Help forcing a skill to be a class skill and other stuff

[tomponzi]

I am trying to introduce social class and ethnic background into my homebrew pathfinder campaign.

Ethinic background is faily easy (as all PCs will be human) and I decided that traits would be a good way to introduce social class modifiers.

Playing around with the editor, I can add bonuses to skills and extra feats in both Human ethnicites and traits. What I cannot seem to do is force something to become a class skill.

I have found a work around using Shadow's adjustments, but I was hoping to be able to 'hard code' this into the ethnicity or trait via a bootstrap or eval script, speeding up NPC and character creation.

Is there also a way of forcing a skill to be usable untrained when the standard rules would not normally allow it?

Any help pointing me in the right direction, or suggestions for a different way to implement my ideas would be appreciated.

 

[AndrewD2]

For class skills take make a copy of any trait that does that already, you'll see what you have to do.

For using untrained take a look at the bard's bardic knowledge ability that allows you to use knowledge skills untrained.

 

[tomponzi]

Andrew

That's what I'm lacking today after last night's bender, a bit of lateral thinking.

Thank you very much!

 

[Fuzzy]

Part of the problem with using traits as your ethnic background, is that the number of traits are tracked. There are other options that might make more sense to use. Seeing as how these are chosen at character creation, and are part of a character's background, it makes more sense to have them selected on the background tab. I've done something similar in the past, and did it by creating 'Factions'.

I also, at that time, was implementing both a Social Class option, and a Regional option. In our case, the Social Class option gave a +1 to a particular ability score. The Regional option provided a choice of one of 3 bonus feats appropriate for that region. I implemented the Social Standing AND Region options all as factions, and then used pre-req eval's on them to ensure that only one of each was chosen. Detailed that part in this thread here Restricting to a particular group of factions.

 

[tomponzi]

Fuzzy

I am replacing the core trait system with a social background trait and family gift trait, so using traits seemed to make sense. I'll have a look at backgrounds to see if that is a better fit.

Andrew

I had a look at a similar trait and managed to use that to get class skills activated, thank you. However forcing some skills to change from 'trained only' to 'allow untrained' is being a little more tricky. The Jack of All Trades class feature for Bards you pointed me at changes all 'trained only' skills to 'allow untrained'. Mashing the eval script from that class feature into my crude script is way beyond my ability (I'm really guessing and messing about here). Are you (or is anyone else) aware of a Pathfinder ability that changes select 'trained only' skills to 'untrained skills'? If there is I could look at that and (hopefully) work things out from there.

 

[AndrewD2]

What the ability is doing is deleting the Helper.TrainOnly from the skill. What is the exact text of the ability you're trying to do?

 

[tomponzi]

Andrew

Thank you for getting back to me.

What I am trying to achieve is this;

{b}Benefit{/b}: You get a +2 trait bonus on all Profession (Farmer) checks and this skill is always a class skill for you. You may use this skill untrained.
You get a +1 trait bonus on all Handle Animal and all Knowledge (Nature) checks and these skills are always class skills for you. You may use these skills untrained.
Choose one from Craft (Baskets), Craft (Carpentry), Craft (Cloth) or Craft (Pottery). You gain a +1 trait bonus in the chosen skill and this skill is always a class skill for you.
You gain proficiency with shortbows.

I have managed to do everything bar allowing the use of the indicated skills untrained using this eval script and a martial weapon feat bootstrap;

#applybonus[BonTrait,hero.childfound[skProfFarm],2]
#applybonus[BonTrait,hero.childfound[skHandleAn],1]
#applybonus[BonTrait,hero.childfound[skKnowNat],1]
#makeclassskill[skHandleAn]
#makeclassskill[skProfFarm]
#makeclassskill[skKnowNat]
if (field[usrChosen1].ischosen <> 0) then
#applybonus[BonTrait,field[usrChosen1].chosen,1]
perform field[usrChosen1].chosen.assign[Helper.ClassSkill]
endif

I just need help with the syntax (or see an example) of removing the Helper.TrainOnly from a specific skill and I believe I am good to go.

There is probably a really useful whateverlanguageherolabuses101.doc somewhere, but in my sleep deprived state I seem to have missed it.

 

[Mathias]

I'd recommend creating a test character, and on the Feats, tab, use the text search to look for "untrained" or "used untrained" or "as if you were trained"

I see several traits in that list that allow skills to be used untrained: Nature's Mimic, Possessed, Student of Nantambu, Natural Philosopher - look at their scripts - how do they do it?

 

[Fuzzy]

I believe the syntax for removing a tag is similar to assigning one.

I think this should work (but can't test it right now):

perform hero.childfound[skProfFarm].delete[Helper.TrainOnly]
perform hero.childfound[skHandleAn].delete[Helper.TrainOnly]
perform hero.childfound[skKnowNat].delete[Helper.TrainOnly]

 

[tomponzi]

Mathias

Thank you, I found the answer in the trait Student of Nantambu.

Fuzzy

You were spot on. Thanks as well.

Now to try and work out how to make the trait appear ONLY if a certain ethnicity is selected.

 

[AndrewD2]

A couple of things, take a look at some abilities that grant weapon proficiency with a specific weapon, they don't generally bootstrap the feat.

As for making it appear if only a certain ethnicity is chosen, that is done via an expr-req anything that is classified as an ability (class ability, racial ability, custom ability, even ethnicity) can be checked using the #hasability[] macro so you would add an expr-req something like

XXX required.

#hasability[IDOFETHNICITY] <> 0

 

[tomponzi]

Andrew

Just back from break away from the net with the family. Thanks for the hint. I shall have a look at this and see if I can work it out.