Help for "Gifted Mesmerist" feat in Legacy of Fire

[Fnordboy]

Hi there gurus,

I need some coding assistance for the Gifted Mesmerist Feat for Legacy of Fire- I'm totally out of my coding league here...

Gifted Mesmerist:
Your magic knows the pathways of the mind, and you have
become so skilled at casting a certain mind-affecting
spell that you can cast it as a spell-like ability.
Requirement: Successfully affect 25 different targets
with charm or compulsion spells.
Benefit: Choose any one charm or compulsion spell you
can cast. You can use this spell once per day as a spell-like
ability. Your caster level and DC for this spell-like ability is
the same as if you were casting the spell. Each time you gain
a level in a spellcasting class, you may replace your current
charm or compulsion spell-like ability with a new one.

Ok, so I've been able to add the Feat in the Editor and it shows up in the Spell-like abilities of the "Spells" tab properly. But here's what I cannot get it to do. FYI the character is a Bard, so no spellbook, just a list of learned spells.>

1) In the "Feat" tab, instead of manually typing in the name of the spell, I'd prefer to have a script to cull my list of learned spells and kick-out ones that qualify (i.e. spells with a Charm or Compulsion subclass). I'm having trouble locating the proper tag that tracks which Bard spells are learned and which ones aren't.
2) In the "Spell" tab, where the feat appears, I'd like it if the "?" help button actually will show the text of the spell I've selected as the spell-like ability.
3) How would the pre-requisite be coded? (Just curious) I created a custom tracker "trkCharm" but I couldn't find any way of getting it to work.

Thank you all for your consideration.

[ShadowChemosh]

Originally Posted by Fnordboy

1) In the "Feat" tab, instead of manually typing in the name of the spell, I'd prefer to have a script to cull my list of learned spells and kick-out ones that qualify (i.e. spells with a Charm or Compulsion subclass). I'm having trouble locating the proper tag that tracks which Bard spells are learned and which ones aren't.

Here is the Custom Expression that appears to only select Bard spells that have a subschool of Compulsion or Charm.

component.BaseSpell&sClass.cHelpBrd &(sSubschool.Compulsion|sSubschool.Charm)

Originally Posted by Fnordboy

2) In the "Spell" tab, where the feat appears, I'd like it if the "?" help button actually will show the text of the spell I've selected as the spell-like ability.

You have to assign the spells Thing ID using the SpInfo tag. Add the following script to the Eval Scripts section of the feat. You have to change fS2GiftedM to be the Unique ID of your feat.

~Pre-levels 5,000
      ~ If we've not chosen anything, get out
      doneif (field[usrChosen1].ischosen = 0)
~Pull the tags and assign to the feat
perform field[usrChosen1].chosen.pulltags[SpInfo.?]
perform hero.childfound[fS2GiftedM].forward[SpInfo.?]

The first line of this script is a Comment telling you what Phase: and Priority: the Eval Script needs to be set too.

Originally Posted by Fnordboy

3) How would the pre-requisite be coded? (Just curious) I created a custom tracker "trkCharm" but I couldn't find any way of getting it to work.

Add the following as a Expr-reqs:

hero.childfound[trkCharm].field[trkUser].value >= 25

Just keep in mind that a player can't add a tracker directly. A tracker must be Bootstraped to something else to get it to add.

Hope that helps.

[Fnordboy]

Hey there, thanks for assembling the instructions for the feat! I'm just trying to figure out how to implement them... Your custom expression works like a dream! I'm just now trying to figure out how to get the tracker portion to work...

Just keep in mind that a player can't add a tracker directly. A tracker must be Bootstraped to something else to get it to add.

So do I need to also edit something in the "Bootstraps" button?

[ShadowChemosh]

Originally Posted by Fnordboy

So do I need to also edit something in the "Bootstraps" button?

Well that is one way to do it, but it may not be the best way. The Bootstrap button allows you to attache another Thing to your current Thing and have them both get added when the primary Thing is added to the hero.

Just to clear that up I am using the capital word Thing to indicate any generic thing that gets created in the editor including classes, feats, magic items.....

So in example if you wanted to have a weapon automatically appear on the hero when a specific Feat was selected you could Bootstrap the weapon to the feat and then when the feat is selected the weapon will come along also.

So in this case if you Bootstrapped the Tracker to the feat the player couldn't get to it until they selected the feat, but they can't meet the feat requirements until the tracker is listed at 25 or higher.

So preferably you will need to have something else bootstrap the Tracker so it can be added and changed before the feat will be valid to select. Unfortunately I am not sure what you should use to make this happen. I have not really had the need yet to use any trackers in HL. Maybe Mathais has some ideas.

[Mathias]

Isn't the Gifted Mesmerist feat already in Hero Lab? I know I see it on my copy. (In the Configure Hero Settings, make sure you have the Legacy of Fire checked).

On the Adjust tab, find the Counter adjustment. You can increment that every time you achieve a qualifying event, and then once you've gotten to 25, you know you're eligible to take the feat. Or start the counter at 25, and reduce it every time, so that 0 means you're eligible.

[ShadowChemosh]

Originally Posted by Mathias

Isn't the Gifted Mesmerist feat already in Hero Lab? I know I see it on my copy. (In the Configure Hero Settings, make sure you have the Legacy of Fire checked).

Yep it sure is, but no scripts to go with it. Or at least in my version. The ability to pick a spell is left as a text box to just enter. So I think that is why the OP was asking for trying to set it up with actual scripts and stuff.

[Mathias]

Just curious, why, after pulling the SpInfo tags from the spell, do you forward them to the feat? Isn't this script already running on the feat? Doesn't that mean the feat is forwarding them to itself? (Which just duplicates all the tags).

[ShadowChemosh]

Originally Posted by Mathias

Just curious, why, after pulling the SpInfo tags from the spell, do you forward them to the feat? Isn't this script already running on the feat? Doesn't that mean the feat is forwarding them to itself? (Which just duplicates all the tags).

In my testing picking a spell does not set the SpInfo tag on the Thing where the spell was chosen from. So in this case the spell gets selected on the feat, but I saw no SpInfo tag getting set. If this is suppose to happen its not or their is a option/check box I don't know about or setting.

So I get the spell ID from the Thing chosen and then forward/set that Tag onto the Feat Thing so that HL then displays the Spell Description when pressing the ?.

That was the only way I know of when playing around that I could get it to work. If their is a better or easier way I don't know about I am always glade to learn.

[Fnordboy]

Originally Posted by Mathias

Isn't the Gifted Mesmerist feat already in Hero Lab? I know I see it on my copy. (In the Configure Hero Settings, make sure you have the Legacy of Fire checked).

On the Adjust tab, find the Counter adjustment. You can increment that every time you achieve a qualifying event, and then once you've gotten to 25, you know you're eligible to take the feat. Or start the counter at 25, and reduce it every time, so that 0 means you're eligible.

Yuppers, that's what I did. I was just trying to wrap my wet noodle around the whole "Tracker/bootstrap" interaction. I fiddled with the user file and created a custom tracker for the pre-req Charm spells, hoping I could learn a bit more how HL works. Luckily, I was able to not destroy my software. Sadly, the tracker/feat interaction was silly and futile.

Lesson learned! :P

and, BTW- that custom expression provided by that other intrepid poster?...AWESOME!