Hero Lab Editor: How to add a +2 skill bonus?

[DrClarke]

Hopefully this is the proper section of the forum (even though it's the authoring kit), it just seems wrong to put this in the Pathfinder section.

I'm working in the Hero Lab Editor, doing some custom tweaking for our Pathfinder game.

My specific question/problem is this: I have a custom race I'm adding. I can get everything working fine, except for one variable. "Natural +'s to skills."

Example: I want my custom race to have a bonus +2 to Climb and Knowledge (Nature), but I'm not finding how to do it.

At first I thought it was under "Traits", but then learned this would make a it a trait that had to be chosen (and any class could choose it). I'm trying to figure out how to make this a natural automatically added bonus when a player picks this race.

Hope I explained it properly. I keep thinking maybe it's under the Race tab and I'm simply passing over it.

Thanks!

 

[Mathias]

In the editor, select the Help menu, and choose the first option - Help on Using the Editor.

Scroll down to "Adding the Faerie Dragon Race (Tutorial 8)", and follow that link, then find the "Skills" section of that tutorial - this is covered there.

 

[DrClarke]

Oh thanks for the guidance. I'm going to go read that.

I had just thought I figured it out too. I went to the "Racial Special" tab and added an Eval Script that looked something like:

~Pre-Attributes 5,000
#applybonus[BonTrait,hero.childfound[skClimb],2]
#applybonus[BonTrait,hero.childfound[skKnowNat],2]

And that seemed to finally get across what I wanted.

I'm going to go read the information you mentioned though.

Thanks again!

 

[Mathias]

If you add them as BonTrait - trait bonuses, they won't stack with any Traits that grant bonuses to those same skills - and since the race is granting these as Racial Bonuses, that's not correct. But you are close to what you want.

 

[DrClarke]

So the info you pointed me to was dead on. Thanks again.

I'm almost done, but stuck at one thing to complete it.

So for this race, I always want Climb & Knowledge (Nature) to be "Class Skills" so to speak, so no matter what class is chosen, these two skills are considered "Class Skills".

So I go into the Bootstraps and add: skClimb & skKnowNat.

I scroll down a little bit on Race until I locate the "Class Skills" button and I check Climb & Knowledge (Nature).

On Eval Scripts I have:
#skillbonus[skClimb] += 2
#skillbonus[skKnowNat] += 2

No matter what class I pick, with this modified race, the Climb skill will always function properly (whether it's truly a class skill or not) at level 1. Even with no ranks in it, the result is appropriate due to modifier.

My problem is with Knowledge (Nature). Any class I choose and it's coming up blue as a skill that can be properly trained, but it starts out with no -/+ number. Just a dash. I'd like to have it start as +2 when no points are put into rank.

The only thing I'm thinking is if this is because Knowledge is a trained skill? So it will never trigger until at least one point is spent in it?

 

[Mathias]

This is because all of the Knowledge skills are trained only, so normally, if you have no ranks in that skill, even though you have a racial bonus to that skill, you can't make checks for that skill. Try creating a Human Druid - you'll see that even though that character has Know:Nature as a class skill, with a bonus from the class, you don't actually get to use that skill without any ranks.

If one of this race's special abilities is to make that skill usable untrained, enter the following in the same script that's applying the racial bonuses:

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

If the race has some Hit Dice, and therefore has some skill points to spend, and you want to dictate that all members of this race take ranks in Knowledge:Nature, add this to that script:

#skillinnate[skKnowNat] += 1

(or += more than 1 - whatever you want, liited by the number of Hit Dice it has)

 

[DrClarke]

Oh thanks.

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

That bit is what totally nailed it for me.

 

[Frodie]

I was hopeing to get over the issue in traits with the Skills, Knowledge, Craft, Preform, etc. not showing up as choices. I tried this as a test, but still no go. Any ideas?

perform hero.childfound[skKnowLoc].delete[Helper.TrainOnly]
if (field[usrChosen1].ischosen <> 0) then
perform field[usrChosen1].chosen.assign[Helper.ClassSkill]
#applybonus[BonTrait,field[usrChosen1].chosen,1]
endif

and the custom expresion
thingid.skBluff|thingid.skDiplo|thingid.skKnowLoc|thingid.skPercep|thingid.skSenseMot|thingid.skStealth

 

[Mathias]

Is that space within stealth a mistake in the HL editor, or a mistake when pasting it here?

 

[ShadowChemosh]

I was hopeing to get over the issue in traits with the Skills, Knowledge, Craft, Preform, etc. not showing up as choices. I tried this as a test, but still no go. Any ideas?

I am assuming the issue is that without the Know or Craft skill on the character BEFORE picking the trait it does not appear in the drop down list of the trait?

If so not any clean way. The issue is that the Thing does not exist on the character so it can't be displayed. You could bootstrap every Skill to the Trait so that when it is added all those skills get added, will also display, on the character. Then they would be listed in the drop down menu of the trait.

It also means if the trait or feat gets removed from the character the skills go with it even if it has ranks in it.

 

[Frodie]

Yea, that is what I was thinking, bummer. Wish there was a good way to all the skills to show up on the drop box with out bootstapping them all.

 

[Frodie]

Trait

Phase Pre-Levels Priority 20000

if (field[usrChosen1].ischosen <> 0) then
field[usrChosen1].chosen.field[Bonus].value += 2
endif


I got in the Custom Expression:
component.BaseSkill & Helper.SkCatKnow

All the Knowledge skills show up now, but it will not add the +2, IDK, any ideas?

 

[MichaelDMoore]

When adding skill bonuses to a race, what is the syntax for Handle Animal? A reference of the syntax expected for skills using these expressions would be very helpful.