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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hong" data-source="post: 354794" data-attributes="member: 537">Okay, I'll preface this by saying that I'm not a computer geek. I'm a different subspecies of geek, a D&D geek. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />That said, I'm thinking like Smetzger: why do you need a precise format for a statblock? A statblock is just a condensed summary of a character sheet, meant purely for human consumption. I just don't see the need to go to the trouble of a formal grammar, except as an intellectual exercise. Human beings tend to have a better ability to disambiguate information from context, unlike computers.In any case, the information in a statblock is incomplete, which makes life difficult sometimes, especially when dealing with buffing spells. For example, suppose someone has a Reflex save of +10. This doesn't tell you what components went into it. They might have a resistance bonus, a morale bonus, or a luck bonus, or any combination (or none) of the three. This sort of information is important when you have a bard in the party, or spells that give various typed bonuses: sometimes they count, and sometimes they don't. The statblock doesn't tell you any of this, as far as I can tell.Now, what I _would_ like to see a standard, open format for, is a character file. This would include all the various factors that are present behind the scenes, but don't appear in the statblock:- breakdown of each bonus (attack, damage, saves, skills, etc) by type (base/ranks, ability, competence, morale, dodge, luck, untyped, etc)- which skills are class/cross-class/excluded- XP spare for item creation purposes- grapple check bonus- proficiencies- virtual feats- etc, etc.If necessary, a program could take such a file as an input and _generate_ a statblock, and the precise format of that statblock would be as the programmer desired (perhaps using any guidelines published by the SSBF). As long as it was recognisably a statblock, with all the entries in the right places, I wouldn't be too concerned if they used commas instead of semicolons, or inserted spurious linebreaks, or whatever.Is there something like this already? Is, say, PCGen's file format an accepted standard that can be read by any other character generator program/DMing tool out there?And BTW, XML isn't readable. At least not to me.</blockquote>

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