a "volunteer".

Second thing: This is a part-time side job for me. I have a regular day job (I'm a 25+ year SQL Programmer). So I have to fit this work in during evenings and weekends.

Now, for the juice. I have just finished my first read-through. Here are the areas that are going to cost me the most sleep:

1) Almost everything has changed in some way, I'd say 90%. There are very few things that will not change in some fashion. So, a lot of detail work.

2) Core Skills. Not a huge deal, you'll still have to add them, but the initial levels will be free. Adding them automatically becomes problematic when things like Hindrances takes some away. And that everyone will want to customize their own for different Settings. I am thinking a Core Skill tag that will make the initial level free that can be applied to or taken a way from a Skill at any time.

2) Charisma being gone.

3) The Knowledge Skill going away. This one I have a hard time with. There is no catch-all Skill now, and I see that as a major weakness. I'll likely make it easy to house rule and keep.

4) Throwing replaced by Athletics. This is a big one. There are a lot of places the reference the Throwing Skill as it is one of the three combat Skills. Lots of rework over this.

5) Experience Points went away. Now it just counts Advances. Oof.

6) Encumbrance is not a numeric function any more.

7) Vehicle Attributes have changed.

8) And the BIG one. Arcane Backgrounds. Not only can you have more than one, and they have to be treated complete separately, now Arcane Powers have modifiers like Super Powers do. That's two major overhauls. The second is simply tedious. The first, I will have to look at the best way to implement. The hardest part is making it so it can accommodate user-created Arcane Backgrounds for Settings as well as the stock set.

So. I have a lot of work to do, and less time to do it. Good thing the Christmas break is coming up. I know what I am doing between holidays. I'll start on this as soon as I get ths 5.7 update set and out.

Ooof. Good luck with all of that CC. I'll be cheering you on and hoping the hardest bits turn out to be easier for you than they first appear to be.

Is there any way the Power Modifiers need to be modeled in the program? As I understand it, you can do those on the fly, so what can the program actually do? It'd be like trying to put.

I'd suggest that with the change in advancement, a session-counter might be useful.

And yes, the new--and I believe release--version dropped today.

I have the new one, it's not release ready, yet, they still say don't print it.

Right now, Arcane Powers are not set up to handle dependent objects. That's a major change.

The release that dropped yesterday will be the first publicly available, i believe, but I believe CC is right that it's still not the "final" release that will be going to the printers. I think they'll still go one more round of, essentially, crowd-sourced editing before they finalize it. Not that there won't be updates after that, too, but it should be down to only more obvious fixes at that point.

That may well be; they just seemed (in the announce email to KS backers) to make a big distinction between this one and the prior one.