Ok, so there are several things I have found about Lankhmar which are a bit hard and/or clunky(in my mind anyway) to implement in the base game system. Some of these items I have already asked for in the Enhancement thread in some way. A few of the things I mention below are not impossible or ever hard to do, just work.
1) the money system. As tends to happen in fantasy settings I have seen(I don't have any exposure to other genre setting files and don't care to), Lankhmar has multiple currency types. Unfortunately, of the setting books I have seen which have multiple currency types they don't even agree upon the exchange rates. As such I just don't think this can be ever accounted for without a full re-write of the gear/money system into it's own separate game folder, and I doubt anyone i willing to do that(I am not just for this "feature"), so we just have to live with this limitation. I include this solely for completeness.
2) This is another source book with some extra stuff and choices for "humans" which at least in my mind would make a race tab and either racial ability/racial property(I can never remember which is the "use this from now own") with one or more selectable things which can then bootstrap stuff. Here is the example from the book(I have to write it manually, so hopefully I don't mistype:
Quote:
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The most common race found in Lankhmar is human, though they hail from a variety of locales. Humans begin play with one free Edge as long as they meet all the requirements(see Edges in the Savage Worlds core rules) and a d6 in the skill of their choice, or they can take the cultural package for the various backgrounds listed below
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Now, my initial reading of the above(last night) was:
free Edge AND ( (d6 any skill) OR (cultural package) )
but after further reading, I THINK it's supposed to be:
( (free edge) AND (d6 any skill) ) OR (cultural package)
Either way, for the cultural package of which there are 4, we could choose to just create 5 top level race objects(with the basic option being the free edge and d6 skill), ala:
Human - Background A
Human - Background B
Human - Background C
Human - Background D
Human - Basic
And each of the above would be bootstrapped with the stuff that it needs. Of course, the d6 in any skill is problematic and though there are some work arounds for that also, I don't think they are very pretty. In any event, that's the break down of what would be needed for Humans.
The source also has two other races, but those look relatively easy to implement with no odd things that I can see. I still would like to see us having an optional race tab(ie, turn on the viability in a .1st file just like the various setting rules options on the starting screen) that showed the race stuff specifically, but with more options(ie, choosers) which would bootstrap other things.
3) Edges/Weapons: I found only one thing I am not sure how to handle: Named Weapon/Improved Named Weapon. This looks to be a renamed or tweaked Trademark Weapon, but with much, much lower requirements(d6 instead of TMW's d10). Basically, the player can name any specific weapon. They get bonuses when using that specific weapon. The player can take this multiple times, but only once per named weapon. So my first thought was: hmm, can stock individual weapons(or armor, or any gear for that matter) be named specific things by the player? So I checked Trademark Weapon in HL and it has a drop down prompt on the edge, YEAH! But since the weapon itself can't be renamed in the UI, so one would have to duplicate in the Editor and rename or do the same via xml. One possible issue with that is that any existing scripts anywhere which try to add to weapons typically seem to check the name field for comparison and would not find this "instance" because it may not have "Sword" or whatever else in the name anymore.
4) no PP for magic, but has Casting Modifier instead that would be nice to be able to add to the power(but we can't). In theory, IF PP could take a negative number and I assume it can, one could make copies of each power in the setting and put in the casting modifier in place of the PP cost. Basically, this is a modifier to the skill roll, BUT you can buy down during the actual casting by taking longer to cast the spell. For example, the spell Astral Walk has a -10 Casting Modifier, so no one with one or more raises and/or a very high skill dice can cast in 1-2 rounds, but if you spend 10 rounds, it the skill roll has no modifiers. Thoughts? Is there a better way to model this with what we currently have or would it make more sense to extend what currently exists. I have not thought to much about the details, but would the way Super Powers work in the current Hero Lab handle this since they don't have PP's but have some kind of negative casting modifier based upon the original PP cost? I have not played with it, so I don't know.
5) Spell Duration: this is not hard in any way, but it's extra work. Basically base spells have a much higher duration so every one would need to be re-written.
6) Arcane Backgrounds: three new ones, each with some different flavor stuff that would have to be dealt with and no existing core ones can be used:
Black Magic
Backlash earns "Corruption". At the end of each session player with any corruption points chooses one of the following:
a) physical corruption(roll on table for result), basically things like your skill scales over, or your eyes turn into snake irises, webbed fingers,etc(covers 1 point)
b) minor hindrance from specific list OR upgrade existing from list to major hindrance(covers 1 point)
c) major hindrance from different specific list from the above(covers 2 points)
This is an ongoing tracker and if you hit x corruption: new character and the GM takes over the newly jacked up one.
Elemental magic
Standard fare here, but you have to choose your type(new tag or what ever for the chooser?) You can take from your element, but you can also have some powers outside your element, but are limited in the number per rank. Limits on this would be a nice to have, but I don't think it's strictly required as the player should be able to know how many out of element powers(if any) vs their current rank.
White Magic
This one is a bit weird and I have no idea how to make this seem natural. Basically, you get a free "new power edge" per rank. I really like the idea here and was thinking for my personal campaign of this EXACT feature just a few hours before reading this in the book. Does anyone have any ideas of how to implement this? It seems like it would be very clunky.
I am sure there are other odd things I missed, but those are some of the highlights.