Occupation and Drawback custom rules

[Nargath]

Hi guys, back again with another bunch of custom content questions!

This time I'm trying to get the Drawback and Occupation "rules" from Tome of Secrets by Adamant Entertainment. Basically they are both extra options that you can take at character creation that give you certain bonuses/penalties.
I figured that I would create them in the Traits section, and for the Occupation "trait", I'd also include the coding from the Additional Traits feat, to give me 4 traits total (2 normal traits, an Occupation, and a Drawback)


I'll start with occupations. These are a description, if you will, of your life before you started adventuring. You choose an occupation, and it gives you certain skill benefits, and may give you a bonus flavourful feat.

In this instance, I'm trying to stat up the Gladiator occupation. I've taken a screenshot of it.
Basically, it gives me 2 skills that are now class skills, and if either of those skills are ALREADY class skills, then it gives me a +1 competence bonus in that skill. And it gives me a list of skills to choose from (Acrobatics, Bluff, Escape Artist, Intimidate, Perception, Profession, Ride, Sense Motive)
Also, it gives you a choice of either Weapon Focus or Toughness.

Is there a way of having this stuff as a dropdown box or something like that? So it gives me 2 list to choose the two skills, and a 3rd list for the feat, and auto applies the conditions above?
Or am I better off just coding the trait as if I've already made my choices and customise it every time I put it on a new character?


With the drawbacks, they usually give you some sort of in-game defect penalty, and give you 4 extra skill points to spend. This one is Ineffectual Racial Trait.
Now, I know cancelling out a racial trait probably won't work (in this case, I'm using a custom race, so I'll just delete one trait and not code the Drawback to do anything for that).
But what I want to be able to code in is the 4 extra skill points. They aren't tied to anything or multiplied. Just 4 stand alone skill points to be used at character creation.


Thanks in advance guys, and putting up with more inane questions. I know that doing this stuff manually is probably easier, but I figure I may as well ask the question!

 

[Angela2013]

I have that book from which occupations come from on PDF but I can't remember the name.

 

[Nargath]

I have that book from which occupations come from on PDF but I can't remember the name.

Yeah, it's Tome of Secrets.
I've updated my OP. Nice catch!

 

[Mathias]

Sounds like a configurable may be the way to go here - that way, you can create a new table for your occupations, another table for the drawbacks, and use the feat tables on that for the bonus feat selections that the occupations add.

 

[Dwayne]

I hope you post this. I would like to add it.

 

[Nargath]

Sounds like a configurable may be the way to go here - that way, you can create a new table for your occupations, another table for the drawbacks, and use the feat tables on that for the bonus feat selections that the occupations add.

Unfortunately, I'm a complete HL n00b, and have no idea what a configurable is
Is there an example that I can base any work off of?

 

[Aaron]

Look at the Demonic Obedience feat for an example of working with configurables. They have a tab in the editor as well.

 

[Mathias]

Or the ghost template, or ranger traps from Ultimate Combat.

 

[Nargath]

Ah, cool!

So it's a option that will open up another tab on the "character sheet". Nice! That will work perfectly!
I've jumped in and had a look at the ogrekin ability. So you create the configurable, then the actual little abilities, you create in the R Cust Special tab of the Editor, and use a tag to link it with the configurable?
Awesome! I definitely should be able to build the entire Occupaton and Drawback using this!

Another 2 questions.
In the individual R Cust Special "ability", you said I could use the feat table to be able to choose the feat. How do I make the feats be available to select? I've found the Select From field, but Feats aren't an option in it.

And is there a way of granting 4 skill points for the drawback?

 

[Mathias]

In the individual R Cust Special "ability", you said I could use the feat table to be able to choose the feat. How do I make the feats be available to select? I've found the Select From field, but Feats aren't an option in it.

Any abilities you can think of that do something similar - grant a feat choice when you select that ability - any Rogue Talents, perhaps?

How does that add +1 feats available to the other table?

How do you change that one's script so that instead of the fields related to classes, it's using the corresponding field names on configurables?

 

[Mathias]

And is there a way of granting 4 skill points for the drawback?

Look at the adjust tab in the editor - find the "Skill Points, Total" adjustment - how does that add a bonus? How can you change the amount of bonus it adds from a variable amount that depends on a field into the fixed number 4?

 

[Nargath]

Alrighty, I've gotten the extra tab to show up for both the Occupations and Drawbacks, got them linked to a trait each, and got occupations and drawbacks populating those tabs, as well as the skill points being applied!

Just got to work on getting the feats to show up, and also to set up the "turn skills into class skills, and if already class skills, add a +1 to it". For that I'm going to pinch some coding from existing traits, and chuck them into some IF THEN statements, see how I go

Then I can populate the rest of the options, and release it!

 

[Nargath]

OK, I'm stuck again :s

I can get the test Occupation (Gladiator) to show in the list for the Occupation tab.

But once I get that selected, I have no idea how to allow it give me a choice of either Toughness or Weapon Focus feat. Nor can I work out how to get it to allow me to choose two of the skills listed to become either class skills or have a bonus applied to them. And some of the Occupations let you choose 3 skills instead of just 2, which means I can't use the Custom Expression fields.

I've tried copying how the Rogue talents are picked, I've tried how the Skirmisher hunter tricks are picked. But they operate out of the Custom Ability tab, and I've built the Occupations in R Cust Special.
Custom Ability would let me display a list of feats to choose from using the bonus feats allowed, but I haven't worked out how to get custom abilities to interact with the configurables page. All the internal examples are based on race.

Is there a way of having each individual Occupation giving me choice boxes for each individual feat and skill choice, similar to the way Rogue Talents and Hunter Tricks are chosen, ie. click on the wording and be given a specific list?

I know I'm probably punching WAY above my weight, so if this is a lost cause until I get better at coding, please let me know!
I can do a very manual process easily enough, I just thought I'd be tricky and get a fully automated process going!

Also attached a copy of the latest user file

 

[Aaron]

Look at Demonic Obedience for a non class use of a configurable.

Here is how I would go about it, if I understand what you are asking about.

1 - In this case, create an Occupation configurable, and give the Custom Abilities the appropriate name (Class Skills). Then make the R Cust Specials for each of those class skills, and choose the Occupation Configurable as their master. So at this point you'll have 1 Configurable, and many R Cust Abilities (one for each skill), that can be chosen by that Configurable.

2 - Make the various Occupation Custom abilities as Racial Custom abilities (and let them be available for all the common races in your campaign), and bootstrap the Occupation Configurable from step 1 to each of these Occupations.

3 - Make eval scripts on the Occupation that goes to the Configurable from step 1, and sets the number of feats allowed (field is "cfgMaxF1") and which feats are permissable (assign the "fInclude.WHATEVER" tag to the configurable). It should also set the number of skills allowed (field is "cfgMax1" if you made them primary) and limit which are permissable (by setting the "cfgAllow1" field to an appropriate tag expression, probably at Final 9999999).

4 - Do a copy and replace for the common races, giving each a single racial custom ability (so they can use that to pick the occupation).

5 - TEST and Tweak as necessary.

Please note that we're all going to be at GenCon for the next week (I type this at the airport, in fact), so further follow ups will be slow.

 

[Nargath]

Thanks for that Aaron.

And I appreciate the dedication for getting back to me at the airport!
Hope GenCon is fantastic for you guys!

I'll post this here now while my thoughts are fresh, but by no means I am doing it to harrass you guys. If I wait a week to jot down my thoughts, then I'll lose track of what I'm up to, so I'll pt it down and I can trace my thinking later. Besides, a con the size of GenCon most definitely deserves your attention!
I'm also very jealous, we don't have anything NEAR that scale of con here in Australia :s

I think I was making things too hard for myself, and breaking it down into too fine a detail.

What you are saying is set each Occupation (Gladiator, Con Artist, Sailor, etc) as a seperate Custom Adbility, rather than trying to have a generic Occupation ability, then have the configurable break it down into individual occupations, and THEN have each ability be selectable.

I can see how your method allows me to set things up a lot simpler.

However, and I hate to say it, I'm still a little lost

1 - In this case, create an Occupation configurable, and give the Custom Abilities the appropriate name (Class Skills). Then make the R Cust Specials for each of those class skills, and choose the Occupation Configurable as their master. So at this point you'll have 1 Configurable, and many R Cust Abilities (one for each skill), that can be chosen by that Configurable.
Ok, I've gotten this part done, outside of scripting the actual changes that the skills will take (either becoming a class skill or if already class skill, a +1 bonus). So in the R Cust Special I have a list of: Occupation Skill: Acrobatics, Occupation Skill: Bluff, etc and got a single Occupation configurable.

2 - Make the various Occupation Custom abilities as Racial Custom abilities (and let them be available for all the common races in your campaign), and bootstrap the Occupation Configurable from step 1 to each of these Occupations.
When you say create the various Occupation abilities as Racial Custom abilities, what do you mean? Are you talking about the skill scripting? And which tab in the editor is the Racial Custom abilities?

3 - Make eval scripts on the Occupation that goes to the Configurable from step 1, and sets the number of feats allowed (field is "cfgMaxF1") and which feats are permissable (assign the "fInclude.WHATEVER" tag to the configurable). It should also set the number of skills allowed (field is "cfgMax1" if you made them primary) and limit which are permissable (by setting the "cfgAllow1" field to an appropriate tag expression, probably at Final 9999999).
Again, I'm not super clued in here. What is the line of eval script that I need to run to set the cfgMaxF1 value? Can I just run it like this?
field[cfgMaxF1].value += 1
The same goes for the other fields mentioned. What's the context I need to activate the lines of code?

4 - Do a copy and replace for the common races, giving each a single racial custom ability (so they can use that to pick the occupation).
Again, where do I do this? I'm assuming within the Custom Racial ability, but seeing I can't find that, I don't know where to find this either
Also, in assigning this ability to each race, will this automatically grant the option when selecting the character? Or will I have to do any more to get it to show?

 

[Fuzzy]

I implemented something like this for some house rules we had for social standing, and region. I implemented them as Factions, since that is per character, and not per class and such. I was able to limit it to just one of each by adding a custom use tag to them and checking the number of picks with that tag in the faction's pre-req (described in THIS thread). So What I do is each faction, then bootstraps in a racial ability to handle adding whatever it is that needs added. I did this because I wanted to be able to, like you, have a selection on the item (in my case, it was for a bonus feat from a limited list). This extra ability then show sup on the Backgroud tab, with the dropdown selection. (This part is documented in THIS thread).

 

[Fuzzy]

As for your ability itself, timing will be important for this. You will have to make sure that your eval script is run AFTER all the classes are added, otherwise it won't know if a skill is already a class skill or not.

 

[Aaron]

Thanks for that Aaron.

And I appreciate the dedication for getting back to me at the airport!
Hope GenCon is fantastic for you guys!

I'll post this here now while my thoughts are fresh, but by no means I am doing it to harrass you guys. If I wait a week to jot down my thoughts, then I'll lose track of what I'm up to, so I'll pt it down and I can trace my thinking later. Besides, a con the size of GenCon most definitely deserves your attention!
I'm also very jealous, we don't have anything NEAR that scale of con here in Australia :s

I think I was making things too hard for myself, and breaking it down into too fine a detail.

What you are saying is set each Occupation (Gladiator, Con Artist, Sailor, etc) as a seperate Custom Adbility, rather than trying to have a generic Occupation ability, then have the configurable break it down into individual occupations, and THEN have each ability be selectable.

I can see how your method allows me to set things up a lot simpler.

However, and I hate to say it, I'm still a little lost

1 - In this case, create an Occupation configurable, and give the Custom Abilities the appropriate name (Class Skills). Then make the R Cust Specials for each of those class skills, and choose the Occupation Configurable as their master. So at this point you'll have 1 Configurable, and many R Cust Abilities (one for each skill), that can be chosen by that Configurable.
Ok, I've gotten this part done, outside of scripting the actual changes that the skills will take (either becoming a class skill or if already class skill, a +1 bonus). So in the R Cust Special I have a list of: Occupation Skill: Acrobatics, Occupation Skill: Bluff, etc and got a single Occupation configurable.

2 - Make the various Occupation Custom abilities as Racial Custom abilities (and let them be available for all the common races in your campaign), and bootstrap the Occupation Configurable from step 1 to each of these Occupations.
When you say create the various Occupation abilities as Racial Custom abilities, what do you mean? Are you talking about the skill scripting? And which tab in the editor is the Racial Custom abilities?

Racial Custom Abilities are a type of pick, they include things like Ogre Deformities, Aasimar/Tiefling Variant abilities, Changeling types, Eidolon Evolutions, and also things you pick from configurables (like the boons granted by the Demonic Obedience feat). It doesn't have anything to do with scripting by this step. The tab in the editor is R Cust Special, it is between "Potion" and "Race". If you look at that, there is a dropdown for "Available to Races", which you can use to pick one race, and then go to the "Tags" button in the upper right and add AllowRCust tags for the other common races in your campaign.

3 - Make eval scripts on the Occupation that goes to the Configurable from step 1, and sets the number of feats allowed (field is "cfgMaxF1") and which feats are permissable (assign the "fInclude.WHATEVER" tag to the configurable). It should also set the number of skills allowed (field is "cfgMax1" if you made them primary) and limit which are permissable (by setting the "cfgAllow1" field to an appropriate tag expression, probably at Final 9999999).
Again, I'm not super clued in here. What is the line of eval script that I need to run to set the cfgMaxF1 value? Can I just run it like this?
field[cfgMaxF1].value += 1
The same goes for the other fields mentioned. What's the context I need to activate the lines of code?

You have to transfer to the configurable you made in step 1. For example, if you gave that the unique ID of cfgJob, then you would go like this:

Early in First phase
~ We get 1 bonus feat.
hero.child[cfgJob].field[cfgMaxF1].value += 1

~ It can be Acrobatics or Alertness.
perform hero.child[cfgJob].assign[fInclude.fAcrobatic]
perform hero.child[cfgJob].assign[fInclude.fAlertness]

LATELATELATE in Finals phase
hero.child[cfgJob].field[cfgAllow1].text = TAG EXPRESSION HERE

Out of BATTERY NO TIME!

4 - Do a copy and replace for the common races, giving each a single racial custom ability (so they can use that to pick the occupation).
Again, where do I do this? I'm assuming within the Custom Racial ability, but seeing I can't find that, I don't know where to find this either
Also, in assigning this ability to each race, will this automatically grant the option when selecting the character? Or will I have to do any more to get it to show?

Do it on the Race tab. Copy elf, and give it a new unique ID like rElf2. The replaces Thing ID field is on the right above Author Comments, put the Unique ID for the old version of the race that your new one will replace. You want to set the Custom Ability Total to 1 for the new race.

 

[Dwayne]

Nargath How is it going? I wish I could help you with this. I am sure there will be many people who will be happy you added this to HL.

 

[Nargath]

Nargath How is it going? I wish I could help you with this. I am sure there will be many people who will be happy you added this to HL.

I gotta say, it's going slow unfortunately
The help is super, well, helpful! But my Herolab-fu is subpar.

Probably should of tackled a more entry-level type of thing before getting this.

However, I am plodding away at it, and once I'm done, I'll definitely chuck it up for others to use.