Iron Kingdom Savage Conversion - Abilities

Welcome to my third installment on Iron Kingdoms RPG conversion to Savage Worlds. In that post, I'll cover Iron Kingdom RPG Abilities.

The Iron Kingdoms RPG offer a lot of abilities to character. Abilities really are the IKRPG equivalent of Savage Worlds edges. The main differences, is that characters in IKRPG have limited availability of abilities based on their careers and archetype.

I'll do the same process as I did for the skills last week. I'll try to map IKRPG abilities to existing Savage Worlds edges. If I can't find a fitting match, I'll create a new Edge, but only if the ability his a setting signature, like 'Jack Marshal that allows a character to handle steamjack.

So here is my mapping table of every abilities from IKRPG.

Iron Kingdoms Abilities	Savage Worlds Edge
'Jack Marshal	new Edge
Ace Commander	new Edge
Acrobatics	Acrobat
Advisor
Ambush
Anatomical Precision
Appraise
Arcane Assassin
Arcane Defenses	Arcane Resistance
Arcane Engineer
Arcane Precision
Arcane Scholar
Astute
Backsab
Battle Commander
Battle Plan: Call to Action
Battle Plan: Coordinated Strike
Battle Plan: Desperate Pace
Battle Plan: Go to Ground
Battle Plan: Reconnaissance
Battle Plan: Shadow
Bayonet Charge
Big Game Hunter
Binding
Blaster
Blood Spiller
Bodge
Bodyg u a rd
Bomber
Bond (bond slot)*	new Edge
Brew Master
Camouflage
Card Sharp
Cautious Advance
Cavalry Charge
Chain Attack: Bleed Out
Chain Attack: Pin Down
Choir
Cleave
Combat Rider
Conniver
Cover Identity (identity)*
Crackshot
Craft Rune Shot	new Edge
Crossbowman
Defender
Defensive Line
Dig In
Disease Resistance
Dispel
Dodger
Drive: Ancil lary Attack
Drive: Assault
Drive: Off Road
Drive: Pronto
Dual Shot
Elemental Mastery
Empower
Expert Rider
Fast Cook
Fast Draw	Quick Draw
Fast Rearm (weapon type)*
Fast Reload
Fell Call: Cacophony	new Power
Fell Call: Call of Defiance	new Power
Fell Call: Ground Shaker	new Power
Fell Call: Heroic Ballad	new Power
Fell Call: Reverberation	new Power
Fell Call: Signal Call	new Power
Fell Call: Sonic Blast	new Power
Field Alchemist
Field Marshal: Magical Attack
Field Marshal: Relentless Charge
Field Marshal: Shield Guard
Find Cover
Fire in the Hole!
Fleet Foot	Fleet-Footed
Free Style	new Edge
Gang
Get Away
Girded
Good Breeding
Great Power	Power Points
Grenadier
Gunfighter
Head-Butt
Hit the Deck!
Hyper Awareness
Immunity: Cold
Immunity: Corrosion
Immunity: Electricity
Immunity: Fire
Inscribe Formulae	new Edge
Iron Sentinel
Iron Will
Keen Eyed
Language (language)*
Legacy of Bragg
Light Cavalry
Load Bearing
Mage Killer
Marksman	Marksman
Natural Leader	Command Presence
Night Fighter
Parry
Pathfinder
Poison Resistance
Port of Call
Precision Strike
Press the Attack
Privilege	Noble
Prowl
Pursuit
Quick Work
Rallying Cry
Relentless Charge
Resourcefull
Retaliatory Strike	Counterattack
Return Fire
Ride-By Attack
Riposte
Rock Solid
RollWith It
Saddle Shot	Steady Hands
Scrounge
Sentry
Set Defense
Shadow Magic	new Edge
Shield Guard
Shield Slam
Signal Language
Sniper	Marksman
Specialization (weapon type)*	Trademark Weapon
Steady
Steamo
Sucker!
Swift Hunter
Swift Rider
Take Down
Targeteer
Team Leader
Traceless Path
Truth Reader
Tune Up
Two-Weapon Fighting	Two-Fisted
University Education
Waylay

As you can see, there is really few Edges that are equivalent to the IKRPG Abilities. There's a lot of abilities that allows character to reroll failed skill checked and since Savage Worlds include bennies that allows that I don't see the need to create them. There's also some abilities that could be created as is in Savage Worlds, for example Truth Reader that allows a character to always know if someone is lying.

Since I'm not converting an existing IKRPG campaing, I don't intend to create mapping for every one of the abilities. My principal goals for this conversion is to take out what create the flavor of the Iron Kingdoms and to allows me to convert ennemy stat block easily. So if I decide to use an ennemy with an ability that doesn't have an edge equivalent, I'll convert it then.

Some Iron Kingdoms Abilities are mapped as new Edges, these new Edges will be the subject of an other post.

Iron Kingdoms Savage Conversion - Skills

In my previous post, I talked about converting Iron Kingdoms RPG to Savage Worlds, my go to system. I started with the Character Statistics, as Iron Kingdimg calls them and convet them to Savage Worlds Traits. Now it's time to handle the skills, since it's the next big step.

Just to recap, for those who didn't red the first post or just forgot, my goal is to be able to easily convert Iron Kingdom RPG content to Savage World and keep the flavor and merge the mechanics of both system in a uniform mix. I starts with the stats, skills and abilities before attacking the races, careers and gear, simply because the later are build on top of the stats, skills and abilities and starting with the foundation will help me convert the rest.

I want to be able to convert every monster in the bestiary and thing like that to have scaled ennemy to throw at my players. I also want to be able to convert a full fledged Iron Kingdoms character to Savage World to ensure that I'm able to keep most of the flavor of that system.

As I said, my Iron Kingdoms campaign is already started with a first crude conversion and now I want to refine it.

So enough small talk let's get started.

In Iron Kingdoms, they are many skills. Most of them are pretty precise skill that differt with the Savage Worlds broad skill approach. I'll try to keep new skills and things like that to a minimum. I like the simple approach of Savage Worlds and I don't intent breaking it. So I'll look more at mapping Iron Kingdoms skills to existing Savage Worlds skills thant creating a perfect replica.

Let's starts with Iron Kingdoms Military Skills.

Iron Kingdoms Skill	Savage Worlds Skill
Archery	Shooting
Crossbow	Shooting
Great Weapon	Fighting
Hand Weapon	Fighting
Lance	Fighting
Light Artillery	Shooting
Pistol	Shooting
Rifle	Shooting
Shield	Fighting
Thrown Weapon	Thowing
Unarmed Combat	Fighting

As you can see more than one skill from Iron Kingdom RPG are map to the same Savage Worlds RPG. That's because of the broader approach of Savage Worlds. To keep things simple when making the conversion, I'll pick the best skill from Iron Kingdom for the convertion and just forget about the others. But surely, if you want to keep the granularity of Iron Kingdom you could do that with the Skill Spciality setting rule describe in the Savage Worlds Deluxe Edition core rule book.

Now let's look a the Occupational skills  and  Generic Skills  of Iron Kingdoms.

Iron Kingdoms Skill	Savage Worlds Skill
Alchemy	new skill
Animal Handling	Persuation
Bribery	Persuation
Climbing	Climbing
Command	Persuation
Craft	Repair
Cryptography	Knowledge (Cryptography)
Deception	Persuation
Detection	Notice
Disguise	Persuation
Driving	Driving
Escape Artist	n/a
Etiquette	Knowledge (Etiquette)
Fell Calling	new skill
Forgery	Persuation
Gambling	Gambling
Interrogation	Persuation
Intimidation	Intimidation
Jumping	n/a
Law	Knowledge (Law)
Lock Picking	Lockpicking
Lore	Knowledge
Mechanikal Engeneering	new skill / Repair *
Medecine	Healing
Navigation	Survival
Negotiation	Persuation
Oratory	Persuation
Pickpocket	Pickpocket
Research	Investigation
Riding	Riding
Rope Use	n/a
Sailing	Boating
Seduction	Persuation
Streetwise	Streetwise
Sneak	Stealth
Survival	Survival
Swimming	Swimming
Tracking	Tracking

As you can see there's a lot of skill from IKRPG that are mapped to the same skills of SW. For an example, Persuation as ten IKRPG skills mapped to it. I've done that because every one of them as the same goal, persuade a person, animal or group to act like the character wants and that's specefically what the SW persuation skill does.

So like for the Military Skills, I'll just pick the best skill matching persuation and use that one for the conversion.

Three of the Iron Kingdoms are not mapped to any skills in Savage Worlds, Escape Artist, Jumping and Rope Use. For Escape Artist and Jumping, there's already specific rules for that in Savage Worlds. For Rope Use I guess that a simple Agility check should suffice.
There are three new skills to create, Alchemy and Fell Calling and the Mechanikal Engeneering.

Alchemy, in IKRPG is the skill that allows a character to create alchemical compound. I really don't see any skill that could fill out that role except Repair, but I found that Alchemy is really different from what repair should covers. And since alchemy is a big part of the flavor of Iron Kingdoms, I'll create a skill for it. that will do excatly the same, allows character to create alchemical compounds.

Fell Calling, it's the ability of some trollkin to use a special kind of magic withing them ... so it's not complicated, Fell Calling is a new skill and will be associated with a new Arcane Background.

Now Mechanikal Engeneering, as Alchemy it deserves it's own skill when we are talkin about crafting mechanikal machine. But, chracters with repair can repair mechanikal creation like any other ones. A character with both skills, pick his best for repairs.

So that's it for the skill mapping, now we have to convert their level to Savage Worlds Trait dices. In IKRPG, the skills goes from 1 to 4 and that values is added to the revelant characteristic. And skill levels are capped based on the tier of play (2 at Heroic, 3 at Veteran and 4 at Epic).

In Savage Worlds skills range from d4 to d12 and at Legendary they goes to d12 + 2 with appropriate edges. So to keep it simple here is a litle table that shows are the mapping is done.

Iron Kingdoms Skill value		Savage Worlds Skill trait dice
Heroic	1	d6
	2	d8
Veteran	3	d12
Epic	4	d12 + 2

That's it for the skills, next up abilities / edges.