Plans to Integrate Extentions

[Aramis Dante]

I've been wondering if Smiteworks has any plans or is considering to integrate some of the extentions into FGU. I am not sure how difficult something like that would be but a lot of these extentions tend to be quality of life features that only make the system better in my opinion. I would really like to see this done. I play Pathfinder first Edition, so any improvement is a good thing in my opinion. I am satisfied with how it works now, but only satisfied. With the extentions, I am very happy. The problem comes whenever you change things and break the extentions. I know this is the problem with extentions, but I am not sure why you could not integrate them into FGU, especially if they make it better. Anyways just a thought. Does anyone else feel this way or am I just hearing crickets. lol. Thanks for hearing me out on this subject.

[superteddy57]

We are on a regular basis evaluating and checking out extensions that have been released. They assist us in finding out what people want in terms of expansion. But not many make the cut or aren't currently high on the priority list of projects we work on. So, extensions do get integrated and are a solid inspiration.

[LordEntrails]

Think of it this way, if SmiteWorks were to suddenly incorporate all ~137 extensions for 5E (and resolve all conflicts etc), then before they could make any updates to the ruleset or application they would have to test and resolve everything that might break with 137 of those. This way, they help distribute the workload to the numerous community developers and the users of those extensions.

Yes, such is not linear are there are scales and benefits from a single management source, but it would still require a huge effort on SW's part. And then since many of those extensions add options, and many would need to be able to be turned on and off by options, the options list would get unruly and difficult to navigate.

And then community devs who create those extensions and make a little money from them would stop making that money. Some would be happy to no longer need to maintain there extensions. Others, probably not. But either way it would give less incentive for the community dev to develop new extensions. And don't forget, there are Intellectual Property concerns. SW can't just take the existing code or ideas without some legal consideration.

In short, its not simple. There are lots of impacts from any decision. So far, IMO, SW has done a good job of encouraging the developer community while taking the best ideas from the community and incorporating them into the core product.

[srbongo]

. I play Pathfinder first Edition, so any improvement is a good thing in my opinion. I am satisfied with how it works now, but only satisfied. With the extentions, I am very happy. The problem comes whenever you change things and break the extentions.

Since you brought up PF1e, I'll say too that there's a level of automation that was targeted in the ruleset. That is, they didn't want everything to be automated (mirror image as an example) because there's players who want to roll that themselves. A lot of PF1e automation possibilities falls into this category. I've actually played with players in the last year who, to my great surprise, didn't even like the amount of automation presented in the vanilla PF1e ruleset! I think it's a tough line to walk at this point