Complicated racial ability

[CapedCrusader]

Making the copies is likely the best way on this one.

As far as the buy-off, you could use a tag and an Edge. Assign the tag to the hero with the Race. Put a containerreq on the Skill copies that checks to see if the character does not have the tag. Then create an Edge that buys this off and removes the tag from the hero. An Edge costs 2 Reward points, so that should work.

[Paragon]

Is there some way I can combine that with buying off the Illiterate Hindrance in one Edge?

[SeeleyOne]

The easiest way to make it prevent skills is to have a setting of its own in the "Configure Hero" menu.

Make a setting, call it whatever the Hindrance is called.
Then have that setting be part of the Hindrance. In the hindrance it will have a tag of that setting (the one that shows up in the Hero menu). All of the skills will also have this tag. (By tag I mean "Source").

Instead of Bootstrapping it like I suggested (which would make it so you can't buy it off), you can have the Hindrance require the Setting in the hero tab,

[Paragon]

I just realized I can do the latter part simply by building it into the Edge I do as a buy off (or, if I'm lazy, just note that the Illiterate Hindrance is in effect until the specialty Edge is taken). However, my coding limits are showing so I thought I'd just ask rather than fumbling around for a week and maybe figuring it out:

If I do the trick of having the Edge remove the Tag the skills search for (by the by, why is a Containerreq used for that rather than a Pickreq?), how does one do that? Its not self-evident, though I'm guessing some kind of expression (I didn't see an example in the code thread). If I go to the trouble of having the racial trait bootstrap in Illiterate, is there a way for an expression to remove that?

[zarlor]

I don't have any good examples of tag use in the code thread mostly because I'm not all that comfortable with it myself. I'm just not exactly sure how to use them, let alone really show their use in the code thread. However, on the part where you have something, like a Hindrance, that bootstraps something else, like another Hindrance, then removing the first Hindrance will necessarily remove the second, so I think that should work for what you want.

[Paragon]

It sounded like what Caped Crusader was suggesting an Edge to "remove" the tag, and effectively counteract what the racial trait applied. I gather you don't know how code something to delete a tag? I may have to do more research, then.

[Paragon]

Hmmm. Doing some searching, I found a thread Mathias did in the Pathfinder forum talking about container usage where he says this:

"Instructions you can give:

assign[Group Id.Tag Id]
Add 1 copy of the listed tag here.
delete[Group Id.Tag Id]
Delete ALL copies of the listed tag here.
tagreplace[Group Id.Tag Id,Group Id.Tag Id]
Delete all copies of the first of those listed tags, then assign 1 copy of the second of those listed tags (this is a shortcut for delete[], then assign[])."

Perhaps that's the key to what I should be doing here.

[zarlor]

Originally Posted by Paragon

Hmmm. Doing some searching, I found a thread Mathias did in the Pathfinder forum talking about container usage where he says this:

"Instructions you can give:

assign[Group Id.Tag Id]
Add 1 copy of the listed tag here.
delete[Group Id.Tag Id]
Delete ALL copies of the listed tag here.
tagreplace[Group Id.Tag Id,Group Id.Tag Id]
Delete all copies of the first of those listed tags, then assign 1 copy of the second of those listed tags (this is a shortcut for delete[], then assign[])."

Perhaps that's the key to what I should be doing here.

Yeah, that's the gist of what I understand it to be from our previous discussion on this forum where we were thinking it would be nice to be able to do a bootstrap of something in code, but you can't do that, instead you have to already have that thing boostrapped and then use tags to prevent the bootstrap from happening, that way if you remove the tag the bootstrap can appear... something like that, anyway. I have a hard time getting tags to assign sometimes, though. It's just not the area of coding in Hero Lab that I have much comfort with, is all, so I don't tend to be a lot of help on that front I'm sorry to say.

[Paragon]

Don't feel bad in any way, Zarlor. You've been an enormous help to me on my projects on here.

[CapedCrusader]

Here's some code examples:

To add or delete a tag to the current item:

perform assign[Equipped.Equipped]
perform delete[Equipped.Equipped]

To add a tag to the hero level:

perform hero.assign[Hero.ShowLang]

To add a tag through a focus:

perform hero.child[wpUnarmed].setfocus
perform focus.assign[WeaponDie.3]

To add a tag to a container object:

perform container.parent.assign[WeaponMod.Power]

Tags are very cool. A lot of what happens in the background uses tags. If you have the Develop menu available, check the Floating Info Windows. IT can show you the various tags on everything from the hero down to each individual item on the hero.