Removing/Hiding Golarion Content

[AWizardInDallas]

I searched through the forums for this information, but the advice in prior posts appears to be out of date, since HL has had a few updates. I would like to hide all Golarion content as I'm migrating to my homebrew game world. I specifically and especially want to start by removing languages and deities.

I read about "hiding" and "precluding" as well, but wasn't sure how this is done either. I'm assuming this is done in a text editor rather than in the editor? Are there any step-by-step instructions somewhere if that's how it's done?

Thanks.

[TobyFox2002]

Well, my community content has many precludes built in, allowing you to hide content from other books. From what you are describing it sounds like your version uses entirely new sets of races/classes etc.

Both preclude and hide are options in the editor on the general tab. You can preclude an item by entering its Thing ID and then the source ID. The source ID lets the program know that "when this source is selected, this Thing does not load."

However, the thing you need to be aware of is this, when you preclude something it is prevented from compiling at all; so any Thing you have that requires that, bootstraps or contains a reference to it will possibly fail to run.

So you need to test this quite a good deal to make sure it doesn't break your files.

I don't know much about hide. I think it functions much in the same way.

[ShadowChemosh]

Originally Posted by AWizardInDallas

I read about "hiding" and "precluding" as well, but wasn't sure how this is done either. I'm assuming this is done in a text editor rather than in the editor? Are there any step-by-step instructions somewhere if that's how it's done?

Done in the editor.

As TobyFox2002 said you can use the editor to exclude each Thing one at time. Meaning to get everything you need to have EVERY license in HL.

For the community Pack I found it easier to use the HideDeiCat.? tag and assign it to the Hero at First/10000.

Here is an example script for the community Eberron system that hides all non-Eberron deities:

      ~ Find all non-Eberron deities
      foreach thing in Deity where "!DeityCat.S2Eberron & !thingid.deiAtheist & !thingid.deiOther"

        ~ If no deity category then pull the thingid
        If (eachthing.tagcount[DeityCat.?] = 0) Then
          perform eachthing.pulltags[thingid.?,HideDeity]
        ~ If we have a category then pull the cateogry only
        ~ if we have not already pulled it.
        Else
          If (eachthing.intersect[DeityCat,DeityCat] = 0) then
            perform eachthing.pulltags[DeityCat.?]
          Endif
        Endif  
      nexteach

      ~ Create Hide Deity Catagory tags
      perform pulltags[DeityCat.?,HideDeiCat]
      ~ Push the hide deity tags to the hero
      perform hero.pushtags[HideDeiCat.?]
      perform hero.pushtags[HideDeity.?]

Just change the DeityCat.S2Eberron to match the Deity Category you setup for your home brew deities.

[AWizardInDallas]

Originally Posted by TobyFox2002

Well, my community content has many precludes built in, allowing you to hide content from other books. From what you are describing it sounds like your version uses entirely new sets of races/classes etc.

Both preclude and hide are options in the editor on the general tab. You can preclude an item by entering its Thing ID and then the source ID. The source ID lets the program know that "when this source is selected, this Thing does not load."

However, the thing you need to be aware of is this, when you preclude something it is prevented from compiling at all; so any Thing you have that requires that, bootstraps or contains a reference to it will possibly fail to run.

So you need to test this quite a good deal to make sure it doesn't break your files.

I don't know much about hide. I think it functions much in the same way.

Thanks for your reply. I experimented yesterday and discovered that hiding an individual item essentially doesn't work because of all the dependencies. I tried the extreme example of hiding Dwarven (the language) and HL didn't like that one bit--massive list of errors. I tried hiding Dwarf too (which worked), but every monster that speaks dwarf essentially threw an error. So essentially, it isn't possible to customize HL for a homebrew world without a huge amount of impractical work.

[TobyFox2002]

Originally Posted by AWizardInDallas

Thanks for your reply. I experimented yesterday and discovered that hiding an individual item essentially doesn't work because of all the dependencies. I tried the extreme example of hiding Dwarven (the language) and HL didn't like that one bit--massive list of errors. I tried hiding Dwarf too (which worked), but every monster that speaks dwarf essentially threw an error. So essentially, it isn't possible to customize HL for a homebrew world without a huge amount of impractical work.

The Dark Sun converted content effectively does what you are suggesting. I would suggest you check it out.

[Exmortis]

You can also use the "replace" feature in the editor.

For my custom game worlds I use the specific .por setup, which has as much of the Golarion content disabled, and for what is left I use the "replace Thing ID".

So for my version of the Dwarf, I do not preclude or hide the Dwarf, I "replace" it with my version. This gets past all the problems with preclude or other dependencies.

However this can become a bit of a spider web. So I recommend if you do indeed do this, track it in the history journal of your user file. Mine is very straight forward, but it never hurts to track what replaces what in case of problem down the road.

So far, I have had very few issues with this, but mileage may vary. It is just another tool in the belt to use when/if required.

[Silveras]

Something else to keep in mind is that, if you're messing with the core races ( Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Halfling, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, and Human) and their languages, you're not messing with specifically "Golarion" content. They're in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook to be world-neutral (mostly.. the deities in the Core RB are the Golarion deities).

The Pathfinder RPG line (mostly the hard-cover rulebooks) are world-neutral, but they assume the common and new races. You can easily not use books like the Advanced Race Guide, for example, in order to not have races you don't want.

The Golarion-specific content generally comes in the Adventure Path, Pathfinder Player Companion, and Pathfinder Campaign Setting product lines... and they can easily be left out by not enabling them.

I've been in a similar situation.. I started looking to replace the standard Dwarves, Elves, etc., and their languages, with my slightly-modified versions. Ultimately, I decided that I was losing more than I was gaining in doing so (bug fixes, for example, would not be applied to my modified versions). Depending on just how different your homebrew world is, you may find it more useful to just use the core races and focus on adding your own custom Feats, Races, etc. This is especially true if you want to use the Feats and such from the world-neutral RPG line... you may find yourself frequently "fixing" new content that "broke" because of how you modified the Core material.