Importing PC's

A possible alternative thought would be to allow for a 3rd launch option beyond "player" or "judge" that would allow just the editing of characters. (No map, no network connections.) What it would do is pull up the character page and allow the user to edit a character loaded from the library. It would then allow it to be exported. (Which could then be emailed to the judge/gm/dm.)

This wouldn't be as nice as a multi-platform import, but it would likely be far less code on their end. (Though there might be need to setup the full ruleset for the campaign used on the character-editing computer. Not sure exactly how that would be used.)

Though a generic/smart import would be very nice.

 

Maybe we should talk with the people at PCGen to have them put an exporter in their program to d20Pro! Hmmmm

Do a lot of people use PCGen?

 

I've used it since rpgxplorer died. An import function from PCGen would great.

 

Been swamped with other stuff, but I am looking at importing from PCGen, so please stand by.

 

Just curious, has any progress been done on this?

 

None at this time, sorry.

Though it is on my list.

 

I changed to herolab and it works awesome. Cost a bit to buy herolab but it was worth every cent.

Sometimes you really do get what you pay for.

 

And do the spells get imported as well? I'm using it with the Pathfinder rulesset and though the Characters seem to get imported correctly they don't have any spells to cast. Does this mean I have to re-load the spells for each character after it has been supossedly transfered?

 

On the subject of importing from PCGen, isn't the file that HeroLab exports just an XML file that follows a particular format? Couldn't that formatting be implemented fairly easily in PCGen to create similar outputs? Or is there copyright/licensing/whatsis issues with that somehow?

 

That is one way to get it to work.

PCGen provides a toolset to create a file that will convert its data into an xml file (if I am not mistaken).

We just need to get someone to write that tool. I am current swamped getting ready for DragonCon

 

I have it as well, though I have yet to really use d20Pro more than just experimenting. I kind of hope at some point their will be support for more systems. Being able to use it for Mutants and Masterminds 3e would be great. Mind you I actually did buy the d20 licence for Hero Lab (not so much into Pathfinder though apparently it has a ton of support) specifically to use with d20Pro.

 

I'm very interested in this. If spells can't be imported from Hero Lab, that's a deal-breaker for me (the Hero Lab deal, that is; I've already purchased d20Pro).
I'd really like to know the answer to this. I'm on the fence about Hero Lab; I really like the demo, but it won't let me export characters, so I had assumed the full version would export to d20Pro flawlessly. If that's not the case, I'll probably just stick with PCGen. Since I'll still have to manually enter the spells for every PC, NPC, or monster in the game, it's hardly worth $30+.

 

As long as you have the classes.txt and spells.txt files updated to the pathfinder files, then yes, they import perfectly.

Should update the feats.txt and skills.txt files while you're at it.

These files can be found at the end of the Online Manual.

 

Ah, cool. I was just about to examine the d20Pro character export files to see if I could write a corresponding PCGen export XML. If that proves to be too much work, I might buy Hero Lab.

If I had the money to spare, I'd buy it without hesitation. I realize that it's a very handy tool, but having just spent $30 on d20Pro, another $30 (plus $10-20 for Ultimate Magic and/or Combat) would be a bit much for the budget.

EDIT: Actually, I'm not sure I understand. You're saying the spells.txt and classes.txt files (or any of the .txt files, for that matter) are all that's required to import the characters and their spells properly? Does this actually provide any functionality to the spells, or is it just a list? Because the text file appears to be a list, which implies that when you open the character's spell list, that's exactly what you'll find: a list of spell names, with no description or function until you enter it manually. For every single one. Am I mistaken?

 

Yes, you're correct. You are able to choose the spells by name and level for the character in d20Pro, and that's all Hero Lab imports, is their spells known and memorized by level and name, the effects of spells are not imported.

That's a feature I requested a few days ago actually.