Seeking savy help
 

Full disclosure - I am old as dirty and never really had a head for programming.

That being said let me explain my goal.

I am trying to find a way to Alter the Inspired Blade archtype for Swashbucklers to apply to scimitars instead of rapiers.

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hyb...nspired-blade/

AND


Add some of the functions provided by the two weapon warrior arch type.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core...weapon-warrior

I have opened up the editor and its frankly a bit greek to me - is there a way to open a archtype in a data-set you own and modify the tags rather then what appears to be coding from scratch? Any advice is appreciated.

In the editor, on the Class tab, select Archetype. With "New (Copy)" you can search for and load the Inspired Blade. Since this is Paizo content, not community, you can't change it and save your own version. You can copy and paste to create your own "New (Blank)" version of the Archetype. You'll also need to add the bootstraps, etc that are part of the class.
To switch the weapons requires making your own copies of the ones that deal with rapiers, and changing anything that refers to a rapier to a scimitar.
This is a fair bit of work, but not as bad as writing it all yourself. Alternatively, you could use the existing archetype, and apply the modifiers to your hero with adjustments.

It might be possible to write a mechanic that modifies the rapier part of the archetype without copying everything, but thats getting past my level of confidence with HL

You can have two instances of the program (or of the Editor) open at the same time.
Copy and paste between the two.

There are coding resources, that I'm not inclined in that direction, but many are.
A lot of the advice is to experiment and do your best attempt.
Then ask how to do something.

Generally someone will say, take a look at such and such, whether an archetype, magic item, prestige class, feat or whatever, as it has a similar mechanic to what you're looking to do.
Copying existing stuff is an excellent approach.

If you put the effort into doing something, generally someone will point you into the right direction.
Lacking the effort/attempt entirely, and hoping someone will just do it for you, doesn't garner as much assistance.

I don't know enough about the editor to offer much, beyond this post.

As someone that just bought hero lab and barely knows anything about it.. By "editor" do you mean the main program or is there something else you're talking about?

It's integrated into the main program, but not really part of the normal character building process.

Tools Menu > Show Editor