World is Square house rules

I am pleased to announce the initial release of the World is Square house rules for Hero Lab.

These rules eliminate a number of feat taxes by granting a bunch of bonus feats, and combining other feats (mainly combat maneuvers). The basic ideas were spelled out by Michael Iantorno in a blog post, and further developed in his Yavmir campaign setting.

The rule set I've put together is based mostly on the blog, with a couple of minor variations. Set up procedures, usage, and the full gory details of what all was added/changed/removed are spelled out in:

The Download Page

That includes an update channel for the package.

Please post any bug reports or questions in this thread. Hope these are useful!

I have found a small bug, that even when the use NPC option (so npcs use normal rules), is selected weapon focus, weapon specialization and their greater versions use the Fighter weapon categories and not the normal individual weapon choices.

--Edit:

I have found that most of the no feat tax versions of the feats are being added to NPC characters. Which mostly works, but in the case of the Focus/Spec feats creates some funky results. In the feat selection list there are often duplicated entries of some feats which creates some confusion as to which feat to chose. I will try and make a list of all the feats as I come across them.

I think I may be confused as to what you were after when you suggested the "NPCs pay feat taxes" option.

Here's how I set it up:

1) I used the *Preclude tab to preclude the normal versions of the feats when the WiS rules are active.

2) I used the Mechanics tab to grant a bunch of bonus feats: Deadly Aim, Combat Expertise, Power Attack, Weapon Finesse, Point-Blank Shot, and Agile Maneuvers.

3) I set up the "NPCs pay feat taxes" option to disable the granting of the bonus feats, but nothing else. So if an NPC wants, say, Power Attack, they have to spend a feat to get it, but they still have access to the newer combined feats like Powerful Maneuvers.

Could you please describe in a bit more detail how you expect the "NPCs pay feat taxes" option to behave?

I have to say I love this.

However, I've found a bug that, while not totally breaking the usability, could be a pain in some instances.

* Monks, Unchained Monks and Brawlers, who normally get Improved Unarmed Strike for free, shows the Unarmed Strike weapon as non-lethal damage.

I also just realized that the Weapon Focus feat is missing the +1 BAB requirement.....

So awesome that I found this before taking the time to slowly implement this on my own. Some observations on first use:

- Some things that grant bonus feats with replaced feats (Kapenia Dancer grants Weapon Focus (Bladed Scarf) as a bonus feat) do not grant the new Weapon Focus (flails) feat, Not sure if this is fixable, but might be worth a note about it.

That's a good point. I'll take a look and see what I can do about that. It might take a modified version of the archetype that would be active with WiS rules are turned on.

I hate to necro a thread, but this is exactly on the point i was looking for. Would there be some way of altering this so you can activate only some of these house rules? Basically our group is wanting to incorporate either all of them one at at time until we get used to them or try them, or might only want to incorporate some. (especially the weapon grouping ones) is this possible?
I would have a bash myself by my coding abilities are about 20 years rusty and studying law doesnt leave me much time to learn to code again!

Anyone using this mod on Hero Lab for iPad?

I am able to use this mod on HL for desktop but when I try to use on HL for iPad I get exception rules for the no-feat tax options. When I try to change my character setup to choose the no-feat tax option I can't find it as an option. If I try to click on User Content, this is not an option either.

Anyone have this working on HL for iPad?

Thx

I noticed a slight issue with this. The replacement Weapon Focus feat is missing the Helper.AnimCompOK tag, so it is not showing in the list of available feats for animal companions anymore. Should be an easy fix to add it.

@Gragan Maaaaybe. I'll have to go back and look at how I did it.

@lacker I have no idea if it works on iPad -- I haven't got one to test it. Anybody?

@Fuzzy I'll see if I can fix that this evening when I get home.

I realize this is a bit off-topic from the currently, discussed issue. But, I'm currently running a Mythic game and while I understand that the rules were never set up to work with mythic versions of the feats. There are some issues regarding how it the no feat tax rules interacts with the mythic versions of the feats.

Especially those that require you to select a weapon such as Mythic improved critical. Which actually seem to produce errors because you cannot select weapons properly.

Fix Found - My User Error

So for those who may use an iPad and want to use the No Feat Tax system... it DOES work with the iPad.

My error was in not selecting the WiS software to download to my iPad (under licenses, update software).

Since my character was created on my laptop using No Feat Tax it was readily accepted on my iPad once the software was loaded.

Happy camper now !

I sat down tonight to start looking at some revisions to these. Here's my to-do list.

[ ] Give Unarmed Combatant to Monks, Unchained Monks, and Brawlers
[ ] Make Weapon Focus require BAB at +1
[ ] Investigate the possibility of turning on and off individual feats
[X] Make Weapon Focus work for animal companions
[ ] Figure out Mythic Improved Critical issues, which are super weird

I also thought I would go looking for archetypes and other abilities that might need to be modified. For example, a Ranger with the two-handed combat style can still select Power Attack as a bonus feat even though it's already been supplied by WiS. Similarly, a Feral Child Druid is supposed to Improved Unarmed Strike, which should be converted to Unarmed Combatant.

I made it through every option listed for the core classes on d20pfsrd. That includes: Barbarian rage powers, Cleric domains and subdomains, Ranger combat styles, Rogue talents, Sorcerer bloodlines, Wizard schools, and all archetypes for all core classes.

At that point my list was 82 items long, and I know for a fact I missed several because I overlooked Deadly Aim and Improved Steal early in the process.

... yeah, I think I'm going to fix those when somebody complains about them. I don't really want to go through and rewrite a major chunk of the entire Pathfinder system.

So I'll work on this shorter list, probably tomorrow night. I already added Helper.AnimCompOK to Weapon Focus, so it works for animal companions now. (Note: I haven't pushed out an update yet, I'll do that once the above checklist is done.)

[X] Give Unarmed Combatant to Monks, Unchained Monks, and Brawlers
[X] Make Weapon Focus require BAB at +1
[ ] Investigate the possibility of turning on and off individual feats
[X] Make Weapon Focus work for animal companions
[ ] Figure out Mythic Improved Critical issues, which are super weird
[ ] Grant Weapon Focus (Flails) to Kapenia Dancer magus archetype

Some progress. I got Unarmed Combatant onto monks, unchained monks, and brawlers with no particular difficulty.

Weapon Focus now complains if you take it without having a BAB of +1 or higher.

I started looking into the Mythic Improved Critical issue, and staggered out feeling rather dizzy a couple hours later. That sucker is complicated.

To clear my head, I thought I'd go work on granting Weapon Focus (Flails) as a bonus feat to Kapenia Dancers, who ordinarily get Weapon Focus (Bladed Scarf). The logical approach was to use a Mechanic that checked for the appropriate archetype and bootstrapped the feat on if so, then gave it skippreq.

The original Weapon Focus uses the tag Target.? to auto-assign a value to a bootstrapped feat. For example, tagging the feat with Target.wBite gives you Weapon Focus (Bite). My own Weapon Focus doesn't share much code with the original, so I set out to replicate that feature. And it works! Mostly.

I created a new tag GTarget, and tagged the bootstrapped feat with GTarget.Flails. Okay so far. After banging my head at it for a while, I even got it to correctly pick up the targeted weapon group from GTarget.?. It correctly applies the +1 bonus and tags the hero as having Weapon Focus with all weapons in the Flail group. Mechanically, everything is working fine.

Buuut ... the UI doesn't work so well. My sample Kapenia Dancer winds up with Weapon Focus (-No Selection-) and a validation error saying to choose an option for Weapon Focus, even though she's getting the bonus applied correctly. I've gone over and over the code for the original Weapon Focus, and I'm stumped.

How do I inform the drop-down selector that it should be set to Flails? And, preferably, not allowed to change?

Why do you need to create the new GTarget tag group? I'd simply use a script to find the copy of weapon focus bootstrapped by Kapenia Dancer, then at an early timing switch the Target tag it has.

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the Target tag only allow for specific weapons? Under the World is Square rules, Weapon Focus applies to weapon groups. I need to be able to say something like "Target.Flails" or "Target.BladesHeavy", but the compiler complained about non-existent tags when I tried that.

I tried extending the Target tag by adding the groups as options in my .1st file, but then the compiler complained about a duplicate id "Target", which is perfectly reasonable. So I shrugged and made it "GTarget" for "Group Target".

So basically they all get the benefit of the following feat from ARG:

Martial Versatility
You further broaden your study of weapons to encompass multiple similar weapons.

Prerequisites: Fighter level 4th, human.

Benefit: Choose one combat feat you know that applies to a specific weapon (e.g., Weapon Focus). You can use that feat with any weapon within the same weapon group.

I'd say copy that and see how it modifies whatever feat it selects. Then your mechanic can do the same modification, but for every copy of weapon focus on the hero.

That part is already working. I have a fully coded weapon focus that allows you to select a weapon group instead of a specific weapon. I've used a *Preclude rule to suppress the standard weapon focus when the World is Square rules are active.

The preclude rule, however, poses a problem in cases where an archetype grants weapon focus as a bonus feat. For example, the Kapenia Dancer archetype of the Magus class gives you Weapon Focus (bladed scarf) at level 1. Because the standard weapon focus has been precluded, characters with that archetype do not receive the bonus feat they are entitled to.

In order to correct that, I'm using a Mechanic that checks for the appropriate archetype tags and bootstraps the modified weapon focus feat instead. For example, a Kapenia Dancer would get Weapon Focus (Flails) instead of (bladed scarf) because a bladed scarf is in the flails weapon group.

That's where it breaks down. I can bootstrap my feat to the archetype just fine, but so far I haven't been able to pre-select flails. It always bootstraps the base feat with no group selected, when I need it to grant it with one specific group already set.

The original weapon focus solves this by tagging the feat with Target.Whatever when it is bootstrapped, and then its eval script uses that instead of usrChosen1 to determine the selection. I'm trying to do the same. My code is at home, I'll post it after work.

On a final note, this missive is probably the longest thing I've ever typed on my phone. Not a fan of tapping away on a teeny screen for long compositions!

Alright, so if I understand correctly, you have all the mechanics working how you want, you just need to force a selection. You tried adding a new tag group which shared Target's group ID, but that ran into duplication errors. Target is a dynamic tag group though, so you are free to make new ones at will with whatever Tag IDs you want. As long as it is defined on something in a common file, the tag should be usable.

Try this. Create an ability which isn't added anywhere, purely to store the new Target tags you'll define. Then define them on this ability, making sure to set the name attribute when defining.


Then when you bootstrap the copy of weapon focus, use these newly defined tag. Because there isn't a matching unique ID for the Target tag, the feat won't do anything itself, but it will look right, and if I understand correctly you've already worked around that somehow.