Custom skills (talents)

A hero’s skills are the talents on the level-up cards and in the Skill Menu. The skill kind makes a custom talent visible by overriding the per-hero text bank, and can optionally edit the hero definition’s skill list. Guess

What works today

mode="relabel" works now — it overrides an existing skill’s display text (name + description) in place, so your talent shows on that skill’s real card and menu slot. Count-neutral and reliable.

Adding a net-new skill row is not feasible by data edit: mode="clone" is disabled because byte-splicing a row into the herodef bricks the hero (proven in-game, twice, GUID-independent — the skill collection is structurally validated by the deserialiser). Net-new skills need the loader’s runtime-injection path instead (see below).

Author one

skill is a guess kind, so the mod must opt in with Mod(experimental=True) (lint enforces this for non-confirmed kinds).

build.py

from rsmm import sdk

with sdk.Mod("MySkills", experimental=True) as mod:
    mod.skill(
        "rsmm_lightning_dash",
        hero="Aladdin",
        source="Attack Dive",        # an existing skill to repurpose
        name="Lightning Dash",       # shown on the card / menu
        description="A dash that crackles with lightning.",
        # mode="relabel" is the default
    )

Equivalent declarative form:

mods/MySkills/manifest.toml

[mod]
id = "MySkills"
experimental = true

[[content]]
kind        = "skill"
id          = "rsmm_lightning_dash"
hero        = "Aladdin"
source      = "Attack Dive"
name        = "Lightning Dash"
description = "A dash that crackles with lightning."
mode        = "relabel"

Run ./rsmm apply to write the text override into the live install. The display name resolves against the hero’s text bank, so apply must see a Ravenswatch install — emit errors out if no install is reachable.

Identifying a source skill

source accepts either the skill’s controller suffix (Attack Dive) or its text-key base (Skill_Attack_Dive). The two name the same row.

Modes

mode	What it edits	Status	Use it for
relabel (default)	Hero text bank values only (Skill_<src>_Name / _Desc)	Works — visible & count-neutral	Repurposing an existing talent’s name/description
repoint	Herodef row + text values: remints the source row’s identity GUID in place	Experimental	Giving an existing skill a fresh identity for behaviour binding
clone	Would add a NET-NEW herodef row + appended text key	Disabled — bricks the hero	(blocked — use runtime injection)

Bind behaviour

Relabelling changes only the text. To make the talent do something custom, bind logic in a loader Lua script keyed on the talent’s identity:

mods/MySkills/scripts/lightning_dash.lua

R.talent.on_pick("rsmm_lightning_dash", function(ctx)
  -- runs when this talent card is picked
end)

-- or define on a hero:
R.talent.define{ hero = "Aladdin", pickable = true, on_pick = function(ctx) ... end }

Behaviour binds on POWER_UP_COLLECT_REQUEST via the gameplay event bus — it does not require any herodef edit. See Mod hooks for the identity-offset details.

Net-new skills (runtime injection)

Because a data-cloned row bricks the hero, a genuinely additive skill is added at runtime by the loader, the same way custom items grow the item pool:

flowchart LR
    L["herodef load<br/>(FUN_14031e630)"] --> H["loader detour"]
    H --> G["grow skill vector @ +0x7d0"]
    G --> A["append cloned SkillController"]
    A --> M["menu enumerates runtime vector → shows"]

The hook (hook_skills.cpp) is default read-only: it logs the live herodef and skill-vector count/cap so the layout can be confirmed in-game. The injection itself is gated behind RSMM_ENABLE_SKILL_INJECT and currently clones the last skill into a spare slot as a proof-of-path (self-guarded: no realloc, count bounds-checked). Growing the vector with a distinct controller and refcounting it is the open work.

Loader env flags

Never put injection flags in your permanent launch options. The working launch string and the flag’s failure modes are documented in Mod hooks.

How a skill is wired

Layer	Where	Purpose
Display name / desc	Text/Hero_<Hero>_Common~GAM.xls.LocalText.gen, keys Skill_<Suffix>_Name / _Desc	What the player reads on the card / menu
Skill row (identity)	Definitions/Heroes/<Hero>.herodef.ot.DtHeroDefinition.gen	The list of skills the hero owns + each row’s GUID
Behaviour	gameplay event bus (POWER_UP_COLLECT_REQUEST)	Custom code on pick
Net-new row	loader hook_skills.cpp, herodef skill vector @ +0x7d0	Adds a slot the deserialiser never validates

The herodef deserialiser (FUN_14031e630) is a strict versioned, ordered field reader: the skill collection’s count sits behind a polymorphic header, so a spliced row desyncs every later field read — which is why data-clone is disabled and runtime injection is the correct layer.

Going deeper

Skills system (RE) How skills are stored, the crash mechanism, and the grid-layout wall.

Mod hooks (RE) The loader detours, env flags, and skill-injection path.

Custom enemies The other clone-and-patch content kind.

SDK: Mod.skill Generated API reference for the skill builder.

Authoring mods The full content-kind authoring guide.