Editor questions

[djc664]

So... I'm running the end of Burnt Offerings in the Rise of Runelords in two weeks, so I know that the info just won't show up by then. I figured what better way to get acquainted with the editor and system than by trying to introduce some "simple" custom stuff while I wait for official updates. Ran into a couple rough spots, but in general it seemed to work very nicely. Since some of those spots may be a "yea, that's not in yet" sort of thing, I didn't want to bash my head against it all week in an exercise in futility.

The main NPC I wanted to try statting out was Nualia. Main challenges I saw with this:

1. The class Planetouched/Aasimar aren't in Pathfinder (yet? Bestiary probably fixes this) that puts in +1 ECL into the mix.
2. A custom feat on her list (Lamashtu's Mark)
3. A custom magic item (Medallion) which has some effect to the stat block.

Attached are my portfolio and custom editor file that includes the Aasimar race, supporting racial abilities and the custom feat. I ran into some confusion with the help file; it seems to reference an editor that is coming but not here (maybe?) which has a bunch of extra tabs on it that mine did not have (fully updated as of this post). It also seemed to have different unique-id's listed (for skills, for instance).

Here are the questions / problems I ran into that I'd love some help or advice on:
Magic Item:
1. I couldn't make a custom magic item that is not a scroll, either in the character menus or the editor. I am 99.9% sure that's a known thing here and it's being worked on. No sweat on that.

Feat:
1. I couldn't get the Feat to check what Diety I had chosen as a pre-req. I figured I might be able to compare it to exact text spelling, since it's not a drop-down or menu select, but I couldn't noodle it. Especially since the help file had Unique IDs that were different than what the game was showing - just too confusing for me last night... at 3am...
2. It would not set Paladin as the favored class for the player automatically, despite entering Paladin in the custom race favored class field. It started at "Any", let me select, and never error-ed when I chose something *other* than Paladin. Thoughts?
3. I couldn't get the feat to subtract the ECL from the race in a way that would work as a normal feat... the only way I could seem to get working was to subtract the item Aasimar race level. Is there any way to actually identify a Racial Level Adjustment and remove that from the spell DC so that the feat would actually work for ANY race I added it to?

Additionally, I'd love some feedback on how I did the Resistance items and anything else in general - good, bad and different. Is there a better way of doing it, or any polish I should add to make them work well with the system?

Thanks in advance for the help, insight, hard work, and reading this long arse post!

[JimGroves]

I'd be definitely interested in how the Sidhedron Medallion came out.. I'm in Chapter 4, but I got a couple of these floating around.

I can't wait for this AP to get ported over atfter #24 and #25.

[djc664]

Originally Posted by JimmyOlsen

I'd be definitely interested in how the Sidhedron Medallion came out..

Well, as I noted... it didn't at all.

[JimGroves]

Originally Posted by djc664

Well, as I noted... it didn't at all.

Lol, yes.. I skimmed your post and went back and re-read that.

[Mathias]

The documentation has barely been touched - it is still the documentation for the SRD (3.5) files and the editor there. Updating that takes a back seat to adding new content.

All of the races beyond the basic 7 are waiting for the Bestiary. I don't see the point in converting them, then re-doing the work in a month or two when I get the bestiary, when there are other things I could work on that aren't going to change.

For anyone else who wants to reference things, the character he's adding is from Pathfinder Issue #1, pages 52-53, the Shedron Medallion from page 55, and the Lamashtu's mark feat from page 56.

The Lamashtu's mark feat requires you to worship a specific deity. This can't be handled in the Pathfinder files, since the deities are not GSL content, and therefore not things we can add to the files (before you ask about adding an empty deity component - that's already been discussed for the SRD files and really isn't feasible). Therefore, there are no deity items to search for. Referencing the text-only fields isn't something you should do for a feat, so just leave that prereq as part of the text.

Everything I've seen for Pathfinder (the beta, main book, and bestiary preview) suggests that no race chooses a favored class for the user. I apologize for not removing the favored class entry from the race description. I've done so for the next update (hopefully later today (8/31)).

Important note for data file authors: if you have added a race and have entered any text into the "Favored Class" field, you will have to edit your file using an XML editor or text editor (like Notepad, DON'T use MS Word or another document editor or they'll add extra stuff which will keep it from compiling). Look through your file until you find a line that looks like:

<fieldval field="rInfFavor" value ="Some Text"/>

Delete the whole line.

Hopefully I'll get this update out before more than one or two people are affected.

Could you re-phrase/expand on question #3? I don't understand what you're asking. The only feat in your file is Lamashtu's mark, which doesn't deal with ECL.

For the damage resistances, what you want to do is add the bootstraps "xDamRsFire", "xDamRsElec" and xDamRsAcid", and for each bootstrap, go into the tags button, and add the tag "Value" with a value of "5", since each resistance should be 5. You could either add those bootstraps directly to the race, or if you still want the resistances to show up in the list, go to each resistance thing and add the appropriate bootstrap. These items aren't in the list of racial special abilities yet - they're not currently set properly, so you'll have to go to the bootstraps button and add them manually.

I've attached a modified copy of your file - it includes the favored class fix I mentioned above, the resistances, and for the Lamashtu's mark feat, I've checked "Show in Specials List?" so that it will show up in the Special tab, and I've checked "Show in tracked resources list?" along with entering 1 in the "Total Charges" field, since the feat has a power that can be used 1/day. For the Aasimar's daylight power, I've unchecked show specials, and added the same charge - spell-like abilities aren't really important enough to display on the special tab, but do need an incrementer for their uses/day.

I also removed the "Special" feat category from the Lamashtu's Mark feat. The feat is not listed in the book as Lamashtu's Mark [Special], so I don't think you should add a feat category that's not there.

For those who don't have the book in question, the Shedron medallion grants a +1 resistance bonus to all saves and 1/day, can grant the false life spell on its wearer (temporary HP). As an interim solution, you can use adjustments to add all those effects. Go to the adjust tab, and to the temporary adjustments list, and add three copies of the saving throw adjustment and one copy of the HP adjustment. Then set each of the saving throw adjustments to one of the saves, and set their value to +1, and set the HP adjustment to whatever the effect is giving you. If you don't have the HP active, you can un-check the HP adjustment, and if you take off the medaillion, you can uncheck the saving throw adjustments.

[djc664]

Wow! That's very comprehensive! Thank you for taking the time to do all that. Notes below:

Originally Posted by mgehl

The documentation has barely been touched - it is still the documentation for the SRD (3.5) files and the editor there. Updating that takes a back seat to adding new content.

Absolutely! I didn't want to be accused of having not read the help file, though.

Originally Posted by mgehl

The Lamashtu's mark feat requires you to worship a specific deity. This can't be handled in the Pathfinder files, since the deities are not GSL content, and therefore not things we can add to the files (before you ask about adding an empty deity component - that's already been discussed for the SRD files and really isn't feasible). Therefore, there are no deity items to search for. Referencing the text-only fields isn't something you should do for a feat, so just leave that prereq as part of the text.

Excellent; that's the exact answer I had come to independently. Thank you very much for explaining that in detail so I could check my reasoning.

Originally Posted by mgehl

Everything I've seen for Pathfinder (the beta, main book, and bestiary preview) suggests that no race chooses a favored class for the user. I apologize for not removing the favored class entry from the race description. I've done so for the next update (hopefully later today (8/31)).

Ahh, groovy. I thought I was cracking up a bit there. Luckily, "Why doesn't the drop down behave?!" at 3am is little cause for alarm.

Originally Posted by mgehl

Could you re-phrase/expand on question #3? I don't understand what you're asking. The only feat in your file is Lamashtu's mark, which doesn't deal with ECL.

The spell DC of the special ability in the feat is linked to class levels, which should not include ECL. Can I just say that, as a player of an Aasimar Cleric from levels 1-17 in 3.5, I had a hell of a time figuring out ECLs.

So in my example, the DC should be 10 + (only the 5 levels (2 Fighter / 3 Cleric)) + Wisdom Bonus.

The best way I could figure out how to do this is using "#totallevelcount[]", which adds the ECL +1 for the race too. Since the only tag I could find which would remove the ECL was the race tag I had made for Aasimar, I thought that would be a work-around rather than the "correct" way (assuming there is one for what I cooked up, of course).

Originally Posted by mgehl

For the damage resistances, what you want to do is add the bootstraps "xDamRsFire", "xDamRsElec" and xDamRsAcid", and for each bootstrap, go into the tags button, and add the tag "Value" with a value of "5", since each resistance should be 5. You could either add those bootstraps directly to the race, or if you still want the resistances to show up in the list, go to each resistance thing and add the appropriate bootstrap. These items aren't in the list of racial special abilities yet - they're not currently set properly, so you'll have to go to the bootstraps button and add them manually.

I've attached a modified copy of your file - it includes the favored class fix I mentioned above, the resistances, and for the Lamashtu's mark feat, I've checked "Show in Specials List?" so that it will show up in the Special tab, and I've checked "Show in tracked resources list?" along with entering 1 in the "Total Charges" field, since the feat has a power that can be used 1/day. For the Aasimar's daylight power, I've unchecked show specials, and added the same charge - spell-like abilities aren't really important enough to display on the special tab, but do need an incrementer for their uses/day.

All of this is super awesome. Thank you again for taking the time to explain the logic behind the choices, especially! That is about a billion times more effective than just showing me "the answer" in code. Woot!

[Mathias]

Originally Posted by djc664

The spell DC of the special ability in the feat is linked to class levels, which should not include ECL. Can I just say that, as a player of an Aasimar Cleric from levels 1-17 in 3.5, I had a hell of a time figuring out ECLs.

So in my example, the DC should be 10 + (only the 5 levels (2 Fighter / 3 Cleric)) + Wisdom Bonus.

The best way I could figure out how to do this is using "#totallevelcount[]", which adds the ECL +1 for the race too. Since the only tag I could find which would remove the ECL was the race tag I had made for Aasimar, I thought that would be a work-around rather than the "correct" way (assuming there is one for what I cooked up, of course).

Use herofield[tHitDice].value instead of #totallevelcount[]. Oh, and you may want to download the conversion guide from their website - nothing else in the Pathfinder game has a save DC as high as 10 + level, I wouldn't be surprised if they made it 10 + 1/2 level.

[djc664]

Originally Posted by mgehl

Oh, and you may want to download the conversion guide from their website - nothing else in the Pathfinder game has a save DC as high as 10 + level, I wouldn't be surprised if they made it 10 + 1/2 level.

That's a curious observation. She'll be showing up and probably taken out in my game within two weeks - I'm sure the official answer won't be made before then.

For this particular feat on the particular situation, I might leave it at the higher DC... it's a temporary effect with no real lasting damage. Just spooks the PC.

[Z-Man]

I just wanted to find out if it's already possible to make a custom magic item other than a scroll. Am I missing something, or is this an issue currently being worked on??

[djc664]

Originally Posted by Z-Man

I just wanted to find out if it's already possible to make a custom magic item other than a scroll. Am I missing something, or is this an issue currently being worked on??

While I'm not the expert, I believe the answer is this:

No, you cannot currently make a custom magic item with the editor or program in general for the Pathfinder set.

Yes, it's something that will eventually get done. There is just WAY too much stuff which still needs to be added that everyone uses to focus on something that not necessarily everyone uses.

If you'd like to have your voice heard on when this is enable / becomes a priority, cast your vote here.