Custom Race

[Maidhc O Casain]

Hello again.

Trying to create a custom Tiefling variation and can't get a racial special ability to show up on the Background or Special tabs.

I've looked at the tutorials, and tried adding a special tag as suggested there but I must be doing something wrong there. Do I use the unique ID for the modified version or the one for the original? And what do I use for the group ID?

Sorry to be such a pain . . .

Mowgli

BTW, I also wanted to say I love this software and the tech support! Top notch all the way!

[Mathias]

You're trying to replace the Tiefling's darkness ability with one of the ones from the list, I presume?

So, you've created your special, starting with a copy of the darkness ability?

If you used the "Replaces Thing ID" field on the right hand side to make your new thing a replacement for the darkness ability, I'd recommend against that - what you want to do here is to make a custom version of a race, not change the race for all Tieflings.

Press "Test Now!" while your special is selected - that will add it to HL for your race to use.

Next, create a new race as a copy of Tiefling. Give it a new unique ID, and name it something like "Tiefling - (your character's name)". Now, onto the editor entries. One of the buttons you'll find among the editor entries (about halfway through) is named "Racial Special Abilities". Look through the things that are selected there, and you'll find that the Tiefling has "Darkness", "Fiendish Resistance", and "Fiendish Sorcery". Now, find the special you've created, and check the box for that, then uncheck the box for "Darkness".

Test the race, and you should then be able to select it on the background tab.

[Maidhc O Casain]

Thanks for responding.

That much I'd done, sort of. My problem isn't being able to select my custom race - I got that far without a hitch. The problem is that my custom special that replaces Darkness isn't showing up in the Background tab or in the Special tab within the character builder, even after I select the custom race.

The Darkness ability wasn't checked in the Racial Special Abilities box - Darkvision, Fiendish Resistance, and Fiendish Sorcery were. I found my custom special and checked it. Still didn't show up, but Darkness did.

Darkness was in the 'Bootstrap' button on the upper right. I deleted it, which took care of the Darkness continuing to show up in the generator.

When simply checking my custom (and saving/testing) didn't fix it I tried adding a bootstrap for it, but that didn't work either.

[Mathias]

Sorry, I had only seen "Dark" in the specials list and not noticed that it was darkvision, rather than the Darkness 1/day.

Okay, what's happening is that there is more than one ability out there called "Darkness (1/day)". The Tiefling's version isn't the one that comes first in the list of them (the other one's unique ID comes before the Tiefling version's). Since it's not the named ability, it doesn't show up as the Darkness power that's shown in the Racial Specials list. This is a problem that I'll look into.

Since that's not available, you'll have to use the bootstraps list to modify the special. In the list of bootstraps, you'll see "raTiDark" filled into one of the spaces. Replace that with the unique ID of the new special you've created (but you've done that, it sounds like).

"Show In Specials List?" is the obvious reason a racial special wouldn't show up on the special tab, but even if "Show In Specials List?" isn't checked, a Racial Special will still show up on the Background tab. And, "Show In Specials List?" is checked by default for new specials, and I doubt you'd have unchecked it.

At this point, go ahead and email me your file. My address is my user name here, @wolflair.com.

[Mathias]

I just thought of another possibility - did you keep the script that's on the Tiefling's Darkness ability?

~if we have the Infernal Bastard trait, we're disabled
if (hero.tagis[HasTrait.trPFInfBas] <> 0) then
perform assign[Helper.SpcDisable]
perform delete[Helper.ShowSpec]
endif

You might want to make sure you aren't pairing the race with that trait (unless you want to), although that will only gray out the trait, not eliminate it from the background tab.

[Maidhc O Casain]

Figured it out - it was user malfunction of course! I had not allowed the source for the new race special in the Hero Configuration screen. Once I allowed that the new special popped right up!

But, now I have another problem. My new, custom Tiefling isn't granting the extra language slot for either Abyssal or Infernal. The scripts and bootstraps are still there because I just copied the race and gave it a new name and id, eliminated the Darkness ability and added my new custom.

[Mathias]

Go ahead and email me the file then - I can't figure out any reason that would have happened.

[Maidhc O Casain]

Thanks - I'll send it over tonight when I get back to my home computer.