Rulesets?

[Jingo]

Anyone figured out how to get rulesets working?

I imported my campaign from FG1 and when trying to run it in FG2 it shows an "Error Loading Data" message box with a message of "Could not load ruleset root file base.xml." Trying to reload it does nothing.

Just wondering if there's somethign else I need to do on my end to get this working... Or is the format just completely different and can't run in FG2? I use the D20-SRD ruleset and char sheet originally created for FG1.

[richvalle]

Yes, I had this same problem.

The issue is that there is no D20-SRD ruleset in your FGII install as it is not created yet.

I'm going to bring my campaign over to just the plain d20 ruleset for now till everything gets sorted.

You can bring over your characters by copying over the db.xml file from your campain folder in the FGII directory and into the new one that you create using the D20 ruleset.

rv

[Deuce]

Do we still need the d20-SRD ruleset or is the d20 ruleset in FGII complete now?

[Insanity]

open/run the d20unpak.exe in FGII folder, it creates a d20 ruleset example under your Application Data/Fantasy Grounds II/ folder. Creates an new folder "Pexample" in my case, which has all of the d20 ruleset files. Its changed quite a bit now too.

[Stuart]

The d20 ruleset with FGII is not the complete d20-SRD produced for FG 1.05 by Digital; a conversion to FGII is a major priority.

[kimba]

I have all my D&D books in hard copy and PDF. is there a cool easy way to get these books into a ruleset?
I dont wish to share with players but referance without picking up a book is great - not to mention all the monster manuals I have... those would be the most important to be to get into FG.

[Stuart]

I have all my D&D books in hard copy and PDF. is there a cool easy way to get these books into a ruleset?
I dont wish to share with players but referance without picking up a book is great - not to mention all the monster manuals I have... those would be the most important to be to get into FG.
Easy - buy Digital's rulesets ;)

More seriously, if you look at the layout of the rulesets in FGII, you just need to rip the text from your pdf's and then apply the right FGII tags. As long as you have the data in the right sort of tag and file structure - no problems. You will want to create different modules for each of your pdf books of course.

[kimba]

um - ok rip the text from the pdf....

where do I buy digital's rulesets.
does digital have all the books?

[Illrigger]

I assume you're talking about WotC books, and the answer is no, and at this point nobody ever will. WotC is pulling all external licenses, so nobody can sell anything based off of their books anymore.

Digital DOES have rulesets and rights for several other cool D20 systems, though, like Iron Heroes and Arcana Unearthed. Worth a look, to be sure :)

[kimba]

I found "Complet SRD Ruleset for Fantasy Grounds " at https://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/
is this what you guys were talking about updating?
Do I need to wait to buy this? for 5.00 it sure seems worth it.

how complete are the books. I own MM1 2 & 3 and a couple other form other publishers. Am I going to be sad that I dont have access to most of my beloved monsters?

who has this and how good is it.
thanks

[Illrigger]

The complete SRD is a great product, but it's not ready for FGII yet, so you'll only be able to use it in FG1 at this point. It does NOT include MM2 and 3, it's based of the SRD.

The SRD is more or less the PHB, DMG and MM from 3.5 minus a few monsters (Beholder, Carrion Crawler, Gith, Mind Flayer, and a few others),no deities, and with a few spells renamed. It also encompasses a couple of pages from MM2, and most of Unearthed Arcana. If I remember correctly, Digital's SRD includes only the stuff from the three core books.

[Tailz Silver Paws]

I assume you're talking about WotC books, and the answer is no, and at this point nobody ever will. WotC is pulling all external licenses, so nobody can sell anything based off of their books anymore.
How do you mean? the d20 System stuff seems to be going strong, are you saying they plan to pull that too and shut down the d20 System market that has grown from it?

[Thore_Ironrock]

Hello All,

Just so we're clear on rulesets, anything created by Digital Adventures for FGv1.05 will not work in FGv2. All rulesets between the two are incompatible. Our first major initiative at Digital Adventures is to get our existing rulesets converted to this new format.

Please check out my posting from over the weekend regarding Digital Adventures projects and goals in 2007.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5907

Any questions please let me know.

[Thore_Ironrock]

How do you mean? the d20 System stuff seems to be going strong, are you saying they plan to pull that too and shut down the d20 System market that has grown from it?

There is a difference between "d20" and "D&D". True WOTC D&D 3.5 is not something other publishers are able to "use", per the d20 Open Gaming License. At one point in time Code Monkey was going to bring WOTC products to Fantasy Grounds, but that fell through and now WOTC is (supposedly) developing their own online gaming software.

Hence, from the previous post, actual WOTC products cannot be legally done in Fantasy Grounds. However, one of Digital Adventures goals is to bring other publisher products to Fantasy Grounds, which does include d20 OGL companies such as Malhavoc Press, Troll Lord Games, and the like. Currently, the d20 OGL agreement WOTC has made with the world isn't going anywhere, so there is no need to panic over "losing" d20 at this time.

Hope this answers your question.

[Jingo]

Yes, I had this same problem.

The issue is that there is no D20-SRD ruleset in your FGII install as it is not created yet.

I'm going to bring my campaign over to just the plain d20 ruleset for now till everything gets sorted.

You can bring over your characters by copying over the db.xml file from your campain folder in the FGII directory and into the new one that you create using the D20 ruleset.

rv

Thanks Richvalle. I'm not sure I follow you on how to do this. I can see my db.xml file in my campaign directory that was copied over from FG 1 when I installed FG 2, but I'm not sure where I'm supposed to put it... how do I switch it to just plain d20 ruleset so that it will load?

[Tailz Silver Paws]

There is a difference between "d20" and "D&D". True WOTC D&D 3.5 is not something other publishers are able to "use", per the d20 Open Gaming License. At one point in time Code Monkey was going to bring WOTC products to Fantasy Grounds, but that fell through and now WOTC is (supposedly) developing their own online gaming software.

Hence, from the previous post, actual WOTC products cannot be legally done in Fantasy Grounds. However, one of Digital Adventures goals is to bring other publisher products to Fantasy Grounds, which does include d20 OGL companies such as Malhavoc Press, Troll Lord Games, and the like. Currently, the d20 OGL agreement WOTC has made with the world isn't going anywhere, so there is no need to panic over "losing" d20 at this time.

Hope this answers your question.
Yup thats what I thought you ment.

Digital Adventures could help me make my World War II mod ;)

I could not code my way out of a soggy paper bag that had a hole in it, although I can do pretty pictures.

[EyeBall]

So if I am reading this right, there is no way to convert the old rulesets I am using to FGII? That will severely hurt my ability to run a game. XML I know fairly well, and I was able to make the needed changes for the custom ruleset I am currently using. I have not yet dug into the new stuff, though I have looked at it breifly. There are things in there listed that I have never seen before.

How am I to use a ruleset that I was using previously? Do I now have to learn to script?

[joshuha]

So if I am reading this right, there is no way to convert the old rulesets I am using to FGII? That will severely hurt my ability to run a game. XML I know fairly well, and I was able to make the needed changes for the custom ruleset I am currently using. I have not yet dug into the new stuff, though I have looked at it breifly. There are things in there listed that I have never seen before.

How am I to use a ruleset that I was using previously? Do I now have to learn to script?

At this point you will need to redo the ruleset. You don't need to learn how to LUA script unless you choose to use some of that functionality. What you will need to learn is the format of the new ruleset as far as the XML tags. Most are similiar but structured differently (it makes more sense now). The Reference Documentation is available on a link off the Community Page. To see how things would be structured XML wise look at the sections that end in *control like stringcontrol, windowcontrol, numbercontrol, etc. These have all the XML tags as they would appear in the ruleset files.

[richvalle]

Thanks Richvalle. I'm not sure I follow you on how to do this. I can see my db.xml file in my campaign directory that was copied over from FG 1 when I installed FG 2, but I'm not sure where I'm supposed to put it... how do I switch it to just plain d20 ruleset so that it will load?

Start up FG and create a new Campaign using the D20 ruleset, then shut down FG. Now go in and copy the db.xml from the previous campaign's FGII folder to the new one and over write the db.xml that is there.

Now you'll have to bring over the tokens, maps and images.

This should get you up and going with all the characters, maps and what have you in a new FGII setting.

Players will lose their keyboard mappings and notes. I think the keyboard mappings can be saved but have not figured that out yet.

rv

[Jingo]

Thanks for the info Richvalle. I was able to get some of the stuff over... characters mainly. But the entire storyline and npcs are all missing. Much of my previous campaign data was in the form of modules. How do I get previous modules to show up (npcs, images, story lines etc)? That's what's missing.

[richvalle]

Sure thing Jingo!

I've not tried to move modules over yet. I'd think they should work though.

In FGI there should be a folder for modules just under the FGI folder. Copy them and move them to the Doc & Settings/App data/FGII/modules folder.

And let us know if that works. :)

rv

[richvalle]

Ok, I got this to work but took some fiddling around.

Copy your modules over to FGII moduels dir. Then you are going to have to open them up. To do so rename the file from .mod to .zip. Open and check the definition.xml. Inside there is a line that says what ruleset it works with. I had to change mine from d20-srd to d20. Then save the change and rename the file back to .mod.

Start up FGII and the module should show up!

Good luck.

rv

[Jingo]

Thanks again Richvalle. I did what you said but the modules still don't appear in the modules window... Once I have them in the modules folder in FG 2 with the d20 ruleset defined is there something else I'm supposed to do to ensure they show up?

[richvalle]

Maybe restart FG if you had it running while you fiddled with the files.

Check the definition.xlm file again to make sure the change (if any) took. I had to remove the file from the .zip file, edit it and then add it back.

rv

[Jingo]

yeah... I already had unzipped the entire thing, changed the .xml file and then rezipped. Still no joy.

So I went in, created each module as a campaign in FG2 then re-exported each as modules.

That seemed to work... except that when I load more than one module all the story data is combined into one window. Before it used to be in separate windows (by clicking on the ribbon icon).

Very annoying...

[richvalle]

Well the mod I tested with was just a list of magic items... so it was very simple and basic. Maybe my test would have failed too if there was more in there.

rv

[symmetrian]

...I am having a mental breakdown. My campaign has completely customized races and I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to get that information into FG2. I had it done in FG1 but nothing I see in the examples (once I unpacked the d20 set) seems to have any sort of reference info, just a whole bunch of scripts. All I need to know is where I put the text, because there's nothing here I can find that has the replaceable text that would indicate that I'm looking in the right place or... anything. I know I'm probably just blind or dumb, but help!

Edit: I may have figured this out, but... there must be an easier way.

Edit2: Yes, I did figure this out, but let me tell you what I'm doing in case I really *am* doing this the stupid way:

I go into the modules and rename the d20basic.mod to .zip. I open that and edit the file client.xml

This requires copying text line by line from my old ruleset information and trying desperately not to destroy the tag structure.

After this, I re-zip those files, rename the .zip to a .mod. After that, I'm not entirely sure what I'd do. Do I just create a folder in the ruleset folder of FG2 and drop those in? I assume I have to rename some other files as well, but I'm not entirely sure.

[Goblin-King]

After this, I re-zip those files, rename the .zip to a .mod. After that, I'm not entirely sure what I'd do. Do I just create a folder in the ruleset folder of FG2 and drop those in? I assume I have to rename some other files as well, but I'm not entirely sure.
You just drop the resulting mod file into the modules folder. You should not use the same name as the core module, or it will get overwritten the next time you update.

One thing to consider is just creating a new module with no other information than your house rules. Might make it clearer for the players where to locate the information. Another idea would be to rename the client.xml file to common.xml so you can activate it as the GM and the players will see it automatically.

[lucyanor]

I have created a new d21spells.mod file with my custom spells info inside. On the DM client, if you click on Modules it appears there normaly and allows for opening or preseting as with the other modules.
And that is as far as it goes, since even when active I cannot locate my content anywhere.
Am I missing something here? It should be appearing in the library, right?

[Goblin-King]

It should appear in the library, if you have a <library> node in the module set up correctly. Did you start with an example from d20spells.mod or from scratch? You may want to compare the library node structure in your module with that of the existing modules.

[lucyanor]

I started using d20spells.mod as a basis. I then just edited all my changes (where it had d20spells or d20 spells, I replaced with d21) and added my content in place of the old (e.g. PHB 2 spells instead of the standard spell list)
Does this seem correct?
<library>
<d21spells static="true">
<name type="string">d21 spells</name>
<categoryname type="string">d20 Essentials</categoryname>
<entries>
<Duskblade>
<librarylink type="windowreference">
<class>reference_classspelllist</class>
<recordname>spelllists.duskblade@d21 spells</recordname>
</librarylink>
<name type="string">Duskblade spells</name>
</duskblade>
</entries>
</d20spells>
</library>

[Goblin-King]

That does seem correct in structure but not in syntax. You have <d21spells></d20spells> and <Duskblade></duskblade>. Check and see if that's the cause of the problem.

[lucyanor]

Once more thanks for the insight...
It now works fine and I am on my wayt to creating my PHB2 mod happy as a puppy !!!