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Ability Focus Feat and Spell-Like Ability

P

Paris.Crenshaw

Well-known member
What is the field, tag, etc. I need to modify to tell HL that a spell-like ability can be chosen for use with the ability focus feat?

I have a creature whose stat block has a the feat Ability Focus (scrying). Scrying is one of its spell-like abilities. Unfortunately, none of the spell-like abilities show up as options in the feat's pulldown menu.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!
 
It's the Faerie Seer from Clockwork Gnome Publishing's "Along the Faerie Path".

They get scrying as a spell-like ability 3 times per day. The description says they have Ability Focus (scrying).

I would say that the feat only considers "attacks" which is what the feat says, but the pull-down menu would let me pick the creature's blindsight ability, so I'm not sure what the selection criterion is.
 
Oh, yeah. Sorry.

It's in Hero Lab. When I go into edit the hero (whose race has been chosen as "Faerie Seer"), I can give it the feat Ability Focus, then choose what ability it applies to.

The creature actually has the feat twice. The first time, it is applied to its aura. That works fine.

However, the second application of the feat is supposed to apply to its spell-like ability, but I can't select it for the character.
 
ShadowChemosh said:
Ability Focus is currently set to only apply to racial specials not Sp or Su abilities.

See THIS it should point you in the right direction.
Click to expand...

Thanks, ShadowChemosh. I made a copy of the Ability Focus feat and changed the custom expression, but it didn't change the feat's behavior.

Do I need to put that XML code somewhere? I'm not familiar with writing XML code at all, unfortunately.
 
The post I sent you to only makes it apply to Su abilities. You will have to find the Tag of the ability and apply that as part of the custom expression.

Change the "Custom Expression" section to be the following:
Code: 
component.RaceAbil|AbilType.Super|AbilType.XXXX

AbilType.XXXX is an example of the change so you will have to figure out what the XXXX tag is for your Thing. I don't remember the tags and won't be near HL for a long time. So all I can do here is point you in the right direction I am sorry to say...
 
ShadowChemosh said:
The post I sent you to only makes it apply to Su abilities. You will have to find the Tag of the ability and apply that as part of the custom expression.

Change the "Custom Expression" section to be the following:
Code: 
component.RaceAbil|AbilType.Super|AbilType.XXXX

AbilType.XXXX is an example of the change so you will have to figure out what the XXXX tag is for your Thing. I don't remember the tags and won't be near HL for a long time. So all I can do here is point you in the right direction I am sorry to say...
Click to expand...

In the custom expression, I made the change to read:
Code: 
component.RaceAbil|AbilType.Super|AbilType.SpellLike

There was no change in the behavior of the feat. I might have mistyped or something, but I don't think so. I'll double check when I get home.
 
The above custom expression didn't do anything. However, when I changed the expressin to

Code: 
component.RaceAbil|Helper.Super|Helper.SpellLike

all the abilities show up as desired.

The problem is, now the DC for the spell isn't adjusted. I think the issue is the field that gets adjusted. The eval script tells the feat to adjust the abDC value, but spells don't use that value. Spell Focus doesn't help, because it applies the bonus to a value called schDC, which applies to all the spells of a certain school of magic.

Is there a more up-to-date list of fields/tags available? I can't find what I'm looking for in the Editor help files.

Thanks!
 
Last edited:
I copied the Ability Focus feat, so I just changed to the user version of the phase. Otherwise, I left all the other settings the same.

Phase: Final Phase (users)
Priority: 10000
Timing: No timing information specified
 
I'm still not getting this to work. I'm pretty sure that the problem is that the Ability Focus feat applies the +2 bonus to "abDC".

I can't find the variable that goes with a spell-like ability's DC. The only things I've seen used are "schDC" which applies to an entire school.

Oddly, if I give the Faerie Seer the Spell Focus (Divination) and Greater Spell Focus (Divination), I get the +2 DC modifier I am looking for, but that also means that all divination spell DCs get that +2, which doesn't match the creature's description.
 
I've developed a temporary workaround for this creature, at least. I created a "Scrying" spell-like ability in the Racial Special Abilities area. Doing this, while setting it up as an SLA allows the original version of Ability Focus to see it, but the spell still shows up in the Spells tab as an SLA. It's not perfect, because that single spell shows up under the Racial Special Abilities in the Background tab, but that's not a big deal.
 
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