Druid Wild Shape - How to?

[noseman]

I would like to start by saying I really appreciate all the hard work that you guys at Wolflair do to help your customers. I'm an avid fan of both the M&M and d20 products for Herolab. Now to my question:

I'm going to be playing a DnD v3.5 Druid for the first time in a few weeks, and was wondering how to create a wild shaped form of my character?

I have the animal companion part down, but there does not appear to be a specific spot to create a wild shaped form from the Druid base class. I tried to add the animal separately as an NPC, but ran into a wall when I tried to add "monster" levels (not class levels) to the animal to match my level (6th level), while the base animal only had 3 HD (leopard). The software doesn't allow (as far as I can tell) leveling up unless it is a class/template level.

It may just be my understanding of the wild shape ability, and if that's the case, please let me know as well. I was under the impression that I retain my mental ability scores, HD and HPs, lose any gear as it melds with my form, while gaining special attacks and the physical ability scores of the new form.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Mark

 

[Colen]

The easiest way to handle Wild Shape is to add ability score adjustments. For example, let's say you're an elven druid (Medium size, Str12) and shapeshift into a bear (Large, Str20).

Add a Strength adjustment of +8, and a Size adjustment of +1. When you shapeshift, activate them, and all your derived statistics will change appropriately. There's an unlimited amount of forms you can change into, so we allow you to add arbitrary "Adjustments" to make whatever changes you like.

Hope this helps!

 

[noseman]

The easiest way to handle Wild Shape is to add ability score adjustments. For example, let's say you're an elven druid (Medium size, Str12) and shapeshift into a bear (Large, Str20).

Add a Strength adjustment of +8, and a Size adjustment of +1. When you shapeshift, activate them, and all your derived statistics will change appropriately. There's an unlimited amount of forms you can change into, so we allow you to add arbitrary "Adjustments" to make whatever changes you like.

Hope this helps!

Thanks Colen,

Sometimes the easiest solution is the best. What about special abilities like Pounce, and Rake and Improved Grab? Would I just use the "Traits, Total" or "Counter" options to add whatever I like?

Is there a way to stack these modifications, so 1 click sets the new form? Not necessary, but if there is, then I'd use it.

Thanks again.

Mark

 

[Colen]

If there's a form you often use, you can use the editor to create an adjustment for that form specifically (for example, "Adjustment - Bear Form"). The adjustment could have scripts that changed your ability scores, and could bootstrap special abilities like Pounce or weapons like Rake.

 

[noseman]

If there's a form you often use, you can use the editor to create an adjustment for that form specifically (for example, "Adjustment - Bear Form"). The adjustment could have scripts that changed your ability scores, and could bootstrap special abilities like Pounce or weapons like Rake.

I'll look into this. What I wound up doing was creating a separate base animal form, and adding all the Druid stats that were relevant to it. Works for me at this time. The campaign won't start for a month or so, so I might have time to use the editor for the "Adjustment" that you suggest above.

Is it possible to create multiple adjustments, so I could have a few animal forms at the ready?

Thanks again!

Mark

 

[Mathias]

Using the editor to create new adjustments is the way to have various forms ready. In the editor, you can also go to the specials tab, and look for racial specials like pounce, rake, etc. If they're there, on the adjustment you're building, you add those through the "bootstraps" button, if not, find something similar on the specials tab, make a copy of it and modify the copy until it matches what you want, and after you've done a "Test Now" or quick reload of your new special, you can bootstrap it to your adjustment.

I'll look into this. What I wound up doing was creating a separate base animal form, and adding all the Druid stats that were relevant to it. Works for me at this time. The campaign won't start for a month or so, so I might have time to use the editor for the "Adjustment" that you suggest above.

Is it possible to create multiple adjustments, so I could have a few animal forms at the ready?

Thanks again!

Mark

 

[noseman]

Cool!

I'll give it a try soon.

Mark

 

[noseman]

Using the editor to create new adjustments is the way to have various forms ready. In the editor, you can also go to the specials tab, and look for racial specials like pounce, rake, etc. If they're there, on the adjustment you're building, you add those through the "bootstraps" button, if not, find something similar on the specials tab, make a copy of it and modify the copy until it matches what you want, and after you've done a "Test Now" or quick reload of your new special, you can bootstrap it to your adjustment.

My game is starting this up coming week (woot), and I have this all programmed and it is working but for 1 thing. When I click on the animal form adjustment in the adjustment tabs after adding the custom adjustment, all the special abilities and weapon attacks show up correctly, but when I click to de-activate the adjustment, they all still remain displayed in the Weapons and Special tabs (and on the pdf). Essentially the racial weapons and special abilities are bootstrapped to the custom adjustment. Things like ability score adjustments are in an EVAL script. How do I get the weapons and special abilities to show up only when the "adj" option is selected?

Your help, this one last time, is much appreciated.

Mark

 

[Mathias]

Mispost - please delete

 

[Mathias]

Colen,
While I was trying to test an answer for this question, I noticed something odd - I looked at some things I had put together in HL that used bootstrap conditions - they still work, and so I tried copying the timing I used there for use in adjustment bootstraps, but nothing I tried would work.

What's even odder is that I went back in to my old file, made enough of a change to make the thing re-savable, and I found that the XML of how it was storing bootstrap conditions had changed - and now the old thing doesn't work.

The old way (that worked) was:
<bootstrap thing="xImmElec" phase="GlobalTest" priority="0">fieldval:hIsOn1 <> 0</bootstrap>

The new way (that doesn't work) is:
<bootstrap thing="xImmElec">
<containerreq phase="GlobalTest" priority="0">fieldval:hIsOn1 <> 0</containerreq>
</bootstrap>

Obviously the new way is the correct way to do it acording to the wiki, but I can't figure out why the bootstrap isn't working anymore.

 

[noseman]

My game is starting this up coming week (woot), and I have this all programmed and it is working but for 1 thing. When I click on the animal form adjustment in the adjustment tabs after adding the custom adjustment, all the special abilities and weapon attacks show up correctly, but when I click to de-activate the adjustment, they all still remain displayed in the Weapons and Special tabs (and on the pdf). Essentially the racial weapons and special abilities are bootstrapped to the custom adjustment. Things like ability score adjustments are in an EVAL script. How do I get the weapons and special abilities to show up only when the "adj" option is selected?

Your help, this one last time, is much appreciated.

Mark

Howdy,

Just checking in to see if anyone has looked into this...

Thanks

 

[Mathias]

How do I get the weapons and special abilities to show up only when the "adj" option is selected?

I figured out what I was missing. Apparently, the "Test Now" button doesn't include bootstrap conditions, so my testing wasn't producing the results I was expecting. In order to test what you're working on, when making your bootstraps conditional, you'll save the file you're working on as usual, then go to the main hero lab window and press ctrl-r (quick reload). Once that's done, the conditions should work.

How to make bootstraps conditional:
In the bootstrap menu, you'll see that the right-hand button is "Condition" - after you've chosen the thing, press that button. Change the timing to First (Users)/100, and enter the following as the text:
fieldval:IsOn <> 0

You've probably noticed that in the eval scripts that are in adjustments, most start with the following, to make sure that they aren't run unless the adjustment is active:

      ~ If we're not enabled, get out now
      if (field[pIsOn].value = 0) then
        done
        endif

The tag expressions that are used for things like the conditions on bootstraps use a different format, but we're actually testing the same thing. The condition is only fulfilled if the value of field[pIsOn] is not 0. If it is fulfilled, the bootstrap is live. Otherwise, it's not live, so it won't interact with anything else in the character (or be displayed).

 

[noseman]

Change the timing to First (Users)/100, and enter the following as the text:
fieldval:pIsOn <> 0

Thanks mgehl! excepting for having to add a "p" before the IsOn above, this worked as you described. It is important to stress that reloading the main screen is necessary, as the "Test Now" button doesn't work for testing of conditional bootstraps, as mgehl described.

Thanks again for all your help!

Mark