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Add a party member

Designer · 30 min · No code

Result: a new character with their own name, portrait, look, stats, starting gear and Arts joins the roster. You field them from the Party screen, lead with them, and they fight beside the others.

Before you start

  • Your first change. It explains the two assets every member is made of: the member definition and the pawn Blueprint.
  • To use a VRoid Studio model instead of the Mannequin body, see Add a VRoid party member instead. The shipped party is the seven VRoid members (Kael, Mira, Nia, Dorran, Isolde, Sabine, Tamsin); the game starts with Kael and Mira and the rest are recruited. The Mannequin colour members in Characters/Party, including the Quinn assets this page copies, are kept on disk as samples and are not in the starting roster.

What you will make

Asset How you make it What it decides
Member definition Duplicate Characters/Party/PartyMember_Quinn Name, role, portraits, which pawn to spawn, which AI drives it, its EXP curve
Pawn Blueprint Child Blueprint of Characters/Party/B_XenoCore_PartyMember_Base Body, materials, animation style, stats, starting level, starting gear, Arts
Pawn data Characters/Party/PawnData_XenoCore_Party_Quinn Which abilities the body is granted, its input config and tag rules
Stats effect Battle/Attributes/GE_XenoCore_BaseStats_Party_Quinn HP, Strength, Ether, Agility and Talent charge at each level
Anim profile Duplicate one of Characters/Party/AnimProfiles/DA_XenoCore_AnimProfile_* Victory emote, idle breaks, and any per-character reaction or death clips

The pawn is a child of the party base, not a copy of a sample: a copy brings the sample's gear, learnset and look with it, silently. The other four are duplicated: they hold only numbers and links, which step 2 repoints. Use the _Manny pawn data and stats effect for a masculine body.

Never create a member definition or pawn from scratch

A blank member definition has no Member Class, and a blank pawn has no pawn data. Both fail without an error at runtime: the character never spawns, or spawns with no abilities and cannot die. Duplicating the member definition and setting the pawn's Combatant Pawn Data in step 2 avoids every one of these.

Steps

1. Make the five assets

  1. Create a folder Content/MyGame/Party.
  2. In Plugins › XenoCore Content › Characters › Party, right-click B_XenoCore_PartyMember_Base and choose Create Child Blueprint Class.
  3. In the same folder, right-click and Duplicate PartyMember_Quinn and PawnData_XenoCore_Party_Quinn.
  4. In Battle › Attributes, duplicate GE_XenoCore_BaseStats_Party_Quinn.
  5. In Characters › Party › AnimProfiles, duplicate a profile whose clips suit the body (see step 2).
  6. Rename them B_Party_Rook, PartyMember_Rook, PawnData_Party_Rook, GE_BaseStats_Rook and DA_AnimProfile_Rook, and move all five into MyGame/Party.

2. Point the assets at each other

The duplicates still point at the sample they came from, and the new pawn points at nothing yet. Set every link:

  1. Open PawnData_Party_Rook. Set Pawn Class to B_Party_Rook. Leave Ability Sets, Tag Relationship Mapping and Input Config as they are. Save.

  2. Open B_Party_Rook and click Class Defaults. Under XenoCore › Combatant:

    • Combatant Pawn Data: PawnData_Party_Rook
    • Stats Effect: GE_BaseStats_Rook
    • Combatant Level: the level they start at. The shipped party starts at 1; a member recruited later is raised to the party's level when they join.

    Under XenoCore › Animation:

    • Anim Profile: DA_AnimProfile_Rook. Leave it empty and the character still fights, but never celebrates a win - the victory emote has no default. Pick a profile whose clips suit the body: the shipped feminine members (Maroon, Pink, Yellow, Cyan, Purple) use feminine idle breaks and emotes.
    • Compile and Save.
    • Open PartyMember_Rook. Under XenoCore › Party:
    • Member Class: B_Party_Rook
    • Display Name: Rook
    • Role: Attacker, Defender or Healer. It is shown on the Party screen and stored; no system changes behaviour on it yet.
    • Portrait: any texture from Characters/Party/Portraits for now. Making your own is Bake a portrait.
    • Menu Portrait: the full-body card on the main menu. Leave it empty and the card uses Portrait.
    • Experience Curve (XenoCore › Progression): a row of Game/DT_XenoCore_ExperienceCurves, the EXP needed for each level. Pick XC1 or one of the shipped characters' rows, or add a row of your own. Empty uses the progression default.
    • Controller Class: leave BP_AIC_XenoCore_PartyMember. Empty also works: the party component's default is used.
    • Save. The Content Browser runs the member check on save: an empty Member Class, or a pawn with no Combatant Pawn Data, is reported as an error.

Pawn Class on the pawn data is never read for a party member: the party spawns the definition's Member Class, and only the experience's own pawn data uses Pawn Class. Setting it keeps the asset honest. Members whose ability sets, input and tag mapping are the same can share one pawn data asset.

3. Give them a look

In B_Party_Rook:

  1. Select the Mesh component. Under Materials, pick new material instances for element 0 and element 1. The coloured samples use pairs from Characters/Party/Materials, such as MI_XenoCore_Quinn_01_Pink and MI_XenoCore_Quinn_02_Pink. Duplicate a pair into MyGame/Party and change their colour parameters.
  2. In Class Defaults, under Default, find Cosmetic Part and set it to Characters/Core/Cosmetics/B_XenoCore_Cosmetic_Feminine or B_XenoCore_Cosmetic_Masculine. This picks both the body mesh and the animation set. See Change a character's animation style.

4. Give them their own stats

Open GE_BaseStats_Rook. It has one modifier per stat, each reading a curve table row at the character's level and multiplying it by a value. Change the multipliers to make Rook sturdier or stronger than the sample. The whole model, and how to add rows of your own, is in Author a character's statline.

5. Set their starting gear

  1. In B_Party_Rook, select the Equipment Component in the Components panel.
  2. Under XenoCore › Equipment › Starting Equipment, each entry is a Slot (Weapon, Head, Chest, Arms, Legs, Feet) and an Item Definition. The Quinn sample wears Weapons/RedSword/ID_XenoCore_RedSword and five Inventory/Armour/ID_XenoCore_Battle* pieces. Change them as you like, but always keep a Weapon.

  3. Starting Inventory adds items to the party bag without equipping them. Do not list an item there that Starting Equipment already equips, or it is added twice.

  4. On the same component, set Allowed Weapon Types to the kinds of weapon Rook may wield, such as DA_XenoCore_WeaponType_Greatsword. The starting weapon must be one of them: saving the pawn reports an error if it is not. Empty allows any weapon, and saving warns.

The weapon decides more than damage

A weapon's ability set grants the character's Talent Art and the draw and sheathe behaviour. A member with no weapon has no Talent Art and cannot draw.

6. Give them Arts

Arts come from the Art Learn Table inherited from B_XenoCore_PartyMember_Base: Characters/Party/Learnsets/DT_XenoCore_ArtLearnset_Default, which teaches Back Slash, Light Heal and Air Slash. To give Rook a different set, duplicate that table (or create a Data Table with row structure XenoCoreArtUnlock), edit its rows, and set it as Art Learn Table in Rook's own Class Defaults (XenoCore › Arts). Each row is an Art, the Unlock Level at which it is learned, and a Default Slot (0 to 7 in unlock order, or -1 for learned but not placed). Set palette slots and unlocks covers this in full.

7. Put them in the roster

  1. Open Characters/Party/BP_XenoCore_Party and click Class Defaults.
  2. Under XenoCore › Party, add PartyMember_Rook to Starting Roster.
  3. Compile and Save.

Members are fielded in roster order until Max Active Members is reached; the rest wait in reserve (active and reserve members). To recruit Rook later in the story instead, leave the roster alone and see Choose the starting party.

Test it

  1. Open Maps/L_XenoCore_Gym and press Play. Do not use Continue from the title screen: a save remembers the old roster.
  2. Open the menu (pad Y, keyboard I) and go to the Party screen. Rook is in the roster with the portrait and role you set.
  3. Swap Rook into an active slot, close the menu, and walk. Rook follows you with the new materials.
  4. Back on the Party screen, make Rook the leader. You now control Rook, with Rook's Arts on the palette and Rook's weapon drawn in battle.

If it doesn't work

Fails silently: Rook is not in the roster

The roster in a save file wins over Starting Roster. Start with Play in the editor or New Game, not Continue.

Fails silently: Rook appears, but with Quinn's name, stats or materials

One of the duplicated assets still points at the Quinn sample. Check the four links in step 2: Member Class, Combatant Pawn Data, Stats Effect, and Pawn Class on the pawn data.

Rook has the Manny body whatever you set

Cosmetic Part points at a class with no animation-style tag, so no body-mesh rule matches and the pawn takes the base's Default Mesh, SKM_Manny. Set it to one of the two B_XenoCore_Cosmetic_* actors, or clear it completely. Saving the pawn shows a warning naming the part.

Rook has default stats and an error names the pawn on every Play

Stats Effect is empty. Set it.

Rook cannot be hurt and cannot die

Combatant Pawn Data is empty or points at pawn data with no ability sets. Death is an ability, so a pawn without its abilities cannot die. The member definition shows this as an error in the Content Browser.

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