Increase size without increasing natural weapon damage dice

alientude · 07:21 PM

I'm working on creating adjustments for Wild Shape for a druid I'd like to play. I'm going through and creating one adjustment for each creature I plan on changing into, but I've ran into a couple problems.

First, the way I'm doing these adjustments is to use the following script to increase size:

Code:

       var sizemod as number
       sizemod = 2
       call SizeChange

The biggest problem I've found with doing this is that natural weapons are automatically progressed upon a damage die chart. The problem with this is that there's plenty of creatures that break the norm, and I'm running into the problem that I can't reliably tell Hero Lab to use a value other than the standard. In particular:

1) Bite. A Quickwood's (Beastiary 2) bite is 2d6, but no matter what I do, HL wants it to be 4d8. I've got it Bootstrapped to wBite with a tag of wMain, 2d6_104. Seeing this did not work, I tried adding this script:

Code:

Post-levels, Priority 1000

       perform hero.findchild[BaseWep,"thingid.wBite"].setfocus
       perform hero.child[wBite].assign[wMain.2d6_104]
       perform hero.child[wBite].delete[Helper.DamageUp]

This did not work either. I got around this problem by an ugly work-around - I bootstrapped the weapon as a Claw, changed it's livename to Bite, and used a script to add the bludgeoning type. For some reason, it allowed me to set the Claw damage to 2d6, but not the bite. I don't like this method at all, but at least it works.

2) The next troublesome creature was the Sargassum Fiend (Bestiary 3). This thing has two Slams and a Constrict at 2d8, but not matter what I do, I cannot get it to show 2d8 damage. I've tried the same things as above, but to no avail.

So my question is, am I missing something obvious here? Is there a way to increase a creature's size without changing natural weapon damage dice?

alientude · July 23rd, 2012, 07:12 PM

Forgot to mention I tried just setting the creature size to the desired one (Huge, in this case), but that doesn't increase the size of my (Wild enchanted) armor, so it throws big errors at me.

ShadowChemosh · July 23rd, 2012, 09:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alientude

1) Bite. A Quickwood's (Beastiary 2) bite is 2d6, but no matter what I do, HL wants it to be 4d8. I've got it Bootstrapped to wBite with a tag of wMain, 2d6_104. Seeing this did not work, I tried adding this script:

Natural attacks adjust based on size. So in this case you want to tell HL what the damage is at size Medium so when it adjusts it will be correct.

So set the damage to 1d6 instead.

Otherwise you can use the DamageUP/DamageDown tags to adjust the size after you changed size. Your script below is a little strange as you used DamageUp even though you wanted the die size smaller. Also allot of extra code. Just do:

Code:

perform hero.child[wBite].assign[Helper.DamageDown]

The whole set focus and delete tag is not really needed.

Though if you wanted to force a size you could play with the wDamage field very late in the timing to force the die size damage. Its another idea I think should work.

alientude · July 24th, 2012, 05:31 AM

Thank you for the help. I knew there had to be a way to adjust the damage manually, but I had not idea what it was. I don't really know anything about the scripting language - I'm just searching through current creatures and adjustments and such looking for things that might work and copying them. It makes for ugly scripts, I know.

alientude · July 24th, 2012, 08:46 AM

Next question.

Many (if not most) animals have reach shorter than their size. Is there a way of reducing reach without reducing space with a script? I tried a few things:

Code:

herofield[tReach].value = 5

Doing that changed the creature's space and reach to 5', rather than just its reach.

I tried bootstrapping rtReach. Setting it's value to 5 increased the reach by 5, so I tried -5, and that gives an invalid unique id error.

Edit: Nevermind, figured it out. Just needed to add:

Code:

herofield[tSpace].value = 10

tahltwo · September 24th, 2012, 04:39 PM

hi, folks --- specifically, hl developers :-)

this is the closest topic i can find to ask my question, but i cannot understand what was said, or whether it was resolved (lol)

anyway, i have a wereleopard build that changes from medium human to large wereleopard. i added a size adjustment and it works fine; however, i need to keep natural weapons at same (medium) size.

so i added 3 adjustments: bite, claw and rake, then set them to "-1" --- nothing happened. i try to set it to an actual weapon and it works. this tells me that since the natural weapons were not added as actual weapons by me, but rather automatically by herolab, the adjustments to these weapons are not taking affect?

just an educated guess... any idea how i should do this, or is it a bug?

thx

Mathias · September 24th, 2012, 04:49 PM

I'd recommend going to the templates tab in the editor and starting with a copy of the weretiger template, then change all the details that differ from a weretiger to a wereleopard.

alientude Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 101 July 23rd, 2012, 07:12 PM	Forgot to mention I tried just setting the creature size to the desired one (Huge, in this case), but that doesn't increase the size of my (Wild enchanted) armor, so it throws big errors at me.
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Mathias Senior Member Lone Wolf Staff Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 13,213 September 24th, 2012, 04:49 PM	I'd recommend going to the templates tab in the editor and starting with a copy of the weretiger template, then change all the details that differ from a weretiger to a wereleopard.
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