Custom skills (talents)

New to talent modding?

Start with Talent modding, step by step. It walks through changing a talent’s numbers, name and description from scratch.

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. Confirmed

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 supported: mode="clone" is refused, because an added herodef row crashed the game twice, and a hero’s talent count is fixed. mode="repoint" is refused too — renaming a herodef row was playtested and changes nothing visible (the shown name comes from the hero entity’s controller key).

Author one

skill is a confirmed kind, so no experimental opt-in is needed.

build.py

from rsmm import sdk

with sdk.Mod("MySkills") 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"

[[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	Would rename the herodef row + remint its GUID	Refused — playtested, changes nothing visible	—
clone	Would add a NET-NEW herodef row	Refused — crashed the game twice	—

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

Not supported, by decision: a hero’s talent count is fixed. An added herodef row crashed the game, and a talent injected at runtime drew on top of its source in the Book grid, because the grid places a talent by its identity rather than by list position. For something genuinely additive, ship a pickable magical-object card, whose pool does grow.

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

The name a player sees comes from the hero ENTITY’s controller text key, not from the herodef row, which is why relabel works and renaming the row does not.

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 enemiesThe other clone-and-patch content kind.

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

Authoring modsThe full content-kind authoring guide.