Another Character Generator

By OggDude, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

Oggy, can you respond to my post 2 pages back?

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/89135-another-character-generator/page-25#entry897740

Allowing purchase prices to be specified as you do with sales and I noticed an incorrect attachment price.

The price has been fixed. Yeah, I can show a price dialog so you can change the purchase price. What standard discounts would everyone like?

25% discount

===========

25% additional

50% additional

200% additional (black market costs)

or can you make a way so that we can enter in our own % markup or reduction?

I mentioned a while back that it would be nice to have the ability to add two separate talent descriptions, a short and a long. The short would display in the talent tree, while the long description (like those found in the talents section of the book) would show on the character sheet.

For ease of use for those that would not want to spend the extra time to input two talent descriptions I would suggest that the short description is required for any talent and the long description if blank pulls from the short description otherwise it uses whatever is entered in the long description.

Out of curiosity, why do you want a longer description on the character sheet? The standard description has the same basic info, plus it takes up less space on the character sheet. That means it can display more talents.

Because some of the descriptions in the talent trees are vague or have additional relevant information that there is not room to display on the talent tree when creating the character.

An example:

Knockdown (Talent Tree Desc) - After hitting with a melee attack, may spend Triumph to knock the target prone.

Knockdown (Talent Section Desc) - After hitting with a melee attack, the character may knock the target prone by spending a Triumph. If the target is larger than the acting character, it requires one additional Triumph for each silhouette larger.

While the talent section may be a little more wordy than it needs to be, even trimming it down it would be difficult to get the caveat about size making a diffrence to display in the talent tree. While that doesn't necessarily stop anyone from putting the long description in if they want it would cause ugly to read partial sentences that may or may not make enough sense to be useful.

Having a long an short desc allows for folks to have the talent tree length desc that should have no problem fitting/displaying when making the character and then have longer more descriptive text if/when they want to on the character sheet.

If you are able to make it do as I suggest and only use the long desc when there is one and default to the short when the long is blank then it would be the best of both worlds in my opinion. People that don't want to make the extra effort can leave things as they are. People that want to have both can make the effort to have both. Or what I suspect would be the most common use is that when the short and long desc are basically the same (with the exception of non-essential words to make the long desc look more impressive) no long desc would be added, but in cases like Knockdown above each desc would be added to help avoid mid game pauses for talent application lookups.

All in all though this is a slick tool that my group really likes, and while this suggestion isn't a need to have, in my opinion it would be a nice to have giving a little extra level of polish to an already excellent tool

Edited by DumMetlHed

This has been pretty awesome Ogg, hoping that the AoR material can become available eventually.

One problem though: my antivirus has been pointing at the GM tools as a possible problem and deleting it. Something wrong with the file?

This has been pretty awesome Ogg, hoping that the AoR material can become available eventually.

One problem though: my antivirus has been pointing at the GM tools as a possible problem and deleting it. Something wrong with the file?

95% of antivirus are just pathetic whitelist programs. They arent smart enough to detect what a program is actually intending to do, if they dont recognize an .exe they just destroy it.

Well i`ve mentioned autogenerating a new talent/force skill page once the first one is full before. Any chance you can get around to that now?

Well i`ve mentioned autogenerating a new talent/force skill page once the first one is full before. Any chance you can get around to that now?

I can look into that. The only issue is that the character sheet was the first printable sheet I created and, therefore, doesn't have the greatest design, as far as code goes (it's actually a bit of a mess). The other sheets are much more streamlined and easier to modify in code. But, I'll see what I can do.

I think I'll also add vehicles to the GM tools, so you can have a collection of custom vehicles, plus an encounter-type sheet for vehicles for space battles. In the char gen, I'll also access the GM Tools vehicle store and allow characters to pick a vehicle from the store, rather than creating a new one. The character will then get a copy of the saved vehicle, which you can then modify. I'm also going to look into possibly adding vehicles and other equipment to character groups.

Oh, and since I just bought Beyond the Rim, I'll be including import packs for new adversaries, plus any new equipment, vehicles, etc, found in the adventure. I also thought that this was a good time to add "source" to everything, so you can choose which source material to use for characters.

Not sure when I'll get all of this finished. I'll keep you informed.

OggDude,

Take your time man. This is a great program, and I'd hate to see it get smegged up because you felt the need to rush and overlooked something minor that winds up causing a significant headache.

Well if you are struggling with a layout, feel free to post ideas or mockups here that we can tear apart :)

Here is a VERY rough quick & dirty space encounter sheet I threw together since GM tools dont allow me to do space....YET! ;) (I didnt want to save it as PDF, so you'll not see the EoE font for difficulties)

(hrm...wont give me options to include attachment....I even went and deleted an old one that was much bigger)

Edited by Diggles

OggDude,

Take your time man. This is a great program, and I'd hate to see it get smegged up because you felt the need to rush and overlooked something minor that winds up causing a significant headache.

Totally agree! Dont rush yourself man. This is a great gift you have given us....no need to rush anything here. Take your time!! I already use the hell out of it and im in no rush for updates lol

Looking forward to the encounter list for space battles.... But i will echo the other sentiments, take your time.

Edited by hendersondayton

Great job thanks :)

Edited by RicknMO

Something of a prior request, but could the Age of Rebellion Beta versions (aka the official ones) of the Duros, Gran, Ithorians, Mon Calamari, and Sullustans be included in the next update? They might be in the Age of Rebellion core rules, but they're still viable for EotE games.

Pretty sure I sent you a PM with that information, but if you didn't receive it, let me know and I'll either resend it or find some alternative means of getting the info to you.

Thanks for this amazing work. I have two questions and I haven't read through the entire post, so please forgive my ignorance.

1) How do I copy an adversary rather than update the record? I am trying to use the Pirate Captain as a template but updating changes the name and listing.

2) Is an update for Age of Rebellion planned? I like to have all of my PCs use this to make characters but one of them wants to use a career in the new book.

Thanks, this is just an amazing program.

Truly and awesome bit of work and a godsend for my campaign I am thinking of running. Is there a way to add species? Only one you didn't have was Miraluka that I might need. Great work and thank you for all your efforts!

Ah I am an idjit...I see the editor now. Thanks again for all this work sir. Great program!

Never let others force you to feel pressured over something you enjoy doing or are doing out of the kindness of your heart. We all are glad that there is something like this period out there and glad to have it.

Something of a prior request, but could the Age of Rebellion Beta versions (aka the official ones) of the Duros, Gran, Ithorians, Mon Calamari, and Sullustans be included in the next update? They might be in the Age of Rebellion core rules, but they're still viable for EotE games.

Pretty sure I sent you a PM with that information, but if you didn't receive it, let me know and I'll either resend it or find some alternative means of getting the info to you.

If everyone wants, I could just replace the Menagerie species with their corresponding AoR species.

Oh, I added "Source" to the main data, but I'm not sure yet how I'll use it. I was originally thinking of just allowing the user to choose which sources to use, then eliminate the others from the data when making characters. However, that could cause a lot of problems. I could add a filter of some sort and keep everything in data, but I'd have to make changes in a whole bunch of places. If anyone has any ideas, let me know.

Thanks for this amazing work. I have two questions and I haven't read through the entire post, so please forgive my ignorance.

1) How do I copy an adversary rather than update the record? I am trying to use the Pirate Captain as a template but updating changes the name and listing.

2) Is an update for Age of Rebellion planned? I like to have all of my PCs use this to make characters but one of them wants to use a career in the new book.

Thanks, this is just an amazing program.

For now, just export the adversary, and then import it again. You'll see two copies listed. Just modify one of them to your liking. I'm thinking of adding a "Copy" function in the upcoming release that will do this automatically for you.

I'll eventually add all the AoR updates. Right now, I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to do sources, plus AoR is still in beta, so there might be some changes to the finished product. What I will be doing is adding a Beyond the Rim import pack with all the new adversaries. They'll be in a separate directory, and all you'll need to do is import whichever ones you want to include in your own adversary collection.

I posted about this earlier, but I'm still struggling with how to add vehicles to encounters. Basically, I'm trying to figure out what additional information would be helpful for an "encounter" vehicle, as opposed to just printing out a vehicle sheet (and yes, I'll be including the ability to create vehicles separate from characters in the GM Tools in the next release). I think the main thing I would need to help out GMs is to assign encounter adversaries to various ship positions, including weapon systems. I'm playing around with the following concept, similar to the way adversary summaries work in the encounter sheet:

Skills :

Pilot [Rodian Pilot] Skill : Piloting - Space X (DICE), Maneuvers : All Piloting Maneuvers

Co-Pilot [Rodian Pilot] Skill : Piloting - Space X (DICE), Actions : Copilot

Navigator [Enforcer] Skills : Astrogation X (DICE) , Perception X (DICE) , Actions : Plot Course

Engineer [Adversary] Skills : Athetics X (DICE) , Mechanics X (DICE) , Actions : Damage Control, Manual Repairs, Boost Shields

Communications [Adversary] Skills : Computers X (DICE) , Perception X (DICE) , Actions : Jamming, Scan the Enemy, Slice Systems

Tactician [Adversary] Skills : Discipline X (DICE) , Leadership X (DICE) , Actions : Fire Discipline

Ordinance [Adversary] Skills : Computers, Vigilance, Actions : Spoof Missiles

Weapons :

Dorsal Turrent Mounted Medium Laser Cannon [Adversary] - Skill : Gunnery X (DICE) , Arc : Fore, Aft, Range : Medium, Damage : 6, Crit : AAA, Qualities : Whatever

I think something like this would be very helpful. You could add adversaries as normal, then add a vehicle of some sort and assign any relevant positions to the various adversaries. I could even specify which group and which adversary in that group would be in which position, but that might be too complicated. For keeping track of ship stats, a standard vehicle sheet could be printed out.

Of course, that doesn't address all the issues. For instance, what about a squadron of starfighters? Say, you have a group of 5 pilot minions, one in each of 5 different starfighters. It seems kind of silly to print out the same starfighter sheet 5 separate times, while having a single starfighter entry on the encounter sheet with all of the positions filled (well, at pilot and gunner, anyway, both which will be the same minion). I could add multiple entries for a single type of ship, the way rivals look, but that's probably impractical. S hips are ships, unlike adversaries which are simplified characters and can fit on a partial page (rather than four pages). Any sort of summary would probably end up being as long as a regular ship sheet, or larger if you include the position/gunner summary.

Also, what if you have several groups of adversaries that are spread out between separate ships? Assigning positions would get rather complicated, and I'm not a fan of complicated (the entire point of the apps is to make your life easier, not complicated it). Or, what if you have a single group of adversary pilots, but want to assign them to several different models of ships? Or several groups of adversaries between several models of ships? Even more complicated.

Anyway, this isn't clicking for me, which is why I haven't release the next version yet :) I'm not really liking anything I've come up with so far, with the exception of the ship position summary, which can pose other problems as well. So, I'm coming back to you guys again. How would YOU want ship battles to look like? What information do YOU want on the encounter sheets? How do YOU want it organized? I'm hoping someone will have some genius insight into this :)

There was another help sheet on the forums which listed actions available to the players and I found that very useful. I.e. What are all the actions available to a, say, Slicer? Haw are they to perform? What are the expected results? For my player's last battle I simply went with 3 green for all adversary skills. Pilot, gunner, and a Slicer.

I'd dearly love to generate that kind of summary for the players.

The AT43 army generator had an army overview which listed top level combat stats. Players were expected to track units using the game cards.

An EOTE style table would have stats like damage threshold, system strain, shields, weapons, etc. At such a level the Emperor (that's me!) should use the chart to track vehicle stats and damage. It would also be convenient to list the dice (from the right crew member) for the associated primary skill. I.e. Piloting, gunnery by each gun,. After that I'd use a single sheet per ship.

The single sheets should be very very complete. Ie if the ship is size 5 many maneuvers would not be listed for the pilot. Size 4 and lower would have more maneuvers. If there is a co pilot how does that affect player options (descriptions should be a tad different).

If you wanted to make work for yourself, you could consider selecting the ships that get a detailed print out. Maybe in the top level view. IMO I don't think the rules as they stand are good for large scale combat. XWing is better at that. (I wonder if there is a decent translation of the rules to use EOTE ships with XWing play.)

I hope that helps. Thanks for all your hard work.

There was another help sheet on the forums which listed actions available to the players and I found that very useful. I.e. What are all the actions available to a, say, Slicer? Haw are they to perform? What are the expected results? For my player's last battle I simply went with 3 green for all adversary skills. Pilot, gunner, and a Slicer.

I'd dearly love to generate that kind of summary for the players.

The AT43 army generator had an army overview which listed top level combat stats. Players were expected to track units using the game cards.

An EOTE style table would have stats like damage threshold, system strain, shields, weapons, etc. At such a level the Emperor (that's me!) should use the chart to track vehicle stats and damage. It would also be convenient to list the dice (from the right crew member) for the associated primary skill. I.e. Piloting, gunnery by each gun,. After that I'd use a single sheet per ship.

The single sheets should be very very complete. Ie if the ship is size 5 many maneuvers would not be listed for the pilot. Size 4 and lower would have more maneuvers. If there is a co pilot how does that affect player options (descriptions should be a tad different).

If you wanted to make work for yourself, you could consider selecting the ships that get a detailed print out. Maybe in the top level view. IMO I don't think the rules as they stand are good for large scale combat. XWing is better at that. (I wonder if there is a decent translation of the rules to use EOTE ships with XWing play.)

I hope that helps. Thanks for all your hard work.

That actually helped a lot, yeah. Thanks. So... in addition to an encounter sheet with all the adversaries, how about a vehicle roster as an optional part of an encounter? This would have a vehicle summary, plus a list of positions, skills, and actions/maneuvers, assigned from the adversaries in the encounter. It wouldn't be for stat tracking, just as a quick reference to know what skills to use for which action or maneuver, based on the assigned positions. Stat tracking would be performed on the current vehicle sheet. Basically, it would be just the part in my previous email that I actually found useful :) , but maybe laid out a bit differently (maybe using a grid instead of summary text) and adding more detailed information. If I get around to adding vehicles to groups, I could do something similar for PC's as well, so PC ships can have a roster.

I'm liking this a lot more than what I came up with before. What else would everyone want on a vehicle roster?

Another big "thank you" goes out to Michael for his kind donation!

That actually helped a lot, yeah. Thanks. So... in addition to an encounter sheet with all the adversaries, how about a vehicle roster as an optional part of an encounter? This would have a vehicle summary, plus a list of positions, skills, and actions/maneuvers, assigned from the adversaries in the encounter. It wouldn't be for stat tracking, just as a quick reference to know what skills to use for which action or maneuver, based on the assigned positions. Stat tracking would be performed on the current vehicle sheet. Basically, it would be just the part in my previous email that I actually found useful :) , but maybe laid out a bit differently (maybe using a grid instead of summary text) and adding more detailed information. If I get around to adding vehicles to groups, I could do something similar for PC's as well, so PC ships can have a roster.

I'm liking this a lot more than what I came up with before. What else would everyone want on a vehicle roster?

When running a long combat tracking damage and effects is best if its on a single sheet. Seriously, how much space do you have in front of you? Toss out a rule book, and adventure description and some notes. Your mind and your space is already pretty cluttered, now add 5 extra space ship sheets to track, and of course a way detailed player ship sheet.

You only want to dig out the detailed sheets if absolutely necessary. A single sheet roster which shows deflector orientations, damage and strain, and maneuver, etc, would really speed game play up.

Many other games use a more complex type of card for tracking. i.e. Something that would fit in a few lines on a roster. This is like setting a spread sheet with different column widths on each line. A real pain to do. (Easy if you dump it to a CSV, to load into Excel.)

Ship Name Shields Weapons Pilot (Various Skills) (Strain)

Damage F Auto Blaster GGY Co Pilot (Various Skills)

Strain L R Medium Laser GG Engineer (Various Skills)

Silhouette R Medium Laster YYY Slicer (Various Skills)

Speed\Handling

You get the gist... If I can run an entire battle from a single sheet, the game will be fast and fun. (Bonus points if it tracks initiative separately for each crew-member.)

Maybe add an option to tag on the relevant rule summaries to the end of the sheet or on another sheet.

Some people are still going to want a detailed sheet...

As UHF is saying space is at a premium when GMing, and i have a request for a long term project for you.

What i`m looking for is a way to use the current (and excellent) GM tool and expand upon it a bit. Right now i have to print a bunch of pages or reference the pages on my laptop. This is fine of course, but i would absolutely love to have the GM tool be able to track damage done to NPC`s, check boxes of the initiative order in a combat and check boxes on and off different states in combat. It would be great to be able to do that directly from the tool itself. I personally find myself using your program more and more when i GM, and less paper clutter is always good.

Anyways as have already been said, the current tool works fine now so no rush. Take your time, and i love the vehicle plans you have in the pipeline. :)

As a GM you need to be delegating some of these duties to your players. Initiative tracking is a prime example.

Print out and laminate Stan's Combat Tracker. I found it on the Stickied resource thread and use it for my group and it works great. However link doesnt appear to be working ATM.

combat-tracker.jpg



Looks like this is the creators website .

Edited by Diggles

I use that initiative tracker all the time. It is a nice piece of work.