Question Involving Twofold Pact for Warlock

[Nebirothrian]

Hello, and thanks for keeping this aspect of the editor alive!

I had a question involving the Twofold Pact Feat, available in the Paragon Tier for Warlocks. When selected, there doesn't seem to be a drop down menu to actually select what additional pact you wish to take. I checked the boards but didn't notice a fix specific for this. I am wondering if maybe just a version I have doesn't allow it, or I'm missing something basic in the editor. The character I'm creating is higher than 11th level and satisfies all the requirements for the feat.

Am I missing something? Is there an option I forgot to check for?

Thanks!

[Charlie]

I don't think there's anything explicit implemented for Twofold Pact. Really, I'm not sure there's anything implemented that requires something to be activated or not; you're apparently supposed to eyeball it or use Adjustments (would be easier if there was an All Attacks adjustment, but I digress).

Would it work if you just noted what your two Pacts are on the Personal Tab and switched between them on the Class Tab depending on which was active?

[Nebirothrian]

I actually was wondering if switching between them on the tab would "fake it" well enough for what I was making as an example. I'm showing off 4th edition to a group of new to system but seasoned players. And of course, one of them already seems to be looking at the feats that don't quite line up well in the builder.

Thanks for re-affirming my thought on how to handle it. If anyone has come up with any other ideas, by all means let me know.

And I apologize if this isn't the right Forum spot for this question; if need be I will navigate it to where it should be if asked.

Thanks!

[dracusmage]

Without looking at it too closely, I'm thinking that the way to fix this is to modify the class itself to do a check for the feat. If the feat is picked, then add an additional pact drop down to the class form.

If that's not possible or is too much work, it may be equally useful to make the feat call the drop down pact option list, which should equally add the pact power to the character.

It's been forever since I played a warlock, so I don't remember; do any of the pact boons give benefits that are integrated into the character? The feat says only one boon can be active at a time, which means if one of the pacts gives say, a +1 to speed but you are using the other one that say gives a +1 to damage if you are closer than everyone else to the enemy, you would lose the speed bonus, and that means we probably need to do something for the In-Play tab to select which pact's boon is active to math the sheet correctly.

[dracusmage]

With a cursory once over I didn't see any boons that will be a problem as far as needing to modify how the character sheet displays the boon information.

Adding the menu to the feat doesn't correctly bootstrap the At-Will powers or the boon text to the character sheet. It's possible I'm just missing the right code to do it, but I'm thinking it's not loading it because the feat level bootstrapping happens after the class level bootstrapping, or that it's trying to load the feat and the at-will and everything into the feat rather than the character. I'm going to try to find a hint in the other feats/themes/backgrounds to hopefully find another thing that loads a class feature from outside the class to see what it will take to make the feat load the feature from the drop-down.

Adding a check in the class to look for the feat and add a second dropdown isn't ideal because it means that every single class that the feat applies to needs to have the test for the feat, which will break compatibility with a new warlock class. Making the feat directly bootstrap the features onto the player isn't ideal either because it will break compatibility with any new pacts.

Here is the feat I made that creates the right drop down, but doesn't do anything:

Code Select Expand

  <thing id="ftTwofoPac" name="Twofold Pact" description="{b}Benefit{/b}: You gain a second Eldritch Pact. You gain the at-will spell and pact boon of that pact. You can use only one of your pact boon benefits at a time, however." compset="Feat" uniqueness="useronce">
    <fieldval field="reqText" value="11th level, Eldritch Pact class feature"/>
    <fieldval field="usrCandid1" value="(component.BuildOpt) &amp; (BuildOpt.fWlkEldPac)"/>
    <usesource source="Dragon"/>
    <tag group="Tier" tag="Paragon"/>
    <tag group="ReqLevel" tag="11"/>
    <tag group="ReqClass" tag="clsWarlock"/>
    <prereq message="&apos;Eldritch Pact&apos; feature required">
      <validate> perform hero.childfound[fWlkEldPac].setfocus
      call ReqPower</validate>
      </prereq>
    </thing>

The basic feat also fails to have any real validation (only level and Tier) so I added the class and Pact requirements to the feat so it will stop barbarians from being able to grab it when they hit level 11. The UsrCandid1 line is the one that adds the drop-down list that almost does what it's supposed to.

I am also well aware that there will not be any "new" classes or pacts for 4e, but I think it's important to make the code correct so if anyone creates some homebrew they only have to get the part they make correct, not have infinite knowledge of the system to know that they need to also screw with a feat/class/whatever to make the new thing work like the old stuff.