NPC Engineer

[Maasq]

Remember, the ", magic" is actually going to have to get moved and inserted after each damage type and before the word "damage".

Done - I checked with Zacch on Discord earlier to be sure. That would have had me tearing my hair out!

We are lucky to have him and many others. Don't forget to give Reputation when appropriate (and public acknowledgements like this one).

Ooh, I forget about Reputation. I will.
This is a wonderfully supportive community, you know. Seeing all the creative things people are doing & more importantly the encouragement and support they get inspired me to dust off the programming muscles. I doubt I'd be posting any of my work for criticism on any other public forum, you can be sure of that!

I like what Nickademus said on another thread, and it sums this forum up: 'This is how you learn in the FG community: hands-on. No one really knows what they are doing when they begin. (I think this is why community members are so helpful; we've all been there.)'

Maasq

[Maasq]

A quick update.

A couple of bugs tracked down; the road to programming hell is paved with good intentions.

A small feature added: If the output of a weapon attack in a DnD Monster Maker file has 'magic' appended to it, AHK CC formats this correctly as (for example) "slashing, magic damage."

Many thanks to L. R. Ballard for his help in this!

Maasq

[L. R. Ballard]

A quick update.

A couple of bugs tracked down; the road to programming hell is paved with good intentions.

A small feature added: If the output of a weapon attack in a DnD Monster Maker file has 'magic' appended to it, AHK CC formats this correctly as (for example) "slashing, magic damage."

Many thanks to L. R. Ballard for his help in this!

Maasq

You're welcome! Props to Zacchaeus--he's the one who alerted me to the magic subtype and then reiterated for everyone the correct syntax!

[L. R. Ballard]

A small feature added: If the output of a weapon attack in a DnD Monster Maker file has 'magic' appended to it, AHK CC formats this correctly as (for example) "slashing, magic damage."
Maasq

The "magic" addition has worked well for me so far. Also, the AutoHotkey script combined with the Monster Maker have doubled the speed of NPC creation for me from 2 an hour to 4. Awesome work, Maasq!

[epithet]

Fantasy Grounds will also add the magic damage type for you if you add the line "This is a magic weapon attack." at the end of the action.

[L. R. Ballard]

Fantasy Grounds will also add the magic damage type for you if you add the line "This is a magic weapon attack." at the end of the action.

Hey, that works! I added the line

"This is a magic weapon attack."

to an NPC. Then I put the NPC in the combat tracker to face an archmage. The "magic" damage type appeared in brackets in the longsword entry under Offense, and the archmage partially resisted the longsword's hits.

Thanks!

[Maasq]

Despite the looks, I made a fairly huge update to AHK Creature Creator. I changed my data structure to be more robust, and also more granular. Now each spell is stored separately, for example, rather than just a block of text called 'spellcasting'. This was a necessary precursor to having a full UI.

I caught a bug in the innate spellcasting section as I was going, so that was good.

I added the ability to save out an NPC in either XML or TXT. XML is what I'll use to reload the save file; I just added the text function on a whim. Re-reading it would be more trouble than it is worth!

A small 'front-end' pops up when you run the script, allowing the option to save these two formats, but be careful - you have to copy some text first, and press the 'Work on clipboard' button prior to trying to save. These aren't in their final forms. They were really just there for me to test the software, but I thought I'd leave them in in casy anyone wanted a play as well .

The original functionality is still there, and should still work well despite the total change in data structure. Press numpad dot as before (see first post for more information).

That was more work than I hoped it would be, but it puts me on a good footing for the rest of the project.

Cheers

Maasq

[L. R. Ballard]

That was more work than I hoped it would be, but it puts me on a good footing for the rest of the project.

Cheers

Maasq

Thanks! With the help of your AHK Creature Creator, I'm nearly done with the 130 NPCs in FRE1. I'll update to the present version of the script and post if I catch any bugs.

What's next to do on the project?

[Maasq]

Don't delete the previous version just in case the new version goes mental

Next - I really want interoperability with Monster Maker, mainly because of the pretty statblocks it makes as jpgs for including in PDF/Word versions of adventures.
Or I need to knuckle down and make the UI. The reason I am putting that off is because of the choice of language, the UI creator has to complete the entire UI in one go

The UI is the next logical step; I need to get to it.

Well done you for the massive creation of NPCs!

[L. R. Ballard]

Don't delete the previous version just in case the new version goes mental

Okay.

Next - I really want interoperability with Monster Maker, mainly because of the pretty statblocks it makes as jpgs for including in PDF/Word versions of adventures.

I've seen some possible calculation errors in the Monster Maker. Shall I list some of those errors on this thread so you can have them when you return to that?

Well done you for the massive creation of NPCs!

Thanks!