This section contains rules and equipment. Read the notes below before you go to the outfitters to understand what various keywords mean.
Characters are assumed to have clothes and other personal items. If the GM allows it, adventurers may also have a home with other supplies and necessities.
The Starting Funds (300 gp) are for “adventuring gear” in addition to such personal items. The costs listed on the following pages represent standards; in the marketplace or the bazaar, all costs are negotiable. Character gear lists don’t need to include anything beyond “adventuring gear”.
Use the lists and prices in this book as a baseline for your game when looking for equipment that isn't listed here.
Some items are extremely difficult to price because they're created by decree or necessity, such as engineers and soldiers in a siege building catapults and trebuchets. Their prices reflect an estimate of the time and resources needed to create them.
Pathfinder for Savage Worlds uses a gold standard for trade across Golarion. In general, commerce relies on four precious metals, coined throughout the continents. Some traders accept gemstones when bargaining.
Naturally, trade also occurs via bartering, although most characters (and merchants!) prefer coins when buying or selling wares. Costs default to gold pieces (gp) on gear tables unless otherwise noted.
Coin CP SP GP PP
Copper (cp) 1 1/10 1/100 1/1,000
Silver (sp) 10 1 1/10 1/100
Gold (gp) 100 10 1 1/10
Platinum (pp) 1,000 100 10 1
This is the amount of Armor provided by the equipment, listed in parentheses beside the wearer’s total Toughness. Unless an attacker states otherwise, hits are always directed at the victim’s torso.
Worn armor doesn't stack with other worn armor, but does stack with natural armor (such as scaly skin) at its full value.
The weapon or projectile ignores this many points of Armor value. A weapon with an AP value of 4, for instance, ignores 4 points of Armor. Excess AP is lost.
The weapon counts as having +1 Reach when determining who has the greater Reach when set against a charge (see Mounted Combat).
The following weapons from the Pathfinder for Savage Worlds core book all have the Brace weapon trait: halberd, pike, spear, trident.
Damage is listed in terms of dice. Projectile weapons have fixed damage (such as 2d6). Melee weapons have damage based on the wielder’s Strength die plus another die, as listed under individual weapon entries. A dagger, for instance, inflicts Str+d4 damage.
A weapon with this quality has two parallel barrels; each barrel can be shot independently as a separate action, or both can be fired at once in a single action (two Shooting rolls).
If both barrels are fired at once, they must target the same creature or object and suffer a -2 penalty on both Shooting rolls.
The weapon can affect vehicles or other devices with Heavy Armor. This is not to be confused with categories of personal armor—such as heavy armor or shields.
Certain items have a “Minimum Strength” required to use without penalty. Note that some items list a d4 since it is possible to have a Strength lower than d4.
Armor/Shields/Worn Gear: Each die type difference between the character’s Strength and the item’s Minimum Strength inflicts a -1 penalty to Pace (minimum of 1), Agility, and Agility-related skill rolls. This is cumulative for those weak but determined adventurers who wear or use multiple items too heavy for their build.
Melee/Thrown Weapons: A thrown or melee weapon’s damage die is limited by the user’s Strength die. If a scrawny kid (Strength d4) picks up a longsword (Str+d8), he rolls d4+d4 damage instead of d4+d8. Also, if the user’s Strength is less than its Minimum Strength, he doesn’t benefit from any of the weapon’s positive abilities such as Reach or Parry bonuses. He still retains any penalties, however.
Ranged Weapons: The user suffers a -1 attack penalty for each die step difference between his Strength and the weapon’s minimum.
The weapon adds the bonus to the character’s Parry score. If a character wields a weapon in each hand, penalties to Parry stack but bonuses do not (unless she has the Ambidextrous Edge). This also applies to carrying two shields at once (use the best Parry bonus).
This lists the weapon’s Short, Medium, and Long Range. Extreme Range is up to 4× its Long Range. See Ranged Attacks for Shooting or Athletics (throwing) modifiers and more details.
Ranges are listed in inches so you can use a ruler to move, shoot, and fight on the tabletop with miniatures. If you’re not using miniatures, each inch equals two yards (six feet).
Weapon ranges are “effective” ranges for the table-top.
This is the number of shots that may be fired by this weapon in a single action. See Rate of Fire for further details.
Weapons with “Reach” allow their user to make Fighting attacks at the listed Range. A Reach of 1, for example, allows a character to strike a target 1″ (2 yards) distant. Weapons without a Reach value can only strike targets at arm’s length (adjacent).
Reach can be very important when fighting from horseback and against mounted foes.
A character can ready and fire a bow every action—see Reloading on page 137. Heavy crossbows and black powder muskets are slower to reload. The number after the Reload keyword is how many actions of reloading it takes before a weapon can be fired again.
This weapon can shoot two different types of ammunition. It can fire normal bullets that target one creature, or it can make a scattering shot, attacking all creatures within a Small Cone Template.
A two-handed weapon can be used with one hand at a -4 penalty. The hero counts full Strength for damage but loses all other advantages such as Reach or Parry bonuses.
Two-handed weapons are normally required to make use of the Sweep Edge.
Most of the time you don’t need to worry about how much weight a character is carrying. If it becomes important to track, use the Encumbrance table. If a character carries more than the listed weight, he’s Encumbered.
Encumbered characters subtract 2 from Pace (minimum 1), running rolls, Agility and all linked skills, and Vigor rolls made to resist Fatigue.
At three times the lifted weight or more, he can move at a Pace of 1 for a number of rounds equal to his Vigor. Every round thereafter he must succeed at a Vigor roll or take a level of Fatigue.
The maximum weight a character can lift or carry is four times the listed weight.
Bulky Items: Carrying a bulky, awkward, or unbalanced item, such as a large box, treasure chest, a person, and so on, may make a character Encumbered despite its actual weight (GM’s call).
Strength Can Freely Carry Up To…
d4 20 lbs
d6 40 lbs
d8 60 lbs
d10 80 lbs
d12 100 lbs
Each +1 +20 lbs
Weapons and armor are often created with special materials found on Golarion. These materials improve combat effectiveness or have effects against creatures with resistances and weaknesses. Special materials don’t stack, only the best quality applies in any situation.
Anything made from the following materials is considered masterwork, adding the masterwork price increase to its base cost before other cost modifiers.
Adamantine: Mined from rocks that fell from the heavens, adamantine adds +1 AP to any melee weapon or ranged weapon ammunition made of its metal. This stacks with the bonus from masterwork items. Adamantine weapons cost an additional 3,000 gp. Ammunition costs an additional 60 gp per missile.
Adamantine armor is harder to pierce than that made from other materials. It ignores up to 2 points of AP. Armor made from this material costs an extra 3,000 gp per point of Armor bonus.
Darkwood: This rare wood is much lighter than normal. Items carved from it weigh half as much as typical equivalents and add an additional 10 gp per pound of the original weight to the price of a masterwork version of the item. Darkwood items increase Hardness (or Toughness if the hull of a vehicle) by 2.
Dragonhide: Armorers can fashion their products with the hides of dragons when such wonders become available. The number of armor pieces that can be crafted from a single dragon is equal to half its Size (rounded up). The hide can be used to craft light, medium, or heavy armor and counts as masterwork, granting the same bonus as other armors of the same type (+2 to +4). Additionally, wearing dragonhide armor grants the wearer an additional +4 Armor against the element tied to the dragon's breath weapon. For example, blue dragonhide gives resistance to electricity. This benefit stacks with the Energy Resistance enchantment. Dragonhide costs an additional 2,500 gp beyond the cost of the normal armor it's mimicking. So a dragonhide breastplate costs 3,150 gp.
Iron, Cold: Mined from the deepest depths of Golarion, cold iron is the weakness of certain demons and Fey creatures. Weapons forged with cold iron increase Hardness by 2 and cost twice as much as normal.
Mithral: A rare metal on Golarion, mithral is forged like steel but weighs much less. Mithral reduces the Minimum Strength of weapons, armor, and shields one die type (this stacks with the bonus from masterwork) and the weight by half. Weapons and shields made primarily of mithral (GM's call) cost 100 times normal, while armor costs 10 times normal per piece.
Mithral weapons count as silver for purposes of creatures with a silver Weakness.
Silver, Alchemical: A complex process involving metallurgy and alchemy can bond silver to a steel weapon. This allows them to affect creatures with a Weakness to silver, such as lycanthropes. They cost ten times normal price.
Masterwork items are finely crafted versions of normal gear made by top artisans.
Weapons of masterwork quality are +1 AP. Masterwork melee and ranged weapons add 300 gp to the cost.
Masterwork arrows, bolts, or other ammunition subtracts 1 point of Range penalty at Long or Extreme Range, and costs six additional gold pieces per unit. Masterwork ammunition loses its bonus after use even if recovered.
Armor and shields of masterwork quality reduce the Minimum Strength requirement by one die type, to a minimum of d4. Shields cost an extra 300 gp, while armor costs an extra 150 gp per piece.
You can’t usually upgrade existing armor, weapons, or shields to masterwork quality— they must be crafted to high standards from the beginning.
The availability of masterwork items — whether for sale in the marketplace or commissioned — depends on the size of the settlement and is up to the GM. Such items typically take twice as long to create if commissioned.
Weapons wielded by some creatures may be larger or smaller than those listed here. A giant’s battleaxe, for example, is larger than a human’s, while a kobold’s longsword is smaller. The GM can increase or decrease the Minimum Strength and weight as logically needed, but other statistics (Range, damage, etc.) remain as listed.
Blacksmiths, boyers, carpenters, and other crafters use the Repair skill in their profession. Those who study the natural world, geology, physics, and nonmagical chemical reactions, use the Science skill. Those who work with magical substances, arcane reagents, and volatile elixirs use the Alchemy skill.
A few "true" alchemists imbue potions with powerful magical qualities, but most "common" alchemists focus on relatively mundane but useful saleable items such as flash powder, alkali flasks, and the "alchemical items".
Creating common alchemical items is not nearly as time-consuming as creating magical ones. For every 10 gp an item costs (round up) the alchemist must spend an hour working on it. Once the required time is invested, the creator makes an Alchemy roll (plus or minus any listed modifiers). Success creates the device; failure destroys it and the alchemist must start again.