4e Fan Creations and House RulesWorking on variant powers? Statting up a PC race or your version of a monster? Creating or converting an adventure? Put it here!
Appleseeth, first off great stuff. Very impressive. I was working on a random treasure generator for the Table Smith program but you were a little more dedicated than me, I only made it to level 10 with coding in the treasure parcels, and decided to take an extended break from working on the file. I have one request, and I really have no idea if there is a way to implement this with your program, but it's something I love from Table Smith. Is there any way you could make the individual parcels a link which, when clicked, would regenerate that individual parcel? This is really handy when you're generating something and there's just one parcel you don't like because maybe it has a weapon or effect which doesn't fit the particular situation. Think that's possible?
Inspired by your efforts, I've just made my own random treasure generator. It's of course only available online, so I provided a link to yours for people looking for an offline treasure generator.
a) can you add the retail value of the magic items in the output?
b) it was discussed earlier to offer a general shop inventory generator, that includes non-magic items. Basically a tool to tell PC's what they find when they browse through stuff on a bazaar, magic items shop etc.
Primitive Screwhead: I'm not sure what you mean by "dumping". If you just want bucketloads of treasure packets, you can just copy them out of the textbox and paste them to some text file. If its something else, I'll need some more detail.
Nevermind
I dug through the XML files and answered my own question.
Excellent work!
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Context and intonation disappear, and the words sit in a void to be construed according to the mood, intelligence and socio-political leanings of the reader."
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My only suggestion - if possible - would be to place the PC classes in there as well and build a more class-friendly table. I often have problems with my PCs not giving me a damn "wishlist" even though I ask for it all the time. This would help with not having to look up all the different weapons/armor for each class. Like I said, I don't know if it's possible with the way you've built it or not. The other thing to take into consideration is how many different proficiencies there are, so maybe this would be a moot point. Anyhow, just some food for thought, maybe someone can expand upon it a bit more with some more suggestions on how this would be implemented.
Just popping in to let you guys/gals know I appreciate all the comments. Currently I'm busy implementing a source selection system (say that 5 times fast), so that people can select which sources they want magic items from, like the PH, AV, FRPG or Dragon issues. But I'm having to make some upgrades to my XML, which is taking up most of the time.
Once that's running, I expect to have a weapon discrimination selector in there as well, as it shouldn't be too different.
After's that's all up, my plan is to input the FRPG, AV and any new Bazaar articles, if any, they put up. Then I'll look at implementing any other larger changes. But please, keep suggesting them. Depending on the complexity, they could end up in the next version already. I think I'll call the next one 1.5.
Is the XML coding put in entirerly by hand, or is there a text parser that can automate this process?
The reason I ask is that I can see putting in new magic items to be tedius at best. Considering that there are lots (1,000+?) new magic items in adventurer's vault, potentially there is much work to be done.
__________________ Cleric's got 99 problems but a Lich ain't one.
Is the XML coding put in entirerly by hand, or is there a text parser that can automate this process?
The reason I ask is that I can see putting in new magic items to be tedius at best. Considering that there are lots (1,000+?) new magic items in adventurer's vault, potentially there is much work to be done.
Unfortunately the current technique I use is by hand. If someone knew some way to rip books from PDF to some text parsable format, it wouldn't be too difficult to get at least most of the information in there. There would likely still be some stuff that would have to be done by hand though. So I guess it is kinda pointless. I do most of it copy-paste style, I usually just have to change 2 fields.
On another note, I have the basic source selection functionality working. I'd just like to get some opinions on what it should be selecting on? Just the magic items (Like Magic, Terror, Trollskin), or on armor (Cloth, Plate) and weapons (Sling, Bow, Longsword) too?
My current thoughts are to make source a factor for weapons and magic items, but not armor. But what do you gals/guys think?
Unfortunately the current technique I use is by hand. If someone knew some way to rip books from PDF to some text parsable format, it wouldn't be too difficult to get at least most of the information in there. There would likely still be some stuff that would have to be done by hand though. So I guess it is kinda pointless. I do most of it copy-paste style, I usually just have to change 2 fields.
Having the books in PDF format (which have been OCR'ed) is a pretty easy thing to obtain, and i'm sure that they will be torrentable soon after release for all source material we do not have our hands on. (Bleeding Heart Plug: Please buy the books if you plan on downloading the PDF).
After that, I looked at the magic item table list (top of page PHB 228) and I think that contains all the information that you would need to parse with the exception of the exact page of the source material. You could cut/paste the whole table into a text file and have a program parse all the data you needed right?
Read one line at a time
Rip Lvl, name, Enhancement, Price, Categorytype
I'm still not exactly sure how you're category types work from reading the XML files, but I'm pretty sure you probably do .
As far as selectability goes, I personally don't care which items get listed if i can filter out the weapon/armor types. Having noone in my current party wearing Hide for instance, would be nice to not have Magic Hide generated in parcels. Same would go for weapon types.
Breaking Thought: If you reeeeaaaaalllly wanted to get fancy, you could do a crazy variable select. No Hide <+3, No scale <+2, No Mace <+3, or you could do it by level base:
You have one cleric in the party who favors the mace, and is the only one who can use a mace. His mace is currently a level 4 magic item. It will be very unlikely that he will want a new mace that is level 4 or lower.
Obviously this is much more complex, but hey.. i'm a dreamer.
__________________ Cleric's got 99 problems but a Lich ain't one.
Thanks for pointing that out Guyanthalas. I had completely forgotten about those tables. So I guess as long as the other books have it formatted so, then it should all be good, just have to make a quick parser.
And yes, I do plan on buying the books. It's such a chore to look through a PDF while playing and also the player's need something to look through. That's why I have a gigantic duotang full of stuff I printed out for my players. I do DM from my laptop though.
And yes, I do plan on buying the books. It's such a chore to look through a PDF while playing and also the player's need something to look through.
Sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound like you were not going to do so. It was more of a plug for anyone reading to assume that I was just pirating all the books and therefor condoning the activity.
__________________ Cleric's got 99 problems but a Lich ain't one.
Update pseudo-necro bump: I've completed the next iteration of the random treasure generator. It now includes the ability to select item types, sourcebooks, weapons and armor to include in the horde. I'm only calling it 1.9 for now, 2.0 will be when I've got the AV items in there. Once again, I'll put out the call for what I could do to make it even better. Enjoy.
I just wanted to say that this program is a godsend. It's saving me a ton of time in preparation. I use it with Google Notebook to create individual parcel "notes" which I can then drag & drop into categories, or into other notebooks. My PCs have shared access to a notebook of PC treasure, and I can drag-drop the treasure parcels to them and they can sort it from there. Pretty kewl. (see attachments)
I do have a suggestion for you though: Since 4E encourages useful items over random ones, could we have an ability to re-roll a specific item? Or at the least, could we get an item level printed next to each item? That would give the DM an easy guide to use for substituting another item he might want. Right now, the DM has to go to the sourcebook and look up the level, which erodes the usefulness of this handy tool.
Thanks, and I can't wait to get the AV items in. That book is simply essential to any campaign.
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Last edited by tintagel; 28th September 2008 at 05:07 PM..
It shouldn't be too hard to add the item level beside the item, so I'll get that done at the same time as I release the AV items. Even I have experieced the need for the item levels as well, as my party has grown, and I needed to throw in some more items, I realized that I couldn't tell what level of item it was I was giving them when I rolled up a new one.
I'm always glad to hear from users.
Also, what is the interest level in me adding in some more treasure parcels with the consumables included? Such as 100 gp, a 500 gp gem and a 3rd level whetstone?
Also, what is the interest level in me adding in some more treasure parcels with the consumables included? Such as 100 gp, a 500 gp gem and a 3rd level whetstone?
Ok, everything is going pretty well with the AV items. I should have everything ready and posted tonight. What will be missing from the next release will be those consumable parcels, as it will take a while to design those. So that's where you guys come in. If you could, please post a parcel you'ld like to have in there, in the following format:
Level: [The level at which it would be generated] Parcel: [5-10]
Total Value: [The value of all the items in the parcel, in gp or pp for levels 21-30]
Money: [Any money in the parcel, written out, e.g. 200 gp, 50 sp]
Gems: [number and value of random gems, can be omitted]
Art: [number and value of random art items, can be omitted]
Consumables: [Value, number of consumable and name of consumable]
For example (I have no idea if these values conform):
Level: 1 Parcel: 5
Total Value: 260
Money: 110 gp
Gems: (1) 100 gp gem
Consumable: 50 gp, (1) Potion of Healing
Thanks, I'll be putting in whatever you guys post, plus any ones of my own. I hope to put in at least two parcels per consumable.
Wow, this is incredible. I was looking to do something like this myself, but I've been well beaten to the punch!
I would like to be able to add the various items from the previous magazines, not just the Bazaar article.
One other request I have is the ability to have a function button that would output a full listing of all the items, viewable by the same options as the random items..
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