Coming Soon: Support for SWADE Ancestry Builder

Version 4.1.0 of the SWADE system for Foundry VTT introduced data fields in the tweaks for ability items for point costs. This is the first step toward a soon to be released Ancestry Builder. The Ancestry Builder allows you to build an ancestry with existing abilities, and it displays and totals up the value of the ancestry based on the cost of those abilities.

I started work on adding a column for abilities to show the cost of an ability as well as a column in the Ancestries table to show the total value of the ancestry based on the abilities it grants.

I've also had a chance to test the Ancestry Builder. It's pretty solid so far. Some neat things include choosing a skill when selecting a starting skill as an ability or choosing what Hindrance and what version of that Hindrance you're selecting.

I've been giving feedback and suggestions for it's UX and UI. Here are a couple of features I've requested that I think will be relevant to SWADE Item Tables.

• Some form of distinction between Ancestral Abilities for building ancestries and Special Abilities for building bestiary entries. These are two very different things in the SWADE system. While there is some crossover in their names and functions, the former is very specifically for building ancestries while the latter is for building creatures. Having this distinction could reduce the clutter of abilities listed in the Ancestry Builder, especially abilities that are created for specific creatures. It could also help display those abilities in separate tabs in SWADE Item Tables.

• The ability to drag ability Items from other app windows. This would allow us to shop for abilities using SWADE Item Tables and simply drag and drop them into the Ancestry Builder app. It'll also allow one to pull abilities from existing creatures.

I'm pretty interested in this Ancestry Builder overall. In most cases, ancestry design occurs outside of Foundry, but it still holds a lot of value by making it easy to create ancestry Items in Foundry. Something I particularly liked while testing it was using it with the Mutator app in SWADE Item Tables to modify the Item Grants in the Ancestries I was building as well as their special abilities. For example, adding a mutation for the description of something like Outsider or Darkvision or modifying the Item's name is super easy, and it felt very satisfying to apply it to ancestries I created in the builder.

Once the new feature is stable and released officially, I'll make whatever necessary adjustments I'll need to make and push out a release soon after.