(Drop Dead Studios) Spheres of Power: Official Support Thread

[TheIronGolem]

Those errors suggest to me that your core package is out of date. What version do you currently have? The Alteration book needs 1.19 or higher.

 

[Quintain]

It seems I'm out of date -- isn't there supposed to be a auto-update method to this?

 

[TheIronGolem]

There is, and the instructions on how to set that up are found in a readme file that should be included with the .hl file you received. If you haven't already followed those steps, do so (you'll need to do it for each package if you have more than one, because they all update independently). If you run into any trouble or don't have the readmes, PM me and we'll get this sorted out.

 

[Quintain]

Yeah, it looks like all my custom sources were lost somehow. I went through and re-downloaded everything from DriveThruRPG and put them in one by one. All good now.

 

[TheIronGolem]

Great! I do still recommend setting up the auto-updates, if you haven't already. Newer package versions are occasionally posted to Drivethru, but not nearly as often.

 

[EldritchWeaver]

Furthermore, DriveThru is using 1.19, not 1.20 for the core file. Other files are similarly out of date, which is bad for you because of many missing bugfixes.

 

[Ualaa]

It looks the General Drawbacks are not granting bonus spell points.

 

[Ualaa]

The alteration tab shows I am allowed extra traits from 'Greater Transformation' and 'Extreme Transformation' (twice)... 7 traits at Caster Level 19.

But the configured Shapeshifts does not like having more than four. While I can freely take as many traits as I'm entitled to, those shapeshifts are red in color for having more than the base 4, for a caster at 19th level without Greater/Extreme Transformation talents.

It does like Favored Form, and allows the extra trait within the configurable window from that feat.

 

[TheIronGolem]

The shapeshift form is strangely enough always active, even if the checkbox isn't active.

Haven't been able to reproduce this.

It would be nice, if you don't need to go into that extra dialog to activate a shapeshift. Can't you add a checkbox in the alteration tab?

I considered doing this early on, and decided against it for reasons I can no longer recall. I'll revisit this again.

The handling of the warshifter is a bit iffy. I had a character with Alteration sphere and Lycanthropic drawback before I chose your Warshifter (used my own implementation of warshifter before). Now a warshifter gets Alteration with Lycanthropic as a package, unless you have Alteration already. At which point you don't gain Lycanthropic. My character instead got Alteration and Lycanthropic both a second time. Alteration was easy to spot thanks to seeing both entries, upon which I could delete the manually chosen one. Lycanthropic instead remained a single entry. Only when tried to remove and readd it, I noticed the existence of the duplicate. Not sure if you can implement it differently.

For cases where you're not supposed to gain the drawback because you had Alteration prior to taking the class, there's a "No Lycanthropic Drawback" checkbox on the class tab. Not exactly a graceful solution I realize, but it's necessary because HL doesn't know when you took a given class or talent, so it has to rely on your judgment as to whether you should get the drawback or not.

As for the extra Alteration Sphere talent, that's a convergence of quirks. The sphere-access talents are now Add Once instead of Unique, so that Basic Magic Training can conditionally bootstrap them without making them unavailable in the chooser tables. Add in the fact that Warshifter bootstraps the talent instead of giving a bonus talent (because it's a specific exception to the general rule about classes that grant a sphere giving a bonus talent if you already have that sphere*; a few other archs do this as well) and you end up with this weird little corner case.

*This rule is not spelled out in the book. But last year I noticed that some bonus-sphere-granting classes/archs explicitly say this and some don't. So I asked Adam about it, and he confirmed that it is meant to be the case generally.

Also, the warshifter doesn't seem to have the maneuver stuff there as entries in the special tab which makes it unfortunate regarding the checking what kind of abilities one does have.

Works for me. Did you ready the maneuvers? I don't know when this changed because I haven't touched the PoW code in about a thousand years, but it seems non-readied maneuvers are hidden from the Specials tab now.

 

[TheIronGolem]

Greater/Extreme Transformation and bonus SP from Drawbacks are fixed in my current build.

Going to try to get a release out tonight, but I'm not 100% sure it'll happen. Soon, if not tonight.

 

[TheIronGolem]

I just checked the ones I am using and they appear to all be working. That is really strange as I can't think of anything that should prevent that feature from working....

So I drilled into this a bit further, and I found something interesting. Two of the Things you've extended in the file COM_3PPPack_UltimatePsionics_Augmented_7th_Path - Archetypes.user (Witch Hexes for a Cryptic archetype):

<extthing thing="cWitCursWn" group="SpecSource" tag="arPUKalfo"/>
<extthing thing="cWitDiscor" group="SpecSource" tag="arPUKalfo"/>

These two Things have something in common: I don't have them. They come from Player's Companion #13, which I don't have in my license. That's probably not a coincidence, in my opinion.

If I remove or comment those two extthings, my extthings work again.

I've updated LW with this information as well, as I'm sure it's not intended behavior. Oddly, this doesn't seem to break the extensions you have on feats for the Talented Monk, only my stuff and the other Hexes for the Kalfore.

 

[EldritchWeaver]

Haven't been able to reproduce this.

If you once activate the shapeshift (tested it with size change), deactivation doesn't work.

I considered doing this early on, and decided against it for reasons I can no longer recall. I'll revisit this again.

Well, the In-Play tab does provide this functionality, too, but that's not where I usually look, because I don't use HL during play.

For cases where you're not supposed to gain the drawback because you had Alteration prior to taking the class, there's a "No Lycanthropic Drawback" checkbox on the class tab. Not exactly a graceful solution I realize, but it's necessary because HL doesn't know when you took a given class or talent, so it has to rely on your judgment as to whether you should get the drawback or not.

Didn't notice this checkbox. I can't even find it now.

As for the extra Alteration Sphere talent, that's a convergence of quirks. The sphere-access talents are now Add Once instead of Unique, so that Basic Magic Training can conditionally bootstrap them without making them unavailable in the chooser tables. Add in the fact that Warshifter bootstraps the talent instead of giving a bonus talent (because it's a specific exception to the general rule about classes that grant a sphere giving a bonus talent if you already have that sphere*; a few other archs do this as well) and you end up with this weird little corner case.

*This rule is not spelled out in the book. But last year I noticed that some bonus-sphere-granting classes/archs explicitly say this and some don't. So I asked Adam about it, and he confirmed that it is meant to be the case generally.

I've been aware of this rule, but it is nice that you've implemented it as well.

Works for me. Did you ready the maneuvers? I don't know when this changed because I haven't touched the PoW code in about a thousand years, but it seems non-readied maneuvers are hidden from the Specials tab now.

That only readied stuff is in there is unfortunate, if that also means that the unreadied maneuvers aren't printed out. Need to check this some time. But I actually meant the shifter class tab. It doesn't spell out the maneuver recovery mechanism.

BTW, psyforensic seems still to create the magic talents tab.

Edit:

Furthermore, I'm wondering if I should have CL 11 in Life for a psyforensic investigator 2/triple goddess hedgewitch 9. Shouldn't PI only count for +1 CL?

 

[kargoth]

Yep, drawbacks are not giving bonus spell points now. Tried remaking character completely and still no love there.

 

[TheIronGolem]

If you once activate the shapeshift (tested it with size change), deactivation doesn't work.

Turns out the Size Change trait was lacking "stop if disabled" code, so I have fixed that in my current build.

But I actually meant the shifter class tab. It doesn't spell out the maneuver recovery mechanism.

Ah, right. I forgot to make a "maneuver recovery" special for the Warshifter. That'll be in 1.21 for sure.

Didn't notice this checkbox. I can't even find it now.

...

BTW, psyforensic seems still to create the magic talents tab.

Edit:

Furthermore, I'm wondering if I should have CL 11 in Life for a psyforensic investigator 2/triple goddess hedgewitch 9. Shouldn't PI only count for +1 CL?

Can't reproduce these; would you mind posting your .por file?

 

[EldritchWeaver]

Turns out the Size Change trait was lacking "stop if disabled" code, so I have fixed that in my current build.

Of course, I run into the bug. Because all Alteration using chars of mine have this...

Can't reproduce these; would you mind posting your .por file?

Attached a file for your perusal.

 

[TheIronGolem]

Opening your .por file gives me this error:

Pick 'arInvPsySP' has been orphaned due to missing thing in batch '773'

That thingid is not one of mine. Also, the Diviner's Handbook doesn't seem to be enabled on that .por. I'm guessing you homebrewed a Psyforensic archetype prior to the release of the Diviner's Handbook?

When I subbed in my own Psyforensic, I did see the character has a Life CL of 11, but only when Fractional Caster Level was turned on (which it was to start). I suspect this has to do with the fact that you're combining two Mid-Caster classes where one of them hi-casts with the sphere in question. I'm not sure I considered that scenario before.

Warshifter still shows me the checkbox.

 

[EldritchWeaver]

Opening your .por file gives me this error:

Pick 'arInvPsySP' has been orphaned due to missing thing in batch '773'

That thingid is not one of mine. Also, the Diviner's Handbook doesn't seem to be enabled on that .por. I'm guessing you homebrewed a Psyforensic archetype prior to the release of the Diviner's Handbook?

True, I forgot to remove the homebrewed stuff from this computer.

When I subbed in my own Psyforensic, I did see the character has a Life CL of 11, but only when Fractional Caster Level was turned on (which it was to start). I suspect this has to do with the fact that you're combining two Mid-Caster classes where one of them hi-casts with the sphere in question. I'm not sure I considered that scenario before.

Well, the result should be the same as a High-Caster combined with a Mid-Caster.

Warshifter still shows me the checkbox.

Maybe the cause is the Warshifter I've homebrewed. After I deleted it, I can see it in the tab.

 

[Laucian]

I got a bug to report. If you add the "Soaring Blade" archetype to the "Armorist" class the "magic talent" tab appears and won't go away. I'm guessing it's caused by the "weapon specialist" drawback being present and can't be removed. The same thing happens if you take the "Commander On High" arsenal trick.

 

[EldritchWeaver]

I've been trying to apply a shapeshift to a character who doesn't have Alteration. But the tab is missing, so I can't.

Also Fast Healing trait is missing the note, that it costs one SP to apply. There is no trait to choose, when you wish to employ Perfect Imitation (required for Improved Transformation). Size Change doesn't affect the space (still 10 feet, not 5 feet for Medium).

 

[TheIronGolem]

The Alteration: Shapeshift adjustment should cause the Alteration tab to appear on a character who lacks the Alteration Sphere.