FG I to II ruleset conversion for dummies?

[mossfoot]

Is there an easy way to convert a ruleset for FGI into FGII? I am not a programer by any stretch, but really want to get my Star Wars d6 ruleset to work for FGII

[Kalan]

All depends what all you did to the original. THe hardest part of the conversion will be the Character Sheets and NPC sheets.

The "rules" are perhaps the easiest to convert over (presuming you included them).

I am by no means an expert, but I'm sure someone here can help out. I know I can help with some minor things (background graphics, rules conversion, windowclasses), but the character sheet loses me everytime I crack that code open.

I noticed there's a "generic" ruleset out there somewhere which would probably work best for you for the time being, it'd at least get you a character sheet to use

[mossfoot]

Heh, Toadwart made the Generic ruleset, largely because I begged him to It's a great thing to use if you don't have a proper ruleset, and has been updated for FGII

The d6 Ruleset is mostly just the character sheet, background, side icons, tokens. No monsters or anything

In fact I may just transfer what I can into the Generic one

[Foen]

Hmm converting isn't too straightforward, but here's an overview.

Window classes: The biggest change is the introduction of anchors, so controls can resize automatically when the sheet is resized. If you don't need this then you can stick with the old 'bounds' approach. The introduction of Lua makes computed amounts (including some complex ones) more versatile, but I don't think you can use the previous mappings etc, so it kinda forces you to learn the scripting language.

Reference stuff: These are now in modules and managed quite differently. A module (.mod) is just a zip file (.zip) with the extension renamed, but it has a particular format (thumbnail icon, definition and data file). Try copying an existing module and renaming it back to .zip and have a look.

Campaign data: the DB file uses a different approach, previously you'd have <stringvalue name='mystring/> whereas now you have <mystring type='string'/>, so similar (and convertible) but different. Also, it supports nested values allowing structured types:

  <ability>
    <name type='string'>strength</name>
    <bonus type='number'>3</bonus>
  </ability>

You can then reference 'ability.name' and 'ability.bonus' from within the script. This looks odd, but it allows the code to be reused (and turned into a template) across multiple abilities (such as intelligence, education etc). The apporach is used extensively for skills.

Hope that gives you a flaour. You might also want to look at the xml documentation and modification guide found at the top of this forum.

Cheers

Stuart
(Foen)

[Foen]

Oh I forgot to mention, ruleset names and directory names are case sensitive. It caught me out for a while when I was writing my first .mod file.

Cheers

Stuart
(Foen)

[Grey Mage]

So you are saying that in order to add a spell or feat from a nonSRD source I go in and edit the actual .mod file? Instead of creating a new ruleset?

[Griogre]

Actually you would be better off making a new mod file with just your changes. Just open the module file by changing the mod extension to zip. Cut out everything but one item to use as an example and add in the stuff you want. Then change the file names referanced in the defination and client, db or common.xml and re-zip and change the zip extention to mod.

[Toadwart]

Am about 90% of the way through an FGI to FGII conversion and now, with the benefit of hindsight, wish I'd just started from scratch in FGII. Would have been harder but the result would have been better.
My recomendation would be to get familiar with the d20 FGII ruleset first before you start converting/re-building.

If your SW ruleset is dramatically different then just start from scratch. If it's very similar to the default d20 ruleset then it wouldn't be too hard to change it to fit FGII. The worst parts I found were getting to grips with features that are no longer supported out-of-the-box and now require lua scripts (e.g. calculated fields and that darned restrictive tab control)