Various Code - Fringeworthy for SW

[Street]

I've used Hero Lab off and on for a number of years in my various Savage Worlds campaigns. Recently I've started a campaign based on the beta rules for the port of Fringeworthy to Savage Worlds. Last week I decided to create the necessary HL files for this. I thought it would be quick and easy. Nope.

Fringeworthy has an Arcane Background(Fringeworthy) that is non-exclusive. You can take other AB's alongside it. After stumbling down the two AB path for a bit, I researched on here discovering that was going to be filled with challenges of the unsurmountable kind.

Since AB(Fringeworthy) has a completely unique set of Skills attached to it, I decided to ditch the AB in HL and just used an Edge named AB(Fringeworthy) with Skills that require the Edge. None of this was linked to an actual AB.

Along the way to getting this all to work I've figured out a few items that I was unable to find in either the documentation or forums. I'll be sharing those in this post as I go along for others. Also, if there is a better way of doing any of this, please feel free to let me know.

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First up, I needed to restrict some of the new Skills to certain Ranks and above. I placed this code in the Expression Requirements with 20 being the xp threshold for the desired minimum Rank.

hero.child[resXP].field[resMax].value >= 20

More to come...

[SeeleyOne]

Sounds good. I have Fringeworthy, got it a few years ago, never ran it and forgot about it, so if you can point me to sources when doing something so I can get context that would be great.

I, too, would have suggested to make an edge simulate an AB. For reserving tanks to a certain XP, yeah, what you are doing should work. The only-one arcane background thing works great until ou want to have a character with both Super Hero Companion and a normal Arcane Background. One could use the Super Hero stuff to have an alien race, but alas that is currently impossible.

[Street]

Back to the drawing board...

While this approach works in HL for the most part, it is too clunky mechanically. Two main issues:

1. The Powers all function at the linked Skill die. This approach makes it look like they all have their own individual die levels. Perhaps hide the dice for these Skills? Not sure if I like that or if it is even possible.
2. This is the HL mostly part, doing it this way precludes using some of HL's in game functions. I've only used HL as a character sheet, never at the table, but I might want to change that and others may use this at some point too.

Time to put on the thinking cap here. Maybe there is a solution using the AB functionality I'm missing. The AB(Fringeworthy) has 100% unique Skills and the setting uses the No Power Points rules.

Perhaps trigger the Arcane tab without an actual AB? No idea if that is even possible.

Hmmm...

[SeeleyOne]

It is possible if you make up an Arcane Background (not the edge, but what an Arcane Background edge bootstraps). You can bootstrap it to an edge, or to the setting might work.

[Street]

Originally Posted by SeeleyOne

It is possible if you make up an Arcane Background (not the edge, but what an Arcane Background edge bootstraps). You can bootstrap it to an edge, or to the setting might work.

Hmmm, let me mess around with that some. Thanks.

[Paragon]

Yeah, if I'm understanding this right, and being Fringeworthy is the Arcane Background at hand, I'd just build it as an Edge that has a number of bootstrapped traits. Do they actually use power points for anything? If not, there's no reason to treat it like a normal Arcane Background in the program at all.

[Street]

Originally Posted by Paragon

Yeah, if I'm understanding this right, and being Fringeworthy is the Arcane Background at hand, I'd just build it as an Edge that has a number of bootstrapped traits. Do they actually use power points for anything? If not, there's no reason to treat it like a normal Arcane Background in the program at all.

Yeah, I'm thinking that going back to my original Skill based solution is the best path forward.

As all of the Powers function off a single Skill, Crystal Key Use, none of the other Skills need a die attached to it. Is there a way to hide to die for these Fringeworthy Skills(Powers) on the Skills tab?

[SeeleyOne]

If it does not have die rating, why is it a skill? You can make them Edges. If you want them cheaper, change the Advancement Slots to be 0.5 and they will only cost half an advance/edge.

[Paragon]

Honestly, if it works like it usually has, they aren't really--anything. They're just things you can do because you're Fringeworthy.

I've never checked--can you bootstrap powers without actually having an arcane background? Will they even display? If not, the easiest thing would be to just list the effects in the Edge text and move on I'd guess. I ended up doing that with one quirky special power in the Broken Earth file because doing it any other way was way too much work--and there's some precedent in a couple of other specialty Edges I looked at when doing it, though it'd probably be annoyingly long given there's probably about five or six "powers" associated with being Fringeworthy.

[SeeleyOne]

Does a character have to pay for the different things? If so, it should be something that can be bought (like the half cost edge above). If not, as Paragon suggested, just put it in the body of something else if it even needs to be in Hero Lab in the first place.

If the sole purpose to it is to itemize what a character can do, then you can make an Edge cost 0. I do this to make things show up on the character without having to buy it and I bootstrap them to the thing that gave it to them. For example, for my were-dragons and were-wolves, I keep the normal form untouched but have a "free edge" that displays strength when in that form. I also have additional weapons that are bootsrapped to the character so that they can see their "Claws (Dragon)" and have it display. In the case of strength, if needed I make scripts that use the were-strength instead.