Improved Familiars

[huntercc]

Have the improved familiars been intentionally left out of HL for some reason? To my knowledge they are in the SRD and should be included. I don't know how you would do the verification for them with the improved familiar feat though... that looks a bit tricky

[Colen]

huntercc wrote:
>
>
> Have the improved familiars been intentionally left out of HL for some
> reason? To my knowledge they are in the SRD and should be included. I
> don't know how you would do the verification for them with the improved
> familiar feat though... that looks a bit tricky


The verification bit is easy - the only problem is the time it takes to
enter the data.


When we were preparing the familiar stuff for inclusion in v2.0, we
added all the animals and all the dire animals for use with that.
However, the other hundreds of animals in the SRD still have to be
incorporated - it's on our list of things to do.


If you want to use the improved familiar races, you can simply add them
as a race using the editor, then mark the race as being allowed as an
arcane familiar.


Hope this helps,


--
Colen McAlister, colen@wolflair.com
Chief Engineer, Lone Wolf Development

[huntercc]

I almost have the first one working (shocker lizard). I only have two questions:

1) What's the best way to determine that the active hero is actually somebody's arcane familiar? What I've done is look for existence of the Hero.NoAdvance tag. I doubt this is correct, but it appears to work.

2) How do you determine how many Arcane Spellcaster Levels a hero has? I mean actual class levels, not spell levels. For example, if I had some wacky combination of Wiz1/Sor1/Clr1 that would be two arcane spellcaster levels.

[huntercc]

FYI - I solved my second question by doing the following:

if ( master.childfound[cArcFamil].field[CompLevel].value >= 5 ) then
  @valid = 1
  endif

[huntercc]

I have a complete data file for a slightly modified version of the Improved Familiar feat (changed the pre-req for it a bit) as well as having all of the acceptable familiars that are listed in the DMG.

I'm attaching it here for any who are interested. Comments/criticisms are welcome.

[Colen]

huntercc wrote:
>
>
> I almost have the first one working (shocker lizard). I only have two
> questions:
>
> 1) What's the best way to determine that the active hero is actually
> somebody's arcane familiar? What I've done is look for existence of the
> Hero.NoAdvance tag. I doubt this is correct, but it appears to work.


The best way is to test for the "CompIs.cArcFamil" on the hero. That tag
will only be present if you're an arcane familiar, not if you're an
animal companion or something similar.


> 2) How do you determine how many Arcane Spellcaster Levels a hero has? I
> mean actual class levels, not spell levels. For example, if I had some
> wacky combination of Wiz1/Sor1/Clr1 that would be two arcane spellcaster
> levels.


You'd need to go through all the classes on the hero and count how many
of them are arcane spellcasters. For example:

~ We start with 0 arcane spellcaster levels
var total as number
total = 0

~ Go through all classes on the hero that are arcane spellcasters
foreach pick in hero where "component.BaseClHelp & CasterSrc.Arcane"

~ Add this classes number of levels to our total
total += each.field[cMagicLev].value

~ Go on to our next class
nexteach


Hope this helps,

--
Colen McAlister, colen@wolflair.com
Chief Engineer, Lone Wolf Development

[Dastir]

Originally Posted by Colen

The best way is to test for the "CompIs.cArcFamil" on the hero. That tag
will only be present if you're an arcane familiar, not if you're an
animal companion or something similar.

I am definitely missing something here, and I think it it all revolves around tags. What exactly is the right way to "test for the "CompIs.cArcFamil" on the hero"?

This code

if (CompIs.cArcFamil) then
  notify "Yes"
else
  notify "No"
endif

yields the following error when I test the thing:

"Syntax error in 'eval' script for Thing 'drPseudo' (Eval Script '1') on line 1
-> Reference to undeclared variable: "CompIs'

[Mathias]

if(tagis[CompIs.cArcFamil] <> 0) then

is what you're missing, if I remember the syntax offhand.

[Colen]

Dastir wrote:
>
>
> *Colen wrote:*
>
> The best way is to test for the "CompIs.cArcFamil" on the hero. That tag
> will only be present if you're an arcane familiar, not if you're an
> animal companion or something similar.
>
>
>
> I am definitely missing something here, and I think it it all revolves
> around tags. What exactly is the right way to "test for the
> "CompIs.cArcFamil" on the hero"?


if (hero.tagis[CompIs.cArcFamil] <> 0) then
notify "Yes"
else
notify "No"
endif


Should do what you're after.


--
Colen McAlister, colen@wolflair.com

[Kendall-DM]

While searching over Improved Familiar I came across this. I've been having a problem with looking for Arcane Spellcaster Levels when I have a prestige class that adds to those caster levels. Put that badly, I'm sure. Let me explain that a bit better.

In HL, it appears that the Improved Familiar looks at only Wizard/Sorcerer levels when determining validity. I have a prestige class with 10 levels that can be entered by character level 3, and that prestige class gives additional levels to one arcane class for each of its levels. So, what I have is a Wizard 3rd/Prestige Class 8th (11 arcane caster levels overall), but HL only recognizes 3 of them (the wizard levels) for the purposes of choosing an improved familiar. What I need is to be able to determine the total arcane levels of the hero, but I need to be able to do that on the improved familiar pick prerequisites rather than in the companion level. I can't use the code that's here, because it is trying to add up all the caster levels of the familiar instead of the master. I would like to find a way to determine the master's arcane caster levels in a script on the improved familiar. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.