Dramatic Odds for Dramatic Tasks

The PCs have finally tracked down the evil cultists and cornered them in their lair, interrupting the summoning ritual before it can be completed. As most of the heroes move to engage the cultists in combat, the professor rushes towards the pentagram in the centre of the room, reciting a guttural incantation from an ancient grimoire in the hope that he can close the magical rift. While he chants, an infernal entity begins to take form within the pentagram - will it break free before the professor can banish it?

In order to give the professor a challenge, the GM decides to treat this final showdown as a Dramatic Task.

But what is the professor's chance of success?

Calculating the Odds

Working out the probabilities for a standard task is fairly straightforward: An Extra with d6 in the appropriate trait would obviously have a 50% chance of success, while a Wild Card with d6 would have a 75% chance of success. But what is their chance of succeeding at a Dramatic Task? What if the character has one or more bennies? What if others are helping with Cooperative Rolls?

The probabilities for Dramatic Tasks are not easy to predict, and miscalculating the challenge can turn an important encounter into an anticlimatic cakewalk...or a total party kill. To make the process easier, I've written a Dramatic Task Simulator tool.

Using the tool, we can see that an Extra with d6 in the appropriate trait would only have around a 2% chance of success! The odds for a Wild Card are somewhat higher, but still not great:

Wild Card with d6: ~8%

Wild Card with d6 and 1 benny: ~14%

Wild Card with d6 and 2 bennies: ~19%

Wild Card with d6 and 3 bennies: ~23%

If the character has Wild Card allies making Cooperative Rolls with d6 in their traits, the chances improve further:

Wild Card with d6: ~13%, ~18% or ~23% (for 1, 2 or 3 allies)

Wild Card with d6 and 1 benny: ~20%, ~27% or ~33%

Wild Card with d6 and 2 bennies: ~26%, ~34% or ~42%

Wild Card with d6 and 3 bennies: ~32%, ~40% or ~48%

Of course the odds increase significantly when the character is more skilled. If the professor has Knowledge (Occult) d8 and the Scholar Edge (granting a further +2), even without allies his odds would be as follows:

Wild Card with d8+2: ~41%

Wild Card with d8+2 and 1 benny: ~58%

Wild Card with d8+2 and 2 bennies: ~69%

Wild Card with d8+2 and 3 bennies: ~77%

The tool also includes options for tweaking the mechanics. For example you could rule that failure on Clubs means losing 1 success (instead of resulting in total failure of the task), which would have the following odds:

Wild Card with d8+2: ~56%

Wild Card with d8+2 and 1 benny: ~68%

Wild Card with d8+2 and 2 bennies: ~76%

Wild Card with d8+2 and 3 bennies: ~81%

You can also adjust the length of the task. For example I sometimes run 3-round Dramatic Tasks (requiring 3 successes), for situations that aren't quite so crucial. On other occasions I'll run a full-length Dramatic Task, but allow for partial success, similar to the Social Conflict rules.

By adjusting the mechanics and looking at the odds based on the traits of the PCs, you can help make your Dramatic Tasks appropriately challenging for the players.

Cooperative Rolls with Alternative Skills

When making a Cooperative Roll, you should normally use the same skill as the lead character. However I will often allow those making Cooperative Rolls to use a different skill if they can justify how it would help.

For example, if the Dramatic Task involves picking a lock before a guard patrol walks past, one character might use Persuasion or even Taunt to distract the guards, buying time for the main character to complete their Lockpicking attempt. As the objective of the Dramatic Task would be to pick the lock before the guards arrive, slowing down the guards would be just as useful as speeding up the lockpicking effort.

House Rule: Combining a skill with a trick/test

In some situations you may wish to perform a trick or test of will that, based on its description, would appear to heavily depend on a combat or arcane skill.

When this occurs, use the lowest of the two traits. If the skill normally requires the use of a tool or weapon, has a limited range, or expends a resource, then those restrictions still apply, as do any penalties which would normally apply to the skill (such as range, cover, etc). However you receive a +1 bonus to the roll, and in the case of an arcane skill, any penalties are also reduced by the PP cost of the power (although this never provides a positive bonus).

If you roll 1 on the skill die, then the action is resolved as if you were actually using the combat or arcane skill, without the +1 bonus. 

Note: This is based on a throw-away proposal I made on the Pinnacle forums in the past. The subject came up again recently, and I had to really dig around to find my post, so I'm repeating it here.

Examples

You want to shoot at the ground and make your opponent dance: Expend a point of ammo and roll the lowest of Shooting and Intimidation with a +1 bonus. The result must be high enough that it would have hit if it were a Shooting roll. If you roll 1 on the skill die, but the Wild Die was successful, resolve the action as a normal Shooting action - you accidentally shot them. 

You want to carve your initials onto your opponent's shirt: Roll the lowest of Fighting and Taunt with a +1 bonus. The result must be at least equal to their Parry, and you must be within melee reach. If you roll 1 on the skill die, but the Wild Die was successful, you accidentally cut through their shirt and into their flesh - resolve as a normal Fighting action. 

Your only offensive spell is a firebolt, and you don't want to kill the guard who's chasing you - so you decide to shoot the tree next to him and spray him with hot splinters: Expend 1 PP and roll the lowest of Spellcasting and Agility (trick) with a +1 bonus, ignoring 1 point of penalty (from the PP) for range/cover/etc. If you roll 1 on the skill die, you suffer backlash, and if the Wild Die is successful you accidentally hit the guard directly with your firebolt.

Guild of Shadows: Character Builder and the Thief Edge

One of the Kickstarter projects I backed that I've been particularly looking forward to getting my hands on is Guild of Shadows - a dark urban fantasy setting based around the nefarious activities of a thieves guild.

With the project now so close to completion, I was recently hired to take a look over their mechanics, making any final edits for balance and consistency. As I'm a big fan of the genre, I also took the opportunity to propose a further 14 Edges and 3 Hindrances, all inspired by various rogues from history or fiction.

I've obtained permission to produce a web-based character creation tool for the setting, which you can access here:

Guild of Shadow Character Builder.

I'd also like to give an overview of a potential problem with the Thief Edge that some may have already wondered about, along with my solution...

The Thief Edge in a Thief Setting

Savage Worlds has two Edges in the core rule book that provide a Stealth bonus: Thief gives +2 Stealth in urban areas, while Woodsman gives +2 Stealth in rural locations.

The Thief Edge is particularly nice in that it also boosts Climbing and Lockpicking, as well as trap-related uses of the Notice and Repair skills. The large number of bonuses are somewhat balanced by the fact that it's usually a fairly niche Edge, and has some very tough requirements.

However because Guild of Shadows is an urban thief-focused setting, the Thief Edge is no longer even remotely niche - it boosts several of the most useful skills, and is the only way to get a Stealth bonus. When I ran a similar style of campaign in the past, most of the players invested in Thief simply because it was so useful.

But it gets worse. The tough requirements mean that each Thief also needs to boost one attribute, and assign around half of their skill points in a specific way, leaving them much less room to differentiate themselves from each other - and even if they're able to stand out in smaller ways, because most of their starting points are tied up in heavily boosting the same set of abilities, they're still likely to feel quite similar to each other (at least mechanically-speaking).

Removing the Thief Edge wasn't an option, because Guild of Shadows is designed to be slottable into existing settings and campaigns if the GM wishes, and such campaigns could well have characters who have already taken the Edge.

So I approached the problem from a different angle, and added two new Edges: Highwayman and Urban Ranger. Like Thief, they are Professional Edges, which means their bonuses don't stack with each other - thus there are now three different Edges which grant the much-coveted +2 Stealth bonus, each of which provides other benefits as well, and Urban Ranger also has a 'backdoor' through another Edge. The end result is that characters in Guild of Shadows can obtain that +2 Stealth bonus without sacrificing diversity.

Expanded Rule: Disguise

There are no explicit rules for disguises in Savage Worlds - somewhat ironically, not even the Disguise power allows you to simply disguise your appearance, it only lets you impersonate a specific person.[Reference]

The recommended approach is usually to treat disguise as a Persuasion roll (to convince people that you're someone else), or in some situations a Stealth roll (if you just want to appear nondescript).[Reference]

However a recent discussion about Stealth made me wonder if perhaps the disguise mechanics could be a bit more clearly defined. In particular, applying the active/inactive guard concept (which is normally used for sneaking) to disguises would seem to make a lot of sense.

My proposal is therefore as follows:

Disguise

There are typically two parts to a disguise. The first part is your bearing and mannerisms, which are covered by the Persuasion skill, and the second is your physical appearance, which is covered by the Stealth skill. You don't roll when applying a disguise, instead you roll when other people interact with you.

There are two types of observer, "attentive" and "inattentive". Inattentive observers are those who aren't interacting with you or paying any particular attention to you. Under normal circumstances a standard TN 4 Persuasion roll is sufficient to maintain your disguise against inattentive observers, but on a failure you draw attention to yourself; those nearby become attentive observers.

Attentive observers make an opposed Notice roll against your Persuasion (typically only once per scene unless something occurs to draw additional scrutiny), and if they succeed they notice that you're acting strangely. They can then make another opposed Notice roll against your Stealth to try and penetrate your disguise and determine your identity - or at the very least, they will recognise that you're trying to disguise your appearance, and notice any distinctive features.

If an observer beats your Persuasion but not your Stealth, they will only realise you're an imposter if you're impersonating a specific person, and they're familiar with that person. Otherwise they'll usually just do a double take, then continue with whatever they were doing.

Modifiers

• Without the necessary tools (such as makeup and suitable clothing) you suffer a -2 penalty to your disguise rolls.

• Charisma bonuses from Attractive, Very Attractive and Noble do not typically apply to Persuasion when used for disguise rolls, except in specific situations (e.g., impersonating another attractive person when you have Attractive, or using your Noble manners and bearing to impersonate another nobleman).

• If you are wearing clothing that partially conceals your appearance (such as a deep hood, or a masquerade ball mask) you receive a +2 bonus to your disguise rolls, as long as such clothing doesn't appear out of place.

• If you attempt to imitate a specific person, anyone closely familiar with that person is automatically treated as an attentive observer, and receives a +2 bonus to their Notice roll against your Persuasion. This bonus increases to +4 for a lover or close family member.

• Anyone who is very familiar with you (such as a friend, relative, or sworn enemy) receives a +2 bonus to their Notice rolls against both your Persuasion and Stealth.

• Other situational modifiers may apply at the GM's discretion, although these should usually be limited to +1/-1 for a minor advantage or disadvantage, and +2/-2 for a major advantage or disadvantage.

New Edge

Here's a new Edge to take advantage of the expanded disguise rule:

Master of Disguise (Professional)
Requirements: Novice, Persuasion d8, Stealth d8
  You receive a +2 bonus to Persuasion and Stealth when making disguise rolls. If you apply a disguise to someone else, they also receive a +2 bonus to Stealth (but not Persuasion) when making disguise rolls; this bonus does not stack with other Stealth bonuses granted by Professional Edges.

Savage Archery: Overview and design insight

Savage Insider volume 2 issue 2 has been released, and it includes my first "officially" published article: Savage Archery. Here's an overview of my article, for anyone who's not yet bought a copy of Savage Insider, along with some insight into the weapon design guidelines.

Savage Archery gives an overview of ranged combat, along with some tips and tactics for creating and playing an archer. There are also three pre-generated starting characters: Egil, Robin Hood, and William Tell.

After that comes a two-part weapon design system: Choose a type of bow (self, composite or compound) or crossbow (standard, arbalest, repeating or pistol), and then apply a draw-string pull (light, medium, heavy or great). The section finishes up with several archery accessories, such as tabs, bracers, and sights.

The next section covers arrows, which consist of a shaft (wooden, footed, fiberglass, aluminum, or carbon), head (pile, soft, bodkin, broadhead, blunt, fire cage, forked, signal, bowfishing, or quarrel) and fletching (handled as cosmetic trappings, to give each archer a unique flavour).

Edges come next (Born to the Bow, Crossbow Speed Shooting, Fast Shooter, Improved Fast Shooter, Precision Shooting and Stab and Shoot) along with a Hindrance (Reckless Shot).

Finally there's a section on botches, which includes a critical failure table for archers.

Backward Compatible Bows

One of my design goals with the bow and crossbow creation system was that the weapons should be backward compatible with those in SWD. This was a bit tricky, because the English longbow costs $200, while the standard bow costs $250. After some consideration I realised that it's never specified what type of bow the "bow" is - if it were a composite bow, then of course it would make sense for it to cost more. Following that assumption, each weapon can be created as follows:

• The default "bow" would be a medium-pull composite bow, using soft headed arrows with wooden shafts. The medium-pull grants the 12/24/48 range and the Strength d6 requirement, as well as the weight and price.

• The "English longbow" would be a heavy-pull self bow, also using soft headed arrows with wooden shafts. The heavy-pull grants the 15/30/60 range and the Strength d8 requirement, as well as the weight and price, however the price of self bows is reduced to 40%.

• The "crossbow" would be a heavy-pull standard crossbow, using square-headed quarrels (AP 2 for a heavy-pull weapon). They'd be a bit less likely to break than the SWD bolts, but that's the only difference. The heavy-pull grants the 15/30/60 range, but crossbows always reduce their Strength requirement by 1 die step (in this case to d6) and double their weight (to 10).

But of course you're no longer limited to those three weapons. You could create a medium-pull self bow for example, it would have the same stats as the regular bow but cost only $100, however it would be long and cumbersome, and therefore difficult to use from a mount. Or you could create a heavy-pull composite bow for $500, it would be as as powerful as the English longbow but smaller and easier to carry around (a great choice for a mounted archer).

You could even create a medium-pull standard crossbow - it would have range 12/24/48, require Strength d4, have a weight of 6 and cost $250, but the quarrels would only have AP 1 (due to the weaker pull).

Superior Arrows

I choose to justify the AP of the crossbow through its quarrels rather than as an innate bonus of the weapon itself - so the quarrel is what gives the crossbow its AP 2. This means an archer can also gain AP (by using hardened bodkin arrowheads). However arrowheads only provide their full bonus when using a heavy-pull bow, and most people are only strong enough to use heavy-pull crossbows (because of the lower Strength requirement).

While the archer can raise his Strength to d8 to utilise a heavy-pull bow, the crossbowman can use that same advance to take the new Crossbow Speed Shooting Edge, so I think the two options (archer and crossbowman) should balance out.

Disclaimer: The compound bow also reduces the Strength requirement in the same way as a crossbow, however it's a modern weapon, and should therefore be compared with modern crossbows (which can be fitted with optic scopes).

Repeating Crossbows

Right from the beginning, I knew I wanted to include rules for Chinese repeating crossbows, however I wanted them to be at least reasonably realistic. An article I'd read suggested that a repeating crossbow could fire 10 bolts in 15 seconds, which is an average of 1 bolt every 1½ seconds. A round in Savage Worlds lasts 6 seconds, which meant the repeating crossbow should be able to fire 4 bolts per round.

The Automatic Fire rules state that the Rate of Fire (RoF) is multiplied by the number of Shooting dice to determine how much ammunition is actually used. Thus by giving the repeating crossbow RoF 2, it will indeed fire 4 bolts per round.

However the article also described how the repeating crossbow could be modified to fire 2 bolts at a time. While the Double Tap maneuver might seem a thematic fit for such an option, I felt it would make the modification a no-brainer, so instead I had it give a slight damage increase along with a range decrease.

The modified variant also allowed me to justify the Suppressive Fire maneuver. Suppressive Fire uses five times the RoF of the weapon, which in this case would be 10 bolts in a 6 second round. While that's fine for guns, the Chinese repeating crossbow is simply not able to fire bolts that fast - however the modified version can shoot twice as many bolts (8 in 6 seconds), which I felt was close enough.

Summary

Savage Archery was a fun article to write, and quite a lot of thought went into the weapon design system. If you like my other fan stuff then I think you'll enjoy this article as well.

But of course that's just one article, and Savage insider is packed with loads of excellent content by a number of different authors. Please do check it out if you haven't already.

Travel Times: Tactical and Overland

I've recently been thinking about travel times - it's something I usually handwave, but sometimes it's important, even if only for narrative purposes. If I just make up journey times, it sometimes causes inconsistencies later on. But equally, I don't want to spend too much time calculating exactly how long each journey takes.

In Savage Worlds, a character with Pace 6 moves 6" per round, where 6" (on the tabletop) represents 12 yards, and a round lasts 6 seconds - this works out at just over 4 miles per hour. However the "Travel" section suggests halving a character's Pace to calculate their travel speed in miles per hour, which means a character with Pace 6 would move at 3 miles per hour.

The discrepancy between the two isn't unreasonable, as the first situation represents movement over a very short period of time in the heat of combat, while the second is averaged over an hour of walking. However what it doesn't cover is characters who wish to push themselves harder and/or for longer.

Hustling

I've decided to extend the movement by borrowing a concept from D&D: A character who "hustles" moves at twice their normal speed; characters are assumed to be hustling during combat, but if they wish to perform another action as well (such as attack) they can only hustle for half of their turn.

In Savage Worlds terms, this works a bit like the Defend maneuver: it only applies if you don't perform any normal actions. A character who wishes to move and does nothing else can double their Pace for the round.

However this raises the question of how running should work. I do think it's fine to have both - running is less reliable than hustling (because the additional movement is based on a die roll), but allows a character to perform other normal actions as well (one could draw parallels with Defend vs. Full Defense).

But if hustling represents a fast jog, and running represents combining fast movement with another action, what happens if someone just wants to run as fast as possible, and do nothing else? To address that, I borrowed another concept from D&D, which I call sprint.

Tactical Movement

There are now two additional maneuvers which any character can perform:

► Hustle: You can double your Pace for the round if you don't Defend or take any normal actions (you may still take free actions), as long as you're not Shaken. If you wish to perform normal actions while moving quickly, you should instead use the run maneuver.

► Sprint: This is a full round action (no other actions are allowed), and reduces your Parry by 2 until the beginning of your next turn. Your Pace is doubled and you roll (and add together) two running dice, but you must subtract your encumbrance penalty from the total. You must move in a relatively straight line, and cannot cross Difficult Ground. If you sprint for a number of rounds equal to your Vigor you suffer a level of Fatigue, and sprinting again for the same period of time causes a second level of Fatigue. You cannot sprint while Exhausted.

Note: If you're playing Shaintar, it already has a maneuver called All Out Move, so you can ignore sprint.

Overland Movement

When travelling long distances, your Pace determines your hustling speed in miles per hour (e.g., Pace 6 can hustle at 6 miles per hour). Hustling represents a fast jog, and requires a Vigor roll once per hour to avoid Fatigue. You can hustle for up to eight hours per day, but must stop if Exhausted.

Walking is half the speed of hustling (e.g., Pace 6 can walk at 3 miles per hour), the same as in SWD, and there is no penalty for the first eight hours of walking per day. You can walk more than eight hours by making a forced march: make a Vigor roll for each additional hour, suffering a level of Fatigue on a failure. Incapacitation results in unconsciousness; it is literally possible to march until you pass out.

When riding a mount, it's the mount that makes the Vigor roll (and suffers the Fatigue) rather than the rider. A mount can even hustle when Exhausted, but if incapacitated by Fatigue (from either hustling or a forced march) there is a good chance the mount will die - roll to see if it survives as if the incapacitation were caused by damage. The rider must make a Riding roll to leap from their mount if it collapses; on a failure, they suffer 2d6 damage.

Terrain

Characters only move at full speed when using a major highway, or when using a road or trail through a forest, moor or plain. When characters use roads through other types of terrain, or go off the beaten track entirely, they typically move at 75% speed, reduced to 50% when moving cross-country through deserts, forests, hills, mountains or swamps, or 25% when moving through jungles.

Therefore to calculate how many miles someone can walk in an eight-hour day, you can simply multiply their Pace by 1-4, depending on the terrain. For example a character with Pace 6 can walk 24 miles per day along a forest trail (Pace times 4), 18 miles per day along a mountain road (Pace times 3), 12 miles per day through a swamp (Pace times 2) and 6 miles per day through a jungle (Pace times 1). When moving through mixed terrain, the GM can approximate or average the results, depending on how much accuracy is required.

Flying creatures and aerial vehicles usually move at full speed, although strong winds and severe weather conditions can be treated as a 25%, 50% or 75% speed reduction. A tailwind can provide a bonus to Pace, typically +6 for a strong tailwind.

Similarly, swimming creatures and watercraft usually move at full speed, but can be slowed down by weather conditions. Sailing vessels can benefit from the wind and tides in the same way as aerial vehicles, while river boats gain a bonus to their Pace (typically +6) when moving downstream. A river boat can also float downstream without being actively rowed (i.e., it has base Pace 0, but with +6 for moving downstream), but still needs to be steered.

Watercraft

Instead of acceleration and top speed, fantasy watercraft can simply be given a Pace the same as a creature. It is possible to hustle as normal using oars, but if the vehicle has sails the roll is instead made with Boating, and failure causes a level of damage to the boat or ship. It is also possible to push yourself in the same way as a forced march - this is always based on Vigor, but a crew can work eight-hour shifts to avoid fatigue (meaning that a sailing ship with a full crew doesn't need to take breaks).

A simple raft or barge has Pace 1, a keelboat has Pace 2, a rowboat has Pace 3, a sailing ship has Pace 4, a warship has Pace 5, a longship has Pace 6, and a galley has pace 8.

So for example, you could cross a river in a rowboat at 1½ miles per hour, or 3 miles per hour if you really row hard (the equivalent of hustling). But if you row downstream you'd move at 7½ miles per hour, or 9 miles per hour if you row hard - or you could allow your boat to float downstream at 6 miles per hour, only using your oars occasionally to push the boat away from rocks.

Exploring Shaintar

Once you know how far the party can move per day, it's usually pretty easy to look at the map of your game world and see how long it will take to travel from A to B. To give an example, I've copied a tiny section of Shaintar's huge world map (with permission from Sean Patrick Fannon), which has a scale of 1.2 pixels per mile. The map is both detailed and clearly laid out, making it ideal for this sort of exercise.

On top of the map I've positioned a ruler consisting of concentric circles, each representing a distance of 25 miles (I created the ruler specifically for the Shaintar map, so that it would match the scale). I prefer this style of ruler as it makes it easier to see the distances in all directions at once.

In this particular example, the PCs are located in the town of Blue. You can easily see at a glance that it's around 25 miles to Stonebridge, around 75 miles to Fadrin and Riverside, perhaps 80 miles to Colbi, and nearly 100 miles to Sorlin and Lanthor. Of course that assumes a straight line, but in most cases there are roads which are (more or less) straight. Even if the PCs wish to visit Sorlin, it would probably be faster to take the road (via Fadrin) rather than walking in a straight line across the plains.

The speed of the group will obviously depend on their slowest member:

• Dwarves (Pace 5) can walk 20 miles per day on major roads.

• Humans (Pace 6) can walk 24 miles per day on major roads.

• Ogres (Pace 7) can walk 28 miles per day on major roads.

• Brinchie (Pace 8) can walk 32 miles per day on major roads.

• Riding horses (Pace 10) can walk 40 miles per day on major roads.

• Aevakar (flying Pace 12) can fly 48 miles per day* regardless of terrain.

If the group wants to head to Stonebridge they can probably make it in a day (in which case they wouldn't need to make camp for the night, so it would effectively become an 8 hour trip). Even dwarves could probably manage it in a day if they didn't mind pushing themselves a bit to keep up - either hustling for a couple of hours, or turning it into a 10 hour trip (or a combination of the two).

But what if the PCs want to head all the way down to Lanthor? That's nearly 100 miles, and would take a group of humans about 4 days on foot. With horses they could make it in 2½ days. But there's a third option - the Silver river. Rafts only have Pace 1, but they receive +6 Pace for moving downstream. If the PCs row the raft for 8 hours (Pace 1+6) and then just let it float for the remaining 16 hours, they'll travel 80 miles in a full day! They should arrive in Lanthor a few hours into their second day of travel.

* The Draft Rider Edge (which allows the Aevakar to fly 100 miles per day) can also be justified within these guidelines as a "forced march" - the benefit of the Edge is that the Aevakar no longer needs to make a Vigor roll every hour to avoid Fatigue.

Small, Medium, Large and Huge Cone Templates

Savage Worlds uses three types of Burst Template for area effect attacks. The Small Burst Template (SBT) is 1" radius, the Medium Burst Template (MBT) is 2" radius, and the Large Burst Template (LBT) is 3" radius.

However there is only one Cone Template, which is 9" long and 3" wide at its widest point (effectively a cone ending in a 3" diameter semicircle). This gets used for all sorts of things, such as flamethrowers, breath weapons, elemental attacks, certain offensive powers, flashlights and bullseye lanterns, and so on - the Horror Companion even uses it for sprays of blood! In short, every effect which is cone-shaped uses the same Cone Template.

While converting D&D spells for my Vancian magic system, I found that while many of the spells filled a "radius burst", and could be handily represented through the three Burst Templates, there were also quite a few that filled a 15, 30 or 60 foot cone (the Savage Worlds Cone Template is the equivalent of a 45-foot cone). So I finally decided it was time to add some more Cone Templates.

You can download them here: Savage Cone Templates.

Although the Cone Template is often compared with the Medium Burst Template in terms of value (probably because it covers a fairly similar area), I decided not to simply halve its length and width to create the Small Cone Template, as I didn't want a template 4.5" long and 1.5" wide. Instead, I decided to split it into four templates as follows:

• Small Cone Template (SCT): 3" long and 1" wide.
• Medium Cone Template (MCT): 6" long and 2" wide.
• Large Cone Template (LCT): 9" long and 3" wide.
• Huge Cone Template (HCT): 12" long and 4" wide.

The Savage Worlds Cone Template is now the Large Cone Template. I decided to follow the standard naming convention - Burst Templates are Small (1" radius), Medium (2" radius) or Large (3" radius), creatures are Small, Medium, Large or Huge, and my Cone Templates are named in the same manner. For the record, I did also try creating a Huge Burst Template for the sake of completeness, but sadly it doesn't quite fit onto an A4 page.

As far as what the new templates are used for, that's entirely up to you.  New spells?  Miniature flamethrowers?  Differently sized breath weapons for younger and older dragons?  I'm sure you must have some ideas!