Variations in a custom group. There has to be an easier way.

[SirArthurIV]

I'm making a gang for my scenario and am having trouble with the tedious aspects of it. Namely I want the gang to have diverse members and not be simply clones of eachother. The only way I have found to do this is create identical enemies with the same name, powers, and other trappings and just change the skin tone, size, and little body shape aspects on them. Is there a way to implement some level of shortcut or randomization in this aspect so I don't drive myself nuts on this minutia?

Edited 14 hours ago by SirArthurIV

[sponazgul]

Your problem is relatable! 

 

I don’t know of any way to randomize or simplify this. The process you describe is pretty much the process I’ve followed in the past.

[Jiro Ito]

There are a couple of shortcuts you can take, as opposed to starting over each time.  One is to save your "thug" outfit template, then you can load the outfit for each new character.

 

Another trick I find helpful when creating similar minions is to create one NPC and save them, save your group, then reopen the saved minion and go to the last page where you enter their name, group affiliation and description.  Go down to the Save Path, and let's say your save path says "Thug", add a "1" after that so it says "Thug1" and this functions as a Save As feature.  When you go back to the enemy group page, you'll know have two characters there, both named Thug with the same powersets and appearance.  You can then make small alterations like changing a shirt color or whatever, without having to recreate each NPC from scratch.

 

Any randomizer would randomize the full spectrum of available options, so not sure you want your thugs with fish faces and bird wings and robot legs, but, maybe you do!  It's not an option at this time unfortunately.

[cranebump]

Bear in mind that you need only customize one group’s features, then change the save file when you advance them to the next tier. For example, I make 6 minion thugs, I can always open the files for them, click “Lieutenant” (it will add additional powers by itself, in most cases), then save the LT as “Thug1LT” or something like that. Since it’s just a more powerful interaction of the same dude, there’s no need to customize it further I’d you don’t want to. Beyond that I would offer that the minutiae is kind of the point, when you’re customizing. For good and I’ll.

[ZamuelNow]

3 hours ago, cranebump said:

Since it’s just a more powerful interaction of the same dude, there’s no need to customize it further if you don’t want to. Beyond that I would offer that the minutiae is kind of the point, when you’re customizing. For good and ill.

 

It can be a lot of fun to design themes for enemy groups and adjustments like this are a great start.  Differences can go subtle or wide.  I do wish the color picker had a more defined grid, though.

[Jiro Ito]

39 minutes ago, ZamuelNow said:

 

It can be a lot of fun to design themes for enemy groups and adjustments like this are a great start.  Differences can go subtle or wide.  I do wish the color picker had a more defined grid, though.

 

I wish we had metallic colors 😕