Introductions and Questions

[tgvarney]

Hi everyone. I just got FantasyGrounds for me and my group. I just wanted to introduce myself to the community here.

I am curious about one thing. Is it possible to edit the library books that come with the game? For example can I add a spell to the book on spells?

[Griogre]

Welcome to FG and the site.

Yes it is possible to add spells to the existing d20 spell book. However changing the book of spells that would force a transfer of the new spells to all your players. Practically speaking, a better strategy would be to make a new library book with just new spells so you wouldn't have to transfer the old spells again.

[richvalle]

Welcome here and to Fantasy Grounds!

And about the spells... <insert what Griore said>

:)

rv

[Kalan]

Welcome here and to Fantasy Grounds!

And about the spells... <insert what Griore said>

:)

rv

Who's Griore? ;) Eeyore's evil brother I 'spect...

Jk ;)

Welcome to FG tgvarney :) If you have any questions, just shout and we'll try to help out as best we can :)

[richvalle]

Who's Griore? ;) Eeyore's evil brother I 'spect...

Jk ;)

Welcome to FG tgvarney :) If you have any questions, just shout and we'll try to help out as best we can :)

Oh!!! You just wait till you make a typo buddy!

And I have thought there was a resembalance between him and Eeyore! Try reading his posts in Eeyore and see what I mean.

:)

rv

[Kalan]

Oh!!! You just wait till you make a typo buddy!

And I have thought there was a resembalance between him and Eeyore! Try reading his posts in Eeyore and see what I mean.

:)

rv

*grins* Bring it on little man...bring it on ;)

(for the record - as you can probably see - aside from the Pinnacle boards, I can honestly say the FG boards are amongst some of the BEST boards on the net!)

Now to get you back to work on that wiki ;)

[Griogre]

*snicker* I would be all upset but my typing is terrrible at times. :p

[Xorn]

*snicker* I would be all upset but my typing is terrrible at times. :p

Just check out the "combat tracker in a player's hands" thread. LOL

[tgvarney]

Well I can already tell this is going to be a fun place ;)

EDIT: Oh and I have figured out how to edit the XML files to change spells and such around. Tell me if this wouldn't work. I have the Complete SRD and the basic D20 rules. I can't figure out how to make my own book so I am thinking of using the basic books to hold all of my custom spells and such and then using the CSRD for the standard ones. I will keep a back up for the custom stuff in case it gets overwritten in a patch.

[Griogre]

I wouldn't do it that way, actually. If you have figured out how to edit a book it really is a small step to make your own book. You need to change about two lines in two files and change the name of the mod file then delete the old spells except maybe one as an example. I'm going to use the d20Spells as an example because everyone has one but the CSRD Spell module is setup identically.

To make your own spellbook:

1) Copy the d20spells.mod to the desktop.
2) Change the file extention to zip from mod
3) Unzip the d20spells.zip
4) There are 3 files in the d20spells: client.xml, definition.xml and thumbnail.png. Open definition.xml with notepad. It has 6 lines. Change the name from d20 Spells to d20 Spells Mine (or whatever) and then save the file and exit.
5) Open the client.xml file. If you do not have a good editor use notepad. It will probably take bit to open. On the fifth line that starts <name type="string"> change the name to *exactly* what you changed the name to in the definition file, my suggestion was d20 Spells Mine. It must match exactly including case.
6) Find the description of the first spell, acid arrow. And move your cursor to the start of the next spell under it. Scroll down to the end of Zone of Truth but before the closing spell description tag. Hold down shift and click at the end of zone of truth. You should now have every spell description selected. Press delete to get rid of them.
7) You can now save the client and zip the three file together and rename the zip file and then change the zip extension to mod. It is important you zip only the three files and not include the folder the files are in.

What have we done here? We have made a shell of the old book. If you start FG and activate the d20 Spells and d20 Spell Mine. Go ahead and mess with the d20 Spell Mine. You will find you can still open spells and get spell descriptions. What? But we just deleted all the spell descriptions.

Now unactivate the d20 Spell module. You won't get the spell descriptions anymore and in the chat window you will get a message saying something about the d20 spell module being inaccessible. What has happened is the spell links still point at the d20 Spellbook and as long as that book is activated all the old spells work. Even better the links go to the spell names. There is a good chance that even if the base spell book is updated the spell names won't be and things will continue to just work even after an update with no effort on your part.

The next step is to add your spells to new book. You would start by adding in spell descriptions where you deleted everything. Then you would make new link(s) in the right spell categories that pointed to this module instead of the d20 spells one. I'm out of time today and I'll explain how to do that some other time or someone else can. But I want to tell you that if you do that your new spells will mingle in with the old ones which makes it real easy to add a few spells at a time and have them sorted in with the rest of the spells in the spell lists.

[Kalan]

Gri's about hit it all on the head as far as modules go...

One of these days I really should get my act together and write something more...

[Astinus]

He's done it again. Another opus. ;) This is going straight into my FG Tips Word file. It's currently at 25,000 words of FG goodness, pasted straight from this forum. And there were no typos. Just a missing word in the first sentence.

[Griogre]

LOL, I put that runaway "that" right back in just for you. ;)

[Ghoti]

He's done it again. Another opus. ;) This is going straight into my FG Tips Word file. It's currently at 25,000 words of FG goodness, pasted straight from this forum. And there were no typos. Just a missing word in the first sentence.

Any chances you'd be sharing that tome? Sounds like it would be densely packed with useful information :)

[richvalle]

He's done it again. Another opus. ;) This is going straight into my FG Tips Word file. It's currently at 25,000 words of FG goodness, pasted straight from this forum. And there were no typos. Just a missing word in the first sentence.

How much of that is from Griogre 'Eeyore' Marquess of FG?

Hey Griogre, can I add that to the wiki?

rv

[Astinus]

Any chances you'd be sharing that tome? Sounds like it would be densely packed with useful information :)

Sure, I'll send you the file by PM. Give me a day or two to tidy it up. But don't expect too much. Literally, it is just a word file with tips pasted from the forums, for the past year and a half. Most recent tips at the top of the document.

[Griogre]

How much of that is from Griogre 'Eeyore' Marquess of FG?

Hey Griogre, can I add that to the wiki?
Sure, add it to the wiki if you want. And I *am* the best Marquess FG's got right now. *puffs out chest* Of course, I *am* the only Marquess right now. ;)

[richvalle]

(peers down at the lowly Marquess from his lofty Duke status...)

<yells> What was that!??? I can't hear you from way up here.


:P

rv

[Oberoten]

Sure, add it to the wiki if you want. And I *am* the best Marquess FG's got right now. *puffs out chest* Of course, I *am* the only Marquess right now. ;)


*BAGS* I dropped down some 200-300 posts when they pruned the older threads...

[Kalan]

Whine whine whine...I'm happy to be a Baron right now :D

Mind - I don't often have a lot to say round here, all my disciples seem to answer things before I get a chance to do much..

*sad*

Ahh well...I have plenty to keep me busy anyways ;)

[Ghoti]

Sure, I'll send you the file by PM. Give me a day or two to tidy it up. But don't expect too much. Literally, it is just a word file with tips pasted from the forums, for the past year and a half. Most recent tips at the top of the document.
I appreciate it. What with being new here and all, I'm sure there's a veritable trove of information there that's extremely buried in long-dead threads.

[Griogre]

Unlike most forums, the forums seach feature is not disabled and works pretty well. This is one of the few forums I've been on where the search works without you having to pay extra or something and it is nice.

[Astinus]

I appreciate it. What with being new here and all, I'm sure there's a veritable trove of information there that's extremely buried in long-dead threads.

There is a trove of information in these threads, and like Griogre says the search is a blessing.

Then, sometimes you don't know what to search for. You're reading the forums, and see something, and it's like, wow, didn't know I could do that! There's so much more to this program than meets the eye.

Anyways, I just PM'd you about the Word file.

[Callum]

The next step is to add your spells to new book. You would start by adding in spell descriptions where you deleted everything. Then you would make new link(s) in the right spell categories that pointed to this module instead of the d20 spells one. I'm out of time today and I'll explain how to do that some other time or someone else can. But I want to tell you that if you do that your new spells will mingle in with the old ones which makes it real easy to add a few spells at a time and have them sorted in with the rest of the spells in the spell lists.
I could do with that further explanation, Griogre! I've followed the rest of your instructions, but now I have each spell list appearing twice when I look in either d20 spells or the new spell book in the library. I guess this is because they both have the lists in. But, if this is the case, I don't see how I can get a combined list without editing the d20 spells module.

[Griogre]

I never did finish, did I? The goal is to avoid editing the d20 spells module.

Ok, you are getting double spell lists because you are combining the spelllists elements which contain all the links to the various spells. To finish up you module you need to “uncombined” the lists and add your new spell(s) to the lists.

1) Once you have the client.xml file open and your new spell input into the spell description area we need to give the lists of spells a unique name. To do that we are going to mass replace spelllists with spellistsMine (or whatever name you want). When mass replacing it’s always a good idea to make a copy of the file before you do this because you can really mess a file up with a mistake or typo and it’s often easier to start over than repair the mess.

2) Next we need to add the new spell(s) to the class links. Let’s say I was adding Greater Mage Armor a third level Sor/Wiz spell. I’ve already input it into the spelldesc element so then I go down to spellistsMine I find the nested wizard group which holds the level3 spells. I want to insert my new spell in here. I’m going to follow the PH convention and insert the spell in the Ms listing instead of the Gs. I scroll down and find Greater Mage Armor should go between <lightingbolt> and <magiccircleaginstchaos>. You want to then copy the lightingbolt entry so you have two lightingbolt entries. Then you use the second lightingbolt entry as a template to link to your new spell. In the example Greater Mage Armor. In the example I change the element names from <lightningbolt> and </lightningbolt> to <magearmorgreater> and </magearmorgreater>. I also called my entry in spelldesc magearmorgreater. Next change the recordname to point at the new spell. In the example I change spelldesc.lightingbolt@d20 Spells to spelldesc.magearmorgreater@d20 Spells Mine (the d20 Spells Mine is whatever name you changed this client module to). Basically we just created a link to the spell description in *this* module.

3) You can copy and paste this new link you made into any other list of class links, wizard school listing or cleric domains you need to add the spell to. Make sure you adjust the level number if the spell has different levels in other classes.

Pretty easy, just one mass replace, copying one link to use as a template and then editing the template to call your spell in this module and then copying and pasting the spell link into whatever lists it belongs to – change the level of the spell where appropriate.

Let me know if something is not clear.

[Callum]

Okay, I did all that, but still got double spell lists!

I then thought that surely the library entries were pointing at the wrong lists, so I changed all the <recordname>extraspelllists.class@d20 Spells</recordname> to <recordname>extraspelllists.class@d20 Spells Mine</recordname>. But I'm still getting double spell lists!

Do I need to change something else? How about <d20spells static="true">? Or <class>reference_classspelllist</class>?

Thanks again!

[Griogre]

Ack. You are very close. That will teach me to assume something. I thought the original post had a step changing the node name under library - but it didn't. :(

Yes, on the 4th line of the file change <d20spells static="true> to d20SpellsMine static="true"> and change the closing element </d20spells> to </d20SpellsMine>. This will keep the library pane links from doubling up.

Next, you are correct - I flat forgot to mention you need to change all the library entries from
<recordname>extraspelllists.class@d20 Spells</recordname> to
<recordname>extraspelllists.class@d20 Spells Mine</recordname>.

Since you can’t edit posts anymore, I’m going to correct and combine the two posts and repost the whole thing in the armory in a bit.

Did you find anything in the posts confusing that you think I should change?

[Callum]

Did you find anything in the posts confusing that you think I should change?
No, I though it was all pretty clear - and now I have a working new spellbook! Thanks!

I suppose you might remove the reference in your first post to unactivating the d20 Spells module. Just explaining that the links in the new module are still pointing to the old one is sufficient, I think.

Thanks again for all your painstaking help.

[Callum]

I guess there's one more thing - since it's a client module, you'll have to send it manually to anyone else you want to use it, won't you?

[Griogre]

Yes, you need to send it to everyone who needs the spell. That might only be you and one player. By piggybacking off the d20 spell module you don't effect anyone else.

Good idea on the first post.

[Callum]

One more thing - I can't get links to other (standard) spells to work. I copied the link format from d20 Spells:-

<linklist><link class="spelldesc" recordname="spiderclimb">Spider Climb</link></linklist>

Using that, the grey link box appears, but when you click on it, it opens a blank "New Spell" window. I thought maybe I needed to point back to d20 Spells, so I tried this:-

<linklist><link class="spelldesc" recordname="spiderclimb@d20 Spells">Spider Climb</link></linklist>

But that didn't make any difference! What am I missing?

[Griogre]

Your second effort was close. However, you aren't using the fully qualified path name. In other words the Spider Climb spell is not defined at the same level as library - its usually defined under the spelldesc node, ie



<root>
<library>
... library link, etc stuff
</library>

<spelldesc>
... other spell descriptions

<spiderclimb>
... spider climb description
</spiderclimb>

... other spell descriptions
</spelldesc>

</root>


Thus instead of: <linklist><link class="spelldesc" recordname="spiderclimb@d20 Spells">Spider Climb</link></linklist>
It should be: <linklist><link class="spelldesc" recordname="spelldesc.spiderclimb@d20 Spells">Spider Climb</link></linklist>

When every you get a "blank" window of the right type and you were expecting data in the window it usually is a bad path. XML is also case sensitive which catches people on the path name too.

I also posted the the combined steps to add spells on another thread here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?p=71086#post71086

[Callum]

Right - and in the original that's not needed because the reference is being made within the <spelldesc> tags of the same module. Funnily enough, I did think of adding the spelldesc, but the fact that there was a link class="spelldesc" just before put me off! I can see now that that's performing a different function.