# Lesson #6: .lst - Races (part 4)

By Professor Chris Chandler (Barak).

File(s) Covered: *races.lst

Tags used:

`LEGS, HANDS, NATURALATTACKS, SA, HITDICE, SR, DR, TYPE, MONSTERCLASS, TEMPLATE, HITDICEADVANCEMENT, CR, LEVELADJUSTMENT, SOURCEPAGE, SPELL`

This will be the final lesson on creating "monster" race files. Once you've read through this and understand it (and the preceding lessons) you should not have too much difficulty in creating a monster race file for PCGen.

With that said, there's a lot of material to be covered, so lets dive right in.

`LEGS`

The LEGS tag is used to denote the number of legs a creature has. PCGen uses this in the calculation of what the load/encumbrance ranges for a race are. Sometimes the description of the race will tell you how many legs it has, sometimes you have to just refer to the pictures provided. :p

Both the Solar and our Ninja Monkey have two legs, so the tag for both races will be "`LEGS:2`".

`HANDS`

The HANDS tag is used to denote the number of hands a creature has. This is used to determine how many weapons it can hold. When you go to the equipping screen it will offer to let you equip weapons to your primary hand and and also show a location for each secondary hand. So a creature with four hands could equip one weapon as primary and three as secondary. This tag has no affect on a race's natural attacks.

The Solar and our Ninja Monkey both have two hands, so our tag for both races would be "`HANDS:2`"

`NATURALATTACKS`

The NATURALATTACKS tag is what we use to define non-equipment attacks a race may possess. This tag does several things at once. It creates a piece of "equipment" that will show up in the GUI to be equipped. It creates and grants a weapon proficiency for the defined natural attack to make sure the creature doesn't receive the standard -4 non-proficiency penalty. It determines what kinds of damage, how much damage, what kind of attack (melee or ranged), how many attacks with the defined natural attack and whether or not that attack gets iterative attacks or not.

The first attack listed after the tag is considered to be the primary attack, and all others are treated as a secondary attack (at -5 unless some feat modifies that).

The format for the tag is as follows: NATURALATTACKS:<attack name>,<TYPE line>,<*(if non-iterative)><#attacks>,<damage>

The <attack name> is what you want to appear as the name for the natural attack. This can be things like Bite, CLaw, Tentacle Rake or Incorporeal Touch just to name a few common examples.

The <TYPE line> is similar to the TYPE line we use in .lst files for regular weapons. The lline must star with "Weapon.Natural". It is then followed by the type of attack ("Ranged" or "Melee"_ and then any descriptors for the type of damage it deals ("Piercing" and "Slashing" and "Bludgeoning" are good examples of this). You do not have to use just one, you could (and often do) have things like "Piercing.Slashing".

Next would come the number of attacks. If it says something like "two claws +21" then they only get that many attacks and they are not iterative, so we put a "*" in front of the number. If it says something like "Slam +15/+10/+5" then they do get iterative attacks and the asterisk is left out (these are few and far between, but they do exist).

Finally we list the damage the attack does (dice damage only, STR modifiers and other adjustments will be applied by PCGen). This is entered in the standard dice notation such as "1d8" and "4d10".

The Solar has no natural attacks, so we'll skip this tag for them.

The ninja monkey has claws (2) which do 1d4 points of damage for it's primary natural attack and a bite which does 1d8 for its secondary attack. The tag for the ninja monkey would look thus:

> `NATURALATTACKS:Claw,Weapon.Natural.Melee.Piercing.Slashing,*2,1d4|Bite,Weapon.Natural.Melee.Piercing.Slashing.Bludgeoning,*1,1d8`

Note that with creative manipulation within the PCGen Gui, you can make it so that an attack listed as secondary shows with primary attack numbers which is sometimes necessary to make the numbers come out properly. (Basically, once you equip it, right click on it and change the location to "Carried").

`SA`

This is the tag we use for any special abilities, attacks or qualities the race may have. Things that would be noted here are immunities, bonuses to skills that are conditional ("+8 to spot in daylight" is a good example of this type) and other things of that kind. If the type of special ability/quality is listed it should be added in parens. "(Ex)" for extraordinary, "(Sp)" for Spell or Spell-like, "(Su)" for supernatural. We wouldn't list anything that has a tag like Spell Resistance or Damage Reduction or spells.

The Solar has several abilities such a Aura od Menace, Protective Aura, etc. (essentially his celestial qualities) that we should list. So his se of SA
tags (separated by tabs of course) would loo like:

> `SA:Aura of Menace (Su)
> SA:Magic Circle against Evil (Su)
> SA:Protective Aura (Su)
> SA:Teleport (Su)
> SA:Tongues (Su)
> SA:Immunity to electricity/petrification/cold/acid (Ex)
> SA:Fire resistance 20 (Ex)
> SA:Keen Vision (Ex)`

The Ninja Monkey is a hardy race so I'll give him immunity to poison. Being a monkey, I'll also give him +2 to Hide in forested areas. So we would put:

> `SA:Posion Immunity (Ex)
> SA:+2 to Hide in forested areas`

`HITDICE`

This is the tag we use to indicate the die size and quantity of hit dice a race gets. The program uses this when the "Default Monster" setting in the preferences is on. It takes the format of HITDICE:<quantity>,<size>. This information is found at the top of each race listing.

The Solar has 22d8 hit points, so would have "`HITDICE:22,8`" for this tag.

The ninja monkey has 4d8 hit points, so would have "`HITDICE:4,8`" for this tag.

`SR`

For races that have Spell Resistance, we use the SR tag. This can take a plain number or a formula for those races that get better SR with more levels. So SR:12 is valid as is SR:11+TL.

The Solar has a spell resistance of 32, so we would enter "`SR:32`" for him.

The Ninja Monkey has no SR so we'll skip this tag for them.

`DR`

To indicate Damage Reduction for races we use the DR tag. It takes the format of DR:<reduction>|<bonus to bypass>. So a creature with a damage reduction of 5 unless you have a +1 weapon would be "DR:5/+1". For a creature that has damage reduction of 10 unless it's a silver weapon you would use "DR:10/Silver". If the race gets the damage reduction regardless of what kind of weapon is used (such as a high level barbarian gets) you use a "-" in the second position.

The Solar has a damage reduction of 35 and only a +4 or better weapon can get through it, so the tag would read "`DR:35/+4`".

The Ninja Monkey has a very strong connection with the earth and gains a small damage reduction of 3 with no special weapons that can ignore it, so the tag would be "`DR:3/-`".

`TYPE`

We use the TYPE tag to indicate what type of creature the race is (Aberration, Undead, Animal, Monstrous Humanoid, Magical Beast, etc.).

The Solar is an Outsider so our tag would read "`TYPE:Outsider`".

The Ninja monkey is a Monstrous Humanoid so our tag would be "`TYPE:Monstrous Humanoid`".

`MONSTERCLASS`

The MONSTERCLASS tag is used by the program when the "Default Monster" setting is off. It tells it how many and which monster class levels to give the race (as opposed to using the HITDICE tag when in "Default Monster" mode).

The tag takes the format of MONSTERCLASS:<monsterclassname>:<levels>. For PCGen distribution files the class name is *usually* the type of creature and the number of levels is usually set equal to the number of HD the default creature has. An exception to this is when the racial description says they are spellcasters... "cast as 18th level sorcerers". In that case we create a special class (in a class.lst file) to grant the race the appropriate spellcasting levels.

The Solar is an Outsider with 22 HD, and he casts spells as a 20th level cleric, so his tag would be "`MONSTERCLASS:Solar:22`"

For the Ninja Monkey, he's a Monstrous Humanoid and has 4 HD and no spellcasting ability, so the tag for him would read "`MONSTERCLASS:Monstrous Humanoid:4`".

`TEMPLATE`

We use templates (and the "TEMPLATE" tag) to apply all the bonuses that creatures get from being a certain type of creature (ie: no CON score for undead, etc.). The standard PCGen distribution has templates created for all the creature types that are called out in the R/SRD.

The format is TEMPLATE:<templatename>. Despite what the documentation says currently, you cannot apply multiple templates by using a "|" to separate them, you must use a separate TEMPLATE tag for each template you wish to apply.

The Solar is an outsider so we would add a "`TEMPLATE:Outsider`" to his listing.

The Ninja Monkey is a Monstrous HUmanoid and would get "`TEMPLATE:Monstrous Humanoid`".

`HITDICEADVANCEMENT`

We use the HITDICEADVANCEMENT tag for those races that change size as their hitdice change. It takes the format of HITDICEADVANCEMENT:#,#,#. The "#" should be replaced by the number corresponding to the last number of HD for that size. For a race that was Small from 3-4 HD, Medium from 5-6 HD and Large from 7-10 HD the tag would read "HITDICEADVANCEMENT:4,6,10".

When the race advances by class or has no advancement listed this tag should be left out.

The solar shows an advance of 22-33 for Large size and 34-66 for Huge. So the tag for him will be "`HITDICEADVANCEMENT:33,66`"

For the Ninja Monkey, he's advances by character class, so will get no HITDICEADVANCEMENT tag.

`CR`

The CR tag is used to set the challenge rating for the race. It takes the form of CR:<number>. A creature with a challenge rating of 4 would get a "CR:4" tag. One with a challenge rating of 1/2 would get "CR:1/2".

The Solar has a challenge rating of 19, so the tag would read "`CR:19`".

The Ninja Monkey has a challenge rating of 2, so his tag would read "`CR:2`".

`LEVELADJUSTMENT`

The LEVELADJUSTMENT tag is used for those races that might conceivably be used as player characters to keep them in balance with all the regular PCs.

The Solar is such a high-level creature that it does not have a level adjustment.

The Ninja Monkey, due to his several small special abilities would get a +2 level adjustment, so his tag would read "`LEVELADJUSTMENT:2`".

`SOURCEPAGE`

This is just what it seems, where we indicate the page from the source material where you can find the text and stats for the race.

When you are going from an OGL book the format is usually SOURCEPAGE:p.#

If you are working froman online document such as the SRD, it would be the filename, so SOURCEPAGE:<filename>/

For the solar, we pulled him from the SRD so his tag would be "`SOURCEPAGE:srdmonstersc.rtf`".

The Ninja Money is from my custom races file, so Il make the tag for him "`SOURCEPAGE:customraces.txt`".

`SPELL`

The SPELL tag is used to grant innate spellcasting (and some spell-like abilities). We use it for spell-like abilities when they grant the full spell effect. If it is restricted in some way (some races can use a summon monster spell but only to summon a certain creature, etc.), we simply list it as an SA.

The format is SPELL:<name of spell>|<times per day>|<spellbook name>|<name of spell>|<times per day>|<spellbook name>|etc... If you put a "-1" in the times per day slot that means that they can use the spell at will, and on output, "At Will" will appear in the spell listing. For the spellbook name, we usually use "Innate" for racial spells.

The Solar has a whole listing of spells, so the tag for them would be:

> `SPELL:Aid|-1|Innate|Animate Objects|-1|Innate|Commune|-1|Innate|Continual Flame|-1|Innate|Dimensional Anchor|-1|Innate|Greater Dispelling|-1|Innate|Holy Smite|-1|Innate|Imprisonment|-1|Innate|Improved Invisibility|-1|Innate|Lesser Restoration|-1|Innate|Remove Curse|-1|Innate|Remove Disease|-1|Innate|Remove Fear|-1|Innate|Resist Elements|-1|Innate|Summon Monster VII|-1|Innate|Speak with Dead|-1|Innate|Blade Barrier|3|Innate|Earthquake|3|Innate|Heal|3|Innate|Permanency|3|Innate|Resurrection|3|Innate|Shapechange|3|Innate|Greater Restoration|1|Innate|Mass Charm|1|Innate|Power Word Blind|1|Innate|Power Word Kill|1|Innate|Power Word Stun|1|Innate|Prismatic Spray|1|Innate|Symbol|1|Innate|Wish|1|Innate`

The Ninja Monkey has one very simple spell-like ability and that is Pass without Trace at will. So they would get:

> `SPELL:Pass Without Trace|-1|Innate`

Well, this brings to a close the lessons on creating monster races for use in PCGen. Hopefully everything I've talked about has made sense to you all. :)

Barak
LST Chimp