What am I missing here?

[Mathias]

If they're pre-defined, then you'll just store that information as tags - that's easy. That means you get to avoid the hassle of drop-downs to have the user set that information.

[BlueStryker]

Well I'm all moved in and ready to get back to work, however, I've been thinking a lot about how to incorporate this system into Hero Lab, and I may have to do this almost completely from scratch.

The reason being is that this system is completely controlled and regulated by XP. Right now I am using the arrows to increase/decrease the attributes and skills/character traits once they're added to the hero, and subtracting the amounts out of the starting XP pool. That part works perfectly and can definitely be used to create 90% of the characters. The parts that aren't covered are the inclusion of affiliations (take the place of race since, in this game, everyone is human) and the use of "life modules" that all dictate a fixed XP cost for choosing them. That alone wouldn't be an issue except that not all the XP used in this way provides enough to equal an increase (i.e. 100 XP = 1 attribute point, but an affiliation adds 50 XP to an attribute so it is not enough, by itself, to increase the attribute point). For Hero Lab I can use something similar to Archtypes to incorporate the life modules, but need a way to track the amounts of XP in each thing so that the attribute/skill/ect... increases and decreases automatically as XP is added and subtracted as affiliations and life modules are picked. Just typing this has given me an idea or two, but I could really use a second opinion on how I can do that without starting from scratch (I won't completely start from scratch as a lot of what I've got is working but I may have to Create a New Game System and gut it so I can build it, fundamentally, from the ground up).

Forgive me if that explanation is confusing.

[Mathias]

Here's what I'm thinking;

Add a "bonus XP' field to everything that has an xp cost. In the script that calculates the XP cost for a level, after you've calculated the normal XP cost, subtract the bonus XP field's value from that. That way, if I want level 2 in this thing, which would cost me 200, but I've gained 50XP from an affiliation, only 150 is added to the XP used.

Is it possible to get 50xp from an affiliation, and 50xp from something else, which works out to a full level? If so, you'll need another field that's a duplicate of trtBonus - you'll need to find all the places that look up thevalue of trtBonus, and add this field to them, too. Add a script that decides whether there's enough bonux XP to equal a full point of something (and decides how many points it qualifies, in case you get bonus XP from lots of different sources). Then, set this field's value equal to that amount. In the script that calculates the total XP cost for this thing, you'll need to take inco account how much of the bonus XP has been converted into points, instead of applied as a discount to the user-added ranks. For example, lets say you've gotten 150 bonus XP, and each point costs 100XP, which means you have 1 point in the "bonus points from bonus XP" field. The cost script multiplies that field by 100xp/point, and sees that 100XP worth of bonus XP have been used up, leaving only 50 bonus XP to apply as a discount towards the overall cost.

[BlueStryker]

That sounds like a good plan, I'll give it a shot.. Gonna find out if I've learned enough yet.

The life modules add and subtract XP from everything they involve when they're chosen. Mostly adding, but there are negative Character Traits that can put XP back into the XP pool, as well as, some "group" sets that refund a partial amount of XP. They can also have Attribute, or Skill minimums when chosen that must be met before your character can be completed (i.e. A Soldier has to have a minimum Body Attribute of 5. ect...).