Optional Advancement

Certain classes give you different choices at various levels of advancement that allow you to choose your own special abilities, such as a rangers choice between two-weapon fighting and ranged attacks, or a rogues higher level special abilities.  The process for doing this in Campaign Suite Extended may seem complex, but in fact only involves 3 'layers' of data creation - and the actual implementation is neither difficult or time consuming.

The final result of these procedures is that when you are advancing a character in levels, and he "hits" a level where he is granted a specific class feature, you are presented with a list of features to choose from instead.  The Character Creation Wizard in Campaign Suite Extended will randomly select a choice for you.

Create the special abilities

First you should create each of the "Special Ability" feats that you want.  Each special ability needs its own,  unique name - be careful not to 'double up' the name of a feat and a special ability.  If this occurs, its recommended that you use the name of the specific class in the name of the special ability, such as "Special Ability (Rogue)".

Create a new feat
Choose new category for "Special Abilities" for your class.
Set the feat data to:
Name: Optional Special ability one
Special: Free for all (no pick)
No sub-feat selection
Multi Select: By taste

Affects:
Determine if the special ability is a special attack or special quality.

Affect:
Type: Special Attack or Quality
Value: 1
Affect: Special Ability (Ex, Su, Sp)

Repeat for each ability your class gets at certain levels

Create the Placeholder Feat

A placeholder feat can be seen as a feat that gives other feats.  Remember, not all feats in Campaign Suite Extended are necassarily "Feats" in the game sense, but rather, they use the same rules and apply in the same way - thus creating a familiar method of editting, and sharing the same data.  A placeholder feat could be a template, or a special ability, granting further feats - and thus, special abilities - to a character.

Create a new feat in the same category as your special abilities
Feat:
Name: "Class Special Abilities"
Special: Free for all (no pick)
No sub-feat selection:
Multi Select: By taste (usually yes)

Affects:
Since we don't want this particular "holder feat" to be displayed on the characters list of feats on a statblock or character sheet, we need an Affect to tell the sheet not to display it.

Affect:
Type: No Feat Display
Value: 1
Affect: None

Affects with Choices:
To create a list of feats, in this case Special Abilities, we use the Give Feat if Requirements affect.  This affect only lets the user select a given feat if he meets the requirements of the feat, such as ability scores.

Affect:
Type: Give Feat if Requirements
Value: 1

Right-Click Menu: Update Pick List
Choose all relevant abilities and click Okay.

Update and Create Features

The last step that you need to do is to add the actual feature to the class.  This is accomplished in the class editor, under features, of course.  Once the new feature is added, you need to visit the Affects window.

We want the character display to only show "Special Ability" once, so we need to tell the display to "stack" the values.

Affect:
Type: Display Stack
Value: 1

The feature needs to add our Placeholder feat to the character, which is also accomplished by an affect.

Affect:
Type: Bonus Feat
Value: 1
Affect: Name of the placeholder feat