Looking for Monsters.

[computertrucker]

Curious if anyone might be willing to export monsters they have and maybe send them Via Email. I am currently in the process of manually entering them. Would love any help I could get to build my Monster Manual. IF so please PM me and I will shoot you my Email..

Thank you.

[Leonal]

I don't play 4e, so take my answer with a grain of salt, but from what I have seen on the forums you would likely be spending less time learning to use the parser than to enter everything manually. I'm sure there are plenty of people who can help you make it work.

Also one cannot legally share WoTC monsters even through export AFAIK.

[vodokar]

I actually identify with trucker on this issue.

I have been using FG for almost 3 years now and I don't know how to use the parser and I don't really want to learn. We aren't all gifted in the coding department or trying to babysit something technologically challenging like the parser and trying to poor over its output to try to fix errors. It's not puzzling that a new user like trucker might feel the same.

At the same time, however, while I know he is wanting to save some work entering monsters manually, it really is the very best way for him to learn how the 4e ruleset works.

It gets faster with practice. I enter most of my monsters manually and can do so in usually 2 to 5 min. per monster. Once you figure out the best ways to enter their powers and what key words its expecting, it doesn't take so long. The best benefit of this is that once your comfortable doing this, it becomes very easy to tweak monsters to make unique things. Thats important, because even if you had every creature in the monster manuals, often adventure modules and dungeon articles introduce new creatures that you will want to use, which means you would have to enter them manually.

The best thing to do is just take things a little at a time. Don't try to enter the entire monster manual. Just start from a dungeon magazine adventure or published module and enter just those creatures you need for an encounter. Build your monster manual one encounter at a time. That's what I do. You'll learn a great deal and it will get easier and easier.

At the same time, in order to try to help give you a leg up, trucker, I already sent you a link to some already parsed 4e modules. I'm not sure if you saw that yet. If we both have DDI accounts, it shouldn't be an issue with swapping parsed library modules of material which contain information we both have legal access to. In fact, modules transfer automatically if you connect to a gamemaster's game who uses library modules anyways.

And, as I've explained previously, don't enter anything more into FG than you have to. An example of one of my adventure modules would read something like this:

Room 1

Text Box description that I can drag and drop into the chat window.
ex. You enter a 10 by 20 room covered in dust. There are cobwebs in the northwestern corner. There are doors on the east and south wall. You notice footprints in the dust leading off to the east.

Map of Room 1 (Link)
Encounter for Room 1 (Link)

Room 2

Text Box description
Map of Room 2 (link)
Encounter for Room 2 (link)

etc.

That's all I put in my modules. The rest I can read out of my hardcopy or pdf book. Minimize the work you put in on entering stuff that isn't important. Spend it on that which is important--maps and encounter set up.

[Jharii]

I actually identify with trucker on this issue.

I have been using FG for almost 3 years now and I don't know how to use the parser and I don't really want to learn. We aren't all gifted in the coding department or trying to babysit something technologically challenging like the parser and trying to poor over its output to try to fix errors. It's not puzzling that a new user like trucker might feel the same.

You don't need to know how to code to use the parser. It's rather simple to learn and use. The Monster Manuals and the Monster Vault parse without having to to modify any of the files involved. Someone not technologically savvy could probably have all 4 books scraped and parsed in a matter of 1-3 hours, depending on how comfortable they are with computers.

It's also not legal to share official WotC material in this manner that is being requested.