Is there a tutorial on how to make library entries?

[willquestion]

I've created some of my own monsters and would like to make a monster manual of sorts as a library entry. Is there a tutorial out there for how to make these? Is it just like making a module?

Any help would be appreciated.
~Will

[Karazax]

If you are playing 4e dungeons and dragons, then using tenian's parser is the easiest way to make library modules. You can get it at fouruglymonsters.com

I honestly haven't tried to make a monster library in other way, though I imagine if you have a different ruleset that has a monster manual of any sort, you could open that monster manual with a zip or winrar program and copy the xml formatting of the monsters in there to add yours. I suppose you could probably just make a module with a bunch of NPCs and nothing else perhaps, but I don't think it will give you the sorting options that tenian's parser output does, such as searching by group, role, name, ect for monsters.

[willquestion]

Hey Karazax,
I just downloaded Parser_3_5_4, but I have no clue how this thing works. Is there anything out there that explains this?
Thanks,
Will

[TFWoods3]

What I did was

1. start a new game with the 4e_jpg ruelset.

2. started creating monsters in the personalities (only the ones I needed at the time, no need for an entire MM all at once)

3. type /export

4. An export window comes up and you can Type "Monster Manual" in the first 2 fields and then "Personalities" under index

5. In the below section just click on library and local host (h) (this may be a little inaccurate since I don't have it in front of me) but the goal is to have it show up for DM only and in your library and in an extra tab in the Personalities.

6. right click and export

When you open your 4e_jpg module your monster entries should show up in the library and in the personalities tab.

Any time you want to update your monster manual, open it and add more mosters and then export it again.

[willquestion]

Thanks TFWoods,
I'll give that a shot and post how it goes.
Thanks

[willquestion]

TFWoods,
I tried what you suggested and it's only coming up as a module and not in the library. Do I need to make a library folder in the Fantasy Grounds directory on my computer and put it there?

[TFWoods3]

welcome... oh and once you open your game module you will have to go to the books at the top right icon area, and make sure you open it for it to show up (click and drag to the left to open the book). Or something like that...

[TFWoods3]

TFWoods,
I tried what you suggested and it's only coming up as a module and not in the library. Do I need to make a library folder in the Fantasy Grounds directory on my computer and put it there?

Open up a 4E_jpg adventure module..(not the MM one) and try what I posted above (opening the little book icon). Then check your personalities and see if there is a group there, and check your library to see if there is a label on the left you can click on.

(Wish I had the game with me so I could check my steps...)

[willquestion]

Oh okay. So you think it's best to use it as a module and not make an entry in the Library section?

[willquestion]

I opened the MM module in Keep on the Shadowfell and it works fine. The monsters show up in the personalities section when it's open. But nothing is showing in the library section.

[willquestion]

What things should I have check marked in the "exported data" area? There's
-Create index in library
-Host Data
-Common Shared Data
-Client Data

[TFWoods3]

-Create index in library
-Host Data

You may be overlooking the text in the library on the left. I think once you click it it opens up and shows the monsters. Maybe you are expecting to see a book icon there but it will be text until you create an icon and export with it.

[willquestion]

Should anything go into "merge Id"?

[willquestion]

I created an icon and it's showing up in the modules area okay. *shrug*

[willquestion]

I got it to show up in the Library now. YAY! But the monster names are not in order by name. Weird. How can I fix that?

EDIT:
It looks like the monsters are in order by when I made the entry and not by name.

[TFWoods3]

I got it to show up in the Library now. YAY! But the monster names are not in order by name. Weird. How can I fix that?

EDIT:
It looks like the monsters are in order by when I made the entry and not by name.

Not sure about that one. Glad you got it working though. Maybe someones else can help us with the order thing.

[willquestion]

Thanks TFWoods for getting me this far. Man this is going to be nice. Just need to get the order worked out and I'm set.

[Karazax]

The parser is a bit tricky at first, but in the end learning it is worth while as you can use it for all your rulebooks.

The easiest way to learn it is to look at the example files that came with the parser download. Specifically with regards to making a monster manual, you will need to make 4 text files:

stats.txt
fluff.txt
alternate powers.txt
mm parser template.txt

The text file names don't have to match these, but are what I used.

stats.txt is where you will put the monster stats. You will want to look at the parser document.txt which there should be a shortcut to in your start/programs/4e Parser for examples on the layouts. The sample folder will also help there.

If you look at the mm sample input stats.txt you will see the following sample monsters:

WOTC IP Lawyer Level 5 Soldier (Leader)
Medium natural humanoid (vaguely) XP 175
Initiative +2 Senses Perception +4
HP 52; Bloodied 26
AC 17; Fortitude 10, Reflex 12, Will 13
Speed 5
m Cease and Desist (standard; at-will) ? Necrotic ZZX
+15 vs. AC; 2d8 + 7 damage and the target is stunned until they file an appeal or they make a save.
C Empty their pockets!! (minor; recharge ?) ZZX
Close burst 2; Steal 50,000 gp from every enemy in the burst.
Alignment Evil Languages Common, Legalese
Skills Diplomacy -10, Intimidate +70
Str 18 (+6) Dex 13 (+3) Wis 12 (+3)
Con 14 (+4) Int 16 (+5) Cha 16 (+5)
Equipment briefcase, legal documents

WOTC IP Paralegal Level 1 Minion
Small natural humanoid XP 25
Initiative +2 Senses Perception +1
HP 1; a missed attack never damages a minion.
AC 12; Fortitude 9, Reflex 12, Will 14
Speed 6; see also WOTC tactics
m Serve paperwork (standard; at-will) ? Weapon ZZX
+3 vs. AC; 1d6 damage
X WOTC Tactics (immediate reaction, when missed by a melee
attack; at-will) ZZX
The WOTC IP Paralegal shifts 1 square while screaming about filing motions.
Alignment Evil Languages Common, Legalese
Skills Diplomacy -5, Thievery +50, Intimidate +35
Str 14 (+2) Dex 17 (+3) Wis 12 (+1)
Con 13 (+1) Int 8 (–1) Cha 8 (–1)
Equipment briefcase, legal documents

this shows you how a monster should look when entered in to stats.txt before parsing. The Parser document.txt has more information here, but in general while learning I would take a monster stat block from say DDI insider compendium and copy and paste it into your stats.txt file

For example we will take dolgrim warrior from the encounter 1 free sample excerpt from the Eberron Campaign Guide which looks like this with no editing after the cut and paste:

2 Dolgrim Warriors (D) Level 4 Skirmisher
Small aberrant humanoid XP 175 each
Initiative +6 Senses Perception +3; low-light vision
HP 53; Bloodied 26
AC 18; Fortitude 16, Refl ex 15, Will 16
Vulnerable 5 psychic
Saving Throws +2 against charm and fear eff ects
Speed 6
m Club (standard; at-will) ✦ Weapon
+8 vs. AC; 1d6 + 3 damage.
r Crossbow (standard; at-will) ✦ Weapon
Ranged 15/30; +8 vs. AC; 1d8 + 1 damage.
Double Actions
The dolgrim warrior rolls initiative twice, gets two turns during
a round, and has a full set of actions (standard, move, minor)
on each turn. Each set of actions corresponds to a diff erent
brain. The dolgrim warrior’s ability to take immediate actions
refreshes on each of its turns.
Dolgrim Tactics (immediate reaction, when missed by a melee
attack; at-will)
The dolgrim warrior shifts 1 square.
Combat Advantage
The dolgrim warrior deals 1d6 extra damage against any
creature granting combat advantage to it.
Alignment Evil Languages Deep Speech, Goblin
Str 17 (+5) Dex 15 (+4) Wis 13 (+3)
Con 13 (+3) Int 9 (+1) Cha 9 (+1)
Equipment light shield, club, crossbow with 20 bolts

_____________________________________________

This is how it will look after editing it for parsing:

Dolgrim Warrior Level 4 Skirmisher
Small aberrant humanoid XP 175
Initiative +6 Senses Perception +3; low-light vision
HP 53; Bloodied 26
AC 18; Fortitude 16, Reflex 15, Will 16
Vulnerable 5 psychic
Saving Throws +2 against charm and fear effects
Speed 6
m Club (standard; at-will) ? Weapon ZZX
+8 vs. AC; 1d6 + 3 damage.
r Crossbow (standard; at-will) ? Weapon ZZX
Ranged 15/30; +8 vs. AC; 1d8 + 1 damage.
X Double Actions ZZX
The dolgrim warrior rolls initiative twice, gets two turns during
a round, and has a full set of actions (standard, move, minor)
on each turn. Each set of actions corresponds to a different
brain. The dolgrim warrior’s ability to take immediate actions
refreshes on each of its turns.
X Dolgrim Tactics (immediate reaction, when missed by a melee attack; at-will) ZZX
The dolgrim warrior shifts 1 square.
X Combat Advantage ZZX
The dolgrim warrior deals 1d6 extra damage against any
creature granting combat advantage to it.
Alignment Evil Languages Deep Speech, Goblin
Str 17 (+5) Dex 15 (+4) Wis 13 (+3)
Con 13 (+3) Int 9 (+1) Cha 9 (+1)
Equipment light shield, club, crossbow with 20 bolts

In this case, really the only changes I had to make was adding X before powers that are not attacks and ZZX after each power's keywords. Also the original cut and paste was from an encounter with 2 Dolgrim Warriors (D) with the (D) standing for their symbol on the adventure map, so I changed that to just Dolgrim Warrior in the name. Also the ✦ has to be changed to a ? because FG doesn't recognize the ✦.

If you are making your own monster you will have to add {A|r|R|c|C|m|M|X|MR|CA} before the monster's power depending on if it is area, ranged, close, melee, X= non-attack, MR = Melee or Ranged, CA = Close or Ranged.

For starters try doing one monster like this, then parse it.

1) open the parser and putting in a name for your monster manual in the name field,

2) thumbnail is the picture that will show up in the library, I choose a 76x100 picture of the monster manual cover.

3) Category I put 4e Core.

4) Temporary Directory is where the parsed files will be stored before they are zipped into a module so you can find them when you make an error entering data into the parser. Make a folder for this and add it here.

5) module directory path is C:\Users\Karazax\AppData\Roaming\Fantasy Grounds II\modules for me, this is where the module is stored in FG for use.

6) Output format, I double click and choose db.xml for DM only files like the MM

7) NPCs: add the paths to the alternate powers.txt file, under monster stats, add stats.txt to the data file area, fluff.txt to the fluff file, if you have started making tokens, add the path to the token directory. Ignore the rest of the stuff here for now.

Once you have done that click file > save and find your mm parser template.txt and save there. This will allow you to open that file from the parser file > load menu and not have to reenter all these paths the next time you parse in new monsters.

hit parse > file check and it will verify you have all the files you need to start parsing. Hit Parse > parse and it should parse your single monster and if you made no errors when you open FG you should see the MM library as an option once you open the module from the modules section at the top right, and your one monster should be in there. Try doing one or two monsters at a time at first and then reparsing because you almost inevitably will miss an xml markup and get errors at some point especially if you are doing lots of monsters at once. Once you get it down you can go pretty fast if you have a pdf version of the monster manual. Once you get the stats.txt file entry down I can go over the fluff.txt if you can't figure it out from the parser document. You can have tokens added to each monster as well, but making tokens is covered in one of Xorne's tutorials. Just make sure you name the token exactly the same as the monster appears in your MM or it won't link correctly. For example chain devil (kyton).png for the chain devil. If you have problems you can post here or on the fouruglymonsters.com forums for help or search there and see if someone had the same problem before. Tenian created the parser and he also has some more info on his site at https://dnd-4e.blogspot.com/ as well as previews of what the new version of the ruleset and parser are going to do.

[Karazax]

Doing a module seperately the way you are it will not give you the sorting options by name and group and role that doing it by parser will. You will basicly have to enter them alphabetically yourself if you do it that way.

[Tenian]

It's a bit dated (the interface has changed, automatic compression has been added which removes the need for batch files, etc) but this tutorial (https://oberoten.dyndns.org/fgwiki/index.php/4EParser_Tutorial_1:_Your_First_Module) has helped many people

To add additional monsters you would just keep adding them onto the files created (MMData.txt and MMFluff.txt).

As I mentioned the UI is quite a bit different, but it should be easier to follow now and uses standard windows interfaces for selecting directories, files, etc.

[TFWoods3]

Thanks TFWoods for getting me this far. Man this is going to be nice. Just need to get the order worked out and I'm set.

They should be in alphabetical order in the Personalities section though. You can also use the search/filter to quickly find anything.

[willquestion]

Thanks for all the info guys. I'm looking at the two methods and deciding which would work best. Both have their pros and cons it seems right now. What I do like about making the monster manual simply a module and not using it in the library is how I can include all the images of the monsters. If there is a way to do this with the other method using the 4e Parsal then that would be awesome. Otherwise I'll have to create something solely for the images of the monsters.

I definitely would like to learn how to make a player's handbook with the 4e Parcal so I can apply the powers quicker to character sheets. I also plan on making an Adventure's Vault of sorts to organize all the items.

One quick question. With both methods, can you drag in the monster during a game being played so it will be loaded for the players? I'm just thinking about when the players run into random encounters and I need to bring in whatever monster seem suitable.

Thanks,
Will

[TFWoods3]

All your creatures should be showing up in your other 4E modules under Personalities (under a 2nd group bottom tab) if exported right.

At the top right Modules Icon, make sure the Module is activated by having an open book.

[TFWoods3]

Here is a screenshot if it helps, where my Rules notes and Monster Manual modules are loaded into my adventure module.

[TFWoods3]

Here is how I started setting up my DM Screen in a separate module. I'm setting it up to where i can quickly get to any rule reference from that first story sheet (DM Screen). Any related links are added as needed to any page to make digging faster. So my Death and Dying Sheet has links to any related death info, etc.

[Tenian]

Yes the 4E Parser supports monster images, lore text, and even the encounter groups. The parser outputs these under the NPC's "Other" tab. All of these options are specified in the Fluff file.

The parser document has details on adding them.

[willquestion]

Woods,
That's amazing how organized you are with the material. Way to go. And yeah, the monster manual I've made thus far is working great in the Personalities section.

Tenian,
I'm still learning how to use 4e Parcel. I'm glad it includes the ability to put images. That makes it even more powerful.

Cheers,
Will

[Zoso]

Rather than outputting the entire monster manual(s) to the personalities list, I just leave them in the library and drag over any entities to the personalities section of the adventures that need them. Doing it this way allows me to export the module and have all the necessary personalities built-in and not require the MM module to be present or loaded. Not sure how I'm going to do it now that I've started parsing my latest adventure.

[Karazax]

I think alot of what determines which way is faster to use is where you are copying the data from. If you have access to PDFs or scanned ocr documents then the parser can tear thru tons of material in short amounts of time once you learn it, though you inevitably will make a mistake with the mark up and have to spend some time trying to track that mistake down. Still it has been a huge time saver, and the organization it provides is quite amazing. If you don't have any pdfs or sources you can copy and paste from then it is probably about the same speed either way, though learning the parser does take some time so making the modules in game makes sense. I do think the options to drag and drop lore from monsters as well as encounter groups is something that can't be done from inside the game though.
Here is an example of how some of the stuff looks parsed right now:

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_uDFpksWt8LQ/SiSDax2PBfI/AAAAAAAABqc/i0hGWNadURo/s1600-h/mm2.jpg
and
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_uDFpksWt8LQ/SlZ5ELeUlOI/AAAAAAAAByE/_t54POv2q50/s1600-h/eberron.jpg
and
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_uDFpksWt8LQ/SNby6jrbEzI/AAAAAAAAA_Q/xMwYcbUOqjA/s1600-h/integration.png


and how things will potentially look after Tenian releases the next version of the parser and 4e rule set:


https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_uDFpksWt8LQ/Sl0H0fgxfsI/AAAAAAAABzE/Cx8pwQ86Uu8/s1600-h/bigref.jpg

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_uDFpksWt8LQ/SmY6Wu27s2I/AAAAAAAAB08/q-Z8mqP2uS0/s1600-h/reskin2.jpg

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uDFpksWt8LQ/SmsxfuhMsfI/AAAAAAAAB10/jHu1ytcUnPg/s1600-h/Divine+Reskin.jpg

[Tenian]

Entering the rules text into FGII via the interface is about the same amount of work as doing the mark up for the parser to handle it. It all just depends if you like the FGII story editing interface or if you prefer to do your markup with html-like code.

However, the parser generates the data for the "reference_manual" class. This is a much more organized structure for displaying rules text. The data is organized into:

Chapter
+--Section
+--Article

It displays this data in two frames, the left contains the tree structure and the right contains the actual rules text.

The other big advantage of the reference manual over story entries is the reference manual can be searched in game. If you need to look up the rules for grab you simple click on the magnifying glass and type in grab. The tree adjusts to show only the nodes that lead articles containing the word "grab".