Nicely done

[instructions on how to do it right.]

Thanks!

OK, I created a custom data set that people can import that just has the Geonosian race in it, called FuriousCreations. Dropbox link here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/negod05f4j7bzpd/SWDataSet-FuriousCreations.zip

I created my original file just by making a copy of the Aqualish.xml file and hacking it in Notepad. I did fool around in the data editor but I couldn't seem to get it to work right that way. It did give me the xml keywords I needed to get the subspecies starting characteristics functioning, though. Anyway, thanks for the tutorial! This should be easier for people.

It seems some people get thrown off by the remove setback die. Now, the symbol makes sense... a setback die with a big red "X" pretty much says "get rid of a setback" However, it also looks suspiciously like a "I can't display this picture, so I'm displaying a generic black box with an X in it instead". I have a feeling that's why people are panicking when they see it.

So... any suggestions on what to do about this? I could add a legend, similar to the condition icons on encounter sheets, that explains all of the symbols and dice. Unfortunately, this would have to be on the first page and it would take away room for the "Shown weapons" grid. I could change the symbol to something else, but I have a feeling that anything I make will still look like there was an error displaying a picture Any other suggestions? Any symbol ideas that says "remove a setback die" without also saying "something bad is happening"?

Why not keep it simple? Keep the black die, but instead of the red X use a red -1 instead.

-1 is a good idea.

Here's the cool bit -- they don't care if some new computer is on the network (probably because our guests borrow the network password and hook their computers in all the time). Obviously it's never a good idea to brag about playing while ostensibly working, but I do get breaks and lunch at work. Additionally, I sort of live there while I'm "there", so I do have plenty of time off the clock that I'm "there" but nobody expects me to be doing anything other than waiting to respond to some sort of emergency. So, I know practically nothing about Macs, so how do I install Windows inside an emulator? I haven't received a Windows CD with a new computer for years -- all my computers have come with this little harddrive partition that reinstalls Windows if I need it without a CD.

No, the Mac part is solely because the people in charge of making this decision at my work decided that Macs obviously never get viruses, which is why it's cool to let random strangers hook their computers up to our network, because obviously they couldn't do anything to Apple computers, right?

Anyway, yeah, I'd go with a red X bigger than the box (or it seems to be a black box with a red x inside, instead of an x'd-out box), or a -1 in the black box.

Edit: Oh, I remember what I was going to ask. Where are the character files stored so I can email one to another person?

(darn my work for making me use [a Mac] instead of a decent PC)

Could it be because they expect you to do actual work instead of playing around with a character generator program for a tabletop RPG?

Download VirtualBox and run Windows inside an emulator. Now you have the best of both worlds and you'll make your IT admin even angrier when he finds an unmanaged PC on the network.

Here's the cool bit -- they don't care if some new computer is on the network (probably because our guests borrow the network password and hook their computers in all the time). Obviously it's never a good idea to brag about playing while ostensibly working, but I do get breaks and lunch at work. Additionally, I sort of live there while I'm "there", so I do have plenty of time off the clock that I'm "there" but nobody expects me to be doing anything other than waiting to respond to some sort of emergency. So, I know practically nothing about Macs, so how do I install Windows inside an emulator? I haven't received a Windows CD with a new computer for years -- all my computers have come with this little harddrive partition that reinstalls Windows if I need it without a CD.

No, the Mac part is solely because the people in charge of making this decision at my work decided that Macs obviously never get viruses, which is why it's cool to let random strangers hook their computers up to our network, because obviously they couldn't do anything to Apple computers, right?

Anyway, yeah, I'd go with a red X bigger than the box (or it seems to be a black box with a red x inside, instead of an x'd-out box), or a -1 in the black box.

Edit: Oh, I remember what I was going to ask. Where are the character files stored so I can email one to another person?

You need to export the data file and you can save it anywhere you want to.

OggDude - I came across a few odd things in the GMtools about vehicles.

The Quad Laser Cannon should be linked 3, not linked 4 per the core rules.

But the really odd thing is that it wouldn't let me swap the light laser cannon for the Quad laser cannon. By the rules we should be able to swap weapon systems on a one to one basis and each weapon is a single weapon listed in the weapon chart.

I was also wondering about stat blocks for vehicles. If say I have a pilot npc that I want to make a blog article about, and have the stat block for her ship along with her personal stat block, how do I do it? The only way to add a vehicle that I have found is in an encounter, which wont give me the ability to generate a pdf stat block.

It seems some people get thrown off by the remove setback die. Now, the symbol makes sense... a setback die with a big red "X" pretty much says "get rid of a setback" However, it also looks suspiciously like a "I can't display this picture, so I'm displaying a generic black box with an X in it instead". I have a feeling that's why people are panicking when they see it.

So... any suggestions on what to do about this? I could add a legend, similar to the condition icons on encounter sheets, that explains all of the symbols and dice. Unfortunately, this would have to be on the first page and it would take away room for the "Shown weapons" grid. I could change the symbol to something else, but I have a feeling that anything I make will still look like there was an error displaying a picture Any other suggestions? Any symbol ideas that says "remove a setback die" without also saying "something bad is happening"?

Why not keep it simple? Keep the black die, but instead of the red X use a red -1 instead.

-1 is a good idea.

Thank you. I like it more than the over sized red X simply because I think it will be too close to the current concern.

This tool is awesome!

If I could add something to the 'wish list', I'd like to see a one page option for the character sheet. I'm going to use the character creator to print out sheets for my parties companions and I don't really want 4 pages per NPC.

I'm going to have another look at it. I think I can accomplish this with the encounter builder that you also made and add the NPCs into the encounter.

Use the state block option.

Use the state block option.

There isn't one for encounters, just adversaries.

I think I got what I wanted. I put the NPC companions into the encounter builder along with the PCs. I now have 4 characters on two pages. It also gives me slots to keep track of wounds, status changes, and injuries. It's perfect to bring to the table with me!

Having an abbreviated version of the player characters sheet where I can look it over will come in handy.

Ogg, you're the best. I really love this builder because I now have all the gear, ships ect all in one place. It's much faster than rifling through all the different books.

I edited some of the Talents, and wanted to save my work so I exported. I tried to import the data, to make sure the save worked, and I get an error that says "This zip archive does not contain a valid data set." What gives?

Ok, here is another feature request for the GMTools section.

A random loot/item generator. Perhaps you could tie it into the Award section. Basically it would ask for some parameters and spit out loot or items. It could be used by the Gm to quickly fill out a loot stash the party finds, or equip npcs or enemies with random gear, and other useful things.

These could potentially be saved as new Loot Caches that can be added to encounters or used on their own.

Ideally, it could be filtered by sources (official books or/or homebrew) and would update the random list (behind the scenes) to include all possible items based on loaded sources (updating when new official books and custom user data are entered in to the program).

Fields to be filled in by GM:

• number of items
• max rarity (to limit it to
• max credit value
• max encumbrance (to limit it toughly by physical size)
• restricted (yes/no)
• type/category (might be separate dropdowns with selecting multiple possible)

I would imagine that like most random programs (think dice rollers), you could just hit the button repeatedly to get new results and when you find something you want to export or add to a character you could do so with some other button press.

I'm not trying to nit-pick, but I wanted to make a Marauder to chop people's arms off, and I gave him a cyberarm, which refunded the 60XP for his 6th rank in brawn, then cyberlegs which refunded the previous 50, then PX-11 "Battlement" Powered Armor, which refuned the previous 40. According to the rulebook, with cybernetics, Brawn should be able to go past 6. Is this working as intended?

Ok, here is another feature request for the GMTools section.

A random loot/item generator. Perhaps you could tie it into the Award section. Basically it would ask for some parameters and spit out loot or items. It could be used by the Gm to quickly fill out a loot stash the party finds, or equip npcs or enemies with random gear, and other useful things.

These could potentially be saved as new Loot Caches that can be added to encounters or used on their own.

Ideally, it could be filtered by sources (official books or/or homebrew) and would update the random list (behind the scenes) to include all possible items based on loaded sources (updating when new official books and custom user data are entered in to the program).

Fields to be filled in by GM:

• number of items
• max rarity (to limit it to
• max credit value
• max encumbrance (to limit it toughly by physical size)
• restricted (yes/no)
• type/category (might be separate dropdowns with selecting multiple possible)

I would imagine that like most random programs (think dice rollers), you could just hit the button repeatedly to get new results and when you find something you want to export or add to a character you could do so with some other button press.

To add to this idea. Allow standard equipment in loot. IE stormtroopers carry x Scout troopers Y. Smugglers have random loot of this type and Hire guns have loot of that type. And so on. Add the ability to roll up the loot of an encounter and attach to your encounter page.

I think I have the database cache working now. GM Tools loads a LOT faster now, since it doesn't have to load all of the adversaries from XML files. It also takes up a lot less memory since I cache all the objects to the database.

Oh, and I went with the black setback die with a red minus sign. It looks a lot less like a broken image

Sorry its taking me so long to get the new release out, but this database cache code was extremely non-trivial.

I'm not trying to nit-pick, but I wanted to make a Marauder to chop people's arms off, and I gave him a cyberarm, which refunded the 60XP for his 6th rank in brawn, then cyberlegs which refunded the previous 50, then PX-11 "Battlement" Powered Armor, which refuned the previous 40. According to the rulebook, with cybernetics, Brawn should be able to go past 6. Is this working as intended?

Yeah, it's working as I had originally intended, but not how it's supposed to I just got done making the character generator cybernetics-aware, so you'll now get your 7 in characteristics and 6 in skill level limit.

I edited some of the Talents, and wanted to save my work so I exported. I tried to import the data, to make sure the save worked, and I get an error that says "This zip archive does not contain a valid data set." What gives?

Email me the data set ZIP file and I'll take a look at it.

OggDude - I came across a few odd things in the GMtools about vehicles.

The Quad Laser Cannon should be linked 3, not linked 4 per the core rules.

But the really odd thing is that it wouldn't let me swap the light laser cannon for the Quad laser cannon. By the rules we should be able to swap weapon systems on a one to one basis and each weapon is a single weapon listed in the weapon chart.

I was also wondering about stat blocks for vehicles. If say I have a pilot npc that I want to make a blog article about, and have the stat block for her ship along with her personal stat block, how do I do it? The only way to add a vehicle that I have found is in an encounter, which wont give me the ability to generate a pdf stat block.

Funny you should mention that The quad cannon is correct, but the label is misleading. It's actually a "Count", not a link quality, so whatever is displayed there is actually the linked quality +1. After playing around with HP costs and the like for the upcoming version, I noticed that the meaning could be misconstrued. So, it'll be changed. Here's a description of the fix (again, for the upcoming release):

• In the dialog for upgrading weapons, the "LINKED:" label was misleading. It did not represent the value of the Linked quality, but rather the weapon count of the weapon system. So, a 1 actually meant no Linked quality, while a 2 meant Linked 1, a 3, Linked 2, etc. The label has now been changed to "COUNT:" with a note below it saying "Linked if more than 1". This should clarify the meaning of this field.

About the stat block, I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to do. Do you want them combined in some way, like in encounters?

SO when do we get to see this new version you been teasing us with

Thanks Kaosoe! You said what I needed my coffee to say clearly!

Yup, Award XP and Award Credits.

Something like that?

Along with this it would be great if there was a free text "Note", and this info could be kept in a Adventure Log area of the Character (an optional sheet to print).

SO when do we get to see this new version you been teasing us with

It's getting there. I know, the fixes and enhancements are piling up, but I did a lot of changes for the database caching, which means lots of places where things can go wrong. I'll try to get it out before the weekend.

I say take your time.

The current version works pretty darn well as is. And better to take it slow and get it right (or as close to right) the first time than rush a buggy version out the door.

OggDude - I came across a few odd things in the GMtools about vehicles.

The Quad Laser Cannon should be linked 3, not linked 4 per the core rules.

But the really odd thing is that it wouldn't let me swap the light laser cannon for the Quad laser cannon. By the rules we should be able to swap weapon systems on a one to one basis and each weapon is a single weapon listed in the weapon chart.

I was also wondering about stat blocks for vehicles. If say I have a pilot npc that I want to make a blog article about, and have the stat block for her ship along with her personal stat block, how do I do it? The only way to add a vehicle that I have found is in an encounter, which wont give me the ability to generate a pdf stat block.

Funny you should mention that The quad cannon is correct, but the label is misleading. It's actually a "Count", not a link quality, so whatever is displayed there is actually the linked quality +1. After playing around with HP costs and the like for the upcoming version, I noticed that the meaning could be misconstrued. So, it'll be changed. Here's a description of the fix (again, for the upcoming release):

• In the dialog for upgrading weapons, the "LINKED:" label was misleading. It did not represent the value of the Linked quality, but rather the weapon count of the weapon system. So, a 1 actually meant no Linked quality, while a 2 meant Linked 1, a 3, Linked 2, etc. The label has now been changed to "COUNT:" with a note below it saying "Linked if more than 1". This should clarify the meaning of this field.

About the stat block, I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to do. Do you want them combined in some way, like in encounters?

Good to know and thank you.

As to the Stat Block, you know how there are vehicle stat blocks in the various adventures for NPC ships? I would like something like that, not necessarily combined to the NPC in question, in order to make a PNG stat block for my blog. I suspect that not having it linked to the NPC would be better for formatting purposes. As it stands, they work great for me while I run an adventure with the encounter sheets but when I go to post them I wont be able to keep the lovely formatting you have.

Does that make more sense?

Edit - Did you notice the question about the Quad Laser Cannon? Since it is a specific single weapon according to the weapon chart, wouldn't it be swapped one for one with another existing weapon?

On another topic, one of my players requested some way to keep track of WT and ST in the program. He loves the way your program works, but I think he is trying to stay paperless during the sessions. So, I guess he is looking for some sort of in game tools.

Just thought I would mention it. If you want more specifics, please ask Bren Mastigar on this forum.