Birthright For Pathfinder for HL

[Sarelth]

I am working on a Pathfinder conversion of Birthright for HL, I am in the planning stage currently and seeing a few people on here that have been doing similar with others settings, I figured I would ask for advice before I start.

Cerilian Human - (Done)
--Anuirean - French/English
--Brecht - Germanic/Hanseatic
--Khinasi - Middle East/Morish
--Rjurik - Scottish/Norse/Viking
--Vos - Russian/Hun/Mongol

Cerilian Dwarf - Heavier Set than Vanilla (Done)
Cerilian Elf - Mostly identical to Vanilla (Done - Optional Spell list additions ToDo)
Cerilian Half-Elf - (Basic started)
Cerilian Halfling - Refugees from the Shadow Realm. (Done)
Cerilian Goblins - More civilized than some goblins (Basics done)
--Goblin
--Hobgoblin
--Bugbear
Cerilian Orog - Ancient enemy of Dwarves, this underground race hate sunlight and possesses great strength. (Done mostly, may need some tweaks)
Gnolls - (Vanilla, no work needed)
Awnsheghlien - Monsters created by the corruptive power of the Dark God Azrai. Each is Powerful and Unique. (Gonna be very difficult, May just do the Specific Awnsheglien then work on a way to make custom ones)

Domains, Gods and some spells done, still needs work.
Equipment - 3 New weapons

Cerilian Dragons Age Category Old and up basics done.

EDIT-
Added Feats, some spells and a few error corrections.

XML Update link, Has both my BRCS files and my D20 Despot files.

 

[Sarelth]

Dark clouds gather over the war-torn lands. Armies march to battle once again, answering the ancient call to arms. The banners of noble houses flutter raggedly before the onslaught; some will fall, but others will weather the storm. Across the ruined empires of Cerilia, the dogs of war are let loose. Somewhere on a muddy battlefield, a common man becomes a hero -and a hero becomes a king.

The BIRTHRIGHT campaign setting allows players to explore the grand scope of national politics as they guide their domains and influence the events of the continent of Cerilia on the world of Aebrynis. In this setting, the player characters are kings and nobles, prelates and guild-masters, great wizards and royal heralds. They're the leaders of their own kingdoms and domains, wielding the power to wage war or seek peace. At their command, armies march and kingdoms fall.

Most characters in the BIRTHRIGHT campaign are descended from heroes of old. These ancient heritages are called bloodlines. Scions of the bloodlines are gifted with abilities beyond those granted to the common folk of Cerilia, and over hundreds of years they've naturally risen to positions of power.

There is some quality of kingship, an aura or divine right, that calls to the ancient blood; most of Cerilia's rulers are blooded scions.

Bloodlines wax and wane in strength with the quality of a king's rule. Hundreds have been extinguished since the earthshaking wars that shaped modern Cerilia, while others have risen in prominence and power. There are also bloodlines of evil in Cerilia, descended from the forces of darkness that besieged the land in the dawn of history. These powerful adversaries are known as the awnsheghlien (aun-SHEY-lin), an Elven word meaning "Blood of Darkness."

There is far more to the BIRTHRIGHT campaign setting then political conflict. Cerilia is plagued by dangerous natural predators, bandits and pirates, tribes of humanoid marauders, and the dark forces of the awnsheghlien. Naturally, these perils are only a distant threat to people residing in the Anuirean heartland or in a Khinasi city-state, but wild mountains and deep forests - and their dangerous denizens - are no more than a few week's ride from even the most civilized parts of Cerilia.

----
Has some similarities to the King Maker Adventure Path, which I will be using to update the setting to Pathfinder as well as any other material I can find that I feel suits the theme and feel of the setting. Suggestions are welcome as to what sources I should look at for ideas. Please feel free to post thoughts and critics.

 

[Sarelth]

Working on fixing the Dwarves to the Birthright standard, they get an ability called Increased Density: DR 5/ Slash or Pierce. How exactly would I go about adding that?

Found the DR script but am not sure how to go about setting it correctly...

~until we've set a positive value, there's nothing we can do
doneif (field[abUserVal].value <= 0)

~this script reminds the user to select a value for this ability, so
~the doneif just above represents the failure condition
@valid = 1

~because I don't want "DR 10/evil" or "Damage Reduction (10/evil)" to
~show up in the list of DR types that the user selects for this item,
~I've set this up rather oddly - the user selects the DRs as things,
~and then this script finds the corresponding pick and modifies that.

~if we've selected a first DR, apply our value to that
if (field[usrChosen1].ischosen <> 0) then
  perform hero.findchild[Ability,field[usrChosen1].chosen.tagids[thingid.?]].setfocus
  if (state.isfocus <> 0) then
    focus.field[abValue].value = maximum(focus.field[abValue].value,field[abUserVal].value)
    field[livename].text = focus.field[shortname].text
    perform state.clearfocus
    endif
  ~if we've selected a 1st DR, the second one is optional
  perform assign[Helper.NoPick]
  endif

~if we've selected a second DR, apply our value to that
if (field[usrChosen2].ischosen <> 0) then
  perform hero.findchild[Ability,field[usrChosen2].chosen.tagids[thingid.?]].setfocus
  if (state.isfocus <> 0) then
    focus.field[abValue].value = maximum(focus.field[abValue].value,field[abUserVal].value)
    field[livename].text = splice(field[livename].text,focus.field[shortname].text," and ")
    endif
  endif

field[livename].text = "DR/" & field[livename].text & " " & field[abUserVal].value

 

[ShadowChemosh]

Working on fixing the Dwarves to the Birthright standard, they get an ability called Increased Density: DR 5/ Slash or Pierce. How exactly would I go about adding that?

Most Things use generic fields called "abValue". So DR is the same but also we have macros pre-built (stuff that starts with #) that let us add standard abilities very easily. Its also best to find abilities that "give" such DR instead of going directly after the DR thing.

So in this case Take a look at a demon that gets DR. In this case you have two different options. You can write a script to give the DR or you can bootstrap.

I like scripts so we will go this way to start. Click on "Eval Scripts" on your Racial Special and add a new script. Set the Phase/Priority to Pre-Levels/10000 this is called "Timing".

[B][COLOR="Green"]~ Give creature DR/5 Piercing or Slashing[/COLOR][/B]
#applydr[[B]TYPE_IN_YOUR_UNIQUE_ID_HERE[/B],5]

Now then you have to replace "TYPE_IN_YOUR_UNIQUE_ID_HERE" with the correct Unique ID. How do you do that? Great question!

In the script window click on "Find Thing..." button. In the text are where it says "Type here to search" enter "damage reduction" and a list of all the different Damage Reduction Things will be shown including the unique id. Once you find DR Piercing/Slashing you can click "Insert ID" to get the Unique ID back into your script.

P.S. - Apply macros are designed to help with stacking. As DR does not normally stack the #applydr[] macro is going to make sure if two abilities give DR that only the highest one applies to the race.

 

[Sarelth]

Something did not work right. It gave the ability. But it has to be chosen?

Sample 1
Sample 2

 

[Sarelth]

I think I see what I did. Got it working, but the Ability name is Red? The error message doesn't say why.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

Click on "Eval Scripts" on your Racial Special and add a new script.

Based on your pictures above you added an "Eval Rules" not an "Eval Script". Eval Rules allows for adding logic to have a script do "something" and display an error message.

You just want an "Eval Script" so that we just run the script without doing any error messages/warnings.

 

[Sarelth]

Yeah, I fixed that, but the ability still shows up as red and ten my next problem is adding a swim check penalty. I would probably be better at this if I went to bed... I like the occassional 2 day binge though....

 

[ShadowChemosh]

Yeah, I fixed that, but the ability still shows up as red and ten my next problem is adding a swim check penalty. I would probably be better at this if I went to bed... I like the occassional 2 day binge though....

2 days. Yikes!

Maybe post your .user file so I can take a look. You made sure you totally removed the Eval Rule script not just blanked it out?

 

[Sarelth]

Pretty sure. Here is my file. I took out my wanky attempt at a skill penalty.

Well, not 2 days yet, been up for about a day and a half. Just starting to get tired now. Been having fun figuring things out, well trying to.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

Pretty sure. Here is my file. I took out my wanky attempt at a skill penalty.

Well, not 2 days yet, been up for about a day and a half. Just starting to get tired now. Been having fun figuring things out, well trying to.

Sometimes when working with stuff that is bootstrapped its best to do a "CTRL-R" to reload the whole game system. Also make sure you don't build a test .por file that you keep reusing as again this can cause strange results.

Cause I installed the above .user file and it is all working fine. No issues that I can see. The DR is showing up and so is the ability. No error/warning messages.

 

[Sarelth]

Its all good now. I think I was just forgetting to refresh the test char i was using. I use "CTRL-R" and a new character every time, may have been lacking brain power from the need for sleep...

I think I got the -4 to swim checks figured out. Just double checking and then moving on to the Elf race.

 

[Sarelth]

Is there a way to add spells to a spell list by race?
I am guessing I would have to create new versions of the spells in question and then add the Racial Requirement to each one...

Variant: Elven nature magic affinity
Due to their affinity with nature elves (and half-elves when raised by elves) can add the following spells to any arcane casting spell list they have:
0-Level: Create Water;
1st-Level: Calm Animals, Charm Animal, Detect Snares and Pits, Entangle, Goodberry, Hide from Animals, Longstrider, Magic Fang, Magic Stone, Pass without Trace, Shillelagh;
2nd-Level: Animal Messenger, Barkskin, Hold Animal, Reduce Animal, Soften Earth and Stone, Tree Shape, Warp Wood, Wood Shape;
3rd-Level: Diminish Plants, Dominate Animal, Magic Fang, Greater, Meld into Stone, Plant Growth, Quench, Snare, Spike Growth, Wind Walk,
4th-Level: Air Walk, Antiplant Shell, Command Plants, Giant Vermin, Spike Stones;
5th-Level: Awaken, Commune with Nature, Control Winds, Tree Stride, Wall of Thorns;
6th-Level: Ironwood, Liveoak, Repel Wood, Spellstaff, Stone Tell, Transport via Plants;
7th-Level: Animate Plants, Changestaff, Transmute Metal to Wood, Wind Walk;
8th-Level: Animal Shapes, Control Plants, Repel Metal or Stone;
9th-Level: Shambler.
This does not provide any bonus spells it only adds more options to arcane spellcasting classes for elves. The spells are added to the appropriate spell list at the spell level indicated.

 

[AndrewD2]

You'll have to create a foreach on the race that checks through each class helper with the CasterSrc.Arcane and then assign the appropriate spell tag to the helper.

something like

~loop through all Arcane casting class
foreach pick in hero from BaseClHelp where "CasterSrc.Arcane"
   perform eachpick.assign[ClAllowSp."IDOFSPELL"
   ~copy previous line for each spell added
nexteach

Like pre-levels 5000 probably

 

[Mathias]

So, what search terms are you looking for in this case - how about "spell list"?

Using that search term, I find the following feats that look similar: Shade of the Uskwood, Sahir-Afiyun

If you don't have the books those are from, take a look at some of the other feats that search term finds - the rest add variable spells, but they all use the same mechanism - the others just look up the information about what spell to add from what the user picks, instead of having a fixed list, so they may be more difficult to interpret.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

Is there a way to add spells to a spell list by race?
I am guessing I would have to create new versions of the spells in question and then add the Racial Requirement to each one...

You would need to modify the "spell expression" to specifically add these spells. The only issue is you would also need to figure out if a class was a Spontaneous or a Book arcane caster. Then correctly modify the right spell expression.

Honestly as your just starting out I would put that one to the side for now actually. It can be done but your talking about a more advanced script. So let your skills grow some and then come back to it at a later time.

If you really want to try now. Then you may wish to look at THIS thread where someone else was modifying a spell list.

 

[Sarelth]

Thanks for the pointers on the Spell list issue, I think I will come back to that as Shadow suggests, it is not all that important at the moment and is listed as a variant ability. I want to add it eventually, but I figure move on to more basics before trying confusing things.

Working on Equipment right now.
Not a lot of new stuff from the setting really.
Main-Gauche Dagger brings up a question though. The description lists them as granted an additional +1 shield bonus if used with Two-Weapon Defense feat or when fighting defensively. Is it possible to add this modifier?

 

[AndrewD2]

Yeah you'll have to check and see when the ability is active and give a +1 to the armor bonus field

 

[Sarelth]

Have not found a Armor Bonus field on weapons... Looking for items that do similar is finding nothing also. Is there a tutorial page for editing items?

 

[AndrewD2]

Whoops wasn't paying attention that it's a dagger but what you can do is add to the bonus on the ArmorClass thing or better get look at the Two-Weapon Defense code and you'll see that it's using field[abValue] to add to the shield bonus so you could instead put a script on the weapon that increases the value of the abValue field on Two-Weapon Defense.