Thread: How do you guys even play this?
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January 2nd, 2019, 01:49 #51
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January 2nd, 2019, 01:55 #52
There may however be better/different ways of doing things than what you are currently doing.
I dont play/run StarFinder so I wont be able to advise you on them - but if you post some specific examples others may be able to confirm that you are doing it right or if there are other ways that may work better for you.
Either way - it will be different to 5E.
The community rulesets for AD&D and to a slightly lesser extent DCC use a lot of 5E code but others do not.
There are many reasons for that - different developers, different techniques that have improved over time, different APIs opened up over time, developers learning from past projects, different capabilities of different programmers, different interpretations by developers of what is the best (best from a combination of coding, rules interpretation and ui), and other things...
SmiteWorks develop the Engine (well the engine is the engine but their compiled engine) and CoreRPG.
They also do 3.5E (no DLC), PathFinder, 4E (no DLC) and 5E.
And there is significant differences in how each of 3.5E/Pathfinder and 4E and 5E work - even though its the same developer - that is probably mostly due to better ideas, coding, interface options that have developed along the way, and not insignificantly the fact that 5E outsells, outplays, outeverythings, every other system combined 2:1 - thats not just on Fantasy Grounds, thats across the industry. So 5E is likely to always be the best supported system. Its also not nearly as complex an RPG as Pathfinder/Starfinder which is a significant factor.
All the other rulesets are by external developers. These are typically niche systems with sales vastly dwarfed by 5E's which makes it much harder to justify spending equivalent amounts of programming time etc.
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January 2nd, 2019, 02:02 #53
No one. It doesnt really have anything to do with Paizo.
Pathfinder is easily the second most popular RPG played on Fantasy Grounds and most PF groups are really happy with it.
Its not 5E - its much more complex than 5E - it started way before 5E on FG so it has a much longer time span of code having been written for it and so contains some older stuff and some newer stuff.
Pathfinder 2 is in development - you have a beta copy on your system - and it will likely be much closer to 5E in terms of features but will not be 5E as the game systems are different, the rules are different, the way characters are built and evolved is different.
Starfinder is much smaller than Pathfinder again in terms of games played, units sold etc. And it is more complex than Pathfinder. My limited exposure to Starfinder suggests that it is actually pretty good - bar the absence of Starship combat.
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January 2nd, 2019, 02:04 #54
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thanks for taking the time to explain this out to me. I was looking at all the rulesets using the FG Corerpg and they just tailored the UI and content to the game, but what you have said, is that they modified this ruleset from the corerpg, and they didn't include these functions.
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January 2nd, 2019, 02:07 #55
Hah. It is confusing.
Ive been involved in 4 rulesets -
Maelstrom (community)
Barbarians of Lemuria (commercial)
Call of Cthulhu 7e (commercial)
MoreCore (community)
and they all differ in many, many ways...
from my perspective they differ heavily because of very different game mechanics and then because of learning new ways to do stuff
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January 2nd, 2019, 02:22 #56
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once i get some time to learn the system, i might start building a few things to help out. any reason why they went with spells like Fear I or level 1, Fear II, etc.. format? there are alot of duplication with the mystic spells, so i was not sure, if it was meant to be like that, or they just coded the different levels of the spells to make it easier.. or harder.. depending on your take of it.. LOL
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January 2nd, 2019, 02:49 #57
I'm confused.
A lot of what you show here is *not* automatically created when you drag/drop a race/background/class etc. to a PC. Did you manually create a lot of these entries yourself, or drag/drop these from community developed reference PCs?
Assuming you manually created a lot of these yourself - you can do this in Starfinder. You just need to stop thinking that a "Spell Class" is just for spells. As has been mentioned already, you can create a new "spell" class in a Starfinder PC and call it anything you want - it is not limited to just spells. Just like you click the "Create Power" star icon in 5E to create a new section to add abilities etc., in Starfinder click the same star icon to create a new section to add abilities etc. - a number to one of the level slots (e.g. type "1" in the level 0 field) and you can then add powers/abilities etc. just like you would in 5E. It's one extra step, but you can fill out a PC in a very similar way to what you showPrivate Messages: My inbox is forever filling up with PMs. Please don't send me PMs unless they are actually private/personal messages. General FG questions should be asked in the forums - don't be afraid, the FG community don't bite and you're giving everyone the chance to respond and learn!
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January 2nd, 2019, 02:53 #58
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some were just dragged over from the character Abilities tab, which Starfinder will not allow you to do. It just makes things more complicated by making them all spells. then you have other factors you have to deal with, such as spell preparations.. Now that damned was able to make me see the full limitations that I am facing. I will now be able to figure out some form of path to reach what i want.
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January 2nd, 2019, 04:12 #59
Try to shift your thinking. Don't think of them as spells, just think of them as powers/abilities/whatever.
To expand on what has been discussed in this thread: abilities etc. aren't "coded" intrinsically. Most text in 5E abilities/feats/spells/etc. follows a very repeatable format. This allows the 5E ruleset to parse that text when it is added to the actions tab, or when the right-click "reparse spell actions" menu option is selected.
The issue with Pathfinder, Startfinder, Pathfinder 2, and many other RPGs is that they don't follow a repeatable format for things like this. The FG Starfinder ruleset tries to do some parsing of spell/ability text in the actions tab, but this can sometimes have limited results as Paizo don't follow a fixed format to describe the mechanics in the descriptive text. For example, if I create an ability on the actions tab and use a Description of "The target is confused" and then right-click on the ability and select "Reparse spell actions" then a cast action will be added and also a "Confused" effect action. But this is a simple example that works. More complex ability descriptions may have limited results in parsing out the correct FG actions.
Whereas the 5E ruleset appears to have all of it's abilities/feats/spells/etc. "coded" in FG, that is not actually the case. There is no FG effect/action code embedded in the FG data. It is just that the descriptive text is repeatable and so it's possible to write relatively straightforward parsing code in the 5E ruleset to extract FG action data from the descriptive text.
So, what can be done to improve this in the Starfinder ruleset? Some thoughts... This is just me thinking out loud.
- Add another option other than "spells" to the actions tab. This is more just a naming convention to get people away from thinking that actions are just for spells. I've done this in the Pathfinder 2 Playtest ruleset - basically hidden the spell specific fields in the spell class and called it powers. It's the same thing as spells, just used in a different way.
- Allow FG data records other than spells to be dragged to the actions tab, and treat them appropriately. As mentioned above - this can all be done manually now. It just short-cuts a little bit of right-clicking. The main issue will still be that FG will be limited in what FG action/effect data it can parse out of the descriptive text.
- Look at fine tuning the current parsing of descriptive text - to try and improve the FG actions/effects created. This will never, ever result in close to a 100% match, as that is just not possible due to the wide range of descriptive text formats used to essentially represent the same underlying game mechanic.
If you think these are a good idea, then I'd recommend adding them to the FG wishlist so the devs can track them.
In the meantime, as has already been mentioned in this thread, all of the above can be done in the current FG Starfinder ruleset in the actions tab. Maybe the community can start putting together some dummy PCs with drag/drop abilities - like Zacchaeus created for 5E here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...ul-information Or something similar to assist in adding frequently used abilities to the PC actions tab. Because, as has been mentioned, this is another area where 5E excels - FG community content to help GMs and Players automate some aspects of the game.Private Messages: My inbox is forever filling up with PMs. Please don't send me PMs unless they are actually private/personal messages. General FG questions should be asked in the forums - don't be afraid, the FG community don't bite and you're giving everyone the chance to respond and learn!
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January 3rd, 2019, 13:06 #60
Yes, I broke out the spells in that way so that when dropped in your action tab the damage for that level would apply. With using 1 spell and having all the 6 levels in the text you end up with all six damage settings.
This again as said earlier was my interpretation of what would be best. And if there are things I have set in place that can use improvment by all means let me know and I do what I can to make the ruleset as simple as possable.Discord User : Samarex#0318
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