New with some Data Edit questions

[jfrazierjr]

I have done several searches and read through several threads, but some of my questions did not seem to be covered, at least not in a way I could understand. Also note that I have played SW's only a few times and that was years ago, AND am coming from another game system with existing characters which I am going to try to rebuild in SW(with some tweaks).

First, I have created a new Arcane Background. I muddled through and could not get it to work and then I FINALLY went to Tutorial 10(I had looked at a few earlier ones and did not SEE the one one adding Backgrounds, totally missed it). Anyway, after playing around and making loads of mistakes, I finally got everything set up. Added a Background, Edge, Skill. Then we get down to the final section and on the skill, I add a Containerreq:

You’ll want to restrict this Skill from appearing unless a character has taken the Arcane Background Edge that goes with it.

Click on the Containerreq button in the right-hand column of the buttons on the right.

Set the Phase to Initialization, and the Priority to 2200.

Now, the fun part. In the tag expression window, you need to enter a tag expression that says the hero must have the right Arcane Background. The expression is:

hero#Arcane.<Arcane Designation you used earlier>

so for Wizardry you would enter:

hero#Arcane.Wizardry

and then click OK.

So, I did exactly this with my background:

hero#Arcane.Divine

And here is where things go wrong. The skill does NOT show up in the list of skills. I then play with it some more and eventually, I remove the Containerreq entirely and poof, the skill shows up and is selectable. Now, of course, I don't want just anyone to be able to pick that skill. And yes, I know I can simply add my background to the Pick-reqs and have it grayed out as not allowable. That's not the point. Either I am doing something wrong, OR the documentation is wrong. I just want to know which.

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Second, since I am making a new Background, I now noticed that Adept, Champion, and Holy/Unholy Warrior require Arcane Background (Miracles). so the question is: will I have to create copies of those Edges OR can they modified in some way to allow either/or for the Background(but preferably in my local "source" and not the primary original sources from HeroLab)?

If the latter is possible that would speed things up quite a bit as I could potentially just edit a few of the existing races(mainly Dwarfs and Humans) vs creating new copies. If I have to do the later, I ASSUME that I could use the Replaces Thing Id to not show the originals from which I based my updated copies.

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Third, I will have some custom races, and with those races some some racial "powers"(one per race, so filtering will be very easy). I am looking for some advice on the best way to set these up. I want them to be more than simply
text on the Racial Ability as I will likely add at least one Edge to allow modification of the powers. Example:

DragonMan
Fire Breath:
PP: 2
Range: 1(ie, centered on a square intersection 1 away)
Targets in a small blast template take 2d6 damage

Future Edges(to be added) could simulate the Additional Effects of the power(one per edge for example). Likewise, an edge named "Hurl Breath" would increase the range to say 5 or whatever.

To me, it seems as if the most sense would be as an actual true power, but my concern is will that require me to add an Arcane Background for each race ability to keep things separated. To complicate matters further, the character with this will ALSO have access to the Arcane Background: Divine I created above. Is it possible to have a created power completely separated from any type of Arcane source(I am not worried about the character tracking the Power Points for this racial ability)?

For the record, I am coming from D&D 4e(but have not played in 4 years) and restarting an existing campaign with SW as the new game system.

I am sure I will have other questions,

Thanks in advance!

 

[CapedCrusader]

Well, for #1 I'll need to see the Setting file. It sounds like that should have worked. Arcane Backgrounds have a lot of moving parts because of all the things they do to the character.

For #2, you'll need to create copies and use Precludes to do the replacement. Don't use Replace, that's for something else and won't have the intended effect.

For #3, adding Powers without adding an Arcane Background has always been an issue. Because Savage Worlds has so many variations, it's hard to have the program set up to catch ALL eventualities. 99% of the time, you have to have an AB to have Powers. We end up just setting them up in Edges or Abilities if they don't need the AB.

 

[jfrazierjr]

Well, for #1 I'll need to see the Setting file. It sounds like that should have worked. Arcane Backgrounds have a lot of moving parts because of all the things they do to the character.

For #2, you'll need to create copies and use Precludes to do the replacement. Don't use Replace, that's for something else and won't have the intended effect.

For #3, adding Powers without adding an Arcane Background has always been an issue. Because Savage Worlds has so many variations, it's hard to have the program set up to catch ALL eventualities. 99% of the time, you have to have an AB to have Powers. We end up just setting them up in Edges or Abilities if they don't need the AB.

Item 1:

The installed documentation appears to be wrong. Reading through sections in the online wiki, I found on the following page this: http://hlkitwiki.wolflair.com/index.php5?title=More_on_Arcane_Backgrounds_(Savage)

<thing
  id="skSpellcst"
  name="Spellcasting"
  compset="Skill"
  isunique="yes"
  description="Description goes here">
  <fieldval field="trtAbbrev" value="Spl"/>
  <tag group="Arcane" tag="Magic"/>
  <containerreq phase="Initialize" priority="2000">[B][I][SIZE="5"]Arcane.Magic[/SIZE][/I][/B]</containerreq>
  <link linkage="attribute" thing="attrSma"/>
  </thing>

which WORKED, while this:

so for Wizardry you would enter:

[B][I][SIZE="5"]hero#Arcane.Wizardry[/SIZE][/I][/B]

and then click OK.

Did NOT. So I would say the application installed documentation is a bit off.

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Item 2: well, that's a bummer. I was watching a Youtube from WL employee at a con explaining how to edit and my understanding(I could have not understand what he was saying correctly based upon the example he was using) was that was the exact purpose of the Replace Thing Id.

FORGET THIS QUOTED PART and skip below it(there is not strike-through editor tag!)

you mentioned Precludes, I am not sure what that means in this context and don't see such in the editor(if it's only in XML, that's fine I can edit XML without issue, but need an example) unless you mean a non HL authoring element and more in the broad sense of the word

Ok, so I found the Preclude tag and added one of the races "Thing Unique Id" and set the "Source Id" as MY source setting name. This worked and the Phantom no longer shows up in the list of pickable races(which is what I want, but will be adding more). Though it worked, am I doing it correctly, or do i REALLY need to put the source id for the original source the Phantom was defined in? I just want to make sure I am doing this correctly.

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Item 3:

Understood, and to some degree this makes sense. The problem is (from reading the forums) that at least one SW setting makes use of multiple AB's. I know you mentioned elsewhere how hard it would be, but at this point, I would think it might make sense to start working on figuring out how. This question seems to continually pop up and it's a shame no one has had the time to make a workable solution(not knocking anyone! I fully understand this is a volunteer effort, for which I thank everyone who has contributed!)

I know one issue off the top of my head would be AB's with separate PP's since that would require PP's be created for each AB to keep them separate and possibly a finalized single value to add all together if needed. In that context, a game setting could allow the option to toggle multiple or not.

I am a programmer by trade, so as I get better in tune with how things are done, I may look into trying to figure out exactly how to do this in an extendable way. Of course, that assumes I have time...


Thanks for the reply.

 

[Paragon]

Ok, so I found the Preclude tag and added one of the races "Thing Unique Id" and set the "Source Id" as MY source setting name. This worked and the Phantom no longer shows up in the list of pickable races(which is what I want, but will be adding more). Though it worked, am I doing it correctly, or do i REALLY need to put the source id for the original source the Phantom was defined in? I just want to make sure I am doing this correctly.

No, its your source; that way when the checkbox is marked in the character setup, the program knows both to use that .user file and in the specific context at hand "ignore these items when that box is marked".

Assuming I'm understanding your question correctly.

Item 3:

Understood, and to some degree this makes sense. The problem is (from reading the forums) that at least one SW setting makes use of multiple AB's. I know you mentioned elsewhere how hard it would be, but at this point, I would think it might make sense to start working on figuring out how. This question seems to continually pop up and it's a shame no one has had the time to make a workable solution(not knocking anyone! I fully understand this is a volunteer effort, for which I thank everyone who has contributed!)

I know one issue off the top of my head would be AB's with separate PP's since that would require PP's be created for each AB to keep them separate and possibly a finalized single value to add all together if needed. In that context, a game setting could allow the option to toggle multiple or not.

I am a programmer by trade, so as I get better in tune with how things are done, I may look into trying to figure out exactly how to do this in an extendable way. Of course, that assumes I have time...


Thanks for the reply.

As I understand it, the multiple Arcane Backgrounds problem has to do with the basic architecture of the HL Savage Worlds stuff, so its not something that can just be worked around; it'd require a major rework of the basics. I neither understand exactly why nor the implications of that to understand why, but that's been the pretty consistent indicator.

 

[CapedCrusader]

Ah, it's cool that you're a programmer. You'll understand some of what I'm up against.

 

[jfrazierjr]

Can we get some discussions going about what the actual limitations are and possible ways to work around them?

As I mentioned above, I can see one immediately obvious issue IF power points need to be kept completely separate. However, I think that could likely be solved by creating multiple power power point pools. This is ASSUMING that the order of "picks" on a character are in an explicit order(and I am making the assumption that it's true).

If it's a matter of me doing the coding personally for myself I am fine with doing that, but would just need guidance. Then, once done, I could share my findings so that others could implement if they want and not if they don't. The benefit of this approach is no backwards compatibility problems if the files were re-written wholesale and then updated(since the original source files would never be changed by the WL application.)

The other option I could see would be a wholesale duplication of the entire Arcane Background thing and it's various subthings, including panels and such. Honestly, for my personal situation, this likely be a FAR cleaner approach, but at the cost of taking a long more work because I would have design everything from scratch, including new a new panel for picking powers as well as updating the character sheet(which I want to learn how to do eventually anyway.)

 

[CapedCrusader]

The issue is turning the Power Point Pool into an open-ended thing. Not just multiple pools, but infinite multiple pools.

 

[jfrazierjr]

The issue is turning the Power Point Pool into an open-ended thing. Not just multiple pools, but infinite multiple pools.

Is this the only issue you can see? Could (I at least) build two pools of PP's and have a limit of 2 AB's. The first point picked links to PP1 and the second AB links to PP2. Or am I missing something about how the data files work? I totally understand that we can't magically add a new pool when a new AB is chosen, but my brain seems to think that a limited number would be more than fine(3 at the most for my players, but more likely just 2).

 

[CapedCrusader]

It hasn't really been seriously researched because Rifts is the first official Setting that uses full-blown multiple AB's. We were always able to get around it in the couple of Settings that used something similar.