Please help me aim

[boxfox13]

My Goal: To learn how to create a D&D 5e Custom Campaign that includes a lot home-brewed changes to several big rules in the Core 5e books.

My Problem: I'm not sure what I should be researching. Is that goal something that describes making a custom module, making custom extensions, or making a custom rule-set? A combination of those?

My Limits: I'm not worried about the level of work required. I have a background that will allow me to learn whatever software or processes I need and I have the patience to work on it until it's done...I just don't know WHAT I need to learn to meet my needs because they're...varied. I'm not experienced in FGU, but I'm working through tutorial videos each day to keep learning. None seem to address my concerns, so far.


A More Detailed Description: Here are some examples of what I need to change-some might already exist or be completely impossible. I just need help with a direction to aim my research and I've been unlucky searching the forums and YouTube.

Character races don't provide Ability Score Increases to specific abilities, the players get to choose the abilities to increase. Certain races already do this, but I need to change the automatic behavior already in place so they all do.
When the campaign starts, the list of available races and classes includes those in the PHB, but players can unlock new character creation options (some that are completely home-brewed) during their adventures, so occasionally the lists of available options needs to change, but players can't see the other options that are still locked.
Sometimes a reward will allow a player to alter the way one of their spells or items works in a specified way.
Towns are almost actual characters and have a Prosperity Level, which changes options available as it goes up or down. Ideally, players should be able to see a "shop list" of things available that would hide things that aren't unlocked yet.
Players can get rewards that provide a benefit to all future characters they create, so it needs to be linked to the player, not the character.
I pretty heavily modify creatures, compared to the monster manual. I know I can make custom creatures, but can I create templates that I can just drop on a creature to alter its abilities in predefined ways?
I want magic items to give players different levels of information based on how they're used: picking it up relays this info, attuning relays this additional info, if you cast Identify on it you learn this other stuff, etc..
I need to implement a reputation system for the player party
I need to implement a custom Achievement system that lets me create conditions to be tracked and then performs an action when those conditions are met.
Allow automatic use of certain skills, like passive Arcana/Religion checks to identify a spell being cast.
I need to implement an entire new feat system that acts more like you'd expect from D&D 3.5 (with prerequisites and such).
Change how Inspiration works.
I need to alter the way attunement works, including exactly how many things you can attune to, and also mess with how HP at level up works.
I'd like a way to implement some type of voting system.
There will be up to 16 individual players and the party make-up will be different basically every single session. Does this screw things up?

[Jiminimonka]

My Goal: To learn how to create a D&D 5e Custom Campaign that includes a lot home-brewed changes to several big rules in the Core 5e books.

My Problem: I'm not sure what I should be researching. Is that goal something that describes making a custom module, making custom extensions, or making a custom rule-set? A combination of those?

My Limits: I'm not worried about the level of work required. I have a background that will allow me to learn whatever software or processes I need and I have the patience to work on it until it's done...I just don't know WHAT I need to learn to meet my needs because they're...varied. I'm not experienced in FGU, but I'm working through tutorial videos each day to keep learning. None seem to address my concerns, so far.


A More Detailed Description: Here are some examples of what I need to change-some might already exist or be completely impossible. I just need help with a direction to aim my research and I've been unlucky searching the forums and YouTube.

Character races don't provide Ability Score Increases to specific abilities, the players get to choose the abilities to increase. Certain races already do this, but I need to change the automatic behavior already in place so they all do.
When the campaign starts, the list of available races and classes includes those in the PHB, but players can unlock new character creation options (some that are completely home-brewed) during their adventures, so occasionally the lists of available options needs to change, but players can't see the other options that are still locked.
Sometimes a reward will allow a player to alter the way one of their spells or items works in a specified way.
Towns are almost actual characters and have a Prosperity Level, which changes options available as it goes up or down. Ideally, players should be able to see a "shop list" of things available that would hide things that aren't unlocked yet.
Players can get rewards that provide a benefit to all future characters they create, so it needs to be linked to the player, not the character.
I pretty heavily modify creatures, compared to the monster manual. I know I can make custom creatures, but can I create templates that I can just drop on a creature to alter its abilities in predefined ways?
I want magic items to give players different levels of information based on how they're used: picking it up relays this info, attuning relays this additional info, if you cast Identify on it you learn this other stuff, etc..
I need to implement a reputation system for the player party
I need to implement a custom Achievement system that lets me create conditions to be tracked and then performs an action when those conditions are met.
Allow automatic use of certain skills, like passive Arcana/Religion checks to identify a spell being cast.
I need to implement an entire new feat system that acts more like you'd expect from D&D 3.5 (with prerequisites and such).
Change how Inspiration works.
I need to alter the way attunement works, including exactly how many things you can attune to, and also mess with how HP at level up works.
I'd like a way to implement some type of voting system.
There will be up to 16 individual players and the party make-up will be different basically every single session. Does this screw things up?


Big list aside, you haven't mentioned your level of experience with D&D.

Most of this stuff would be handled as required in the campaign. If you unlocked a new race for players the you would have to share it as a module for the players.

There is way too much there to be automated. Your best bet is to DM and play some games and learn how to run a basic D&D campaign and then start tweaking things as you learn.

[Zacchaeus]

Welcome to FGU.

That's a lot of stuff.

The character Wizard uses the Tasha option so you aren't stuck with the default ASI for each race - so that's fine (even without the Wizard you can just change stats anyway).
You can 'hide' races if you create a race module and don't share it with your players and just share the race once they hit whatever mark they need to hit to see it.
For towns see the Player Agency extension. It'll do a lot of what you want to do (find it on the forge).
Not sure about the rewards. Probably the easiest thing to do is just share a story entry with the player detailing the information.
There's no template for NPC's; you'll need to edit an existing one or make a new one from scratch.
For the magic items sounds like you'll need to create several of each one and swap one out for the other once they discover additional abilities.
You can handle reputation using a power group and preparation mode possibly. Or just have the player note it down somewhere in the notes space of their character sheet.
For the achievements you'll probably need to write an extension if you want something like that to automate other things. Nothing like that exists in the ruleset as it stands.
Again an extension will be required for auto use of skills. Not even sure if you would be able to implement something like that. Too many variables - like how would you know what spell was being cast etc. Many spells just are - they don't do anything like attack etc so identifying that would be problematic.
Not sure about the feats; I don't know 3.5 (well I do but have forgotten it). The current feat system has some feats that have prerequisites but they aren't enforced. So it depends on whether you want to implement such enforcement (by that I mean the player can drag the feat into their character sheet unless the prereques are met).
You don't say how you want to change inspiration so difficult to answer that.
Attunement isn't enforced and you have options as to how many items can be attuned. You don't say how you want to mess with hp; but there are options for that as well. Or you can do it manually since hp is editable.
Party composition could be an issue if you finish a session in the middle of combat with x,y and z characters and the a,b and c are in the next session. Not sure how you get around that (or even how it would work even if you didn't finish in the middle of a combat).

Most things can be done without anything fancy in FGU. A lot depends on how strict you need to be or whether you can theatre of the mind stuff or just edit things manually. If you want strictness then you'll need to get into coding since most things are not hard coded to allow greater flexibility.

[LordEntrails]

Character races don't provide Ability Score Increases to specific abilities, the players get to choose the abilities to increase. Certain races already do this, but I need to change the automatic behavior already in place so they all do.

Check out Phillip Grieg's YouTube videos on race creation. Just create custom versions of your races. As you nonte, this is already possible, you just need to define the race accordingly. Note, TAsha's might already have the race variants for you.



When the campaign starts, the list of available races and classes includes those in the PHB, but players can unlock new character creation options (some that are completely home-brewed) during their adventures, so occasionally the lists of available options needs to change, but players can't see the other options that are still locked.

Just do this by either a) updating your player facing module with the new options, or b) don't share your custom player races and just share the individual options when you want them visible. r see, handle it out of game and just tell the players they cant use some of them yet.



Sometimes a reward will allow a player to alter the way one of their spells or items works in a specified way.

Just alter the character sheet when needed.



Towns are almost actual characters and have a Prosperity Level, which changes options available as it goes up or down. Ideally, players should be able to see a "shop list" of things available that would hide things that aren't unlocked yet.

Look at extensions. There used to be one that added locations info (DOE: Locations). Might still be one around that does this now.



Players can get rewards that provide a benefit to all future characters they create, so it needs to be linked to the player, not the character.


No built in way to do this. You could just keep a specific Story shared with the individual player Since shared records are linked to the username, they will remain regardless of character.



I pretty heavily modify creatures, compared to the monster manual. I know I can make custom creatures, but can I create templates that I can just drop on a creature to alter its abilities in predefined ways?

No. But their is an extension that helps build NPCs quickly. Sorry, I forget the name of it.



I want magic items to give players different levels of information based on how they're used: picking it up relays this info, attuning relays this additional info, if you cast Identify on it you learn this other stuff, etc..

Not easy to do OOTB. You could write an extension that has levels of identification to the various fields. See the built in ID function as well as the Player Agency extension for code examples.



I need to implement a reputation system for the player party

If this is just a text value, then use one of the existing fields on the Character Sheet, or add a custom field. But, depends on what you mean by "system".



I need to implement a custom Achievement system that lets me create conditions to be tracked and then performs an action when those conditions are met.

Again, depends on what you mean. See answer above, or maybe some of this an be handled by existing IFT effects. But, sounds like you will probably want an extension.



Allow automatic use of certain skills, like passive Arcana/Religion checks to identify a spell being cast.

FG is not so automated like a video game to automatically detect these types of actions. But you could monitor the chat log and them trigger functions when certain text appears. Personally, I would just leave it up to the player to indicate when they want to identify a spell being cast.



I need to implement an entire new feat system that acts more like you'd expect from D&D 3.5 (with prerequisites and such).

Check the 3.5 code. Not sure prerequisites are checked, but you could write an extension to to check, but FG generally doesn't try to enforce these types of things and just expect the players to read and know what to do in the way of prerequisites.



Change how Inspiration works.

No details here, so all I can say is "then change it".



I need to alter the way attunement works, including exactly how many things you can attune to, and also mess with how HP at level up works.

Extensions. There is already one for attunement tracking. Again, you don;t say how you want this to change. Probably already an extension that prevents default HP on level up. But again, change to what?



I'd like a way to implement some type of voting system.

There is already the /vote command. You can also see some of the various Safety extensions and the Request Roll extension to get some ideas.




There will be up to 16 individual players and the party make-up will be different basically every single session. Does this screw things up?


No, players will want Actions to quickly add racial and class trait effects to the Combat Tracker since they will be removed when you switch out PCs.

Also, see the link in my sig about module creation.

[boxfox13]

Thanks, everyone. Huge gathering of information. I'll need time to parse it and look into details.

I appreciate you all taking the time to stop in and help me out!

[boxfox13]

Check out Phillip Grieg's YouTube videos on race creation. Just create custom versions of your races. As you nonte, this is already possible, you just need to define the race accordingly. Note, TAsha's might already have the race variants for you.
Just do this by either a) updating your player facing module with the new options, or b) don't share your custom player races and just share the individual options when you want them visible. r see, handle it out of game and just tell the players they cant use some of them yet.
Just alter the character sheet when needed.
Look at extensions. There used to be one that added locations info (DOE: Locations). Might still be one around that does this now.

No built in way to do this. You could just keep a specific Story shared with the individual player Since shared records are linked to the username, they will remain regardless of character.
No. But their is an extension that helps build NPCs quickly. Sorry, I forget the name of it.
Not easy to do OOTB. You could write an extension that has levels of identification to the various fields. See the built in ID function as well as the Player Agency extension for code examples.
If this is just a text value, then use one of the existing fields on the Character Sheet, or add a custom field. But, depends on what you mean by "system".
Again, depends on what you mean. See answer above, or maybe some of this an be handled by existing IFT effects. But, sounds like you will probably want an extension.
FG is not so automated like a video game to automatically detect these types of actions. But you could monitor the chat log and them trigger functions when certain text appears. Personally, I would just leave it up to the player to indicate when they want to identify a spell being cast.
Check the 3.5 code. Not sure prerequisites are checked, but you could write an extension to to check, but FG generally doesn't try to enforce these types of things and just expect the players to read and know what to do in the way of prerequisites.
No details here, so all I can say is "then change it".
Extensions. There is already one for attunement tracking. Again, you don;t say how you want this to change. Probably already an extension that prevents default HP on level up. But again, change to what?
There is already the /vote command. You can also see some of the various Safety extensions and the Request Roll extension to get some ideas.

No, players will want Actions to quickly add racial and class trait effects to the Combat Tracker since they will be removed when you switch out PCs.

Also, see the link in my sig about module creation.

I love that the first thing you said is "Go watch the videos made by the guy who posted right before me." :p

[LordEntrails]

I love that the first thing you said is "Go watch the videos made by the guy who posted right before me." :p
He ninja'd me! Swear :)

[boxfox13]

@LordEntrails
@Zacchaeus

Just wanted to thank you again. With the info you provided, I've already been able to successfully integrate 6 points from my list and I'm well underway to learning how to do the rest. I legitimately think all of it is possible, although it won't all be automatic. Regardless, it's very impressive software. Cheers!

[LordEntrails]

You're welcome. Glad to have helped :)