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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EricNoah" data-source="post: 216627" data-attributes="member: 4">Glad to do so.  The Race Generator button (what he's calling the Race Editor)  takes you to a place where you create, really and truly, a completely new monster.   You start with what type it is (outsider, animal, magical beast), give it some hit dice, pick any subtypes, then you enter the rest of the Race Generator screen where you enter its average STR, CHA, etc., select any bonus feats, select the creature's skills and add any racial skill bonuses, set its speed(s), languages, CR, alignment tendencies, face/reach, treasure options, advancement ranges, natural attacks, pick special attacks, pick special qualities, enter a text string for either that aren't already on the list, put in age categories, set base height/weight and how to generate them randomly, pick racial deities, pick what weapons the race is automatically proficient with, decide if this race can be enabled as an animal companion, paladin's mount, familiar, etc.; and pick a portrait.  The files created here are *.rac files (race files).You'll note there's nowhere to purchase and equip items -- that's because once you're done generating the base race, you save your file, then there's really two ways to go from here.  If you're intending that this race is going to be used by PCs and NPCs, this race will be available in the Character Generator portion.  If you want this race to be encountered as a critter, you then go into the Monster Editor, select your custom race, and you do three important things to it:  select feats and spend skill points (its number of feats and skill points are based on its "type" and its HD and/or intelligence, as outlined in Skip Williams' article) and give it some equipment if necessary.  If you don't do this you end up with an orc with no greataxe and no armor and no ranks in any skill or any feats.    When you Save here you've now got yourself a *.mon file (monster file).  Now that you have your monster set up as it would typically be encountered, you can then find it on your list of monsters in the Monster Generator.  This is where you can pick your pre-fab monster and tweak it.  Give it max hit points.  Give it a magical axe instead of the standard one.  If it can be advanced by HD, you can do it here (size changes, HD increases, more skill points and feat slots appear and you need to spend those here so the advanced critter can take advantage of them).  This is where you would grab a stat block from the stat block screen, as well, or send it to the printer as a block or a character sheet.  Finally, there is sort of a "copy monster" option -- you can use the Open File command, browse to the folder where all of the core monsters are, pick one you want, and voila you're in the Race Generator, ready to tweak it.  One "Save As" later, you've got yourself a modified monster.  The only things you can't change like this (without creating a whole new race) would be type, base HD, and subtypes (those are locked in).  The only real weakness with this setup is that the Special Qualities and Special Attacks info is somewhat limited.  You can pick "Resistance: Fire" off the list, for instance, but there's nowhere to say how much resistance (5? 15?).  The place where you can type in a special quality or attack is fine but that doesn't appear on a stat block .  Since the output is customizable (in theory, as it's XML) I'm hoping that a clever user will create a custom stat block that includes that SQ or SA text string and share it with the world.</blockquote>

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