What are mechanics?

[willuwontu]

Just me being curious, I've done a bit with most of the editor, some areas like class abilities and what not moreso than others.

But what are mechanics? What are they used for? Why use them?

Also I've seen a couple mechanics that populate a new tab in the portfolio, how does this work? I've tried to do it without copying it but I can't get it right.

[willuwontu]

Anything?

[JustinThomason]

I am not super versed in the Editor, but my understanding is Mechanics are Things that get applied across the board to all Heroes created using the associated source. We use a house rule where all Knowledge skills can be used untrained, and I used the mechanics tab to set it so Knowledge skills are shown whether or not ranks have been spent.

[Aaron]

Mechanics are basically picks which are automatically added to all heroes. They are good for applying modifications globally. For example, if you had a rule in your campaign that Power attack and Combat Expertise were not actually feats, but things any character could do, you could create a mechanic which bootstraps those two for free, and every character made would have them.

[willuwontu]

Ah, what if I wanted to make tab similar to the automatic bonus progression one, that displays the abilities received at levels, and has primary ability chooser.

[Mathias]

You haven't given enough information about your project for me to tell if it can be built with a configurable and mechanics, which is an intermediate-level project, or will need its own unique tab, which is an expert-level project that also requires you to figure out some things about how to set up new tabs using the authoring kit.

[willuwontu]

Oops, This isn't for a project I intend to do in the near future, just me being curious about it in case I ever needed to do something similar.


So i'd have to learn the authoring kit in order to create unique tabs? In that case do you have any good authoring kit tutorials that you can direct me too?

Or would it be possible to have something like the list of specials the hero gains at each level from the bonus progression tab and the ability selectors and the feat selectors from the mythic without having to use the Authoring kit?

Edit: actually, I do have a use for this. I'd like a new tab that I can use to recreate the community gestalt in, and use to get a proper working gestalt system.