Advanced Bestiary Update

[ddavison]

I just pushed a hotfix update to improve the parsing of 3.5E and Pathfinder statblocks in the statblock importer. D&D 3.5 had so many 3rd party publishers and changes over its lifetime, that parsing will need to be continually improved in order to get it right. If you have problems getting a statblock to parse using the new tool, please post a link to the source here, post the statblock in question (if it is okay from a copyright perspective) or email it to [email protected] and I'll see if I can modify the identification methods to get it to parse better.

The same goes for templates. If you need any help figuring out the best way to tackle a template, please post the issue here. There are plenty of examples in the AB library module, but as you can see, I opted to leave a number of things manual still.

[Trenloe]

The same goes for templates. If you need any help figuring out the best way to tackle a template, please post the issue here.

You're going to hate me for this - how about the advanced simple template?

[ddavison]

No worries. Which book is that one in again?

[Trenloe]

No worries. Which book is that one in again?

Standard bestiary: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/m...anced-creature

It's a PITA as it need to modify all abilities and all ability related rolls - basically most everything that is rolled! It's probably the most common template used in Pathfinder.

[ddavison]

Okay, so looking at this... it gets close by doing the following.

Template entry:
Name: Advanced Simple
New Name: Advanced [NAME]
A - CR: +1
A - Armor Class: +2 natural
A - Attack: (An Advanced Simple Creature adds +2 to all attack rolls and damage rolls. Apply Manually)
A - Full Attack: (An Advanced Simple Creature adds +2 to all attack rolls and damage rolls. Apply Manually)
A - Spec Attacks: (An Advanced Simple Creature adds +2 to all spell attack rolls and Save DC values. Apply Manually)
A - Strength: +4
A - Dexterity: +4
A - Constitution: +4
A - Intelligence: +4
A - Wisdom: +4
A - Charisma: +4
A - Fort: +2
A - Reflex: +2
A - Will: +2
A - Init: +2
A - Skills: An Advanced Simple Creature adds +2 to all skill rolls listed;
A - Hit Dice: =Multiply([NUMHD],2)
A - HP: =Multiply([NUMHD],2)

Notes:
CREATING AN ADVANCED SIMPLE CREATURE
Creatures with the advanced template are fiercer and more powerful than their ordinary cousins.

Quick Rules: +2 on all rolls (including damage rolls) and special ability DCs; +4 to AC and CMD; +2 hp/HD.

Rebuild Rules: AC increase natural armor by +2; Ability Scores +4 to all ability scores (except Int scores of 2 or less)

[ddavison]

Now, it looks like I can put in a patch to fix up the HD and Hit Points to reflect the change to CON. If you know you are applying it to a creature that has a d10 hit die type, you can "fake it out" and set the template to

R - HD: d10

and it will recalculate the HD string and re-roll the hit points. I should be able to flag it to do that automatically when CON changes though. In time, I can probably parse out all the skills and do a better job of reflecting stat updates there. Basically, the attribute changes should flow through to each of these and they are not at the moment.

The more I started adding to the system, the more I wanted to kick myself for taking on this challenge. In the end, I started cutting some functionality and making it more manual. Hopefully it's still significantly better than just getting textual reference material... but it would be cool if it did everything perfectly. Some things may never be possible though unless we start putting in prompts. The Advanced Bestiary had a few things about the number of tongues, eyes, arms or heads the creature had. There was also a bunch of add this as if the creature was also 2 sizes larger than it is, but don't change it's size. Fun times.

[Trenloe]

The more I started adding to the system, the more I wanted to kick myself for taking on this challenge.

Yeah, I hear you - I looked at doing a template extension about a year ago and started with the advanced simple template ("simple" it is not in FG terms). I realised it would be a huge task and so dropped the idea in favour of other development projects.

[Trenloe]

Now, it looks like I can put in a patch to fix up the HD and Hit Points to reflect the change to CON. If you know you are applying it to a creature that has a d10 hit die type, you can "fake it out" and set the template to

R - HD: d10

and it will recalculate the HD string and re-roll the hit points. I should be able to flag it to do that automatically when CON changes though.

For the simple template it doesn't need to re-roll hit points - just add 2 HP per hit dice.

[ddavison]

Hmmm... I added a few things to handle this a little better. I haven't pushed them live yet.

A - Hit Dice: =Multiply([NUMHD],2)
A - HP: =Multiply([NUMHD],2)

I added a Multiple and Divide function for the Replacement Formulas and added a [NUMHD] and [HALFHD] replacement values.

You'll also want to add
A - Fort: +2
A - Reflex: +2
A - Will: +2
A - Init: +2

While the formula for HD and HP would theoretically work, it seems like it would be a better experience to have the CON adjustment automatically adjust the hit points for each hit die.

*Okay... pushed it live now. I'm still thinking it might be worth it for me to have CON adjustements (CHA for Undead) automatically update the HP and HD strings.

[darrenan]

I don't think the HD changes in the Advanced Simple Template, it just gets two extra HP per HD for the CON increase.