creating an "outsider" monster class

[rdevelyn]

- and others.

Wasn't sure if this was supposed to be a monster class, but I've created successfully as a normal class.

The only problem is that if I have something with, say, 10 levels of outsider, then I have to fill in the hit points 10 times.

Doing this seems better, to me, than sticking in the outsider levels as monster hit dice since hero lab works out all the common outsider stuff automatically for me (like saves, special abilities, and so on). What I tend to do for monsters at present (and there may be better ways) is define a monster race and a monster hero, where the latter having the race (defined without monster class benefits) plus however many levels of outsider (or whatever) they should have.

Does this make sense?

Can I also ask - how do we make sure that any ids we use do not clash with any future releases of Hero Lab.

Cheers

Richard

[Mathias]

Currently, monsters should be created using just the race component. - there's a hit dice field there, and you enter the BAB/saves/feats that you get for that HD level. Unfortunately, it doesn't support advancement by HD, but it's a heck of a lot faster to enter the stats than it would be to create something for each creature type.

Whenever I get to the advancement by HD project, when it comes out, you'll be deleting your HD class thing anyway, and remaking all your races, so I don't think unique ID's will be a problem.

One idea that was suggested over in the d20 files was to use your initials as part of the prefix, so a race you created would start with: raRD.

[rdevelyn]

Actually, you know, there aren't that many creature types, and I find it quicker to build the Outsider class once than to do it for every different outsider.

I also find myself spotting errors in the Pathfinder Bestiary (!).

Creating a monster in any case seems to be a two stage process - 1st the race, then an enemy based on that race. You need the second part in order to set skills, feats and equipment. Then, well, if you're going to be doing it in two parts, why not go the whole hog and give it levels in its monster type class.

As far as prefixes, I don't think there's much point using my initials because no one else is going to be adding anything to my system anyway, and it chews up 4 of the 9 letters available. Is there any particular letter which you guarantee never to start an id with - like q or i or something?

Cheers

Richard

[Mathias]

Look through the races for familiars. That'll show you how to pre-assign the skills and feats (equipment can't be done that way, though).

Oh, and when you're done creating a bunch of monster portfolios (and have moved many to one portfolio), if you save the portfolio with a .stock extension rather than the default .por, and place it in the HeroLab/data/pathfinder folder, rather than the default HeroLab/portfolios/pathfinder, it'll be one of the stock portfolios available from the portfolio menu...import stock hero.

For everyone else - stock versions of all the monstrous races I add from the Beastiary will be part of the Beastiary project, so, yes, if you select "import stock hero" it will currently say "No stock portfolio exists for this game." - that'll hopefully be fixed in the next few weeks.

For d20, someone sells a book that is a corrected monster manual - there's just too many little details to get right on a monster, unless you use a computer, so I'm used to finding errors as I enter races. What's worse is the uncertainties - When entering the Strix race from Pathfinder 25, there's no mention in the monster entry's section on Strix as characters having any weapon proficiencies, but monstrous humanoids gain simple weapon proficiency according to pg 308 - so is this an exception that wasn't mentioned? Do they get the proficiency? Since they have no racial hit dice and advance by class, do they not get it because their class will give them the proficiency?

There aren't any letters I wouldn't start with - I seem to remember a monster called the Quiggoth, or something like that. It's actually 4 of the 10 characters allowed, and for the Pathfinder adventure paths, all that content has PF after the prefix, so I've gotten used to using only 6 or 7 characters to build an ID.