• Please note: In an effort to ensure that all of our users feel welcome on our forums, we’ve updated our forum rules. You can review the updated rules here: http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=5528.

    If a fellow Community member is not following the forum rules, please report the post by clicking the Report button (the red yield sign on the left) located on every post. This will notify the moderators directly. If you have any questions about these new rules, please contact support@wolflair.com.

    - The Lone Wolf Development Team

Power related error message

P

Paragon

Well-known member
I'm in the process of putting together a .stock file for the Broken Earth creatures so I can use the encounter builder with it, and I've gotten an error message on one (the BE "dragon", which is a mutated flightless eagle with pyrokinetic powers). I got three duplicates of the following error message:

"Attempt to access nonexistent child pick 'resPowers' from script
Location: 'eval' for Component 'Power' (Eval Script #2) near line 3"

I'm not recognizing where I'd even be finding this (since the "res" prefix doesn't seem to relate to any components in SW that I can find. And a search in the .user file doesn't seem to find that phrase at all.

Suggestions?
 
Last edited:
I believe "res" is just Resource and, based on naming, "resPowers" would be a reference to something in one of the core files, not your own. Perhaps if you would post the eval script(s) you have on that creature we could try to help out finding the problem?
 
That's the kicker; it doesn't have an eval script on the creature itself. There's one on the Racial Ability that gives it the psionic powers it has, but that's just a bit of code to give it power points:

Code: 
#trkmax[trkPower] += 20

So I'm puzzled about where this can be even coming from.

Let me list the whole dragon entry, and see if anything seems off (as far as I can tell, nothing popped an error when I first put it together, so unless the code got damaged along the way or something changed, I don't get this):

Code: 
<thing id="creBEDrag" name="Dragon (Broken Earth)" description="Dragons were in fact once bald eagles that were mutated by a cocktail of radiation and escaped viruses, including the Extreme Radiation Resistance virus, a virus meant to induce pyrokinetic powers, and probably a few others. \nThe result is a giant flightless and featherless bird that looks much like the dinosaurs of old. \nThe  dragon  retained  its  ancestor’s  powerful  beak, which can easily tear its foes apart. However the power that  inspires  the  dragon’s  name  is  actually  its  psionic ability  to  create  blasts  of  fire.  (Most  people  believe  it \nbreaths fire, but this is not strictly true.) Possibly because of  the  ERR  virus,  this  fire  is  also  radioactive,  and  any exposed to it risk radiation poisoning." compset="Creature" uniqueness="unique">
    <fieldval field="crePace" value="8"/>
    <usesource source="BrEarth"/>
    <tag group="SpiDie" tag="5"/>
    <tag group="StrDie" tag="9"/>
    <tag group="VigDie" tag="6"/>
    <tag group="AgiDie" tag="4"/>
    <tag group="User" tag="Wildcard"/>
    <tag group="SmaDie" tag="3"/>
    <bootstrap thing="skFighting">
      <autotag group="SkillDie" tag="6"/>
      </bootstrap>
    <bootstrap thing="skNotice">
      <autotag group="SkillDie" tag="6"/>
      </bootstrap>
    <bootstrap thing="skPsionics">
      <autotag group="SkillDie" tag="5"/>
      </bootstrap>
    <bootstrap thing="abArmor">
      <assignval field="abilValue" value="2"/>
      </bootstrap>
    <bootstrap thing="abWeapon">
      <autotag group="WeaponDie" tag="4"/>
      <assignval field="livename" value="Bite"/>
      </bootstrap>
    <bootstrap thing="abBEExRaR"></bootstrap>
    <bootstrap thing="abBEPDra"></bootstrap>
    <bootstrap thing="abBERadFi"></bootstrap>
    <bootstrap thing="abSize">
      <assignval field="abilValue" value="3"/>
      </bootstrap>
    </thing>

Just in case the problem is in the psionics trait (which I'd think might be the case, but nothing looks wrong), it looks like this:

Code: 
<thing id="abBEPDra" name="Psionics (Dragon)" description="Dragons have 10 power points and know the following powers: {i}burst, blast and damage field{/i}." compset="RaceAbil" uniqueness="unique">
    <fieldval field="shortname" value="Psionics"/>
    <usesource source="BrEarth"/>
    <tag group="User" tag="Creature" name="Creature" abbrev="Creature"/>
    <bootstrap thing="powDispel"></bootstrap>
    <bootstrap thing="powStun"></bootstrap>
    <bootstrap thing="powBurst"></bootstrap>
    <eval phase="PreTraits" priority="5000">#trkmax[trkPower] += 20</eval>
    </thing>
 
It occurs to me that this could be related to the fact that Broken Earth uses a non-standard variation of Psionics, so the normal one is precluded, but I can't see where the way I've given the dragons psi powers even interacts with that, since the individual powers aren't precluded. It should also be noted that when I do a test with the Dragon entry, it doesn't throw any errors in the editor.
 
Ok, so resPowers is defined in core thing_miscellaneous.dat file where it explains it as follows (in part):

Code: 
  <!-- Powers resource to track the number of arcane powers granted to the character -->
  <thing
    id="resPowers"
    name="Arcane Powers"
    compset="Resource"
    panellink="arcane">

The only things I see on your dragon entry are for abBEExRaR, abBEPDra, and abBERadFi, so we might have to see those items to dig further. Nothing on the main dragonentry you have even references abBEPDra. If that AB is defined with 3 boostrapped powers, though, presumably you would need to cover the starting powers as 3 instead of the usual 1 with that.

Something is telling you the problem is in creBEDrag, though, right? Which means your error in the the first post isn't complete. Can you let us know what the error line is that mentioned creBEDrag?
 
It was just a guess because it only happened when I imported the BE Dragon as a race for the base of a creature (as I was doing a set of creature portfolios for each one). Since the prior two I'd just done didn't trigger that, and the Dragon has some powers, I assumed it had something to do with that.

IAbBEPDra is listed up above, but here's all three of the bootstraps (I can't see why the others would be relevant for reasons that will be obvious, but what the hey):
Code: 
<thing id="abBEExRaR" name="Extreme Radiation Resistance" description="Dragons  are immune to all but the strongest forms of radiation.   They gain a +4 bonus to Vigor tests to resist radiation." compset="RaceAbil">
    <usesource source="BrEarth"/>
    </thing>
  <thing id="abBEPDra" name="Psionics (Dragon)" description="Dragons have 10 power points and know the following powers: {i}burst, blast and damage field{/i}." compset="RaceAbil" uniqueness="unique">
    <fieldval field="shortname" value="Psionics"/>
    <usesource source="BrEarth"/>
    <tag group="User" tag="Creature" name="Creature" abbrev="Creature"/>
    <bootstrap thing="powDispel"></bootstrap>
    <bootstrap thing="powStun"></bootstrap>
    <bootstrap thing="powBurst"></bootstrap>
    <eval phase="PreTraits" priority="5000">#trkmax[trkPower] += 20</eval>
    </thing>
  <thing id="abBERadFi" name="Radioactive Fire" description="All  the  powers  used  by  dragons have a radioactive fire trapping. Any creature in the area of one of the dragon’s psionic powers must also make a Vigor test or suffer a level of Fatigue. Characters incapacitated by Fatigue suffer permanent radiation sickness, a Long-Term Chronic, Minorly Debilitating disease (see core rulebook)." compset="RaceAbil">
    <usesource source="BrEarth"/>
    </thing>
 
Hmm... would you mind sending me a copy of the file? zarlor at acm dot org. I can see if I get the same error.
 
You have to have an arcane background to be able to have powers (the tab that appears where you pick powers). You cannot add powers without that. You need to bootstrap your psionic arcane background.
 
Huh. I wonder why it doesn't throw an error in the editor then.

Sure enough, too, that was it. Thanks, SeelyOne.
 
Last edited:
By the by, does anyone know if there's a way to pre-specify the Trappings on a power you've bootstrapped?
 
It should just be some Field ID that you would set. Like for weapons (or, anything actually) you can replace the name by setting a Field ID of "livename" and then filling in the Value with what you wanted to change it to. I'm not really sure what the name for the Trappings/Description field is, though. I'm not at the computer where I could check that, but for some reason I thought there was already a field in there for that. Maybe even domDomain? I know that one is used for Knowledge skills but I thought it was commonly used in other things, too.
 
It would be the powTraps field but it complains when you try to assign it.

Hero Lab was forced to stop compilation after the following errors were detected:

Thing 'edgpowtrpz' - Bootstrap value assignment is not allowed for 'user' types on 'unique' things for field 'powTraps'
Click to expand...

So the answer is "no".
 
Its not that big a deal; since I'm putting together portfolios for use with the encounter builder, I can just set it in the portfolio. But it'd be nice to be able to embody it in the extent "things" when you know in advance what the trappings will always be.
 
If I pull up a power in the Editor there is a line for "Trappings Description" which maps to a FieldID of powTraps and I can put anything I want in there, either as examples of trappings or an exact trapping I want to list and I can do that on any power I have in there. It seems odd it doesn't let you redefine that field when you do a boostrap with it, though. Although if you are doing portfolios anyway I think Powers by default mark a default Trapping in red, as if it expects the listed trapping is an example but it wants the player to deliberately pick one, so you may still see a bit of strangeness even if you did set a default trapping.
 
Yeah, I think that they forgot to put in that use case scenario when designing it. I bet it started as a character builder and the rest was added on later.
 
resPowers is the counter for the number of Arcane Powers a character has. It does not become active unless a character has an Arcane Background. Simply bootstrap either the Edge that grants that AB (Psionics?), or directly bootstrap the Arcane Background itself to the creature.
 
CapedCrusader said:
resPowers is the counter for the number of Arcane Powers a character has. It does not become active unless a character has an Arcane Background. Simply bootstrap either the Edge that grants that AB (Psionics?), or directly bootstrap the Arcane Background itself to the creature.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it was an easy fix, and honestly, one I should have thought about when putting the creature together. I was just surprised it didn't throw an error in the editor.
 
The editor only checks for valid code, not that the things works like it should. :) For all it knows you have whatever you need already on the creature to make it work.
 
Yeah, I'd say the editor will give errors for those things contained in the entry you were working on or sometimes those related to it. You can also get errors when you "Compile Data Files" for those items that have interactions with other items, so it's more of an entire data file error check. Finally you can also run into errors on selecting a setting to start a new character because of interactions between things that only get checked once they try to be used, like this instances (which is pretty much the same reason I had that error in the ETU file that I hadn't noticed before.) So it's really about when things interact as to when you might see the errors.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top