Adding Custom Skills

[esmdev]

Is there a way to create a new skill, such Sports (specialization) or Knowledge (specialization) that would work with the character sheet? I'm hoping to use CoC7e for a modern college sort of game (like savage worlds, ETU) and want to customize the skills to fit. Since it is a vault ruleset I can't do it via an extension so my options seem limited.

[damned]

See post #3 option #1

[esmdev]

See post #3 option #1

My interpretation of post 3 was skills with specializations needed the button at the top of the edit screen to add the specialization entries. Will give it a try.

[damned]

Ahhh I think I see what you are saying now.
I ran a one shot over the weekend and it had Cooking as a skill for example. I ended up just adding it Arts & Craft (Cooking).
I dont think that it matters a lot lot other than to the Visuals if the skill is under a different category?
If you really, really need to add other parts Ill have to see how hard it is to expose that.

[esmdev]

Ahhh I think I see what you are saying now.
I ran a one shot over the weekend and it had Cooking as a skill for example. I ended up just adding it Arts & Craft (Cooking).
I dont think that it matters a lot lot other than to the Visuals if the skill is under a different category?
If you really, really need to add other parts Ill have to see how hard it is to expose that.

I checked, it seems to be working. I can explain to the players how to find the skills to add from the + and that should be good enough. :)

[damned]

Awesome - thanks esmdev

[esmdev]

Hi.

So I added my new skills and added them to the Modern Era, and I can add the skills to the character sheet.

I created a new occupation successfully to use those skills, however when I apply the occupation to the character sheet it does not set any of the new skills as occupation skills, but it does set the pre-existing skills (like library use) as occupation skills.

Any ideas? I don't know if it matters but all of these are specialized skills.

[damned]

Could you post a couple of screenshots and Ill test?

[esmdev]

Could you post a couple of screenshots and Ill test?

Hi.

So I start with this, three new skills, each added to the modern era, and then an occupation.

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Then I create a character. For simplicity I just put 50 in all the characteristics. It does not automatically add the skills to the character sheet, and the add custom skills button doesn't seem to work, so I drag the skills from the era to the sheet and then add the specializations I need (art/craft, lang - other, and science).

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I displayed this part of the sheet so as to show that everything is added.

Then I apply the custom occupation to the character sheet and it automatically handles credit rating and library use, but doesn't check any of the other skills (custom or non-custom (like science)) as occupation.

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It wouldn't really matter to me if I could just tell players to click the occupation skill checkbox for the correct skills, but unfortunately the sheet doesn't allow that.

Hopefully this is helpful.

Also, it occurs to me that I'm actually in a thread about Pulp Cthulhu, but I am only using the CoC7E ruleset with the Investigator's Handbook, no other modules, accessories, themes or extensions added.

[damned]

Ok try this esmdev.

Here are two extensions - not specifically for this but should work for this.

Add your Skills into the Translation Extension in the correct Era.
Unlock the Occupation and add the Skills.
They should be available to your PCs to use OPs on.

[esmdev]

Hi.

I tried the extensions and it doesn't seem to be working, there was no change to the character sheet.

I decided to look deeper into it and found that official occupations that use specializations don't seem to be working either.

Here are steps I tried (Only Call of Cthulhu 7e and CoC7e Reference modules were loaded, no extensions):

1: Create a new campaign
2: Change to modern in options
3: Create a new character
4: Change all characteristics to 50 (just to have values)
5: Checked skills, all non-specialized skills for modern are present.
6: Selected Dilettante (which has Art/Crafts & Firearms), added random skills that were all non-specialized when prompted.
7: Did edit on skills tab, the Arts/Crafts and Firearms skills were not present in skill list (but the non-specialized were checked).
8: Using edit, and the click for Arts/Crafts and Firearms added the skills but did not add the occupation check.

I repeated steps 1-5:
6: Using edit I added Arts/Crafts and Firearms skill to the skill list.
7: Selected Dilettante (which has Art/Crafts & Firearms), added random skills that were all non-specialized when prompted.
8: Checked skill listing, Arts/Crafts & Firearms were not marked as occupation (but the non-specialized were checked).

Just to be sure, I repeated the steps again but this time didn't select an era (used default 1920) same result.

So, I tried another (Entertainer) which starts with Art/Craft (Acting). I added random non-specialized skills plus Firearms and Lang - Other when prompted.

Art/Craft (Acting) was added to the character sheet as occupation, but Firearms and Lang - Other were not added to the character sheet.

Using this information, I tried to change the pulldown Firearms to something but because it is a pulldown there was no way to add a (something) to firearms.

Hope this is of use.

[damned]

If you open Athlete you can set Art/Craft specialty to Knitting
and it will appear as an Occupation Skill

If you add Skills after that point they will not be occupation skills.

Create a new occupation and give it 5 Art/Craft skill slots and the player can set those to their subjects/fields
Firearms can be set to anything you want but only the values in the Rulebook will apply a default/base score.

[esmdev]

If you open Athlete you can set Art/Craft specialty to Knitting
and it will appear as an Occupation Skill

If you add Skills after that point they will not be occupation skills.

Create a new occupation and give it 5 Art/Craft skill slots and the player can set those to their subjects/fields
Firearms can be set to anything you want but only the values in the Rulebook will apply a default/base score.

I guess I am missing something.

So I open Athlete, there is no way to set anything, the record is locked and cannot be changed.

If I try to drag the Athlete occupation to copy it, it doesn't allow that, so it cannot be unlocked.

If I drag athlete to occupation on the sheet it allows me to choose options from a pulldown menu but not to make any changes.

If I create Art/Craft before I drag, and add Knitting as the specialization, it ignores the art/craft skill and sets everything else to occupation, but not art/craft.

There is no way that I can find that will allow me to do what you suggest.

Have you tried repeating these steps. I am using CoC7e v3.3.10c on CoreRPG v3.3.11B.

[damned]

If you use an existing Occupation you can only use the skills and skill slots that are in that occupation.
Make a New occupation and assign it 5 Art/Craft slots (or whatever gives you the flexibility you need).

[esmdev]

If you use an existing Occupation you can only use the skills and skill slots that are in that occupation.
Make a New occupation and assign it 5 Art/Craft slots (or whatever gives you the flexibility you need).

Yes, my point is even the existing occupations don't work.

[damned]

The existing occupations work.
Use Athlete as an example.
It has a bunch of skills including two optional skills one of which can be set to Art/Craft for example.

The existing occupations have a defined list of skills as per the rulebook.
If you want different occupations create a new occupation with the appropriate slots.
Use one of the Specialisation parents to create any sort of extra skills without having to jump into the code.
If you want the new skills to be fully fleshed out as selectable occupation skills you need to add them to the Era code.

If you want to use an Athlete that has different base/occupation skills you will need to create a new Athlete occupation and set it up approriately.

[esmdev]

The existing occupations work.
Use Athlete as an example.
It has a bunch of skills including two optional skills one of which can be set to Art/Craft for example.

The existing occupations have a defined list of skills as per the rulebook.
If you want different occupations create a new occupation with the appropriate slots.
Use one of the Specialisation parents to create any sort of extra skills without having to jump into the code.
If you want the new skills to be fully fleshed out as selectable occupation skills you need to add them to the Era code.

If you want to use an Athlete that has different base/occupation skills you will need to create a new Athlete occupation and set it up approriately.

No, the existing occupations do not work. I even left you a step by step list of exactly what I did in post #11. This has nothing to do with custom skills, even using a brand new campaign, with nothing added, the occupations that come with the ruleset do not work. Please re-read post #11.

[damned]

Please see attached image showing new Character with Dilettante Occupation and custom Art/Craft skills.
4 Art/Craft skills showing as Occupation
1 Language skill showing as Occupation
1 Firearms skill showing as Occupation

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=38526

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[esmdev]

I see, the line beneath the skills was not apparent as a point where you can enter information.

That makes more sense now. The lines just looked like separators to me.

Thanks for the clarification. Is there a manual for this, there doesn't seem to be anything in the Classic or Unity wiki that I could find.

[damned]

There is only the Character Creation Guide which is linked to in the Campaign Setup dialogue.
https://www.diehard-gaming.com/manual/coc7e-character-creation.html

[esmdev]

There is only the Character Creation Guide which is linked to in the Campaign Setup dialogue.
https://www.diehard-gaming.com/manual/coc7e-character-creation.html

Ah, cool, might wanna put something that says manual next to it, I totally would have clicked it. :)

[esmdev]

So another question, is there a way to make a custom occupation that has the one interpersonal skill with a list of 4 to select from?

Edit: For some reason I called occupation application, so I fixed that.

[esmdev]

Ok, so just to recap, yes, everything works. The custom skills, the specializations, and the occupations were probably working the whole time.

I feel foolish but am grateful to Damned for making his self-control save and keeping his cool and getting me through this.

[damned]

I knew we would get there eventually. There was a communication gap - I just didnt know exactly which bit we were missing each on. All good.

[esmdev]

I created a dev campaign and everything works perfectly. However, when I export it to a module to load into the live campaign the new skills stop functioning correctly and the occupation no longer displays the line under the custom skills (like sports) to add.

Also, for some reason the module loads (like I can see everything) but it doesn't actually display in the library.

I am attaching the module. The occupation is high school graduate and the skills are computer, knowledge, and sports. Engineering and Martial Arts are also new skills but are not part of the profession. They don't work either.

Hopefully this is a simple fix.

[damned]

I loaded the module, created a new PC and dragged the Student occupation in.
I see all the Science subjects filled in.
I can add a custom field to Art/Craft.
All are showing as occupation fields.

Additional note - it is very rare for an occupation to use only 1 skill to generate occupation points.

[esmdev]

It sports should also have an option to add something as it is a specialization skill. The skills that come with the ruleset work fine.

Also, if you just drag any of the specialization skills that I added in the module on to a character sheet they do not have the specialization lines added, however on the dev campaign the module is created from dragging them to the sheet does add the line to the sheet.

It seems to be something in the module itself. Also, did you notice if the module is visible in the library for you, not the module unload/load window but the list of what is loaded? That doesn't show up for me.

Edit: Duh forgot to list the skills I made; computer, engineering, knowledge, sports.

[esmdev]

Oh, on your additional note, did you mean one characteristic, like I should do EDU and some other stat? You said skill and I'm not sure how skill generates occupation points, hopefully I didn't miss something else.

[damned]

It sports should also have an option to add something as it is a specialization skill. The skills that come with the ruleset work fine.

Also, if you just drag any of the specialization skills that I added in the module on to a character sheet they do not have the specialization lines added, however on the dev campaign the module is created from dragging them to the sheet does add the line to the sheet.

It seems to be something in the module itself. Also, did you notice if the module is visible in the library for you, not the module unload/load window but the list of what is loaded? That doesn't show up for me.

Edit: Duh forgot to list the skills I made; computer, engineering, knowledge, sports.

Yes it is a limitation of the Interface.
That is why the other skills that have specialisations have a button to add them.
The code to support that is a bit tricky.

The module doesnt show up in the list for me either but everything shows up correctly in the Campaign Tools.

And yes I meant Stats/Attributes. It appears that quite a few Occupations do actually use 4xEDU... feel free to ignore me.

[esmdev]

It is odd that the specialization and occupation works in the dev campaign but ceases to work once I make it a module.

Yeah, I just patterned the occupation skill points off the Student from the Investigators Handbook.

[damned]

Agreed - its odd - and frustrating... sorry.

Yes. I had mistakenly thought that most Occupations were more broad than 4x one Stat
I would think a Student would benefit from a more rounded set of Stats but that is just an opinion!

[esmdev]

Agreed - its odd - and frustrating... sorry.

Do you think the module loading problem is more a problem in FG itself? Should I escalate this to Support?

I was hopeful that the ruleset will work for my game but if I can't make modules that function correctly it isn't an option.