Changing Underlying Assumptions

[thegneech]

Still playing around with system tweaks, and came up with this question: how hard/easy is it to make significant changes to the underlying assumptions of a game, and where would I do that?

For instance, I'm looking at switching to Saga-style attacks/damage calculation, that throws out iterative attacks but gives everyone a bonus of +1/2 level to damage. Is this something I would need the development kit for?

Thanks for the info!

-The Gneech

[Mathias]

Whether you can make a significant change depends on the change. If the change in question requires changing something in the structural files or the visual files, those aren't accessible to users. Users do have access, through the editor, to the data files. There's often a workaround available, though.

Giving everyone a damage bonus of +1 / 2 levels could be handled by writing a script to calculate the damage bonus. You'd add that to a mechanic (not currently available in the editor, but I can describe how to build it in XML). I'd suggest you build your script on a race first, and make sure it works.

The attack calculations and display are a structural element, but for this new system, if the single attack bonus is equal to the first normal attack, then you can just ignore all the rest of the attacks. If there are calculations involved, you can work them out like the damage bonus, and then apply that script to all characters.

Owning the authoring kit will not give you access to the structural and visual files for the game systems that are not in the authoring kit package (Savage Worlds and 4ed are the ones in the authoring kit package).

[thegneech]

Okies, thanks for the info.

-TG