New program advice

[AtmanKost]

I'm looking at starting a project to create a new hero lab program. Because I'm not a programmer, I'm looking for advice and maybe some help. I've looked at the wiki as to starting a new authoring kit, but it's a bit beyond me.

What I'm wanting to create will use the vast majority of Pathfinder and D&D 3.X rules, but with some major differences that aren't taken into consideration in the current program. The Custom Characters system does not have a "class" system, but some abilities still require 'class' but now that is taken is now transformed to 'ranks' as 'class' is now a skill.

The primary difference is that experience gained is used as currency to purchase virtually every aspect of the character's advancement. For example, each skill point costs 25 experience for the first point (level 1) and a cumulative 25 experience for every level thereafter. Base attack Bonus costs 300 for 1st level, and a cumulative 300 for every level (600 at 2nd level, 900 at 3rd, etc.

Saves are a little tricky to set up, as would be adding templates.

So what I have in mind for the program I want to build a 'bare bones' or 'skeleton' program that allows the master add skills, abilities, and the basic and advanced aspects of character creation, including magic (there isn't Arcane or Divine separation, and each school of magic is a sub-skill under Spellcraft, and a caster can only cast spells of a level equal to half their 'ranks' in a specific school), Psionics (set up the same way as Magic with sub-schools), purchasing Grit, Panache, Ki, Magic/mana points, Psionic points and all other aspects.

I digress in trying to give as much information as I can while trying to not be overwhelming.

Any advice, suggestions, or insights will be greatly helpful!

[Mathias]

In the authoring kit wiki, go to the Authoring Examples section, and read through the Savage Worlds walkthrough - that's a record of how the skeleton files were converted to the Savage Worlds files, so by following how another game system was built within Hero Lab, you can get ideas about how to build your own game system.