Well, thanks for the vote of confidence markc;-) I don?t mean to sound bombastic, I just write down my thoughts so that those who?s interested can comment and create new ideas and spin offs. I?m very happy to receive feedback, so just keep them coming if you have more.
Int 1,
I had a look, and my categories seems to be the one for Companion 1. This will sort of an issue with the Semi Telepath? Since there are many more skills in C1 them SM2 Players, one option is to allow for more then 2 categories to be chosen. Again, since there are more skills and categories in C1 it will not really work to just do a mapping of the categories for the purpose of the secondary professions for the Semi Tel.
Development points (are supported already)
This is supported on the SKILLSHEET. Have a look at the two combo boxes menus and the three bottom buttons on the menu on the SKILLSHEET. These control what I call a support framework for adding skill ranks.
You need to enter the first level and the number of levels you are going to assign skill ranks to (for a new character starting on level 4 you would enter 0 and 5 in the two combo boxes).
Then you click ?Show support columns to add skill ranks?, and several columns will show up to the left of the Total column. There are two columns pr requested level (one for Ranks, and one for Cost) and a total column summing up the new Ranks. The total number of development points spent pr level is shown on top of each Cost column (goes red if you go over the DP limit).
You can discard the support framework by clicking "Remove framework columns (ignoring new Ranks)?, or you can incorporate the newly selected Ranks by clicking "Merge old and new skill Ranks".
I quite like this support framework, since it makes it quit and easy to add Ranks for several levels at once. But it has not really bee play tested much, so it might not work too well for others?
Background options
First I?m gonna need the actual background options?
Once I have that, I think a first implementation might look something like this:
-Have a separate sheet where the background options are kept.
-Have a Form dedicated to choosing background options.
-Have a number of points based on the races, shown on the form.
-Let the player select BO categories, and then display the entire table for one category at a time.
-Each displayed table will show the BO description and the dice roll column to allow for manual rolling, as well as a random mechanism.
-In the displayed tables, background options can be highlighted, and an Add button will add that BO to a list on the Form. This will deduct a point from the ?account?.
-Single BOs in the list of already selected BOs on the Form can be deleted, adding a point back to the ?account?.
-The account/points will not be a hard limit, allowing players to go to a negative balance. This to allow for flexibility, house rules, etc.
-Once the player is happy with the choices, the form is closed, and the selected BOs are added to the dedicated sheet.
-The player must manually interpret and implement the effects of the selected BOs (for now at least).
It is quite possible to automatically add the effects of the BOs, but as mentioned this will take some work. There may end up being custom code for individual BOs, the BO?s will have to be split up on the data level, and some will probably have to be interpreted manually anyway.
Feedback on OBs?
-Terry