SagaBorn Ruleset - WIP

[mbielaczyc]

I am slowing working on the SagaBorn RPG ruleset for Fantasy Grounds.

Download it now over at the Forge: SagaBorn RPG System (https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/702/view)

Get the Core rulebook for free as well: SagaBorn Core Rulebook (https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/1518/view)

I am the creator of SagaBorn, and not a programmer, so it is going slow :)

So far I have fixed the character sheet to have the correct skills. I am also working on inputting all the items from the core rulebook.

Things I need to work on:

Fantasy Grounds ruleset edit


Make saves equal to skills
Make ability scores = to ability bonus and make it editable



Ruleset Edit in partnership with Bayne7400 (https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/crafter/49/view-profile).

Release 1.5:
12/20/2023
Notes:
Main Tab
Remove Grapple
Remove SR
Change Race to Species
Removed 3.5 Ability Scores, made Ability Modifiers main and made editable.
Make Saves editable.
Senses Section - Remove Spot/Listen/Search or have a single button for Awareness.
Saga Points on the Main page
Combat Tab
Change SR to Mana - Max and Spent
Skills Tab
Only 9 Skills - Acrobatics, Athletics, Awareness, Endurance, Knowledge, Persuasion, Spellcraft, Survival, Thievery
Remove Top Middle Bar - unneeded buttons.\
Abilities Tab
Rename Feats to Talents
Rename Racial Traits to Species Traits
Rename Misc to Expertise

Added Spells tab



Longterm Goals


Mana system



-Mike
SagaBorn.com

[mbielaczyc]

Also, if there is anyone out there who is more familiar with editing FG rulesets, I would be happy to work out a payment deal for help!

[mbielaczyc]

Forge Ruleset (https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/702/view) was updated yesterday! I added the SagaBorn Core Rulebook module, which includes the 1.5 rules and items!

[vegaserik]

Nice! I love seeing these pop up on the Forge.

[mbielaczyc]

Thanks!

Best to get it now too, depending on what happens with OGL 1.1, I may have to pull it down.

[mbielaczyc]

Due to the OGL mess, we do not know the future of the OGL d20 SagaBorn. We released the 1.5 rules yesterday for free on DTRPG. We were going to spend another 4 or 5 months designing the interior, making art, etc. but we decided it better to get it out under ogl 1.0 than it possibly not being released.

So go download away! SagaBorn 1.5 Core Rulebook (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/422906/SagaBorn-Roleplaying-Game-v-15)

[mbielaczyc]

Hmm, so I think I messed up with the design of the SagaBorn ruleset.

Since SagaBorn is based on 3.5, I just copied the 3.5 ruleset to a new folder, renamed it, and started editing files. (please forgive me, I am a writer and artist with a dab of website designer) It seems I should have made an extension that just edits the files I needed to.

I have campaigns and lots of add ons already made, is it too far to go back and start the ruleset as an extension?

For example I have the ruleset as Story's, I have a whole Creature Compendium done, etc.

[damned]

Hmm, so I think I messed up with the design of the SagaBorn ruleset.

Since SagaBorn is based on 3.5, I just copied the 3.5 ruleset to a new folder, renamed it, and started editing files. (please forgive me, I am a writer and artist with a dab of website designer) It seems I should have made an extension that just edits the files I needed to.

I have campaigns and lots of add ons already made, is it too far to go back and start the ruleset as an extension?

For example I have the ruleset as Story's, I have a whole Creature Compendium done, etc.

No definitely not too late.
It will be a little bit of work though.
It probably will have NO impact on your modules - they should continue to work.

For your ruleset as story - once you are happy with it - load up the Author extension and you can import them all into a Reference Manual - you will need to check the pre-requisites - mostly about prefixing entries with numbers - but its pretty easy to do.

[mbielaczyc]

Since they were created in the SagaBorn system, is there a way to go in and tell them to load for 3.5 with an extension? Or will a ruleset modifying Extension make 3.5 seem to be SagaBorn?

I have kept a log of all the files I have changed, so it should be a bit easier to figure out my changes.

[damned]

Sorry - I misspoke slightly.

If you have a look at the sizes of the following files:

CoreRPG.pak
3.5E.pak
PFRPG.pak

You will see that they get significantly smaller each time.
When you load the PFRPG (Pathfinder) ruleset the following happens:

CoreRPG is loaded
3.5E is loaded and it adds many things and extends/modifies some things.
PFRPG is loaded and it adds many things and extends/modifies some things.

Each of them show up as a ruleset.
3.5 and PFRG could have been saved as Extensions and much functionality would be the same but you couldnt track PFRPG games being played and you would have many products appearing in the library that maybe shouldnt be there.

Anyway what the best way forward for you is:

You move your changes to a
SagaBorn.pak
That doesnt include any files that are unchanged from 3.5E or CoreRPG
And even go one better and dont include whole files where you have made only small changes - just do windowclass merges.

You would have a line like this:

<importruleset source="3.5E" />
in your base.xml that will tell FG to first load 3.5E (which in turn has a similar instruction to load CoreRPG)

The reasons this is better is that it will be harder to keep your ruleset up to date with changes to CoreRPG and 3.5E if you import the whole thing.

Does that help?

[mbielaczyc]

Thank you damned!

Sorry it took so long for a response, I have been busy getting the Core 1.5 pdf all put together.

I did play around with this last night, and it had lots of missing content errors when I only included the files I changed. This may be above my paygrade :)

[mbielaczyc]

The new update has led me to refocus on getting the SagaBorn ruleset cleaned up. I got it all running well, but it seems there was a major update to the 3.5 spells in the Action Tab. I am getting errors on that tab for any spellcaster. I don't need any of the 3.5 functionality for spells, all I need is a way for a spell caster to drag over their spells from the spell list so they can read descriptions.

Is there a way to do this on the Action tab, just make a spell section to drag and drop? Or maybe a whole new Spell Tab?

[bayne7400]

Im looking at your Pak file give me a few

[bayne7400]

So you are talking about the deprecated messages in chat?

Ok you are on the right track but here is what you need to do. It looks like you are using 3.5E as your base. So in your base file do this.

<!-- Layers -->
<importruleset source="3.5E" />

That is it only 3.5E. Then go in and delete every single file you did not change. Meaning if you just copied over the 3.5e file delete it. This will keep you from ever getting error because as soon as SW updates something on their end your ruleset is automatically updated.

I did this and deleted record_char_actions and the three script files that touch your actions tab under campaign/scripts and it works like a champ.

[mbielaczyc]

Thanks, I forgot to upload my latest file. I have a big game tomorrow, so I will hold off until after the game.

I really appreciate the help.

[bayne7400]

Yeah you should able to fix the error. The big error is onload with your combat manager 2.

[mbielaczyc]

Well, I said I wouldn't work on it, and here I am 3 hours later. Here is the latest version (in attachments). It loads in and has the changes I need like Skill list, Mana listing, etc. When you add a spell class in the Action tab it still gives a ton of errors, but at least spells can be input and seen. I don't need any of the fancy stuff that the 3.5 ruleset does with spells, I just wanted a list (which this area used to work for this). I tried adding a new tab but that started more issues.

I think the main issue is I need just the very basics of 3.5, and as FG upgrades it keeps getting more complicated and breaking the small changes I need. I think starting over with a Core (or MoreCore) ruleset and just having basic characters sheets would be a better way to go, but honestly, I am just worn out trying to make the system work in FG. I know just enough about programming to almost get things to work, which is not good enough.

Any input would be welcome, even if it is to tell me I should start over in the future with a different base system.

[bayne7400]

Ok so you kept the files I told you to delete and removed everything else lol. Also your base file contains a bunch of scripts that are no longer in the pak you just uploaded.

Your ruleset should include only the files you want to change from 3.5e. Generally you do this by replacing or merging.

[mbielaczyc]

I started with only the base.xml and then added the strings_35e, record_char_combat.xml, and data_common.lua, so that I could change the Skills and add the Mana label on the combat tab.

All the spell stuff and campaign/record_char_actions.xml was added in because those files were all needed to have spells displayed on the Action tab.

While my system is based in 3.5, it has a lot of changes in class names, skills, mechanics, and how spellcasting works. In fact, that's the whole point of SagaBorn, is it is simpler. So I think the 3.5 system in FGU is adding more complicated stuff in spellcasting that I don't need (until the last update, I could use the Add Spell Class and players could drag over their spells).

In the past have gone in and bandaided the 3.5 system in FG to try and make my system work, but there are so many mechanics (alignment, spell memorization, weapon types and damage, etc) that I just gloss over and ignore, which is why going the MoreCore route may be the way. Just give me a blank sheet that I can design and people can use it like a paper sheet.

And please forgive my lack of knowledge, I am a trained artist and only know how to cobble together code. And this is exacerbated by the fact that my cobbling worked ok until recently.

[bayne7400]

Yeah definitely check out damneds Xcore.

[mbielaczyc]

Ok, so after last nights session, I couldn't help but dig in again. I played around with Core, MoreCore, and Xcore. All of these could work, but it would take a lot of work to get going. I spent a little more time with the Sagaborn/3.5 and found that once I followed Bayne's suggestions, the only really issues came in when someone added a spell class to the Actions tab. So I will just tell people not to do that (maybe even remove the button to do so), and have mages list their spells in a Note for themselves. Not optimal, but it stops the errors.

Thanks Bayne! Also, I found your Forge and ordered the Strongholds ext; that looks great and should be compatible with the Sagaborn Strongholds book!


So I do have a question about editing files:

Sagaborn has fewer skills and a different naming convention. To change the name on the character sheet, I included the complete strings_35e.xml in the ruleset to set these new names. Is that the correct way, or is there a way to put a file in my ruleset that only edits that one part of the 35e strings_35e.xml and then allows the ruleset to reference the rest of that file in the main 3E ruleset?

I ask because there are lots of little things that I wish to change for labels, and if there is a way to just change names without having the whole XML file copied over, that would be better right? Like I have a section relabeled as Mana in record_char_combat . Do I need to have the whole file in my ruleset just to edit that one label?

I uploaded the current test with only files needed for changing labels to match the system.

[bayne7400]

For strings just the one you want to change. Think of it as a replace. So whatever you add it is going to replace it. If you don't add then it will be whatever is imported from 3.5.

You need to read up on merge rules for changing window classes. If you merge correctly you can change remove or add the fields you want and it leaves the rest as is

I guess I don't understand the spell tab issue. If you remove the files then you shouldn't have any errors as it will default to the 3.5e ruleset

[mbielaczyc]

I know, I am totally confused with what is happening in the Spell Actions. In the 3.5 ruleset, I can drag a spell right over, when I use a module with this ruleset, it has a bunch of errors when I drag over a spell. Even a brand new spell and a brand new campaign.

[bayne7400]

Did you delete all those spell files in your pak? Recordchar actions and those Lua script files?

[mbielaczyc]

I stripped everything out for a test. Here is my base.xml and here is the error in a new campaign, with a new character, with a new spell.

59527

59528

[bayne7400]

Add this file.

This should really probably be an extension not a stand alone ruleset. I think it would fix 99% of your issues. (like this one)

[mbielaczyc]

Thanks for all the help Bayne.

Do you know of or recommend a ruleset/extension I could download to compare and learn from?

Also, anyway I can give you a tip for all the help?

[bayne7400]

Your good thank you though. If you want me to just do this for you send me a PM and we can talk. If you make good notes on what you want altered I could probably do it pretty quickly