eTools FR Stuff

[Ranger One]

That is more than good enough for me, if an independant person like EricN used your download and the set name for it on ETHelpers main menu did not list Ranger One's Forgotten Realms Deities and Domain in the list of sets... then either Etools or ETHelper hung on to my set name (on my system) for one reason or another and applied it to your files.
In that case, ControlFreak you are quite correct and I owe you a huge apology, and here it is. I have had my work for game mods renamed and re-distributed before without my consent, and when I thought the same thing was happening here I got pretty mean about it.
I hope you can forgive my mistake.
Now since I griped about this over on another board, I must go over there and eat some crow.

 

[Ranger One]

Before I forget, Davin, if something did confuse ETHelper it might be that evidently we used the EXACT same file name "FRGods.XML". Perhaps since this is the case, and perhaps since this is evidently the first thing both of us worked on, maybe the same GUID was applied to both.
I don't know, I tried applying his file several times just to be sure before I yelped, to try to avoid a false accusation. Geez, how embarrasing.
Bitz, I was going to post my files there myself, but you beat me to it. Thank you. I have no problem with others making collaborative work, as long as a nod is given to the people who put the time in to do the transcribing. And yes, that is a very good point that was made about putting credit in to the original authors. When I did Faiths and Avatars for CRll, I spent a lot of time making sure proper credits were given in each spell. But since space is limited in Etools, and WoTC hasn't made a big deal out of it, I skipped it this time. In the future I will put a credit in the ETHelper foreword. They deserve the credit.

 

[bitz]

Your welcome, Mr. Ranger....

I suppose I need descriptions for the Gods, eventually.

 

[ControlFreak]

Like I said, I didn't even have ETHelper when I entered all that stuff in. Actually, first I started entering the Gods directly into Access, but then I uninstalled and re-installed eTools and started over, entering them in through the interface (not being 100% sure if I would otherwise have problems linking the Domains). If you're curious why I didn't get the God descriptions in, I'll put it as plainly as possible: 19-month old twins

Anyway, I'm glad this is behind us. Now that I know that someone else did this .. and did it better! .. I'm sure I'll wind up using your's anyway since I didn't spend the time to enter half of the stuff that I would need to add to make it complete. All I wanted to do was to be able to get a Cleric of Lathander, Cleric of Gorn Gulthyn, and some feats (do any casters NOT take Spellcasting Prodigy!!??) that I needed so I could get the party for my Wednesday night game in there. The only place I looked for stuff online was the link in Eric's signature, so I didn't know that someone else had done any work on that already .. otherwise I never would have started.

So .. now I'll probably re-install (again) and just download your stuff, the S&F stuff, any other class books, and then do some work on the included monsters that aren't quite right (so far I've only really gone over Salamanders and Elementals, but I think I've already found a night or 2 worth of work for me to do for just those!).

Thanks for hearing me out,
ControlFreak

 

[Davin]

Before I forget, Davin, if something did confuse ETHelper it might be that evidently we used the EXACT same file name "FRGods.XML".

Well, I *found* the problem! It's my fault!

No, it's not the file name... but it *is* the set name! Here's the deal...

Your set was initially named FRGods. Later, you renamed a different (bigger) set to FRGod and re-imported that set on top of your DB that still had FRGods in it. This caused all the records therein to be reassigned to the new set, but ET Helper didn't recognize that the old set was now kaput and clean it out.

Next, you download his file and import his set. His set is also named FRGods. But DBSets doesn't care 'cause it uses the GUID to tell things apart. So his stuff imports just fine and everything is perfect.

Well, almost perfect... When DBSets goes to display that nice list of sets, it reads it in by set GUID (which are different) but lumps them together on the screen by set Code(!) instead of by GUID. Since your old set name (which was still hanging around in the DB because I didn't know to clean it up) had the same code (FRGods) as his new set, it confused them on the screen and showed your set title beside his set definition!

Therefore, while everything was correct under the covers and it was all being properly imported, exported, expanded, processed and everything else, the screen display of just that set name was showing the wrong name. Therefore, you were extremely confused when you saw what looked like your data coming out of his file and got indignant (and rightly so, given the mis-information I was feeding you) at someone having stolen your effort. The similarity of the content was surely due to the fact that you were both entering data from the same books.

I'm VERY sorry!!!

I'll find a way to fix that bug in my next version.

 

[Ranger One]

Davin, this was such a weirdo thing... please don't apologise. Its just my luck to do just the WRONG thing with your program. Your program does so much more than I expected, and does it so much better... well, don't apologise. Its beta after all, and a darn near perfect one at that.
Controlfreak, thanks for not holding a grudge. Oh WAIT!!! Don't scrap your stuff. For one thing I did not do the web enhancements (I really need to track that down and look at it), and I do not have FR Feats in there. I've had been holding off on doing them until Davin or Fluid gives the go ahead on a way to make them affect your stats without any risk of screwing up anything new coming out. If I'm going to do them, I want to do them once, do them right, and be done with them. And I CERTAINLY don't want them to cause any trouble for anyone if Fluid makes some changes. From what I saw, the feats section was very well done, and now that I'm through obsessing over the Gods and Domains I'll look at them more closely.
I do wanna start a petition to Fluid though (like they don't have enough to do already)... for more space. I'm really feeling twitchy about entering all these brief descriptions. I want to be able to add full descriptions, although there could be a strong argument against that (as in, if we give it all away in this program, it might hurt WoTC's book sales). Still, it makes me feel like I'm only doing a half-***ed job of things. I list the things I think a DM or player will need to know at a glance, but they are not necessarily what YOU might consider necessary or important.

 

[bitz]

Yeah, sometimes I wish there was more room for the spell summary, but I am definitely against full descriptions. (Doesn't stop someone from creating a help file or something similar, of course... And they could have done that ages ago.)

One big complaint that I have is that the Race Editor allows you to put in the full description of the race. However, we cannot print the race out with those descriptions. I have a sneaky suspicion it is because they dont want the MM to be reprinted in a nice stat-block form, lol.

When fluid decides to release a patch, I will be backing up my old database, restoring the original database, and THEN patching. Then, I will do a diff compare on the tables to see what has been changed. =)

I am more of the sort that wants to have it all now, so I'm adding it all now. I have the database abilities to fix changes db-wise from fluid. I know the great majority do NOT, and so, yes they would most likely get burned. (Starts to think about putting disclaimers in Helper files to warn people of future consequences....)

I will have to check the file up above again to see if the Feats are there. I must have missed them!

 

[Nightstorm]

So let me get this clear. I just posted on another thread, came over here and started reading but not certain Im reading right.
Please bear with me. I know next to nothing about computer programing.
All of you bought e-tools at 40 bucks
found it didnt do half of what it needed to do
and all of you are now adding things to it that the developers should have done before?
while you at it if anyone wants to come to my house and do the cleaning for the next week you just let me know.

 

[bitz]

yeah, thats exactly what we're doing at the expense of cleaning our own bedrooms

We need the content for our own campaigns, and we'd might has well help others out along the way.