Edit and save .monster files.

Kinoboy · Jun 12, 2015

Are there any tools available to load, edit and save .monster files besides Monster Builder?

Is there a tool to download all the .monster files from the online Monster Builder? Downloading one at a time is a real drag...

Scrivener of Doom · Jun 13, 2015

Not that I know of but I am replying as my way of bumping your questions....

AbdulAlhazred · Jun 14, 2015

You could try looking at iplay4e, or Master Plan. Beyond that the .monster file is an XML file with a pretty strictly defined structure. I don't know if its possible to get a copy of the XSD schema for it, unfortunately WOTC didn't supply even a PI in the XML to give a hint where to find that. Even without it you COULD in principle build an XSLT transform to render the file in HTML (pretty easy, if you don't mind learning XSLT), or for a bit more advanced application you could probably generate pdf, stuff the data into an SQL table, or at least a CSV that you could suck into a spreadsheet and crunch into something fun to play with. Its all kinda going to be mostly up to you, and if that sort of thing isn't your cup of tea, well I don't know what to tell you. With 4e being out to pasture there's very little interest in building more tools for it. WotC was never highly supportive of the concept anyway, as the lack of a schema illustrates.

Kinoboy · Jun 14, 2015

Roger that. The .monster files used by the online Monster Builder has all the monsters converted to the Essentials style layout. I was hoping for an easy way to scrape them off their site but I guess its a one file at a time deal.

The Fantasy Grounds product has a useful tool called 4E Item Parser which will grab most of everything off the Compendium and saves it to a file used in Fantasy Grounds. My goal was to batch download the .monster files and load them in DnD4e Combat Manager. Looks like only individual files can be downloaded. If I start now, maybe I can download them all by next year ;-) hehe

Scrivener of Doom · Jun 14, 2015

Kinoboy said:
Roger that. The .monster files used by the online Monster Builder has all the monsters converted to the Essentials style layout. I was hoping for an easy way to scrape them off their site but I guess its a one file at a time deal.

The Fantasy Grounds product has a useful tool called 4E Item Parser which will grab most of everything off the Compendium and saves it to a file used in Fantasy Grounds. My goal was to batch download the .monster files and load them in DnD4e Combat Manager. Looks like only individual files can be downloaded. If I start now, maybe I can download them all by next year ;-) hehe

I may have to have a look at Fantasy Grounds now. As I have a new (relatively) new baby, I have times when I cannot do very much other than save a page... so have been saving the thousands and thousands of pages of the Compendium a page at a time.

Kinoboy · Jun 14, 2015

Scrivener of Doom said:
I may have to have a look at Fantasy Grounds now. As I have a new (relatively) new baby, I have times when I cannot do very much other than save a page... so have been saving the thousands and thousands of pages of the Compendium a page at a time.

Here is the URL for the 4E Item Parser.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?17485-4E-Item-Parser

Give my regards to your future little DnD player

Scrivener of Doom · Jun 14, 2015

Thanks for the link. If that works, it could be really useful. I expect to continue with 4E for a long time and intend to stay subscribed to DDi... but WotC are nothing if not unreliable.

MoutonRustique · Jun 15, 2015

AbdulAlhazred said:
You could try [...] of a schema illustrates.

While I understood everything you said, I have NO clue how I would go about doing... well any of it. Was a time... was a time... (I was an engineer for a bit and did write code for a living, but that is just so far gone... so far...)

[MENTION=6750140]Kinoboy[/MENTION] [MENTION=87576]Scrivener of Doom[/MENTION]

Also... with Masterplan there were some fairly complete files floating around the interwebs for a bit.

I found this little thing a while back - you might want to have a look : [sblock]http://pifro.com/fax/4E/ddi/[/sblock]

googleUser4 · May 4, 2018

G'day there, I don't know if you are still using Masterplan, but I still am and it is brilliant for editing monsters. Do you know if there is a way to convert the Mplan .creature file(when exported) to the DDI .monster format used by Adventure tools?
Cheers