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Did I download the right stuff?

Discussion in 'D&D 5th Edition' started by phloog, Nov 25, 2017.

  1. phloog

    phloog Member

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    As I've been waiting for the 5E stuff, I've been using Fantasy Grounds. Now that I've heard that things were done, I bought and imported the Player's Handbook.

    In the OLD days I'd import stuff from Hero Lab, but assuming I'm not doing that, am I right in thinking that to make a character I have to enter each skill, stat, etc. one by one?

    As a comparison, with Fantasy Grounds I drag "Wood Elf" over from the book to the PC, and ALL the stats, mods and descriptions come with it. If I drag a "pack", each equipment item is added from the pack.

    Does D20Pro assume you do all your character creation somewhere else? I HATE using community packs...as much as I love the community, it invariably becomes a nightmare...it looks like HeroLab may never get a real 5E version...so since I am admittedly stubborn about community stuff, I'm stuck, right? I'll never have a nice slick character creation process in d20Pro? Or did I download/include the wrong stuff?

    I think the $30 was wasted, and I may end up in Fantasy Grounds from here on out...I ALWAYS preferred d20Pro, but I think that was because I had such a nice workflow with HL.
     
  2. owlbear

    owlbear Administrator
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    I'm sorry the HL importer has been delayed. There was a some significant knowledge lost in the transition from Mindgene to Mesa Mundi and so this has taken a lot longer to sort out than it should have. We're on track to have the HL stuff live again, but still likely a week or two away from that plugin being ready (at the soonest, to be fair -- we'll want to test it with lots of options and permutations).

    For the PHB, we're also working on expanding our offering well beyond the stuff that WotC requires. We're in final review on the spell book which brings full flow based castable spells to the table. After that we'll keep adding more content by bringing the class traits into an automated state as well.

    As to using D20PRO to build a character, if you pull one of the recent beta's you'll see that adding a class or class variant (Path for 5e) will also populate your traits list.

    So if you're building a 5th level Barbarian, your class traits will include all of the class abilities up to 5th level. Add a race to the class list (as zero level so as to not skew things) and you'll gain the racial abilities for that race as well.

    We don't have a drag and drop system or an update character sheet yet, mostly because we were busy retooling the framework to support future updates for flashing and fancy interfaces. I think you'll find our 5e offering is pretty solid and will only get better as we're able to pivot back around to Rules and rules automation.
     
  3. owlbear

    owlbear Administrator
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    Here's an example Aarakocra Bard's traits panel:

    upload_2017-11-25_20-3-37.png

    upload_2017-11-25_20-3-58.png

    upload_2017-11-25_20-4-25.png

    The bard list is pretty long so I didn't want to post multiple shots of that one panel.

    The general tab looks like this:

    upload_2017-11-25_20-5-34.png

    I didn't add anything to the stats on this guy so it's all base 10 at the moment. When the automation goes into play for the traits, you'll also see stat mods be auto-applied as well as any natural armor, spells etc. All of that information is provided via traits now, but it doesn't branch out without the rules builds that we're working on still.

    I hope this helps you get a better sense of where we're at, where we're going and the like.

    Feel free to PM me if you want to have a side bar on any of this.
     
  4. phloog

    phloog Member

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    I will PM for a related side bar, but I'm not clear on this at all.

    The workflow I was used to with 3.5/d20 games in d20Pro was always:

    1) Create character in Herolab
    2) Export character from HL
    3) Import character to D20Pro-- -Done!

    I'm sure I'm not 100% understanding, but it sounds like:

    1) Characters CAN'T be created in HeroLab without using a community project rather than a supported, official HeroLab add-on (this is not d20Pro's problem, but a decision HL made that impacts d20Pro for me)

    2) Lone Wolf seems to have no interest/ability to get an official 5e license for an official product

    3) Even if I go with the community hack (which I don't want to do, really), the capability to export/import isn't working now anyway

    4) The PHB licensed product from d20Pro is "done" in terms of WOTC requirements, but not in terms of functionality like Fantasy Grounds

    5) The roadmap for D20Pro does not contain any path to functionality similar to what FG has at this point, but will at some point rely on connection to HLs community hack..?

    I am 100% sure d20Pro works GREAT, and has all kinds of great features that FG doesn't have if you know how to program things and have the time to get it working. I just don't really have those skills, and am too old and grumpy to spend a lot of time learning how.
     
  5. owlbear

    owlbear Administrator
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    Actually, we're working with HL to resolve the license issue. However, that's all on hold due to PAX Unplugged which HL is putting all their attention into at the moment.

    For FG parity, I'm not 100% sure that's true or not. Partly because I do not have FG at the moment and so without further info from folks I won't know what cool things folks are looking for here that they like there.

    But yeah, there's a lot of stumbling blocks that led us to add character building features into D20PRO because getting a sub-license for HL is taking time.

    I got your PM and replied. happy to help in any way that makes sense.
     
  6. phloog

    phloog Member

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    So here's a post that is NOT meant as a list of things that D20Pro is missing, rather it's a way to give you a sense for what FG does that I find makes things so easy, and therefore despite all the clunky bits makes it the tool I'm using right now.

    FG treats the books you license (DMG, PH, XGtE, etc.) as if they were just books. You can open them up, look around, but then you can also click and drag on something like "Wood Elf" or "Bard" in the contents of the book, and *POOF* you've made your character an elf or added a level in Bard.

    As an old-as-dirt dude with about three hours for play each month, I need the product that works with the least tweaking (and to your credit, in the old world under 3.5 that was D20Pro&HL). Right now that's FG.

    Drag the Explorer's Pack onto your inventory, and every item appears with its weight calculated. Drag a Flaw or Bond from the book and it's there.

    FG is not without its ENFURIATING issues, though...drag a level of the wrong thing onto your character, and I think you're hosed for good. Once I dragged the PHB Ranger class onto my character, only to realize I needed the XGtE Revised Ranger....had to basically delete the character and start completely over, as there appears to be no way to undo something like that. (unless I've missed something)

    For right now it's not usable for me, but I appreciate that you're trying to make it into something I can use, and it apparently is fine for others.
     
  7. Wesley Gorby

    Wesley Gorby Production/Community Manager
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    We definitely want to make things easier for the user and the user experience. We also want to remain flexible and not force people down a lot of hardcoded paths. These two ideals are often in considerable conflict with each other and present lots of challenges and stumbling blocks.

    Thank you for the suggestions and feedback, we do appreciate it :)
     
  8. Jobsays

    Jobsays New Member

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    Phloog echoes my viewpoint as well. I was a long time d20Pro user running a 3.5e game, posted to these forums requesting HL integration and 5e compatibility and waited as long as I could after switching to 5e but finally paid for my FG license and made the switch. FG export/import of HL characters is still a hack but the 5e content is flawless.
     
  9. Wesley Gorby

    Wesley Gorby Production/Community Manager
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    I'd rather not devolve into an us vs them tangent, FG has it's merits but it also has it's own drawbacks and issues. Let's stay focused here on what we can do to make D20PRO better.
     

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