Noob Question: Attributes for Point Buy

[Diaz Ex Machina]

Is it possible to alter the Point Buy system to make it like the one form D&D3.5? Every attribute starts from 8, and you have 15/22/25/28/32 points to distribute among them.
Here's the table with the cost for each value:

Thank you in advance for your help and time.

[Ualaa]

Not sure within the HL client.

But you can definitely do pick/choose.
And then set them to whatever your point buy would allow.

[Lord Magus]

I don't think attribute point costs can be altered by using the editor, these are hard-coded into the system itself IIRC.

[Mathias]

Could someone else take a look at the Mechanics tab and look at what we've set up for point-buy. I remember that they're stored as Mechanic picks, but I don't have the time right now to write up a walkthrough for a new user.

Diaz - I apologize that I haven't been able to help much. You picked a busy week to ask your questions, and you're not asking for help with any simple projects - all your questions so far are complex issues, and since you're very new to the editor, proper answers take a long time, since there's a lot of steps to go through.

[Lord Magus]

I did not remember correctly, this can indeed be done, but on the Mechanic tab of the editor, not on the Creation Method tab.

[Diaz Ex Machina]

Thank you guys, I've found a way to make this happen. If someone else needs to do something like that let me know and I will reveal my secret

[Ualaa]

Posting a solution to the thread where you asked your question is a great idea.

Chances are someone in the future will use the search and find your question.
Having the answer in the same thread is a huge bonus.

Also, sometimes you find a solution then someone else says you could have done it X way instead, which is an opportunity to learn.

[Diaz Ex Machina]

It's pretty simple: I just created the new creation methods and the attribute cost mechanic. It's a really simple process, for the various point buy options you just create them in "Creation Method" as you like them, by either using a static amount of points to distribute or by creating an array, then in "Mechanics" you create an override of the Attribute Cost Mechanics with the point needed to get the stat you want. The only thing I haven't figured out is how to make HL start with an 8 in every attribute, I have to manually set them every time I create a new hero.

[ploturo]

The reason the ability scores default to 10 is most likely because that is what the default value for the aUser field is set to be in the definition of the BaseAttr component (which is something we have no way to change).

You can set up a script which sets all of the attributes to 8, and keeps track of itself so it only does it once.

(You can do the following more cleanly by creating your own custom Component that has a single field to keep track of whether the script has run, instead of creating and bootstrapping a new tracker Thing. With your own single-field Component and Thing you won't have the extra overhead of the Tracker component code running each evaluation cycle, but the advantage of just using the existing tracker Component is that it can be done with the editor instead of editing XML files.)

• Create a new Tracker in the editor and give it a unique id.
  
• Set the "Base Charges" field to 1.
  
• Click the button to add a new tag, and add the Hide.Tracker tag.
  
• Add the following script, with the phase set to Pre-Attributes (the priority doesn't matter and can stay at 100):
  

  doneif (field[trkUser].value = 1)
  
  
  ~ don't change anything if any ability score isn't the default of 10
  ~ or if a race or any class levels have been added, so that hopefully
  ~ we don't accidentally override scores on existing characters which
  ~ were created without this source active
  
  foreach pick in hero where "component.BaseAttr"
     if (eachpick.field[aUser].value <> 10) then
        goto finished
     endif
  nexteach
  if (#totallevelcount[] > 0) then
     goto finished
  endif
  if (hero.tagcount[Race.?] > 0) then
     goto finished
  endif
  
  
  ~ set all ability scores to the new default of 8
  
  trustme
  foreach pick in hero where "component.BaseAttr"
     eachpick.field[aUser].value = 8
  nexteach
  
  
  ~ don't run this script again
  finished:
  field[trkUser].value = 1

• Go to your Mechanic that overrides AttrCost, and add a bootstrap. Enter the uniqueid of the tracker Thing you just created (you don't need to set up anything else on the bootstrap).

It should work, but you will probably need to do a Quick Reload and not just a Test.