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  1. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by damned View Post
    Errr lets not forget that one GG did something similar to one DA with AD&D and BX.
    Just saying'....
    That is a point of contention, to be sure, but I think one GG had some point in the fact that I don't think one DA actually made much contribution at all to the project of D&D and most certainly not to the monumental task of creating AD&D. My understanding is the DA's main contribution was simply giving GG the hint that you could take his chainmail stuff and make heroes to play in a dungeon. From everything I have read though, DA didn't actually contribute hardly any writing or materials to the actual game itself and what little he did, had to be almost totally re-written by Tim Kask. Who really knows, though, as we weren't there and these things are lost to history. Likewise, from what I have gathered, even into the modern age, the game that DA actually played at his table most resembled a house ruled version of Chainmail and not D&D or AD&D.

    While interesting, all of these things are not really on topic though. Didn't mean to derail the discussion.
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  2. #22
    One thought I had, and I would have to research this further, is the possibility doing Adventures Dark and Dangerous. From what I have heard, it is AD&D, but extended in ways that Gygax had planned to do it if he had had the chance. Has anyone looked at it?

    Getting back to our discussion of AC. If I understand what your saying, Damned, is the PC sheet would display Descending AC and Thac0, but beneath the hood would mathematically convert it to Ascending and BTH. The npc sheet would display Ascending and BTH, making it compatible with current monster entries in C&C. Do I have that right?

    I'm also a little confused on how your saying that the C&C manuals would come with the deal. I originally thought what you meant by building it using the C&C ruleset was simply to start with that as a template and then make it a new ruleset layered on Core, but it sounds more like what your saying is to make the ruleset layered on top of C&C, thus making it dependent on it, but gaining the ability to then use those manuals with it. Is that right? So, it would basically be similar to what they did with layering pathfinder on top of 3.5.

    If I did that, does that actually legally mean I can use those manuals in the new ruleset? Not sure of the legality of that. I don't know that just because the ruleset is layered on top of the other ruleset that that means you can use those resources in the new ruleset.

    Getting back to the AC, the only issue with making the npc sheet displayed in Ascending and BTH is that it forces the DM to manually do conversions if he is entering things from an AD&D module. Probably not a big deal. You have to do that with C&C anyway.

    Just throwing this out there. Would it be sacrilege to simply do away with descending AC and Thac0 to begin with? It's not like we aren't all used to Ascending and BTH, anyways. Would it really feel like it wasn't authentic without descending and Thac0?
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  3. #23
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    If I were voting I would want to see THAC0 as that is how I played 10 is bad and -10 is the best.

  4. #24
    I need to look into whether it is even possible, and Trenloe or damned might be able to answer this straight away, but why not have a toggle so that the GM can set ascending or descending? Either that, or take the S&W approach and display DSC[ASC] and then calculate hits off one or the other (where the toggle could come in)? Just throwing it out there.
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  5. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zhern View Post
    I need to look into whether it is even possible, and Trenloe or damned might be able to answer this straight away, but why not have a toggle so that the GM can set ascending or descending?
    You could, but it doubles up the coding everywhere you need to assign, check or work with AC and THAC0. If you're going for a game that replicates the original, and it used THAC0 and decreasing AC, then use just that. No need to complicate and confuse matters and increase the work for the developer where the option would probably be used by only a very small few.
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  6. #26
    That was what I needed to know. I agree with that sentiment too, and would prefer to go with the spirit of the original. I can see how it could confuse those who have only ever dealt with ascending AC despite THAC0 not being a difficult concept to grasp.
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  7. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by vodokar View Post
    If I did that, does that actually legally mean I can use those manuals in the new ruleset? Not sure of the legality of that. I don't know that just because the ruleset is layered on top of the other ruleset that that means you can use those resources in the new ruleset.
    Let's make an assumption: The "AD&D" community ruleset we've been discussing is built as a layered ruleset on top of the "Castles & Crusades" (C&C) commercial ruleset. Therefore, to use the "AD&D" community ruleset, the GM would have had to purchase the Castles & Crusades FG ruleset (currently $10) that comes with reference material (PHB, Monsters and Treasure, starting adventure) as detailed here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store....xcp?id=DGA045

    The GM has already legally purchased the material that comes with the C&C ruleset, so they can legally use that material how they wish in their own private games. Essentially, they would be running "C&C heavily house-ruled" (AD&D) within Fantasy Grounds.

    You wouldn't be distributing any of those manuals in the AD&D community ruleset - just the code that makes the changes needed to the GUI and the underlying automation. This is fine, as you can't copyright game mechanics (in US copyright law), but fluff (descriptions, names, places, story, etc.) is covered by copyright. Thus you can freely distribute a new layered ruleset as long as it is just the mechanics - which, from what I've seen so far in this discussion, this is what the ruleset would contain (just game mechanics).

    Of course, you may have to call it "A Fantasy Grounds community ruleset for the first edition of the worlds oldest fantasy RPG".
    Last edited by Trenloe; October 19th, 2016 at 04:06.
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  8. #28
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    As Trenloe suggests - having ASC/DESC as an option is sooo much more complicated than you could imagine. I personally hate ASC AC but if you are not going to have ASC AC then CnC is already a better ft straight away.

    Trenloe also has it exactly right (at least as far as what my thinking was) in regards to using the CnC as a base.

    For AC on Charcater Sheets - Characters are all new (you are not importing CnC characters into your game so you would replace AC with the DESC version and you would replace BtH with THAC0.
    For NPCs howver we have a whole library of existing critters coutesy of Monsters & Treasure (included in CnC) that already have ASC AC and a BtH value. For these you need to calculate or replace these with the required AD&D values. You would probably need some mechanism to check if AC already exists - if so convert and store as ACDnD. If it doesnt exist just use the ACDnD value. BtH for monsters is dependent on their HD in CnC and (I cant remember for sure) THAC0 probably is too.

    Of course this is an abslutely simplified overview of the tasks - it is still a significant task.

    Attachment 15755Attachment 15756

    You couldnt just rip all the code out of CnC and make your own ruleset based on that and distribute as a community release as that ruleset has been released commercially. You could build on it though and it would (at least from where Im standing) be a much smaller job than building from scratch.

  9. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by damned View Post
    As Trenloe suggests - having ASC/DESC as an option is sooo much more complicated than you could imagine. I personally hate ASC AC but if you are not going to have ASC AC then CnC is already a better ft straight away.

    Trenloe also has it exactly right (at least as far as what my thinking was) in regards to using the CnC as a base.

    For AC on Charcater Sheets - Characters are all new (you are not importing CnC characters into your game so you would replace AC with the DESC version and you would replace BtH with THAC0.
    For NPCs howver we have a whole library of existing critters coutesy of Monsters & Treasure (included in CnC) that already have ASC AC and a BtH value. For these you need to calculate or replace these with the required AD&D values. You would probably need some mechanism to check if AC already exists - if so convert and store as ACDnD. If it doesnt exist just use the ACDnD value. BtH for monsters is dependent on their HD in CnC and (I cant remember for sure) THAC0 probably is too.

    Of course this is an abslutely simplified overview of the tasks - it is still a significant task.

    Attachment 15755Attachment 15756

    You couldnt just rip all the code out of CnC and make your own ruleset based on that and distribute as a community release as that ruleset has been released commercially. You could build on it though and it would (at least from where Im standing) be a much smaller job than building from scratch.
    Yes, monsters in C&C get a BtH of +1 for each HD they have. So a Bugbear with 3 HD has a BtH of +3 which would correspond to a THAC0 of 17.
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  10. #30
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    Just to throw another coding challenge into the mix - calculating hits/misses gets complicated in AD&D when you get into repeating 20's. I personally could live without the auto-calculating of hits, but I know this is a feature that veterans of FG have come to expect.

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