Custom Skill Unlock Houserule

Globetrotter · December 17th, 2016, 07:11 AM

I am starting a new campaign next month and I would like to see if I can alter hero lab a bit for one of my houserules.

We like the skill unlock system and want to have all skills unlocked for each player. We are also allowing the signature skill feat at 1st level instead of 5th level. If anyone takes this feat, or has the Rogue's edge class feature, all skill unlocks will be treated at ranks -5, which means if they take the signature skill at 1st level, they will have the 5th level unlock available immediately. The 10th level unlock at 5th level, and the 15th level unlock at 10th level.

If they do not have the signature skill feat, at 5 ranks, no matter the skill, the players will have the 5th level unlock, and continuing until 20th level.

As a work around, we are planning on just printing all the skills and having them at the table, but I really like how herolab will show the skill unlocks when you click on the skill and bold the section you qualify for.

Is there a way I can make an edit to make this happen?

ShadowChemosh · December 17th, 2016, 09:24 AM

Yes you can make this happen. Its not "too" bad of scripting. I would create a new mechanic tied to your house rule source.

Then do a foreach loop vs BaseSkill so you read all the skills on the character. You need to apply the Helper.SigSkill tag to each skill. This tells HL that the signature skill unlocks are to be shown for he skill.

The second step is if the character has the signature skill or rogues edge you will need move the array text in skUnlocks from it current position to the new level. In example move element 4 to 0 move your 5th level text to level 1 text instead. Move element 9 to 4 moving 10th level text from level 10 to level 5. Etc....

Globetrotter · January 6th, 2017, 10:30 AM

My god, I cannot even make heads or tails in the editor. It is ridiculous.

What would you charge to make a house rule add-on for me? I have a few house rules for this campaign. You could do it much faster i think.

ShadowChemosh · January 6th, 2017, 11:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Globetrotter

My god, I cannot even make heads or tails in the editor. It is ridiculous.

If you have never done any coding or scripting before it can be overwhelming.

I would recommend reading the Glossary of Terms for the Editor. Then check out FAQ#2 for all the places to learn about the editor including YouTube videos. Welcome to the wonderful world of using the HL editor which will be the most frustrating and rewarding thing you can do with Hero Lab.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Globetrotter

What would you charge to make a house rule add-on for me? I have a few house rules for this campaign. You could do it much faster i think.

While I am willing to help I don't take money as it just causes too many issues I have found.

I also don't really have time to custom build every houserule idea.

What I have done is added allot of Adjustments to let people put in "many" houserules easily. I am not sure in this specific case if an Adjustment would work really.

My recommendation is to read the above and see if you have any "easier" houserules or things to add to HL. That will let you acclimated with the editor and then come back to this...

Globetrotter · January 6th, 2017, 01:41 PM

You got it... I will try

Azhrei · January 9th, 2017, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShadowChemosh

If you have never done any coding or scripting before it can be overwhelming.

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

<rant>
I've been writing code for ~40 years (hm, yep; started with Z-80 machine code in 1977 or so) and I've programmed in languages both alive and dead. To say that the HL scripting language can be overwhelming if you have never done any coding is an understatement!

The scripting language in HL is mind boggling. And I mean that literally -- "mind boggling." Words like "elegant" and "readable" are not adjectives I'd use to describe it. That said, it appears to fill a need and it works well.
</rant>

We have a similar problem with MapTool: it has an obscure, problematic, fragile scripting language. It doesn't have a true grammar (with ANTLR parser) but instead is based on extracting executable portions of code using regular expression pattern matching (ugh). But then, that's why we're switching to Javascript. There are thousands of Javascript programmers who, with just a little reference information about how to access certain global structures, will be able to write code for MapTool. But it's a work in progress and will take some time to complete. (A long time, most likely.)

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

Globetrotter Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 199 January 6th, 2017, 10:30 AM	My god, I cannot even make heads or tails in the editor. It is ridiculous. What would you charge to make a house rule add-on for me? I have a few house rules for this campaign. You could do it much faster i think.
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