How do I...

[DaddyDragon]

In my current campaign, each of the party members received a magic cloak that adds a +2 bonus to hide and move silent skills. But for the life of me, I can't figure out where or how to add something like this in HL.

Is this something that I will need to 'hack' into the database (I'm not really a code kind of guy) or can it be created in via the interface as it exists? Have I missed something somewhere that already allows me to add something like this?

Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Larry

[rob]

At 07:35 PM 7/30/2007, you wrote:

In my current campaign, each of the party members received a magic cloak that adds a +2 bonus to hide and move silent skills. But for the life of me, I can't figure out where or how to add something like this in HL.

Is this something that I will need to 'hack' into the database (I'm not really a code kind of guy) or can it be created in via the interface as it exists? Have I missed something somewhere that already allows me to add something like this?

You will need to "hack" it in, but it's actually quite easy to do. You definitely do NOT need to be a "code kind of guy", since the "code" is already written and you just need to copy and tweak it. The cloak you describe is very similar to a Cloak of Elvenkind, so you can copy that cloak and just make a few minor adjustments. Here's how, with step-by-step instructions...

1. Launch the Editor via the Tools menu.
2. Create a new data file via the File menu.
3. Click on the Wondrous tab, since your cloak is considered a "Wondrous Item".
4. Click on the "New (Copy)" button in the lower left.
5. Select the "Cloak of Elvenkind" as the thing you want to copy.
6. Change the name to something appropriate (e.g. "Cloak of Stealth +2").
7. Pick a unique id for your cloak (e.g. "ckstealth2", where the 2 indicates it's a +2 effect, just in case you also want to create a +5 version of the cloak in the future).
8. Modify the description to something appropriate.
9. Fill in the various options in the list of attributes at the bottom, as appropriate. Since you copied from the Cloak of Elvenkind, you can probably leave everything here unchanged, except maybe the GP value.
10. Click on the "Eval Scripts" button in the lower right. This brings up the script that applies the appropriate modification to the skills. You'll see that the script currently modifies the competence bonus for the "Hide" skill only, since that's what the Cloak of Elvenkind does. It also only applies the bonus when the cloak is equipped. This is almost exactly what you'll want for your new cloak, so most of the work is already done.
11. Change the line of script that starts "#competencebonus" so that the value near the end of the line is a "2" instead of a "5". This will apply a +2 adjustment to the Hide skill instead of the +5 conferred by an Elven Cloak.
12. Now we need to add the +2 adjustment to the Move Silently skill. Copy the "#competencebonus" line of script so that it appears a second time. Then modify the "kHide" to "kMoveSil" in the second instance of the line.
13. Click the OK button to finish editing the script.
14. Click the Save button in the lower left to save the changes to your new cloak.
15. Click the Test Now button in the upper left to install your changes into Hero Lab. This will prompt you for a filename to save your changes into. Then the engine will verify everything is valid and add your new cloak to HL.

That's it! You can now select the new cloak from the Magic tab, just like any other magic cloak.

You can easily give this cloak to anyone else in your gaming group for use in their copy of HL. Just give them the file that you created, and have them drop that file into the folder where the d20 data files reside (e.g. "c:herolabdatad20"). The file should be found in that same folder on your computer.

Hope this helps!

[DaddyDragon]

Thank you, very much. Those instructions worked like a charm.

That was fairly easy for something that previously seemed so daunting.

Again, thank you.

Regards,
Larry