# Lesson #5: .lst - Races (part 3)

By Professor Chris Chandler (Barak).

File(s) Covered: *races.lst

Tags used:

`BONUS:SKILL, BONUS:SKILLRANK, BONUS:STAT, MONCSKILL, AUTO:ARMORPROF, AUTO:WEAPONPROF, AUTO:EQUIP, MFEAT`

`BONUS:SKILL`

Several races get racial modifiers to certain skills. Some of them are listed in the race write up (often these are skills such as Search, Spot and Listen), and some (movement related ones) are not. (Gotta love WotC). Creatures that have a natural Climb movement rate get a +8 to the Climb skill. Creatures that have a natural swimming movement rate get +8 to their Swim skill. These bonuses are now coded in the skill entry however so we do not need to enter them in the race file.

We apply these racial skill bonuses using the `BONUS:SKILL` tag. You can use this tag for a single skill, or multiple ones separated by commas as long as the bonus value is the same for each skill. If there are two skills with two different bonus values, you have to use two separate `BONUS:SKILL` tags.

To indicate that these are Racial bonuses we add "`|TYPE=Racial`" to the end of the tags.

Reading through the Solar write-up we discover that they do not get any racial bonuses to skills.

For the Ninja Monkey, I'm going to give them a +4 racial bonus to both Balance and Jump. Our tag for this would be:

> `BONUS:SKILL|Balance,Jump|TYPE=Racial`

`BONUS:SKILLRANK`

Now comes another section where we have to work backwards to arrive at the numbers we need to use. This would be to determine what ranks the race gets in each skill.

To begin, we look in the race listing at the "Skills" section. The numbers given here are the final numbers once everything (racial bonuses, armor/encumbrance, stat modifiers, feats, etc) is taken into account. They assume that all equipment listed for the monster is present and equipped and affecting those physical skills where they should.

For the Solar, the first skill listed is Concentration. The final value should be +16. We'll begin by subtracting the appropriate stat modifier (5 from constitution), so we're down to +11. Looking further, we see no racial skill modifiers for this skill, no feats that affect it and since it's not a physical feat equipment would have no effect. Our tag for this skill would be:

> `BONUS:SKILLRANK|Concentration|11|PREDEFAULTMONSTER:Y`

Next up is the Escape Artist skill. The final value needs to be +30. Subtracting the stat modifier for the skill (5 from dexterity) puts us at +25. Once again there are no racial bonuses or feats affecting this skill. It is physical so we need to check that there are no armor or encumbrance to affect it. The two pieces of equipment for a solar are it's greatsword and it's longbow. These are not enough to encumber it, so there is no effect on the physical skills. Leaving us with a skillrank of 25.

Several of the other skills work out to have this value after doing all the math, and the BONUS:SKILLRANK tag will let us apply the same bonus to multiple skills by simply listing them in a comma separated list. Our final tag for this skill (and several others) would be:

> `BONUS:SKILLRANK|Escape Artist,Hide,Listen,Move Silently,Sense Motive,Spot|25|PREDEFAULTMONSTER:Y`

Note that a Solar gets a choice of any five craft skills OR any five knowledge skills. To let the PCGen user make these choices, we need to get a little bit creative. :) I've created a set of feats that will present a chooser for knowledge or craft skills, and after choosing one it will present a chooser listing all of the skills of the selected type and allow them to pick five of them and then assign the appropriate number of ranks to those skills. I use an "`ADD:FEAT(TYPE=FiveKnowledge22,TYPE=FiveCraft22)`" tag in this race file to start the feat chooser.

I will wait to cover the creation of these feats until we go over feat files, but I wanted to make sure and mention their use here as the situation of a race getting a choice of certain skills comes up with some regularity and you need to know how to deal with it.

For the Ninja Monkey its somewhat simpler. We just need to determine how many skill points he should have for his race type and HD and then choose what skills he gets ranks in. According to the MM (pg. 11) A Monstrous Humanoid should have 2 x Intelligence score +2/EHD. So the Ninja Monkey gets 30 skillpoints to spend.

I think I'll give him ranks in Balance, Hide, Jump, Listen, Move Silently and Spot. TO keep it simple I'll just divide the skillranks equally among these skills. Our tag would be:

> `BONUS:SKILLRANK|Balance,Hide,Jump,Listen,Move Silently,Spot|5|PREDEFAULTMONSTER:Y`

`BONUS:STAT`

Now we come to the ability scores for the race.

This is complicated a bit by certain rules WotC has implemented. See page 23 of the DMG for their treatise on the subject. What is boils down to is that if a race is used as a character the odd scores need to be dropped by one to become even, while the "default monster" should have the additional 1 to the stat.

Our first assumption when doing ability scores for races is that they will be built on a starting ability score of 10 in each stat. So we need to subtract 10 from each score right off that bat. Then, if the ability score is odd, subtract one more to make it even. (For the Solar these values would be STR 18, DEX 10, CON 10, INT 12, WIS 14, CHA 14 with INT, WIS and CHA being odd). Now that we have the non-monster values, we can put them into the `BONUS:STAT` tag.

To designate which stat gets the bonus we use the abbreviations. So for strength it would be `BONUS:STAT|STR|#`. Like the `BONUS:SKILL` tag, you can apply the same bonus to more than one stat at once by making a comma separated list such as `BONUS:STAT|STR,CON|#`. One last note, if the final stat value is 10 then there is no need to add a bonus tag for it.

Finally, to take care of the extra 1 stat point for certain stats for default monsters we add one more tag, lumping together all the stats that were odd and adding a "`PREDEFAULTMONSTER:Y`".

Bearing all the above rules, procedures and gotchas in mind, lets put together the stat bonuses for the Solar:

> `BONUS:STAT|STR|18
> BONUS:STAT|DEX,CON|10
> BONUS:STAT|INT|12
> BONUS:STAT|WIS,CHA|14
> BONUS:STAT|INT,WIS,CHA|1|PREDEFAULTMONSTER:Y`

For the Ninja Monkey we need to pick stats and then apply the same logic to them to code into the .lst file. I think I'll go with final stat values of
STR:17 DEX:18 CON:14 INT:11 WIS:15 CHA:10. Our list of bonus tags in the race file would be:

> `BONUS:STAT|STR|6
> BONUS:STAT|DEX|8
> BONUS:STAT|CON,WIS|4
> BONUS:STAT|STR,INT,WIS|1|PREDEFAULTMONSTER:Y.`

`MONCSKILL`

To define the skills that are considered class skill for each race we use the `MONCSKILL` tag. Following the tag is a list of the race's class skills, separated by the pipe ("|") character.

To determine a race's class skills, we once again turn to the "Skills" section of the race's listing (when entering an existing source and not making up a new race). Every skill listed there is a classs skill for that race.

The Solar's entry would be:

> `MONCSKILL:Concentration|Escape Artist|Hide|TYPE.Knowledge|TYPE.Craft|Listen|Move Silently|Search|Sense Motive|Spellcraft|Spot`

Note that we have granted ALL Knowledge and Craft skills as racial skills since they may choose from among all of them.

The entry for the Ninja Monkey will be much shorter.

> `MONCSKILL:Balance|Hide|Jump|Listen|Move Silently|Spot`

AUTO:EQUIP

When a racial entry lists weapons (other than natural) or armor the race is considered to come with the mentioned equipment. To grant equipment automatically we use the `AUTO:EQUIP` tag. Despite it's name, it doesn't actually equip the gear, it only puts in in the "owned gear" list (for lack of a better term). The user creating the creature will have to go to the gear tab and actually equip it.

Note that you cannot use a name with a mathematical symbol in it (such as "+5 Vorpal Greatsword"). You can get around this by creating a different name for a piece of equipment ("Solar Greatsword") and using `OUTPUTNAME` in the equipment .lst (`OUTPUTNAME:+5 Vorpal Greatsword`). We'll cover this in more detail when we go over equipment.

Examining the Solar entry, we see that they have the aforementioned +5 Vorpal Greatsword as well as a +xx mighty longbow. I'll create special equipment.lst files for these, and use the names "Solar Longsword" and "Solar Longbow".

The tag granting these pieces of equipment to the Solar would thus be "`AUTO:EQUIP|Solar Greatsword|Solar Longbow`".

For the Ninja Monkey I think I'll give him Leather armor and a regular dagger. The tag for this would be "`AUTO:EQUIP|Leather|Dagger`".

`AUTO:ARMORPROF`

When a racial entry lists an armor for a race, the race is proficient with the type of armor in that class and all lesser types. So if an entry is shown for a Medium type armor, the race would be proficient with Medium *and* light armors. To grant these proficiencies, we use the `AUTO:ARMORPROF` tag. This tag is the same in format as the `AUTO:EQUIP` tag. It will take armors by name and grant only proficiency with that type, or by `TYPE` and grant proficiency to every type of armor in that selection.

Looking at the Solar entry, there is no armor listed, so we'll skip this tag for them.

The Ninja Monkey has Leather armor (which is Light) so we'll put in a tag of "`AUTO:ARMORPROF|TYPE=Light`" for them.

`AUTO:WEAPONPROF`

When a race has a weapon (or weapons) other than natural ones listed they are considered to be proficient with them. To grant these weapon proficiencies, we use the `AUTO:WEAPONPROF` tag. It has the same format as the last two tags we covered. Note that you need to put the appropriate proficiency name in this tag, NOT the weapon name.

Since the Solar uses a greatsword and a composite longbow, the entry for them is "`AUTO:WEAPONPROF|Greatsword|Longbow (Composite)`".

The Ninja Monkey only has a dagger, so the entry for him will be "`AUTO:WEAPONPROF|Dagger`".

`MFEAT`

To grant racial feats we use the `MFEAT` tag. This is very similar to the `MONCSKILL` tag in that the tag is followed by a list (of feats instead of skills) separated by the pipe character.

To determine a race's feats we simply look in the "Feats" section of their listing.

A couple of things to pay special attention to when entering feats using the `MFEAT` tag: Often a race will have a feat multiple times, but with a different target, such as Weapon Focus with their claws and Weapon Focus with their bite also. This would be entered as a single entry with two targets, like this: Weapon Focus(Bite,Claw).

It should also be noted that there should be no space between the feat name and the left paren. This is true whenever you reference a feat with a target, in any kind of .lst file.

Our entry using this tag for the Solar would be:

> `MFEAT:Cleave|Dodge|Great Cleave|Improved Initiative|Mobility|Power Attack`

And we'll end lesson #5 here. Example files for this lesson can be found in the LSTFileClass Lesson file folder here.

Thanks for reading along everyone.

Barak
LST Chimp