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Restricted Racial Bonus Feats?

J

Jaunt

Member
Hey again everyone!

So this time I'm trying to give a race a bonus feat from a category. It's a custom category, but for the sake of discussion, we can pretend it's just a combat feat or something. How do I do this mechanically?

It looks like the "grants bonus feat" optional under racials only picks individual feats, and won't let you choose a category. Does that mean I have to make an array based list? And then get around to learning how to use pulltags? I've looked at the human bonus feat (which alters just your number of feats) and the half-elf skill focus feat (where the picking of a skill is done by the actual Skill Focus feat), but neither illustrates what I'm trying to do.

Thanks again in advance!
 
Maybe check out how a fighter grants its bonus combat feats...

Not sure if that will do what you're wanting or not, but it sounds like a good place to start if you're looking to grant bonus feat of a certain category, such as Combat
 
Yeah, it's a good thought, and I did that too, but the issue there is that classes are allowed to grant categories, and racials aren't. Not because of tags or fields or anything, but the editor itself defaults to "how many feats?" and "which ones are cool?" for classes, and just "what feat do they get?" for racials.
 
Classes can have fixed bonus feats, same as races can. It's just that it's also common for classes to offer the user a selection of bonus feats. Also, classes almost always use a Class Special to bootstrap that bonus feat - that way, an archetype can replace the class special. Having a race offer a feat selection from a list is a rare thing, so there's not an automatic mechanism for that.

I'd use a configurable in this case - create the bonus feat table on the configurable, and then bootstrap that configurable from the race.

And actually, for the same reason classes use class specials to add their fixed bonus feats, I'd use a racial special to add this choice of bonus feats - you want to bootstrap the configurable from a racial special that's bootstrapped to the race. Then, an Alternate Racial Trait can be written that suppresses the racial special, and the configurable detects that and sets itself non-live (through a condition expression on the bootstrap of the configurable).
 
Thanks Mathias! I'd never looked into configurables before and they look really powerful, so I'm glad to now be aware of their existence.

So, I tried whipping one up with the hierarchy going kind of like this: race --> alternate racial ability --> configurable (which is just a bonus category feat). However, I can't get it to display a menu allowing me to pick the bonus feat. I've gone populated the bonus feat category just in case, but that didn't help. Any further assistance is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
 
No, Race --> Racial Special --> Configurable

ARTs are not designed to be permanently attached to a race - they're for users to add.
 
Also, you don't mention what settings you put on the configurable. Configurables will hide any tables that aren't currently in use, and hide the entire configurable if no tables are in use, so you can't just create a placeholder configurable with nothing on it, for testing purposes.
 
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Okay, maybe I've misspoken. The configurable is on the ART because the ART is what grants the bonus feat. Like, the user can switch out his normal RT for the ART granting the bonus feat, like one normally would. Does that make more sense?

All I did was bonus feats: 1, bonus feats allowed: (the category of feats I'm trying to give). Does it need settings other than that to make the configurable work and not be hidden? And then I bootstrapped that to the ART.

Sorry, I'm at a really, really basic level with the Hero Lab editor and not too technical in general.

Edit: Okay, I'm sucking at communication today. My issue is that when a hero takes the ART, the ART does not allow him to take the feat. I'm perfectly able to select the feat category in the editor. I hope that clarifies.
 
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Go back to game rules - post the text of the ability that allows this option, because I'm really getting confused as to how this is supposed to work.
 
Sorry for the confusion. Here's what I'm trying to implement:

Ancient Sun Elf: A Sun Elf with this racial trait gains +1 caster level with casting spells with the light description, and can choose any Sunspark feat for which he qualifies as a bonus feat. This ability replaces Weapon Familiarity and Keen Senses.

Sunspark feats, obviously, being a category I just made up.
 
Okay, I did not get from your original post that this was an ART itself.

In that case, the race does not bootstrap the ART - the ART bootstraps the configurable, but the ART is added to the race by the user on the background tab.
 
Sorry, that's just me misexplaining the situation again.

I can get the ART working, and have a bunch of other good ARTs. What happens is when the ART is chosen by the user, the user is unable to choose a bonus feat, despite me having populated the bonus feat category, and setting up the configurable as described previously.
 
Please be more specific about what "...having populated the bonus feat category and setting up the configurable..." actually entails.
 
So more specifically, I would expect adding the ART to a PC to give a dropdown menu or some other way of selecting the feat. In case I didn't make that clear.

To answer your question: I created two feats, named them Sunspark 1 and Sunspark 2, and set them to be in the category Sunspark Feats, the same category which I included on the configurable.

For the configurable, I set the number of feats to 1, the feats allowed to Sunspark Feats, and then bootstrapped the configurable to the ART.
 
What will happen is that a new tab is added for the configurable, and you'll choose the feat there.

All of that sounds correct. I guess it's time to look at the .user file.
 
Okay, so some combination of restarting Hero Lab and knowing to look for the new tab fixed it. Thanks so much for your help, Mathias, and thanks for your patience with my poor explanations.
 
Jaunt said:
Okay, so some combination of restarting Hero Lab and knowing to look for the new tab fixed it. Thanks so much for your help, Mathias, and thanks for your patience with my poor explanations.
Click to expand...
As soon as you get into Bootstraps you need to do CTRL-R for testing chagnes/setup instead of Test Now!. :)
 
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