How do wildcard patterns work?

Written By Philippe Chabot

Last updated About 1 month ago

Wildcards let a single requirement or modifier target a group of entities or paths instead of a specific one. Three patterns.

Feat family wildcards — feats.<family>.*.possessed

Used in requirements like any Weapon Focus or any metamagic feat. A feat is tagged with a FEAT_FAMILY property; the wildcard matches if the character possesses any feat in that family.

A prestige class needing any metamagic feat AND any item creation feat — two requirement rows:

  • feats.metamagic.*.possessed == true

  • feats.itemcreation.*.possessed == true

A feat needing any Weapon Focus — one row:

  • feats.weaponfocus.*.possessed == true

This matches Weapon Focus (Longsword), Weapon Focus (Greatsword), and any custom Weapon Focus variant carrying FEAT_FAMILY = weaponfocus.

Built-in families on the SRD ruleset:

weaponfocus, greaterweaponfocus

Weapon Focus and Greater Weapon Focus variants

weaponspecialization, greaterweaponspecialization

Weapon Specialization variants

improvedcritical

Improved Critical variants

martialweaponproficiency, exoticweaponproficiency

per-weapon proficiency feats

rapidreload

Rapid Reload variants

spellfocus, greaterspellfocus

Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus per school

skillfocus

Skill Focus per skill

metamagic, itemcreation

every metamagic / item creation feat

turnorrebukeundead, wildshape

class-feature feats

Skill subtype wildcards — skills.<prefix>*.rank

For requirements like any Knowledge skill 5 ranks or any Craft 10 ranks. The * after a prefix matches any skill whose slug starts with that prefix.

A prestige class needing 5 ranks of any Knowledge skill:

  • skills.knowledge*.rank >= 5

Matches Knowledge (Arcana), Knowledge (Religion), Knowledge (Nature), and any custom Knowledge subtype.

Works the same way for Craft, Perform, and any skill with parenthetical subtypes.

Modifier wildcards — apply to all entries in a category

Used in modifiers, not requirements:

  • saves.*.misc — apply once, hit all three save categories (Fortitude, Reflex, Will).

  • abilities.*.misc — every ability score's misc bonus.

  • items.weapons.*.damage.misc — bonus to damage on every wielded weapon.

Divine Grace (add Cha modifier to all saves) is one row: target saves.*.misc, operator add, value {{ abilities.charisma.modifier }} — using a reference. At evaluation time the engine expands * to fortitude, reflex, will and applies the Cha modifier to each.