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kdietri
February 14th, 2011, 01:23
I'm not sure how much of this is true, but here goes.

I have heard that the d20_JPG ruleset is being merged with the main 3.5, I'm pretty sure this is happening, but is there any word on an eta for this change?

Now I'm less certain about this next part, but I've also heard there is an effort to make the 3.5 ruleset more automated, along the lines of the 4E rulest in terms of tracking modifiers and conditions, targetting multiple defenses, etc. etc.

Is this second part correct, if so is there a timeframe for these changes or are they asap?

Moon Wizard
February 14th, 2011, 19:53
Yes, I am working on the merge. However, the automation of the 3.5E ruleset has taken much longer than anticipated, since only a portion of the code from 4E can be reused, and 3.5E needed more work than I originally thought.

It's more of an as-soon-as it's ready project. I am neck deep in the changes right now, so I'll give more updates as I see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Regards,
JPG

kdietri
February 14th, 2011, 23:12
Thanks for the update JPG, hopefully I didn't distract you from the task at hand. ;-)

Is there a way people can help contribute?

Moon Wizard
February 16th, 2011, 21:26
I appreciate the offer for help.

Once it is in a more stable state, I will actually be posting the updated ruleset in FG Test Mode. Since I am not running a current 3.5E game, I will have to rely on all of you to help me sound out the less obvious issues that may have cropped up.

Thanks,
JPG

Iceman
February 24th, 2011, 14:37
Is there an enhancement ruleset for 3.5e? Specific features I am looking for are as follows:

XP table - when you enter 6000 points in the xp box the program should know what level you are

SP table/Class table - based on your class and your INT and your level the program should know how many SPs you should have and how many you have left to spend

Monster XP table - when four PCs, average level 4, kill a CR15 dragon the program should know how many xp to give to each PC and the GM should be able to click a single 'approve' button to have the xp applied

Also any plans for incorporating sound - as in a conference call type option to help minimize reading?
Thanks for any/all info on these issues!

Moon Wizard
February 24th, 2011, 21:56
Currently, the most full-featured ruleset for 3.5E is actually the d20_JPG ruleset, which I was working on a couple years ago. The one that ships with FG is a simpler version.

As I mentioned, I am in the process of rebuilding a brand new 3.5E ruleset with all the features from d20_JPG and 4E rulesets, not that I am part of the SmiteWorks team.

To answer your specific questions:

* I have been adding some automation to the rulesets I build, where I feel that it speeds up the game the most. However, there are many, many more things that could be automated, but I just don't have the bandwidth to build them all.

* FG is an extensible platform, which means that anybody in the community can expand on what I've done to add specific features. It does require some XML and LUA programming, and can become complex if the feature you want is complex. (See DrZ's set of extensions for 4E to see what can be done.) (I think he even has some sort XP and/or treasure split in one of them.)

* There are long-term plans to add sound, but no plans to add voice chat. There are just too many good voice chat options out there, and anything we build wouldn't be as good. I just look to the World of Warcraft voice chat to see a good example of why we don't want to do that. (i.e. people tried it, and went back to ventrilo/teamspeak, which is better quality)

Cheers,
JPG

Iceman
February 25th, 2011, 01:09
You sound like the perfect person to talk to then! Is there a way that I can easily import a mess of NPC's? For instance, if I had an XML template that showed me the correct format/order to enter in the data, could I complete a textfile with perhaps 100 different NPCs complete with name and stats and then drop it into an FG folder which would allow me to have one or two click access to all these NPCs?

Or is it vastly more complicated than that?
Thanks for the info!

Moon Wizard
February 25th, 2011, 02:00
The best way to import NPCs is to create a module with all of them in it. FG modules are just ZIP files containing a set of data in XML format.

For d20, check out the 3.5E-monsters.mod for an example of d20 NPC data.

For 4E, the 4E parser found on the forums can be used to create an FG NPC data module using a DDI account.

Depending on how you had your data stored originally, you may be able to perform some sort of transformation to convert it into the XML format that FG expects.

Cheers,
JPG