Schizoprhenic Weapon!!!

[bodrin]

In the Magic Item Compendium page 47 there is a Bladed Crossbow.

This crossbow has an exceptionally strong stock, which is shaped so that you can grip and swing it as a melee weapon. You can use a bladed crossbow as either a +1 heavy crossbow for ranged attacks, or as a +1 battleaxe for melee attacks.

Here's the problem, when i've coded the Specific item and Gizmo bootstrapped wCrsHeavy and wBattleaxe to the weapon it only shows as melee on the character sheet and in the HL main program.

I'm trying to think of a script that can adjust the output to display both weapon type stats but I am unable to find a starting point.

Also on page 48 there is the Bowstaff too which has a similar split personality!

By activating a bowstaff you can change this +1/masterwork quarterstaff into a +1 longbow or back again. Each version performs like a regular magic weapon of its kind.

Any suggestions on how to allocate both the Ranged and Melee stats to the weapon without duplicating it in the editor one for each instance.

 

[Lawful_g]

There are a couple weapons in the community files that function as both a weapon and armor (look at the Dwarven Buckler Axe from Races of Stone). They accomplish this by bootstrapping a "helper" weapon. I would say make the crossbow the main weapon, and bootstrap the battleaxe as a seperate custom weapon. Make sure to give the battleaxe version the Helper.Helper tag so it doesn't show up to be selected, only the primary one should be shown.

I don't know how you would do this otherwise.

 

[bodrin]

Thanks for the heads up lawful on the custom items already inputted. I've scratched my head on this one most of today.

I compared both a normal dagger and spear which can be melee and ranged weapons even copying the tags and bootstraps almost verbatim didn't accomplish the correct data.
Will peruse the data when time permits.

 

[bodrin]

I've managed to bootstrap a helper weapon onto the Crossbow and the BowStaff, now I get two entries in the weapons tab and on the character sheet for each, which will work fine at the moment.

Thank you for the suggestion Lawful as ever on the ball with insight!

However a question for the Devs, how does the Dagger and Shortspear only use one entry for their respective Melee and Ranged attack, which seems a far more tidier way of displaying the dual capabilities of each.

 

[bodrin]

I looked closer at the double weapon entries for the BowStaff and Bladed Crossbow that i've coded and both instances of weapon types are adding their weights together. I'm going to need some kind of script aren't I that sets the weight to a specific number because zero doesn't seem to work.

Zip file attached for perusal.

 

[Lawful_g]

When you make a custom magic weapon in the editor there is a field for weight. This overrides the weight of whatever gizmo weapon is attatched, so if you set it to 0 then that weapon will not weigh anything.

 

[bodrin]

When you make a custom magic weapon in the editor there is a field for weight. This overrides the weight of whatever gizmo weapon is attatched, so if you set it to 0 then that weapon will not weigh anything.

But because I've bootstrapped the wCrsbow tag to the crossbow and entered the weight and bootstrapped the wBattleaxe tag to the helper battlaxe portion a weight of zero in the field gets removed by the editor, so both weights are displayed per entry on the character sheet.

 

[Lawful_g]

I'm afraid I don't understand, can you send me a copy so I can see? Either through dropbox or e-mail?

 

[bodrin]

I'm afraid I don't understand, can you send me a copy so I can see? Either through dropbox or e-mail?

The file attached to my post contains the Bladed Crossbow. However I'll dropbox it along!

 

[Lawful_g]

Alright, I fixed it and but it back in the dropbox. The issue was if you put 0 in the Weight field HL would think it was empty and default to the gizmo weight. Instead, you should assign a very small non-zero weight which HL rounds down to 0.

Alternately, rather than going the gizmo route, you could just fill out the fields for the helper weapon, all of them are manipulatable through the editor.

 

[bodrin]

I think i'll manipulate the weight through the editor.
I've got the modified file with the .000000001 weight assigned however when I look at the Character sheet preview I see the scientific 1E -012 for the weight.

Not useful if you don't understand that E is the Exponent of the number. Screen grab attached

Thank you anyway for the alteration though as it's made me think of a different way top add a zero weight, i'll test it and report here if it works or not!

 

[Lawful_g]

Ah. I didn't think about the character sheet. I'll redo without the gizmo then.

 

[Lawful_g]

Ok, redone without the use of gizmos and put back into the dropbox.

 

[bodrin]

Got the file, thank you.

My zero weight idea was a dud so no joy. I think I'll create a file of all helper tagged weapons to bootstrap onto any more dual capability items though. It may be overthinking the problem but at least they will be available in the future, for anyone to use.