PDA

View Full Version : 4E Items



Zeus
April 30th, 2010, 10:17
NEW TEST VERSION AVAILABLE: v1.0 is now available for download from my portal site, see last post for update notes.

Hey all, hot on the heels of my 4E Personalities extension follows 4E Items. :D

The mods have been packaged up as an extension and submitted for testing and feedback, more to follow.

https://farm4.static.flickr.com/3344/4565228536_8c6d33a0ac.jpg (https://farm4.static.flickr.com/3344/4565228536_f4a01d03a9_o.jpg)

Blue Haven
April 30th, 2010, 13:36
Your name is right!! Zeus ;)

dm-crazy
April 30th, 2010, 17:24
Ty for community support friend! :)

Zeus
July 1st, 2010, 23:31
Hey all, after a long pause I have released 4E Items into the public area of my FGII 4E Resource site (see sig for link).

As always ensure you back up your campaign first before using and note the option for magic item identification functionality.

Enjoy!.

DrZ.

NOTE: The extension has yet to be tested against 2.7.0 and the latest 4E test update. I expect to release an updated version over the weekend/early next week. Stay tuned.

ShadeRaven
July 2nd, 2010, 06:04
Awesome stuff, Dr Z. As always.

Speaking of items, if I could request one new feature to them it would be this:

I'd like to also have a field for "Unidentified Name". Thus, a suit of plate mail might just be "Plate Mail" until identified. A lot of items are easy to figure out without knowing the properties just by knowing it's actual name.

Not an impossible work around, as I can rename it until the characters discover it's true properties, but it would allow a little more mystery to be injected with ease.

At any rate, keep up the good stuff, Z!

Zeus
July 2nd, 2010, 07:42
ShadeRaven - 4E Items offers a non-identified field that you can populate with basic flavor, thereby providing a mechanism for sharing non-identified items in a descriptive way.

The field will be automatically dropped when the item is identified, so for example you can start off with something like

"a plain looking military grade shield thats warm to the touch."

to "a +1 shield that offers protection from Cold based attacks once per Encounter ... " etc.

Jonny Tenebrous
July 2nd, 2010, 19:23
Yeeeehhhhehessssss! I'm starting to run my first campaign in about a week and can't believe the good fortune I have to be doing so at this point in the development cycle of the 4E ruleset and extensions. You're going to become sick of me thanking you soon.

Jonny Tenebrous
July 3rd, 2010, 02:16
Ok, I gave it a quick test in 2.7.0. and I understand that you've not fully tested it under 2.7.0. I love the concept but ran into a bunch of issues, which I'll quickly highlight so you can watch for them.

1. Say I have created a "+1 Acidic Obsidian Spear" in my items menu that has not been identified. I've put in some unidentified flavor text stating: "A finely-crafted spear with a tip carved of obsidian" and leave "Identified" unchecked. If I share this sheet directly from my items window, it doesn't say "Unidentified Item".. but actually states "+1 Acidic Obsidian Spear", yet displays the unidentified flavor text below.
2. If the character then opens their items menu, there is a listing for "+1 Obsidian Spear", but they can't open it again because it states it's from an unloaded module (I created the item in an adventure module, and set it as "force players to load").
3. I can't "unshare" the item once I've shared it. Every time a player logs out, then back in again, the item does not automatically appear in their items list (this is correct), but the second that I as a GM so much as open the item "+1 Acidic Obsidian Spear" in my own items window, that item becomes visible again in the player items menu and, even if "Unidentified" the item is listed as "+1 Acid Obsidian Spear" forevermore.
4. If I've shared the spear from my items menu and a player drags that link to their inventory, the inventory description line reveals the item as a "+1 Acidic Obsidian Spear", but the link they open in their inventory correctly conceals the item.
5. If the GM drags the "Unidentified" spear directly to a character's inventory without having shared it, the inventory description line reveals it as a "+1 Acidic Obsidian Spear", the player CAN open the link to that item from their inventory (which is good), and the item is correctly listed as "Unidentified object" and displays the unidentified flavor text. Too bad they already know what it actually is.
6. If a player has an "unrevealed" item in their inventory, and that item is revealed later, I must give that player a new, updated link to the revealed version. I understand that this may not be a bug, but a limitation of the system.
7. After I created the "+1 Acidic Obsidian Spear" and was going through the process of putting its statistic in, I noticed that it already had curiously pre-filled powers and text that did not belong to it. When I deleted these items from the appropriate tabs, I realized that they belonged to another item... I had just deleted information from the item below my Obsidian Spear (an Orb of Debililating Languor) from WITHIN the Acidic spear item window.

..................
So basically...I'm really looking forward to your 2.7.0-compatible version. Looks great, though, and I love the potential of the unrevealed description/title.

Zeus
July 3rd, 2010, 08:29
Jonny,

moon_Wizard introduced the ability for the GM to unshare items in 2.7.0. It sounds like the changes have a profound impact on the way items are used so I will need to take a look to update the extension.

I am working on making 4E Personalities compatible with MM3 content and 2.7.0 at the moment but will get back to Items eventually.

Thanks for the feedback.

DrZ.

Zeus
August 2nd, 2010, 10:15
A quick note to say that I have updated 4E Items to support 2.7.0, the next release is in testing.

Assuming testing goes well and as soon as 2.7.0 is released, I'll update the Resource Site with the new version of the extension.

Zeus
August 17th, 2010, 09:31
OK, v0.4 has been uploaded/released and is available for download from my Resource Site. Full update notes can be found in the accompanying readme.txt, also summarised below:

31st July 2010
v0.4 - test build
- Updated compatibility to support 4E 2.0.2 and FGII 2.7.0.
- Added support for new 2.7.0 share/unshare functionality and updated adventure Item lists to support JPG's new visual indicators.

Enjoy!

DrZ.

adminwheel3
March 6th, 2011, 06:01
Why would sharing an item in a module, which is flagged as identified, show as non-identified (and blank) to the PC?

And why, if I instead put the item into the PCs inventory are they then able to see the details of the item?

Zeus
March 6th, 2011, 08:33
Hmmm, that shouldn't be occurring. Can I ask you to provide the version details of the ruleset and extension and a breakdown of the steps. I'll then take a look to see if I can reproduce.

Zeus
July 3rd, 2011, 10:23
New updated v2.8 compatible version has been uploaded.

4E Items
31st July 2010 – v1.0

Updated to support 2.8 API and 4E v2.1


Click the banner in my signature to goto the new site where you can download all my latest test releases.

Enjoy!

DrZ.

gmkieran
August 14th, 2011, 17:19
Hey, Dr Z! I checked the forums this time! Didn't find anything, though, about cross-tab bleed with the Items extension. I was creating a new item in a campaign where I have a module containing a large list of items also open. I noticed that Abilities and Powers information for the new item I had just created was already populated. Looking at it, it matched the information for the existing module item in the same ID slot (ie I created a fifth item in my campaign and the bleedover came from the fifth item in my module). I assume this is an instance of IDs not being unique and existing IDs not being completely accounted for when referencing Abilities or Powers. I also found that the existing items (the ones I'd created before I opened the module) show the same bleedover.

Also noticing that the problem of being able to delete money labels from the Parcels entries has re-occurred and that the parcel is not recognizing numeric values added after the label as monetary treasure.

Version info: FG 2.8.0, 4e 2.1, Items 1.0

Let me know if you need more info from me to replicate or test.

Cheers!
GMK

Zeus
August 14th, 2011, 18:06
Hey, Dr Z! I checked the forums this time! Didn't find anything, though, about cross-tab bleed with the Items extension. I was creating a new item in a campaign where I have a module containing a large list of items also open. I noticed that Abilities and Powers information for the new item I had just created was already populated. Looking at it, it matched the information for the existing module item in the same ID slot (ie I created a fifth item in my campaign and the bleedover came from the fifth item in my module). I assume this is an instance of IDs not being unique and existing IDs not being completely accounted for when referencing Abilities or Powers. I also found that the existing items (the ones I'd created before I opened the module) show the same bleedover.

1) Does your module incorporate a unique module id?
2) Do you see the same problem, if you disable the 4E Items extension?



Also noticing that the problem of being able to delete money labels from the Parcels entries has re-occurred and that the parcel is not recognizing numeric values added after the label as monetary treasure.

Version info: FG 2.8.0, 4e 2.1, Items 1.0

Let me know if you need more info from me to replicate or test.

Cheers!
GMK

Sorry, I am not sure I am following what the problem is. Can you describe the steps you are taking and the exact problem your experiencing, and I'll see what I can do.

gmkieran
August 16th, 2011, 18:55
Thanks for the feedback, DrZ!

Item 1 - I don't know, so probably not. Would I have been able to create that when exporting the module? Or would I have to go into the .xml and edit it to create the unique ID?

Item 2 I will check tonight.

As for the money in the parcels, I was thinking the value would get listed to the right of the label, since there's all that space there, so I was entering my values in the labels area. I realized this when I opened an existing parcel and saw the values to the *left* of the labels. So, user error, not your issue. :D

Cheers!
GMK

Zeus
August 16th, 2011, 19:06
Thanks for the feedback, DrZ!

Item 1 - I don't know, so probably not. Would I have been able to create that when exporting the module? Or would I have to go into the .xml and edit it to create the unique ID?

If you created your module using the 4EParser, the configuration option is called 'Modestring'. If you are using /export from within FGII, the configuration option line (at the the top) is called 'Merge ID'.

Either way, assigning a unique short string as the Modestring or MergeID will ensure that entries are not merged into the same category or in other words entries from multiple sources are not listed together under the sam category tab.


Item 2 I will check tonight.

I only ask, as I have seen this behaviour before in older versions of the 4E ruleset (as far back as 4E_JPG releases) and prior to the 4E Items extension being created. I haven't seen it in a long time though and had assumed it had ben fixed. It would good to understand if this latest occurrence is a re-occurence of older FGII/ruleset bugs or a new occurrence altogether and down to an extension bug.


As for the money in the parcels, I was thinking the value would get listed to the right of the label, since there's all that space there, so I was entering my values in the labels area. I realized this when I opened an existing parcel and saw the values to the *left* of the labels. So, user error, not your issue. :D

Oh OK. I must admit I was baffled at first. Looking at it now I suppose I can understand why this could happen, maybe I need to add an onHover frame state to the numberfields to make them more pronounced?

gmkieran
August 16th, 2011, 19:22
I used the /export, but I didn't set a merge_ID, because it was a standalone module. Didn't occur to me that having an ID would prevent *other* modules from merging with it. doh! :D How hard is it to add the modestring? Just one line or do I have to reference it through the .xml?

Understood and I will definitely check.

Some kind of frame would certainly help, yes! Hover over or even a permanent frame around the entire area indicating that it's not just white space between the Items and the Money. I realize that having a frame there might limit the size of the values you could enter, so maybe just a frame until there's a value entered and it's visually obvious that the values go there?

Cheers!
GMK

Zeus
August 16th, 2011, 19:48
If you don't have the original campaign anymore that you used to /export so that you could re- /export the campaign (with a MergID) then you would have to crack open the .mod and edit the XML (every link would need to be revised to include the modestring).

An alternative way: download my 4E module decompiler, decompile the .mod into 4EParser source files and then re-parse using the 4EParser (setting a Modestring in the config).

As for the frame for the numberfields in the 4E Parcel window, I'll add a state frame for when hovering but would prefer to avoid using a permanent frame as this would alter the look of the window from the standard 4E stat block (which I am attempting to mimic as closely as possible). Having said that maybe I can add a feint frame, enough such that the fields are more prominent but not so much that it interferes with the look and feel. Let me see what I can do.

gmkieran
August 17th, 2011, 02:08
I do have the original mod and I'm going to need to make some other revisions to it, anyway, so I'll just make sure to assign a merge ID this time. I also have the decompiler and parser, but I've never successfully used either, so I'll put that away for another day.

I did, however, just load the campaign without the Items extension and the bleedover is not happening, so it does appear to be an effect of having the extension activated.

Looking at the parcels again, it probably *should* have been apparent to me that the values went to the left, given that the pound symbol is above that section and not to the right. That said, an on-hover frame would make it that much more obvious and would probably be preferable to a permanent frame for look-and-feel.

Cheers!
GMK