Using rulesets in LITE client version?

[tlmadden_73]

I have FG2 Lite client, as my GM bought the full release.

We were looking to play around with rulesets, so I made a copy of the d20 ruleset from the examples sample he gave me, I added it to my ruleset folder (in Documents and Settings/user/Application Data/Fantasy Grounds II). I renamed it , but didn't change any of the XML.

I opened my FG2 client and it gives me a list of rulesets to choose from and my renamed d20 copy is there. I click on it to open up and it gives me this error: "Could not load ruleset root file base.xml. Do you want to try reloading the data."

What's wrong?

My hope was to play around with this ruleset to help him test, but I can't even get a copy of the base d20 to open?

Any help?

[richvalle]

I was hoping someone else would jump in and answer you...

I THINK you are not able to muck around with rulesets with the Lite version. I'm not sure what you would be able to do when you have connected to a Full version and have recived those parts of the ruleset you are able to see. I'd guess you can at least go in and look at charsheets and such.

I'd have the DM load up the ruleset and you connect. Then go offline and open up that game in local mode and see what you can see.

Good luck

rv

[Kalan]

Problem is rulesets can no longer be accessed "offline" by the lite licence unless the lite licence also has it installed locally.

Apart from that not sure why you're getting that error - if he sent you a copy of the base d20 ruleset (which he should get by using the d20unpak command) - everything should be in there. Very odd.

[tlmadden_73]

We'll keep trying.

Ya . my DM used the unpak utility to unpack that examples folder and zipped it up and sent it to me. I opened it up .. put the d20 folder in my rulesets folder, renamed it and bam. error city.

Thanks for the help . if anyone else has any thoughts, I would appreciate it.

On a slightly other note .. is there a tutorial out there on how to update rulesets? We are essentially looking to simply add skills and feats and new classes to the base d20 ruleset. *shrug* .. new to the program.

[richvalle]

There are at least two ways of doing this. You might be trying the harder of the two.

One way, that you don't have to mess around with the default rule set to do, is create modules and add the extra stuff in there. For example, I created a 'new monsters' module and added it to my base d20 rule set. I didn't have to muck around with the base set. When I load that module up I get an extra book in my list that I can open.

You should be able to do the same for feats, skills, classes ect. You can make them shareable with the players or just local to the DM.

And, someone better at this sort of thing will be along to tell you how to do the above. :)

Oh... the 2nd way is to muck with the xml files in the base rule set. Monsters and spells each have their own file, I'm not sure about classes and feats. You can open them, edit them and save them but you'll have to do this in a new ruleset and not the base d20 one as it doesn't allow mods to be made to its files.

The other disadvantage to his method is that it will be harder to keep your ruleset up to date with the base d20 one.

Note: All the above is what I've gathered from reading others messages over time. I've never really messed around with rulesets so some of my info may be out of date or wrong. I should be at least clost to mark... I hope. :)

Good luck!

rv

[Griogre]

Ooh. Out typed by richvalle again. I saw this post and got distracted before I hit enter but I'm going to post this finely crafted post anyway. Short version - he's right. ;)

I don't have a lite version so I don't know either about rulesets and the lite verion, but I also think you can't mess with anything in your ruleset folder.

The d20 default ruleset has two parts: the actual character sheet and the supporting reference materials. It is far more technically challenging to significantly modify the character sheet. It is a lot easier to add supporting data.

What it sounds like what you want to do with adding skills, feats and classes is add additional data. You would do that with "ruleset" modules. These would be similar to the d20 Basic and D20Spell modules the light version has.

You have two choices how to do this. You could just add a module with the addition data. The advantage to this is it is very clean and you would continue to run the default d20 ruleset and just have everyone drop the new module, called for example House Rules, in their modules folder. I said this is very clean because regardless of any FG2 updates it will work and not have to be updated. Its disadvantage is you have to look in two places: the basic d20 and the new module for all the data.

The other way is to make a new ruleset that is really the default d20 one plus your new feats, skills and classes. The advantage of this is that you would add the new skills, feats and classes directly into the current ruleset modules. This means all the skills, feats, classes would all be together but if Smiteworks ever releases a change to any data module you are going to need to update your new ruleset every time they do that.