Help getting Item Powers to show in Special tab?

[draco963]

OK, I'm starting to tear my hair out here...

I'm trying to add a special ability to a weapon (Bull's Charge, +4 to Str check on bull rush, push target add'l 5' on success). Now, I built the Item Power just fine, and I can add it to the weapon, and the little "?" bubble on the weapon displays the text I entered for the ability. All good.

Not quite. Having it on the "?" is less useful than having the effect show up on the Special tab, as that's a central place that all non-mathematical effects get listed, and it should then even show up on the printed character sheet (which is what we predominantly use anyhow).

I've tried everything I can think of, being:
- Build a "Special" entry for the ability, and bootstrap that into a "Item Power" entry;
- Add the "Helper" tag and "ShowSpec" TagID to both the Special entry and the Item Power entry;
- Add the Helper tag with the SpSourceEq TagID to both entries;
- tried every mix-and-match combination of the two on both entries;
- Built a Feat instead of a special, and tried bootstrapping that onto the Item Power instead.

Nothing works. Well, except the Feat. It works fine: shows up in the Feat list, is selectable, provides the necessary text in the Special tab. Except, I need this to not show up on the Feats list, only the Special, and, bootstrapping the Feat onto the IP did nothing when that IP was added to my weapon...

Can anyone point out what I'm overlooking here? I'm going nuts...
Thanks all.

[Sendric]

First, don't tear your hair our. You'll regret that when you discover there's nothing left to pull out.

Second, you should know that bootstrapping something to an Item Power doesn't work. When you do this, the bootstrapped item is applied to the weapon or armor the item power is attached to instead of the hero. As you've discovered, this does not then show up on the character. So, basically, the method you are using will never work no matter what you do.

In theory, you might be able to bootstrap it to the weapon with a conditional, but that would probably mean modifying nearly every weapon which isn't practical. Instead, what you could do is use a condition to bootstrap the special instead. Here's what I mean:

1) Find a condition, such as Blindness, and create a new version of it that replaces the old one (use Replaces Thing Id).

2) Create the special you want to have appear in the Specials tab, and bootstrap it to the new condition.

3) Create the item power, and with it create a new User Tag, one that would be unique. The item power would then have an eval script to assign that user tag to the hero.

4) Go back to the new condition and open the bootstrap thing. Add that User tag as a bootstrap conditional.

5) The hardest step is making sure the timing all works:

First thing is assigning the User Tag.
Second thing is the bootstrap condition looking for the tag.
Third thing is any scripts running on the special.

Full disclosure. I haven't actually attempted to do this before, but I have seen and done similar things. So, in theory it should work, but I guarantee nothing. If any steps above are confusing to you, let me know and I will try to clarify how to do them.

[draco963]

Sendric, thank-you SOOOO much for your reply. I'm pretty sure I understand what you wrote, but I'm not at my computer right now to try it out. I'll hopefully have a chance this afternoon. If this works, I'll be using it A LOT, as my campaign is written around the weapon of legacy concept.
Thanks again!

[draco963]

OK, so I didn't understand as well as I'd hoped. Here's what I did, in trying to follow your suggestions:

- In the Editor, went to General -> Adjustment, clicked New (Copy), chose Blinded.
- Re-wrote the Name (WoL - Bull's Charge), ThingID (pWoLBlChrg), and Text to match my desired goal. Left all the buttons and fields under the text box alone, except for Sources, which I indicated should be my mod.
- While still in the new adjustment, clicked the Bootstrap button, and entered into the Choose field the ID for the Special I created last night. Also deleted the old Eval Scripts.
- Went to Equipment -> Item Power, and clicked Edit on the User Tags line.
- Clicked -New Tag- and OK in the dialogue box. Entered in my new tag info (a unique ID, a Name; I didn't bother with an Abbreviation)
- Returned to General -> Adjustment, chose my new adjustment (the copy of Blinded), clicked Bootstraps, then the Tags button of the bootstrap for my Special, and then typed into the TagID field the user tag I created on the Item Power.

When I run Test Now!, I get the following error:
File: MyMod.user (line 196) - Thing 'pWoLBlChrg' - Invalid unique ID " for attribute 'group'

What'd I screw up?

[Sendric]

Originally Posted by draco963

What'd I screw up?

Can you post the .user file? It would be easier for me if I can just look at it.

[draco963]

Absolutely! Thank-you Sendric!

Here's a list of the relevant changes. I've barely started, so there's thankfully not much to sift through.

-General
-- Adjustment
- - - pWoLBlChrg - Bull's Charge "condition"
-- Special
- - - xWoLBlChrg - Bull's Charge "special"
-Equipment
-- Item Power
- - - ipWoLWBlCg - Bull's Charge "item power", for adding to weapons

MyMod.user

[Sendric]

Just looking at it now. It looks like in the bootstrap window you added a tag with no group. That's why the error showed up.

Also, what you did isn't quite what I suggested. I'll make some changes an re-post the file.

Update: Ok, it works fine now.

If I remember correctly, the Weapons of Legacy were specific weapons. If you are creating those weapons I think it would be easier to make them in the Magic Weapon tab, assuming you can bootstrap things to weapons though I'm not actually sure about that.

Anyway, the file is attached. Let me know if you have any questions about what I did.

[draco963]

Thanks so much Sendric. I'll look at the file in a bit (typing from the work computer now).

The actual WoL were specific items, yes, but, I've found that a lot of the effects that the WoL had are not already in the Item Powers list (or, they are there, but for weapons instead of armour, or vice-versa). So, I have a lot of work to do anyhow, to get all the effects I'll wind up using available to me. I'm also creating a few custom weapons of legacy, so they'll have combinations not seen in the source book regardless.

Thanks again for looking at the file. Hopefully I can wrap my brain around what you did.

While I've got you, I'm having trouble finding a good resource for learning the scripting language. Could you recommend one?

Thanks again Sendric!

[draco963]

OK, so, I definitely don't understand what's going on here...

First, why use Blinded as the General->Adjustment? why not create a new thing based on the concept of what's being worked towards? (i.e: a Bull's Charge Adjustment thing.)

Second, I think I understand why the Bull's Charge Special gets bootstrapped onto the Adjustment (to make HL recognise it as a Special), but where did the User.WoLBlChrg tag that's being used in the bootstrap conditional get defined? And, what purpose does it serve there?

Thirdly, the Bull's Charge special is showing up in the list regardless of whether the weapon it's attached to is equipped or not (it should only show if the weapon is equipped). It does go away if I remove the power from the weapon entirely. I think I know what's wrong: the Eval script in the Bull's Charge Item Power specifies hero.assign, and I think it should instead specify equip in some way (but I don't know enough of the scripting language to be sure). I have equip scripts on my Str+2 Item Power, but I don't know how to merge those, which cause an enhancement bonus, with hero.assign...

Thanks again Sendric! Sorry for being such a noob....

[Sendric]

No problem.

Add the following line to the top of the eval script on the item power:

doneif (container.parent.field[gIsEquip].value = 0)

This will prevent the special from appearing if the weapon isn't equipped.

As for your other questions:

1) Why Blinded? No specific reason. It could be any condition. The point is to use something that is always going to be on the character no matter what. Whether or not it has anything to do with the ability is immaterial. Basically, its just acting as a carrier for the specials you want to add. The reason I wouldn't create a new one is because when you do that it makes a new condition in your adjust tab and it will fill up quickly if you do that.

2) The User.WoLBlChrg tag is defined by the item power and assigned to the hero when you want the special to appear. The reason it's assigned to the hero is because bootstrap conditionals are limited in what they can look for. Typically, they are looking for things on the hero.

Attached is an image of the conditional tag expression I used. The special is effectively always going to be on the hero, but will only appear if that tag is also present on the hero.

For more information on bootstrap conditions and other useful tidbits, I recommend checking out Mathias' post here:

http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=21688

Technically, that's geared towards Pathfinder but it applies to d20 as well with a few exceptions.

I realize it might be confusing that I am referring to two different things as conditions here. The first condition is what you see on the adjust tab of your portfolio (ie Blindness, Entangled, etc). The other is a requirement placed on the bootstrap to prevent the special from appearing when you don't want it to.