Creating the Athletics Skill

[Save-vs-DM]

I've tried to figure this out on my own, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to do this. We're using the Athletics [Vigor] skill from Interface Zero 2.0 in all of our games. This skill replaces BOTH Climbing and Swimming. But I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to do it in Hero Lab.

Is there a way for a skill to replace more than one Thing ID? That seems like it would be the really simple way to do it. The only other option I can think of is really, really convoluted. I'd have to preclude Climbing and Swimming, then make duplicates of everything that references them, changing them to athletics and then replacing the originals. That seems...really convoluted.

Can I get some help on this, please?

[zarlor]

Honestly, I NEVER use replaces, because it's a global change.That may not be an issue for you, but be aware that it could have all kinds of unforseen consequences when trying to use other data files/settings. The answer I would give really is the convoluted way of precluding them and making new a new one instead and new replacements for anything referenced (which I don't think is really all that much anyway).

[SeeleyOne]

Basically you will want to have a setting tag that you check in the Configure Hero menu. Let's say that the source tag is "athletic".

1) With that you will have it preclude those two skills, using the "athletic" source

2) you will make a new skill, Athletics, that also has the source.

3) you will need to make new versions of any edges that need them. Offhand I can only think of references to Climbing. Give them the same source. DO NOT make them replace the originals.

4) you will need to preclude all of the original versions of your revised edges/hindrances.

There is not a way that I have found that allows you to just write a script that will go in and change the requirements around.

What I would do if I were to have it in my own data set is that I would remake all of the hindrances/edges that reference Climbing and Swimming and then instead of having those references be accessed as normal in the Expr-req like for Climbing in Assassin "#traitfound[skClimbing] >= 3" is to not even have them for climbing and swimming. Instead I would make some Pre-req scripts that would reference them instead, added to an "if" statement that will see if the source is being used. That is the sort of thing that I do with all of my optional rules in my own data files -- I make it so that they can be turned on and off as desired.

[Save-vs-DM]

Okay, maybe a different tactic. I suppose I don't actually need to remove Climbing and Swimming. All I need is for Athletics to count as those skills for prerequisites. Is there any way to do that easily?

[zarlor]

Not that I can think of, but the creation method isn't really all that time consuming. You'd have to copy and fix maybe a couple of things and add those things as a preclude. It's jsut not a lot of work to do that. SeelyOne's method is a bit more in-depth, but that much more so.

[Paragon]

Yeah, this sounds like more work than it really is, though I wish Preclude was a little easier to use.