Tommy's Take on Champions, Traps and Dwarves

EXPANDED PROFESSIONS: CHAMPIONS

Paladins are one of my favorite "classes". Ever since a friend of mine played The Best Paladin Ever in AD&D2e years ago...a guy who held himself to impossible standards, but understood that people around him were fallible. This starts with the Champion Edge from Savage Worlds and provides options to make a character a truly force of righteous power in the world.

Seven Edges, spread from Seasoned to, yes, Legendary are included for your Champions, and some of them will certainly feel familiar to people who had have Paladins in their D&D games. In fact, one Edge - Champion's Mount - can be taken multiple times, with each selection allowing the player to add a new power to the mount, such as allowing the mount to use any of the PC's Combat Edges!

The Legendary Edge, Crusade, allows the Champion to summon a fighting force for a holy crusade...calling out to people every day that he continues to make the associated Faith roll! There IS a growing penalty each day, so while it's POSSIBLE to keep making rolls indefinitely, it's certainly not likely.

A very cool set of Savage Worlds options for one of my favorite character types.

10 FANTASY TRAPS

Steven Trustrum pretty much gets to the point with his product names.

This is 10 Fantasy Traps, as it sounds. Note that they are not written in the same format found in books such as The Savage World of Solomon Kane, but if you're not a fan of that system, then this may be a plus.

Every trap has a Stealth rating, a Trigger, Disarm mechanism, Attack rolls, Effect and a Cost to purchase/set it up.

These cover most of your basics: You have arrows shooting from the walls, swarms of needles, pits opening in the floor, pendulum blades and bear traps both big and small.

Important notes are made, such as how the needles in and of themselves are rarely the real threat...most of the time they are also poisoned, for instance.

If you are incredibly anal about everything new fitting everything already in existence exactly, you might be disappointed by this. If you are already 100% happy with the traps system already in place, you might not have a need for this...otherwise, this is a pretty swell addition to the Savage Worlds line-up.

PLAYER RACES: DWARVES

Misfit Studios doesn't reinvent the wheel with dwarves here, but they do provide some very cool options nonetheless. It is little secret that I have become a huge fan of their additions to Savage Worlds, the racial and professional expansions, certain classic monsters returning and so on, and this is no different.

My favorite Edge in this supplement HAS to be Grounded, where a dwarf can "ground" himself against damage-causing magic, gaining protection against the effects. Giant Defense goes hand in hand with the already existing Giant Killer, giving a dwarf higher parry against a giant.

If it were Edges alone in this supplement, it would be cool...but we also get a dwarven alcohol for a bit of flavor...and the very cool dwarven waraxe. What makes a dwarven waraxe special? Well, the two-headed axe is actually two axes in a single haft...that can be removed and turned into throwing axes!

Not enough for you? How about famous fantasy metals Adamantine and Mithral, and their costs and properties?

Round that out with rules for playing half-dwarves, as well as the Earth/Stone trapping for Powers (a few of the Edges tie into this trapping), and you have another packed addition to the Savage Worlds line-up.