Scripting Help Request

[Mergon]

I've finally gotten around to working on Demonic Boons for MToF.

Each boon grants the following ability:

Ability Score Adjustment: Up to a +4 bonus to Strength, Wisdom, or both.

I've decided to try adding 2 separate Ability Score Adjustments which feed from a common field[abValue].value on the Epic Boon itself. However, I have never used findchild before.

The script I am trying to use is as follows:

~ If we're disabled, do nothing &
doneif (tagis[Helper.Disable] = 1)

var sExpr as string
sExpr = "thingid.bn5CMToFDB" & field[abText].text

var iStatMax as number
iStatMax = hero.findchild[BaseBoon, sExpr].field[abValue].value

if (iStatMax > 0) then
hero.child[aSTR].field[aStartMod].value += field[actUser].value
hero.findchild[BaseBoon, sExpr].field[abValue].value -= field[actUser].value
endif

Everything seems to compile fine until I get 'Invalid tag expression specified for 'findchild''

Anyone have an idea where I am going wrong? ShadowChemosh?

 

[dungeonguru]

I've not used findchild much either but I'm wondering about the tag expression you're passing in.

The line:
sExpr = "thingid.bn5CMToFDB" & field[abText].text

you add to the tag expression.

When you grab abText what would it contain?

The end result is that sExpr should be something like:

"thingid.bn5CMToFDB & component.BaseBoon" right?

Are you missing putting in the " & " or a " | " in the text?

for example:

sExpr = "thingid.bn5CMToFDB & " & field[abText].text

 

[Mergon]

I have the ability Bootstrapped to the Epic Boon. In the bootstrap, I add a field abText. This field contains the name of the Demon to whom the Epic Boon is associated (ie: Baphomet)

Thus I create, I hope, the tag of the Boon (ie: thingid.bn5CMToFDBBaphomet). I love the longer tag names . . .

I was hoping that this way, I don't have to create a pair of abilities for each Boon.

 

[dungeonguru]

Ah, well we will have to wait for ShadowChemosh to chime in then.

I had started working on these myself but went down a different road by trying to create generic Abilities that could show up in a Configurable tab called by an Adjustment.

The generic Abilities can handle you making a new abilFunc tag for Demonic Boons. The problem I ran into was that some of the boons boost to +4 and have no negatives while at least one goes to +8 and negatively impacts 3 other scores. The logic checks to keep someone from dropping below 1 on a score adjustment were proving too hard to get the timing right though.

 

[Mergon]

This is my 3rd assault on the issue.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

Ah, well we will have to wait for ShadowChemosh to chime in then.

I found the PDF after some google searches.

If I pull the latest files from GitHub can I see any of the work in progress on this? Or is this only on your computer Mergon?

How does a person gain access to these Boons? A feat, template, race or something else?

 

[Mergon]

I lost my hard drive a short while ago. I lost my previous attempts at creating these boons. I had the rest of my MToF materials already uploaded to GIT. But that material has nothing to do with the Epic Boons.

Sorry . . .

 

[ShadowChemosh]

I lost my hard drive a short while ago. I lost my previous attempts at creating these boons. I had the rest of my MToF materials already uploaded to GIT. But that material has nothing to do with the Epic Boons.

Sorry . . .

Ok... Sort of helps...

I am thinking I need to use a Configurable to allow the different choices. I assume a character gets one choice of demon/boon correct? Once I have the configurable working I guess you can bootstrap it to whatever you guys want to give the options to the players.

 

[Mergon]

Nothing in the rules say you CAN"T have 2 Demonic Boons, but I can't see 2 demon lords granting a single individual their boon.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

Attached to this is a proof of concept for demonic boons. Once you load it and restart HL go to the adjust tab and add the adjustment "Show Demonic Boons Tab".

Then on the Demonic Boons tab you can add Baphomet demon lord. The Demonic Boons tab will then display three things:


You get the demon lord and two other helper Picks with dropdowns allowing for selecting a value from 0 to +4. The demon lord pick does validation to make sure the gamer has not selected a total bonus over +4.

Now lets say you want to add the next demon lord "DEMOGORGON". You would make a copy of the "Baphomet" demon lord Thing. To set the ability scores for Demongorgon you need to change a tag on the bootstrapped ability helper Things:

Baphomet has:

    <bootstrap thing="ab5CDemBoonAbiSco">
      <autotag group="CMDOpt" tag="aSTR"/>
      </bootstrap>
    <bootstrap thing="ab5CDemBoonAbiSco">
      <autotag group="CMDOpt" tag="aWIS"/>
      </bootstrap>

You just need to change the CMDOpt tag to be the new ability score of Charisma instead of Wisdom:

    <bootstrap thing="ab5CDemBoonAbiSco">
      <autotag group="CMDOpt" tag="aSTR"/>
      </bootstrap>
    <bootstrap thing="ab5CDemBoonAbiSco">
      [B]<autotag group="CMDOpt" tag="aCHA"/>[/B]
      </bootstrap>

The thing ab5CDemBoonAbiSco takes care of adjusting the ability scores and then a validation check on the Demon Lord makes sure we don't spend over the +4 bonus. This is done by storing the total value from the Demonic Boons Ability Score picks into the abValue5 field on the demon lord pick.

NOTE: I had to add new features into community pack helper file so you will need to pull the latest github files to get this to compile.

 

[Mergon]

ShadowChemoshL

I'll look at this soon as I have a chance. Currently preparing for a Saturday night game session. Thx a lot.

 

[dungeonguru]

How does a person gain access to these Boons? A feat, template, race or something else?

Yeah, sorry Shadow didn't mean to muddy the water earlier. I was trying to figure out how to force findchild to treat the variable he's using for the tagexpression correctly. I remember that sometimes the functions don't like to be passed a variable so you have to use another function to push the string held by the variable, but I don't remember how I did it before.

The boons are granted by a demon, so some debate on how people want to add them is probably making it murky. I think Mergon is making these as a variant of Epic Boons.

I've decided to go a different route so I'm backing off. I got some traction today with my Adjustment calling a Configurable that allows you to pick a couple of Racial Abilities that have a Custom tag for it to list. I'm not sure I would allow multiple boons but my way right now would easily grab the uservalue from the adjustment to use as the number of racials granted by passing it to the configurable.

 

[Mergon]

I wouldn't normally allow someone to have more than one Demonic Boon myself. Hiwever, some of my players are quite crafty and my pull off something sneaky (yet again) and end up with two.

I can see at least one of my plauers playing one demon off another and gettign the benefit of two boons for the duration.

In my opinion, Epic Boons are the best way to go with such Boons; mostly because, much like Epic Boons, they are normally granted by beings of power.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

The configurable can be bootstrapped to anything at this point without issues. In addition you could have a person select multiple demon lords from the configurable. The only thing then is another script maybe needed to append the demon lord name to the Ability Adjustment so a gamer has a easy time figuring out which ability score boost goes with which demon lord.

 

[Mergon]

My game session got called for tonight. The tornado's in the region yesterday still have some of my players without power.

Thus, I've been trying to get my head around the coding you created. Once I do, this should go straight forward.

Right now I am just trying to convert what you created to an Epic Boon instead of an Adjustment.

Once I get one working, the others will be straight forward. The other abilities that gp with a Demonic Boon are straight forward. I just lost my sample when I lost the contents of that hard drive. :/

Shouldn't take me long to re-create.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

Right now I am just trying to convert what you created to an Epic Boon instead of an Adjustment.

The adjustment I provided is just a method to get the Configurable live on the character. You simply need to bootstrap the configurable to whatever a Epic Boon is. I honestly have no idea if that is a feat, ability, etc..

The idea is you just need some Thing else to bootstrap the configurable to that a gamer will add to the hero.

 

[Mergon]

Epic Boons are an option in 5E. Usually gained by gaining 50,000 xp above and beyond 20th level (or as a major DM reward.

Shadow, do you have a DnDBeyond account? If so, I can email you a link to a blank campaign I share among my players. If you create a character, you'll have access to all my materials on the site. I purchased the Ultimate Pack that gives me everything up toMordenkainen's. Let me know if you want access.

Btw, you can create a free account on DnDBeyond that lets you create up to 6 characters.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

Shadow, do you have a DnDBeyond account? If so, I can email you a link to a blank campaign I share among my players. If you create a character, you'll have access to all my materials on the site. I purchased the Ultimate Pack that gives me everything up toMordenkainen's. Let me know if you want access.

I do not but I appreciate the offer. I currently have no plans to really do anything with 5E. I know HL so I try help here but the actual game is not one I or my players play.

Currently we are doing the PF2 playtest and Starfinder....

Thank you though...

 

[Mergon]

I have a HLO active account. Unfortunately I have not been impressed with PF2 so far. I absolutely hate what they did to races. A lot of other stuff is great mind you.

As it is, when we play PF, the group wants to stick with the original Pathfinder.

 

[Mergon]

Ok, I'm not sure what I am doing wrong here, but when I drop you .user file into my directory, everything seems to work, except I can't chose Ability Score values . . .