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Adding a Custom Race Permanently?

violatre

Member
How do I add a custom race permanently to the list of available races?
For instance, I want to add tieflings and (eberron) changelings to playable races.
Will this be addressed in a later update?
 
You can't do that yet. You have to wait until the planned editor is available.

Or use the Herolab Editor to create a race.

Never mind that I said this. Unfortunately this board does not allow one to delete one's stupididty.
 
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I'm kinda curious as to why Human is NOT a race option when building an NPC.

That is so weird. I wondered about that also. All the player races are like types or something that you choose as custom I believe. Its not intuitive as one would expect that they would just be in the normal race list.
 
If you mean the pre-built races list for NPCs, the Aeon Guard, Aeon Guard Specialist, Space Pirate Crew Member and Space Pirate Captain are all humans. To create a more generic human NPC, use -Custom Race-, and add the Humanoid type graft with the Human subtype graft.

Other than "-Custom Race-", everything in the list of races to choose from for an NPC is a complete character, with their array, grafts, skills, special abilities, etc. all already set (but you can suppress those choices and choose something else if you want to make a variant, like switching the Aeon Guard's fighting style from sharpshooter to bombard to make the grenadier for an Aeon Guard platoon.

Paizo has not published a sample statblock anywhere named "Human" or "Android" or "Half-Orc" that we can add to this list.
 
While I understand what you said, I still maintain that it is odd that I had to build a custom race for what is defined in the base rules as a normal race in the game. I view custom as something I would use to create something that just doesn't exist at all that I imagined as a GM or is from a new book, alternate site, etc... that I need to account for.
 
If you mean the pre-built races list for NPCs, the Aeon Guard, Aeon Guard Specialist, Space Pirate Crew Member and Space Pirate Captain are all humans. To create a more generic human NPC, use -Custom Race-, and add the Humanoid type graft with the Human subtype graft.

Other than "-Custom Race-", everything in the list of races to choose from for an NPC is a complete character, with their array, grafts, skills, special abilities, etc. all already set (but you can suppress those choices and choose something else if you want to make a variant, like switching the Aeon Guard's fighting style from sharpshooter to bombard to make the grenadier for an Aeon Guard platoon.

Paizo has not published a sample statblock anywhere named "Human" or "Android" or "Half-Orc" that we can add to this list.

So how would you re-create the basic gang member from "Incident at Absalom Station" as a HLO NPC?
 
So how would you re-create the basic gang member from "Incident at Absalom Station" as a HLO NPC?

Start by creating an NPC, and then open that new character.

Start on the Character section, profile tab.
Set either "Level 21 Crew Gang Member" or "Downside Kings Gang Member" as the character name
As the alignment, choose LE if this is one of the Level 21 Crew, or CE if this is one of the Downside Kings.

Move to the race tab
Race: Custom Race
CR: set this to 0 - looks like there's a bug, and we're not currently displaying the text version of the CR (for a simple implementation in HL, 0 means 1/2 and -1 means 1/3)
Size: leave at Medium
Adjustments to use: ignore this one - it won't alter anything since this character doesn't have both a class graft and a subtype graft (that this is being shown is a bug - it should be hidden unless there's both of those types of grafts on the character)
Languages: Common
Array: Combatant (since the AP doesn't have the combatant/expert/spellcaster symbols you'd see in alien archive, you have to guess at this, but it's simple enough to delete it and add a different one if you find the final stats don't line up).
Creature Type Graft: Humanoid
Click on Humanoid, and choose Reflex save as the one to get the +2
Creature Subtype Graft: Human
(there's a bug here - there's not a checkbox available to set this as a human race character, but if that were working, you'd click on the subtype once you added it, and check the "Human Race" box)
no class graft or template graft

Now, to the Abilities section, Ability Score tab
Set the bonuses for all the ability scores to what's listed in the statblock

Skills Tab
Set Perception to Master (note that in Starfinder statblocks, Perception is not listed among the rest of the skills, only at the top).
Athletics: Good
Bluff: Good
Intimidate: Master
Stealth: Good

Next, to the equipment section, weapons tab
Add an azimuth laser pistol
Add a club
click on the club, scroll down a ways until you find the Archaic weapon special property, and un-check its checkbox (as a reminder, Archaic weapons deal -5 damage to opponents wearing non-archaic armor, and since almost everything in the game falls into that category, in HL we apply that damage modifier by default, but in Paizo statblocks, they don't, so for archaic weapons, you have to turn that off to make the statblock match)

Armor tab
Add stationwear, flight suit
equip the armor

Now that all the basics are in place, on the top right of the screen, find the gear icon, and click that. Choose Generate Statblock, and once that comes up, click "Preview HTML" at the bottom.

(I noticed a bug in the statblock - it's not updating every time you open the statblock window - you apparently have to switch to text or BBCode or WikiText, and then back, in order to get it to update)

Okay, looking through that for mis-matches
Init is +4 in the statblock, +3 in HL
Perception is +10 in the statblock, +9 in HL
Bluff is +5 in the statblock, +5 in HL
Stealth is +5 in the statblock, +4 in HL

So, to apply those adjustments, go to the Character Section, Customize Race tab, and find Initiative on that - add +1 to that, so that it's +4.

Then, Abilities Section, Skills tab, click on Bluff, and find "Other Skill Bonuses" - set that to +1. This appears to be bugged right now, because it's not adjusting the final value, but that's on our to-do list.

Repeat that for Stealth and Perception.

Another bug is that you can't easily set the amount of cash the character is carrying.

Other than the bugs I've mentioned, I believe the statblock HL generates should now match the statblock in the book.

As an alternative to adjusting three different skills, you might choose to add the "Skilled" ability on the Character section, customize race tab, in the "Adjustment Special Abilities" table. That will take up the unused ability slot that this character isn't making use of, and will make three of the character's 5 skills match, but it will create a mis-match on Athletics and intimidate. I'm not sure what the adventure writer meant to do here, when this NPC was written, and I'm not sure which of those options is better to make HL match what's listed in the book, since the character in the book isn't exactly following the recommended skills and abilities from the NPC creation rules in AA.
 
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I am guessing that those asking the questions have not read the monster creation rules from Alien Archive yet. Remember a NPC is NOT built using PC rules at all. Its put together the stats you need to represent the monster you want the players to interact with.

You don't start with a Human and add class levels. You start with a type Humanoid, subtype Human, etc...

This is page 126 of the AA:
Step 1: Select Array
Step 2: Creature Type Graft
Step 3: Creature Subtype Graft
Step 4: Class Graft
Step 5: Template Graft
Step 6: Special Abilities
Step 7: Skills
Step 8: Spells
Step 9: Final Check

No step for "select race" (ie Human). :(

I just used HLO to create the Gang Members from first part of Dead Suns:

Absalom Station Gang Member CR 1/2
XP 200
CE Medium humanoid (human)
Init +3; Perception +10
--------------------
Defense HP 13
--------------------
EAC 10; KAC 12
Fort +2; Ref +4; Will +0
--------------------
Offense
--------------------
Speed 30 ft.
Melee club +2 (1d6-3 B)
Ranged azimuth laser pistol +6 (1d4 F; critical burn 1d4)
--------------------
Statistics
--------------------
Str +2; Dex +3; Con +1; Int -1; Wis +0; Cha -1
Skills Bluff +5, Intimidate +9, Stealth +5
Gear flight suit stationwear, azimuth laser pistol with 1 battery (20 charges), club, credstick (worth 150 cr), credstick (worth 150 cr)

Hero Lab and the Hero Lab logo are Registered Trademarks of LWD Technology, Inc. Free download at http://www.wolflair.com
Pathfinder® and associated marks and logos are trademarks of Paizo Inc.®, and are used under license.
------------------------------------------------

Seems to match to the AP. I did have to use adjustments on the skills and I can't tell if that is a HLO bug or just Paizo making math mistakes in the statblock like normal. Something I need to look into is I can't get HLO to print Athletics skill. It also printing the credstick twice. Some stuff for me to report as a bug.

But the rest is matching to the rules.
 
-Custom Valuable-, on the Other Purchases table is the workaround that's currently available for money on an NPC

There should be a location where you can just type in the amount of money to add to the NPC, which will add "credstick (the appropriate amount)" to the end of the Gear section on the NPC.
 
Thanks to both Mathias and ShadowChemosh. Your individual posts really help in understanding how that is working. I own AA, but admit I had not been using it since the majority of creatures in the APs have been in the module itself. I will recheck my created NPCs making sure to follow these rules as that may fix some of the bugs I reported to Mathias.
 
OK. I retested and the steps outlined do help. Still some confusion on how AP authors figured out their NPCs. Salask for instance has 2 abilities (Expert Sniper and Trailblazer) that I had to create as custom. Stats matched up though, so that is good. Whiskered Renkroda however I redid and Tail Swipe is still incorrect in HLO as 1d6 instead of 1d8. I am assuming that will be the same issue with the other weapons from creatures there that didn't match. Mathias, You asked me for some examples which I sent back to you earlier this week. If you need that again, please let me know.
 
Whiskered Renkroda however I redid and Tail Swipe is still incorrect in HLO as 1d6 instead of 1d8.

Can you increase the die type in the customization area?

Edit: Now that I've been able to log back in to HLO, yes, Customization will allow the die type to be increased to d8. However can't change the attack bonus for the tail, which should be 3 lower.
 
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In my opinion, the Renkroda has some mistakes in the book - the attack bonus being 3 lower than the bite suggests that this is supposed to be using the Brute ability (from the "Adjustment Special Abilities" table on the Customize Race tab (AA pg. 142, in the Adjustment Special Abilities section). But if it were using Brute, the damage bonus should be 2 higher, and the damage dice would be 2d6, not 1d8.

Remember that if a race is doing something really non-standard, something for which there wasn't a precedent in AA, we wouldn't have needed to add the option to customize things in that way for what's in HL so far, so the capability may not be available yet, but we'll need do so as part of adding the adventure path content for ourselves.
 
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OK, by adding in "Brute" and limiting the tail slap's damage dice to 1d8, it's close. Can't find a way to lower the damage bonus from +12 to +10, but I can live with that... Question is, can my players? LOL
 
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