Track the Level an ability was added?
 

Hi -

I'm new to Hero Lab and I'm trying to work out within the Pathfinder game system how to track the level at which a Custom Ability was originally added (you pick 1 per level, in any order). This in turn will activate some bootstraps based on the difference between the level the ability was added and the number of class levels the Hero now has.

Hopefully that makes some sense!

Also, I'm struggling to create a new custom field - I can create User Tags and I've found some Fields called abUserVal and abValue that are all 0.

At this stage in my understanding, I could be doing this all wrong... please help!

thanks in advance.

We've used the incrementer option for the very rare abilities where the effects of the ability vary depending on the level at which it was taken - the user fills in the level they took it at.



You will not be able to define a new field that is added to an existing compset like Custom Ability in a packaged game system like PF1.

Thanks for confirming I can't add new fields. I'm working on a bootstrap condition that might work... it uses something like fieldval:xTotalLev - fieldval:xIndex >= 1. However, I can only get bootstrap conditions to work if I do something like "First 500" otherwise I get errors yet I don't believe these values are calculated until the Post-Level stage. Any tips on getting the sequencing of Bootstraps right?

I'll be able to help you better with the full rules than with a paraphrase. Hopefully there's a better way to approach this.

Okay, I'll try:

So the Class has 10 Levels.

Each Level you pick an Ability (Ability 1, Ability 2, Ability 3 etc.). These can be picked in any sequence.

Each Ability has 5 Tiers, which are also Hero Lab Custom Abilities.

At Level 1, you pick Ability 1, and you automatically get Tier 1 of that ability.

At Level 2, you pick Ability 2 (and Tier 1), but you also automatically get Tier 2 of Ability 1.

At Level 3, you pick Ability 3 (and Tier 1), but you also automatically get Tier 3 of Ability 1 and Tier 2 of Ability 2.

Eventually, at level 5, Ability 1 maxes out at Tier 5 as there are only 5 Tiers.

So:

Level | Ability 1 Tier | Ability 2 Tier | Ability 3 Tier
1 | 1 | - | -
2 | 2 | 1 | -
3 | 3 | 2 | 1
4 | 4 | 3 | 2


So the max tier of an ability can always be calculated as:

the Total Number of Levels - The order it was picked in.

And they're so different from tier 1 to tier 2 that they need to be separate bootstraps?

It seems easier to manage if you just have the effective level of each, and then calculate the effects based on that, without trying to bootstrap anything else.

There should be a table order field that will tell you what order they were taken in. Since in this case, they're added 1/level, then total level - that index = the tier of that particular ability.

Another route would be to have two configurables bootstrapped. Each configurable has 5 ability tables, so that'll cover all the selections. Then, you get one selection per table, and a new table gets a slot allowed at each level.

Thanks - I'll take a look at Configurables and try to understand them.

The Tiers are effectively separate abilities with completely different mechanics. e.g. One tier might grant a bonus feat, another might give a miscellaneous skill bonus to a specific skill.

The reason I went round the cascading bootstrap approach is bootstraps were the first thing I managed to figure out - it's total ignorance on my part! There's a lot I need to understand and this is only day 4.