darrenan
July 10th, 2014, 18:55
I have now converted roughly a dozen different 'adventures' (adventure paths, modules, etc.) into FG modules, and learning from my mistakes and omissions, I have started to put together a checklist of things to remember to do before exporting to module for my own quality of life as GM. If anyone has their own 'best practices' related to this process, I would be very interested to hear them. Some of this may be specific to 3.5E/PF, but feel free to post your suggestions for any ruleset.
Make sure that all NPC spells and specials abilities are represented by spells on the Spells tab, and that they have correct cast, heal, damage and effect actions associated with them.
Make sure that all NPC special abilities are marked with (Sp), (Su), or (Ex). I hate having to go back to the source material and look that up in the middle of an encounter.
All gear/items on the NPC sheet are also represented in an Item Parcel that is linked to the story entry, for easy dragging/dropping into the loot window on the party sheet.
All unidentified items have a customized Unidentified Name field to indicate the type of item i.e. "Unidentified Wand" instead of "Unidentified Item", which is the default. This assumes that you have turned the unidentified items feature on.
Keep NPCs names that show up on the Combat Tracker uninformative NPC names by default (i.e. "Bugbear 1" instead of "Blurg The Mighty") , reveal names only if discovered somehow. More importantly, keep image names uninformative as well. On numerous occasions I have given away unnecessary information to my players by not adhering to these two points.
All story entries contain a link to the map, encounter (optional), and treasure (optional). Also, any related images should be linked on the story entry.
Map has pushpin shortcuts for every story entry. This point, along with the previous point, let you drive everything from the current map you have displayed. Where transitions exists between maps, add a pushpin shortcut to a story entry that contains a link to the map being transitioned to.
Separate pushpin shortcuts for every trap, secret door, locked door to story items that explicitly list the Perception DC, Disable Device DC, hardness and hit points of the item. If it's short enough, you can even put all that information directly in the title, so it's available just by hovering over the pushpin. In the case of traps, it should link directly to the NPC entry for the trap of course.
Very carefully read any text you copy from PDF that you might be displaying directly to players. Again, to prevent revealing too much information.
If there's another location in the wiki where this information would more naturally live, maybe the powers that be can copy it there for us?
Make sure that all NPC spells and specials abilities are represented by spells on the Spells tab, and that they have correct cast, heal, damage and effect actions associated with them.
Make sure that all NPC special abilities are marked with (Sp), (Su), or (Ex). I hate having to go back to the source material and look that up in the middle of an encounter.
All gear/items on the NPC sheet are also represented in an Item Parcel that is linked to the story entry, for easy dragging/dropping into the loot window on the party sheet.
All unidentified items have a customized Unidentified Name field to indicate the type of item i.e. "Unidentified Wand" instead of "Unidentified Item", which is the default. This assumes that you have turned the unidentified items feature on.
Keep NPCs names that show up on the Combat Tracker uninformative NPC names by default (i.e. "Bugbear 1" instead of "Blurg The Mighty") , reveal names only if discovered somehow. More importantly, keep image names uninformative as well. On numerous occasions I have given away unnecessary information to my players by not adhering to these two points.
All story entries contain a link to the map, encounter (optional), and treasure (optional). Also, any related images should be linked on the story entry.
Map has pushpin shortcuts for every story entry. This point, along with the previous point, let you drive everything from the current map you have displayed. Where transitions exists between maps, add a pushpin shortcut to a story entry that contains a link to the map being transitioned to.
Separate pushpin shortcuts for every trap, secret door, locked door to story items that explicitly list the Perception DC, Disable Device DC, hardness and hit points of the item. If it's short enough, you can even put all that information directly in the title, so it's available just by hovering over the pushpin. In the case of traps, it should link directly to the NPC entry for the trap of course.
Very carefully read any text you copy from PDF that you might be displaying directly to players. Again, to prevent revealing too much information.
If there's another location in the wiki where this information would more naturally live, maybe the powers that be can copy it there for us?