Griogre
March 19th, 2009, 19:43
To make a library spell module that merges in the d20 spells with any new spells you wish to add:
1) Copy the d20spells.mod to the desktop.
2) Change the file extension 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.
What have we done here? We have made a shell of the old book. If you build the new library module now, start FG and activate the d20 Spells and d20 Spell Mine when you mess with d20 Spell Mine you will find you can still open spells and get spell descriptions. What? But we just deleted all the spell descriptions.
If you unactivated the d20 Spell module however, 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 library book module is activated all the old spells work.
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.
7) Once you have the client.xml file open we now need to keep the library right pane from doubling up the spells list so you need to change the fourth line of the client file from <d20spells static="true"> to <d20SpellsMine static="true">. You also need to change the change the closing element right above </library> from </d20spells> to </d20SpellsMine>.
8) Next we need to give the lists of spells a unique name. To do that we are going to mass replace spelllists with spelllistsMine (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. This replace will change the name of the element holding your new spell descrption(s) and the nested entries in the library links record names.
9) In step two we broke the links in the library.d20SpellsMine.entries since the link paths are pointing to the lists in this module but still saying they are located in d20 Spells. To fix that *only for the library entries* from cleric to clericdomains change @d20 Spells to @d20 Spells Mine so the library links now point to the lists in this module.
10) 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 spelllistsMine 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 this 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 like we did with the library links in 3) above.
11) 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.
12) 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.
1) Copy the d20spells.mod to the desktop.
2) Change the file extension 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.
What have we done here? We have made a shell of the old book. If you build the new library module now, start FG and activate the d20 Spells and d20 Spell Mine when you mess with d20 Spell Mine you will find you can still open spells and get spell descriptions. What? But we just deleted all the spell descriptions.
If you unactivated the d20 Spell module however, 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 library book module is activated all the old spells work.
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.
7) Once you have the client.xml file open we now need to keep the library right pane from doubling up the spells list so you need to change the fourth line of the client file from <d20spells static="true"> to <d20SpellsMine static="true">. You also need to change the change the closing element right above </library> from </d20spells> to </d20SpellsMine>.
8) Next we need to give the lists of spells a unique name. To do that we are going to mass replace spelllists with spelllistsMine (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. This replace will change the name of the element holding your new spell descrption(s) and the nested entries in the library links record names.
9) In step two we broke the links in the library.d20SpellsMine.entries since the link paths are pointing to the lists in this module but still saying they are located in d20 Spells. To fix that *only for the library entries* from cleric to clericdomains change @d20 Spells to @d20 Spells Mine so the library links now point to the lists in this module.
10) 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 spelllistsMine 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 this 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 like we did with the library links in 3) above.
11) 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.
12) 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.