Growing up my dire wolf mount

[Lehmann]

I've got a Cavalier (beast rider) who's got a baby dire wolf to train up. I've made a custom animal companion race that gets size, feats, etc as it gains hit dice so that when it hits 5 hit dice (standard dire wolf size) it has all the stats of a dire wolf.

Now, comes tricks. It seems wrong that an infant should know all tricks a cavalier's mount gets. I'd like to make it so that at a given level, it gains a particular trick, unless it's already been taught using one of the cavalier's bonus tricks, in which case it gets a free trick.

So, I'm thinking I need to:
1) remove all the tricks that were granted from the cavalier (but not any tricks that the critter learned normally)
2) check to see what level it is, and add the right tricks to it
3) make sure that any trick slots that should be free are.

Thanks in advance

 

[Aaron]

1 - This is controlled by the bootstrap condition at First 500. Try deleting the CompPower.Cavalier tag from the hero, shortly before that, and it will stop the Combat Riding General Purpose from being added.

2 - Level is stored on the CompLevel field on the cAnimComp thing.

3 - If you apply the Helper.GenPurpose tag to a trick, it won't cost a slot (because it will be assumed to be bootstrapping other tricks which will).

 

[Lehmann]

Thanks, Aaron. It all worked fine, except now the pup has eight free trick slots at first level (since none of them cost anything). I'd like to make it so that, while he gets access to the bonus ones as he goes up in level (one at first and another at third), the others are unavailable, as they are being used as the pup grows. How would I do that?

In a more general vein, how did you find the tags to use? I'd like to be able to answer these sorts of questions myself.