[D&D] How to add a template?

[Eryx_UK]

Currently with the program not set to add templates, how can I add a template artifically? One of my players has a character with the planetouched/Aasimar template from the Monster Manual, and I need to know how to add simulate this without the program saying that I have errors. Bear in mind that I'm no good with these interfaces.

Thanks for any assistance.

[rob]

At 11:54 AM 1/23/2007, you wrote:

Currently with the program not set to add templates, how can I add a template artifically? One of my players has a character with the planetouched/Aasimar template from the Monster Manual, and I need to know how to add simulate this without the program saying that I have errors. Bear in mind that I'm no good with these interfaces.

Disclaimer: I can't seem to find my 3.5 Monster Manual right now, so I am looking at the 3rd Ed Manual as I write this. If the template has changed between 3.0 and 3.5, please don't yell at me. :-)

First, you'll need to setup a way to integrate the template into everything. Probably the easiest solution will be to create a new feat right now. That way, it can be easily selected for the character.

If you add it as a feat, you may end up with HL yelling at you about too many feats due to the extra one assigned to the hero. You can go to the In-Play tab and add an adjustment of +1 feat slots to the hero to get HL to shut up about it.

So, I'll assume you have created a new feat called Celestial Template (or some such). This feat will do nothing on its own. Instead, it will trigger that automatic attachment of assorted special abilities for a Celestial. This will be accomplish via bootstrapping (or chaining) those abilities into the character. In other words, adding the Celestial Template feat to the hero will automatically add all of the various individual abilities. Deleting the template feat will cause them all to go away.

Both the Smite Evil and Darkvision abilities already exist. So all you need to do is add bootstrap entry for each of those. Create one bootstrap entry and then assign the unique id of the Smite ability. Then create another bootstrap entry and assign the unique id of the Darkvision ability.

For the other abilities, you'll have to actually create those abilities, but they should be easy. For each of the resistances, you can create a separate ability entry. Alternately, you can lump them all together if you want - your call. Once you create each ability, you'll need to then add a bootstrap entry to the feat that attaches it, just like you did for Smite and Darkvision.

I believe that's all there is to it. Be sure to splice all of the things into HL and then try adding the feat to your character. All of the special abilities should show up correctly.

I skipped all of the details of how to do each of these things, since there should be info on that within the documentation and tutorials. If you run into questions, though, give a holler and I'll do my best to help out.

Hope this helps,
Rob