Skills Tab - Apply Color to Incrementer

[Kendall-DM]

Does anyone know how I can apply a color to an incrementer on the Skills Tab? I like that the Class Skills are yellow, and the Cross-class Skills are gray. However, I've had something called General Skills in my game almost since the time I've had HL, where a Hero can have a skill that progresses like a class skill (1 skill point per) while having the maximum ranks of cross-class skill. It's worked really great so far, however one of the things I'd love to be able to do is to be able to recognize which ones are general skills in my HL. If I could give the incrementers a color, then I wouldn't have to click each cross-class skill to remember if it is general or not (since it will increment at 1 per, or go red at max cross-class ranks), or without having to go look it up on my website each time (the older I get, the less RAM I have).

Does anyone know if this is possible in HL through a script or otherwise?

[ShadowChemosh]

I looked into this quick and it really can't be done. Well it can but those "gold" is actually a bmp image. Not just a "color" that gets applied.

My recommendation would be to change the name of these General Skills or change their Livename field if these are existing. Then use the special "{super}General{/super}" so that it appears very small next to the name:
Noname.jpg

This is a skill I did a test with.

[Kendall-DM]

Nice idea ShadowChemosh, and while I like it, it unfortunately wouldn't work for my purposes. The skill is general for a class and not for all heroes, which is what that would imply. If I can't do it, I can't do it, outside of authoring my entire game system from scratch, and I don't have the time for that, though I often think about it. I've made due so far, so no big deal if it isn't feasible. Thanks!

[ShadowChemosh]

Originally Posted by Kendall-DM

Nice idea ShadowChemosh, and while I like it, it unfortunately wouldn't work for my purposes. The skill is general for a class and not for all heroes, which is what that would imply. If I can't do it, I can't do it, outside of authoring my entire game system from scratch, and I don't have the time for that, though I often think about it. I've made due so far, so no big deal if it isn't feasible. Thanks!

This is something where a "Mechanic" from Pathfinder would work out really well. I do plan to get that added soon to d20....

See a Mechanic is auto attached to all characters allowing global scripts to be run. So once I get this implemented what you can do is have a script that fires for when a specific class is found. Then it could change the livename.

Actually what script are you running now that changes the skills to be General? Why can't it be modified to simply change the livename?

Otherwise something like this:

~ If fighter class not live get out now!
doneif (hero.childlives[cHelpFtr] = 0)

~ Make Fighter Skills into General
hero.child[kClimb].field[livename].text = hero.child[kClimb].field[name].text & " {super}General{/super}".

More sophisticated would be to do create a "Procedure" with the logic. Then build a Simple Thing for each class and attach those to the Mechanic. Then set the "Skills" as Tags onto the Simple Thing. Then your Procedure can pull the tags into a where search expression and do a foreach loop.

That would give you a very generic and easy to implement method.

Just more ideas.

[Kendall-DM]

Because a multi-class doesn't necessarily know which of the skills gets the general skill selection. For example, Use Rope is a general skill for fighters in my campaign, while it is not for wizards. When I look at it in HL, a fighter/wizard would have it listed as a general skill, even when a wizard cannot select it as a general skill.

The code I have running has been converted as much as I can to a procedure (thanks for adding that btw). The rest is coded as class specific. Also, general skills are only available to the base classes in my campaign, so it can't apply to non-base classes.

If I remember correctly, as I wrote the code two plus years ago. I essentially look up the class index for the active class, and apply a 0.5 multiplier to the rank buy of a cross-class skill I've determined to be a general skill for that class.

[Dark Lord Galen]

Not sure if this is applicable but the approach might be similar.... I wanted to differentiate new crafts, skills, and knowledge's from the core choices so my players would know if they were "homebrew or in book". So I discovered you could add the HTML code color to the Editor file and it would display that color.
See below.



a list of codes (and there are many more extensive) can be found here>

As you can see, from the player point of view the added ones show up GREEN, the down side is they don't sort alphabetically due to the added coding.

just my 2cp
DLG

[ShadowChemosh]

Originally Posted by Dark Lord Galen

Not sure if this is applicable but the approach might be similar.... I wanted to differentiate new crafts, skills, and knowledge's from the core choices so my players would know if they were "homebrew or in book". So I discovered you could add the HTML code color to the Editor file and it would display that color.

That works also. Nice idea!

Just one FYI is the next release will have the words "Appears In:" at the bottom telling which Book or Source something is from. So that will also help in this area here to tell where something is coming from.

[Kendall-DM]

Originally Posted by Dark Lord Galen

Not sure if this is applicable but the approach might be similar.... I wanted to differentiate new crafts, skills, and knowledge's from the core choices so my players would know if they were "homebrew or in book". So I discovered you could add the HTML code color to the Editor file and it would display that color.

Yeah, I've known about this, I leverage it in a few occasions, especially for scripts I have running in the Tactical Combat console. Though it does give me an idea, wonder if I can 'color' the ranks in the incrementer. Highly doubtful, but I will take a look.

[Dark Lord Galen]

Originally Posted by Kendall-DM

Yeah, I've known about this, I leverage it in a few occasions, especially for scripts I have running in the Tactical Combat console. Though it does give me an idea, wonder if I can 'color' the ranks in the incrementer. Highly doubtful, but I will take a look.

Sounds like a plan... well maybe 12% .... let us know how it works out... would be curious and hopeful to cannibalize your efforts. hehe

[Dark Lord Galen]

Originally Posted by ShadowChemosh

That works also. Nice idea!

Just one FYI is the next release will have the words "Appears In:" at the bottom telling which Book or Source something is from. So that will also help in this area here to tell where something is coming from.

Shadow, that would be ... helpful, though I went with my approach as a stop gap that has now turned defacto at my table... the players know at a glance any that are green on the list are "new" and now they are spoiled.
As I know enough to be dangerous on HTML coding,,, I am curious as to the "Why" HL allows it in the first place? it is occurring before anything is compiled?