[How To Play] Savage Worlds, Part 4: Wild Cards and Extras

Talking again with Charley during our game session, I explained the difference between Wild Cards and Extras in Savage Worlds.

• Wild Cards are player characters or special NPCs or monsters that are tougher than regular people (the Extras).
• Wild Cards get to roll an extra die called the Wild Die.
  
• Each Wild Card has the use of Bennies.

Wild Cards are harder to kill than Extras. They can take a lot more damage. They can take up to 3 wounds and on the 4th wound are incapacitated. This make them much tougher than Extras and allows them to fight groups of Extras and (usually) survive.

Wild Cards also get to roll a Wild Die for every action they take. The Wild Die is a d6 and if Sir Nicholas is fighting another knight, he gets to roll a d8 for Fighting and a d6 Wild Die and keep the best value. Since Savage Worlds is an open-roll system, if either die scores the highest number (an 8 on a d8 or a 6 on a d6, called an "Ace"), Charley gets to re-roll and add to the value, increasing his chance of a success.

Wild Cards get Bennies. In Sir Nick's case, Charley starts each session with 3 Bennies + 1 Bennie because of his Luck edge. Wild Card NPCs get 2 Bennies each and the GM starts with 1 extra Bennie per player per game session that he can use on any NPC, including Wild Card NPCs. Since it's going to be only Charley playing, that means I get 1 extra Bennie per game session. We'll cover what Bennies do later.

Finally, Extras, also known as Mooks, are much weaker than Wild Cards - they can only take one wound, they get no dedicated Bennies (except the extras that the GM chooses to use) and they don't use the Wild Die.