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How to read/set base ability scores?

P

Prosidious Fowell

Member
I've been tearing my hair out over this for a couple of days. I'm adding a template that will set a base ability score to 18. I can't figure out how to access this value, either for setting or for reading. I can set all sorts of bonuses and penalties, and I can determine the base value in a roundabout way from, for example, aSTR->aCost, but I can't find a way to access the actual base value. Any help greatly appreciated.
 
What do you mean by "base ability score"? The number rolled or chosen before any racial modifiers are applied?
 
To read the value, try subtracting the aStartMod field from the aUser field and using that. You can't really set a user value, but you can force the FINAL value to something specific using the aNormForce field. Alternately, you can set up an eval rule to complain if "aUser - aStartMod" does not equal the value you want.
 
Aaron said:
To read the value, try subtracting the aStartMod field from the aUser field and using that. You can't really set a user value, but you can force the FINAL value to something specific using the aNormForce field. Alternately, you can set up an eval rule to complain if "aUser - aStartMod" does not equal the value you want.
Click to expand...
Doesn't aNormForce 100% force the value to always be something like 18. So that even if you use an adjustment or spell or magic item the value will not change right?
 
It appears that all I have to do is assign a value of 18 to aNormForce and I can still reap the benefits of other things that affect the final score, like so:

hero.child[aSTR].field[aNormForce].value = 18

One weird thing is that the value doesn't appear to return to normal after I remove the template.
 
ShadowChemosh said:
Doesn't aNormForce 100% force the value to always be something like 18. So that even if you use an adjustment or spell or magic item the value will not change right?
Click to expand...

Yes, hence my putting the word "final" in all caps. Just offering different ways he could go about it, so he can decide what works best for whatever his thing is.
 
Prosidious Fowell said:
Wow...

That's pretty terrible.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't use "terrible" I would use that is just how it works. Many times its fine but you need to understand what and "how" something works. I have stuff in my houserules file that make use of this feature and it works very nicely. This is all just part of the learning process of HL. ;)

Aaron said:
Yes, hence my putting the word "final" in all caps. Just offering different ways he could go about it, so he can decide what works best for whatever his thing is.
Click to expand...
Ahh. Well forgive me I just like being very "verbose" about stuff is all. :D
 
For a template I was creating wherein a formless spirit possesses animals, I had to set the mental attributes to arbitrary values (Int 18, Wis 16, Cha 17). To do this, and still seemingly having some ability to modify them after applying the template, I used an eval script during the Attributes phase like so:

hero.child[aCHA].field[aNormMod].value = 7 - hero.child[aCHA].field[aStartMod].value
hero.child[aWIS].field[aNormMod].value = 6 - hero.child[aWIS].field[aStartMod].value
hero.child[aINT].field[aNormMod].value = 8 - hero.child[aINT].field[aStartMod].value

Basically, setting the aNormMod to a new value based on whatever the aStartMod is subtracted from my target modification from a base of 10. The thinking being that the racial bonus / penalty will be factored into aStartMod, so I need to add or subtract that into my target arbitrary value of 7 in order to get a 17 every time.
 
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