PrC Abilit Selection Help...

[ShadowChemosh]

I am trying to finish inputting the Brightness Seeker PrC from elves of golarion. They have an ability called Channel Past Incarnation.

At 2nd level, Brightness Seekers establish a mystical connection with their previous lives spent as simple creatures of the forest or field. Once per day, a Brightness Seeker may spend 1 hour meditating to manifest one of the special qualities detailed below. This special quality remains for 1 day or until the Brightness Seeker changes form or dismisses it.
- Bite and claws (1d6 points of damage each)
- Blindsense 30 ft. (sound-based, like a bat)
- Darkvision 60 ft.
- Scent
- Temperature-adapted (as endure elements)
- Thick hide (+3 natural armor bonus to AC)
- Waterborn (swim speed 40 ft., can breathe water and air)
- Wings (average maneuverability, fly speed 40 ft.)

So I found that a Dragon Disciple does something similar with picking of the dragon energy type. Plus I did something similar when making the Shifter race from Eberron that could pick different types.

On the above ability, Channel Past Incarnation(thingid.cBrsChPaIn), I have the following script along with custom expression that has the above different abilities that can be selected from a drop down box.

~Post-Levels 10,000

~ If we're not active, do nothing
doneif (tagis[Helper.ShowSpec] = 0)

if (field[usrChosen1].ischosen <> 0) then
   perform field[usrChosen1].chosen.pulltags[Custom.?]
   perform hero.pushtags[Custom.?]
endif

I then created a new class special called "Bite and Claws" (thingid.cBrsBitClaw) that has a bite and claw attacked bootstraped to it. It also has a custom Tag(BrsBitCla).

Then on the Class I added Bite and Claws(thingid cBrsBitCla) to the Class Special Abilities section. Its marked for level 2 and has a condition as follows:

~First 500
Custom.BrsBitCla

Now this all seems like it should work as the correct custom tag is getting onto the hero and the class ability Channel Past Incarnation (thingid cBrsChPaIn). The problem is that the ability Bite and Claws does not appear on the character after selection and the natural attacks don't appear either.

I am sort of at a loss at this moment what I did wrong so any help would be great.

Thanks

 

[Mathias]

With such great differences between the various abilities, having a single ability and then selecting from among many widely varying abilities isn't the way I'd handle this.

Instead, use the custom ability mechanisms that already exist for classes. Usually, custom abilities are only used for things that are permanent selections for the character, but there's no reason that they have to be - the user can delete the existing selection and add a new one anytime. If it's possible to not have an ability selected, make that set of custom abilities optional.

Many of the abilities you want to add can be copied from Barbarian Rage powers.

 

[Mathias]

P.S. - your problem was that you were forwarding the Custom.? tag at Post-Levels/10000, but testing for the presence of that tag at First/500, way before then.

The Helper.ShowSpec tags aren't assigned until Post-Levels/300 or so, so the ability would always fail to run before then.

You'll note that the sorcerer's bloodline type has to be forwarded by the sorcerer class, not the bloodline, because class specials and custom class specials aren't allowed to run scripts that early (since they have their own conditions that have to come before scripts).

 

[ShadowChemosh]

..
Instead, use the custom ability mechanisms that already exist for classes. Usually, custom abilities are only used for things that are permanent selections for the character, but there's no reason that they have to be - the user can delete the existing selection and add a new one anytime. If it's possible to not have an ability selected, make that set of custom abilities optional.

Thanks that does work much easier actually.

And with that Elves of Golarion is all done. My players will be happy and I can send off a copy to chiefweasel's repository site then also...