Redesigning COMPANIONLIST and Companion Leveladjustment

Redesign of How to Assign Companions and Assign them to their groups and how to adjust individual creatures

COMPANIONLIST would need to be deprecated to remove the FOLLOWERADJUSTMENT

New Token Needed

COMPANIONGROUP:x|y

• Variables Used (x): Text (Group Type)
• Variables Used (y): Text (Race Name)
• Variables Used (y): Text (COMPANIONTYPE=y)
• Variables Used (y): Text (RACESUBTYPE=y)

What it Does: ?

That takes care of the replace token for COMPANIONLIST. Next we need to redo how the Master Level is adjusted.

Insert Tom's Proposal

DEPRECATE COMPANIONLIST - with the intention of completely removing FOLLOWERADJUSTMENT

Why can't we do:

  COMPANIONGROUP:Animal Companion|Bat|Fox|Wolverine

and then in the Game Mode (or something like that) define:

  COMPANIONGROUP:Animal Companion <> BASECR:1 <> ECLINCREMENT:3
  
  COMPANIONGROUP:Mystical Mount <> BASECR:2 <> ECLINCREMENT:3

That way, we know for each additional CR beyond 1 (for Animal Companion), we know the PC has to be 3 levels higher. That is, after all, how the rules are written!

This:

• (1) Does not require any changes to Races or Templates
• (2) Actually simplifies and consolidates the COMPANIONLIST tokens there today.
• (3) Keeps us from adding yet _more_ variables to our data (which take a while to calculate with every change)
• (4) Gives us a check in the LST files that the items we are using in COMPANIONLIST are actually valid (and not misspelled) - since we have a master source from the Game Mode file.

(*Note: Open to having this more than Game Mode, as I know we are trying to get away from things solely in game mode. So we can do Game Mode plus have an additional file for companionlist by itself, or Game Mode plus have an additional file that can load various types as we transfer things out of Game Mode - up for discussion).

So the key question here is:

Are there any sources or creatures that VIOLATE the rules as written and therefore would break with the above implementation that assumes everything follows the rules?

TP.

In eclipse I am allowed to purchases a Template (+2 ECL) for the express purposes of decreasing the CR for the Level Adjustment Factor by 1 or 2 (Depending on the GM, but let's say 1 for now). I was kinda expecting these types of exceptions.

We can add COMPANIONECLBONUS:<integer> as a new Template token. (obviously name up for debate), which will add that number to the ECL before the calculation is done. ...or even COMPANIONCR:<integer> as a new Race/Template token that can be applied to certain races in order to modify the CR solely during the calculation done for COMPANIONLIST. (again, name up for debate)

Tom - Any reason we wouldn't allow a JEP Var in place of the Integer? I know static values are easier on processing, but there might be a case where having a formula in a special case would be handy LegacyKing 16:21, 9 March 2012 (EST)