Author Topic: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use  (Read 20167 times)

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Offline Justin

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #20 on: February 10, 2015, 01:42:10 PM »
Where are items stored?
To use the inventory module, start the adventure, and click on a cog icon next to the adventure name. There you can find an "Inventory" button, where you can configure the stuff carried by the party.

I was talking about any XML files which define the items, so we can create items specific to our setting. Or import the whole 10' Pole book! (j/k....)

As bringing in professions from RM Companion books, the biggest hurdle seems to be including spell lists for those like Paladin, Nightblades, etc. Changing skills is no problem, but I'm not sure what to do with spells.

What is the format for the parameters tag?
Quote from: Blur
<parameters>1 target 1 min/lvl 10' D</parameters>
Quote from: BoilLiquid
<parameters>1 cu'/lvl C 10' F</parameters>
Quote from: FireBolt
<parameters>1 target - 100' Ed</parameters>

I can read that these spells have 1 target, and the foot measurement is a range, and the 'F' is probably Force, 'Ed' is maybe elemental-directed? Do those parameters make Blur give a +10DB?
"Even the most free roaming video game in the world still has to rely on programmed quest resolution triggers.  Only table-top RPGs make any solution possible.  Even ones not originally intended by the GM.  You  will never replace that." --Rivstyx

Offline Voriig Kye

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #21 on: February 12, 2015, 10:30:34 AM »
I was talking about any XML files which define the items, so we can create items specific to our setting. Or import the whole 10' Pole book! (j/k....)
Some items come preloaded in the Inventory module, just click on the "Fill with default items" button on the lower right.
As soon as you click the "Save Changes" button on the upper right, a file will be created in the Adventures directory, called "[Campaign Name].inventory.XML".
Every time you load an adventure (using the Restore and Continue buttons in the Adventuring module), the inventory for the campaign will be searched for and loaded as well.
I am still not sure if I am answering your question, so let me know if I did.

What is the format for the parameters tag?
In the current version, the parameters tag is just text. I am not doing anything with it, just showing it next to the rest of the spell information for the GM and players to have it at hand.
When a spell is cast, the duration, DB, healing and other effects must be entered manually, as you can see on this part of the active spells tutorial video.

Offline Justin

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #22 on: February 12, 2015, 10:59:54 AM »
I am still not sure if I am answering your question, so let me know if I did.
Yeah, that's helpful. Basically you don't have a separate XML file for items, they are part of the default inventory load.

What is the format for the parameters tag?
In the current version, the parameters tag is just text. I am not doing anything with it, just showing it next to the rest of the spell information for the GM and players to have it at hand.
When a spell is cast, the duration, DB, healing and other effects must be entered manually, as you can see on this part of the active spells tutorial video.

Yeah, sorry, don't have the vids memorized yet and I haven't used ERA in a full-game setting yet. I will soon! (5wks!) That makes bringing in the RMC professions much simpler, which is good!
"Even the most free roaming video game in the world still has to rely on programmed quest resolution triggers.  Only table-top RPGs make any solution possible.  Even ones not originally intended by the GM.  You  will never replace that." --Rivstyx

Offline Justin

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #23 on: February 14, 2015, 04:29:39 PM »
Is the stderr file any use to us? Is there any helpful indication to tell me what's wrong when I've got bad XML preventing the server from getting up and going?
"Even the most free roaming video game in the world still has to rely on programmed quest resolution triggers.  Only table-top RPGs make any solution possible.  Even ones not originally intended by the GM.  You  will never replace that." --Rivstyx

Offline Voriig Kye

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #24 on: February 20, 2015, 05:48:33 AM »
Is the stderr file any use to us? Is there any helpful indication to tell me what's wrong when I've got bad XML preventing the server from getting up and going?
The current version does not provide any means of checking errors with the custom built XML files.
I made some tests and the stderr file remains empty not matter what you do, so it won't be of use for troubleshooting.
I'll see if I can add more support for error reporting when reading the configuration files, but it will have to wait for a future version.

Offline krusteh

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #25 on: July 25, 2015, 08:46:27 PM »
First I want to say this is a great little program. I have the content for RMFRP. Played around with it making some characters, leveling and some scenarios.

these are my first thoughts:

1) needs some tuned up documentation such as a step-by-step walk-thru of character creation and combat and maneuvers. I still am unsure how you set out the effects of parrying for example. do you place the percentage of OB used for parrying or defense in the percent box? or do you use the raw amount of OB in that box?

2) how do you chose to perform a maneuver during combat. did not see that as a tab in the options during the round. specify drawing a sword, diving behind cover, etc? I saw a lot of data in the combat actions .xml file so I suspect its in there somewhere I just hadn't figured it out.

3) Height in inches so it can more closely reflect the characters actual height as a record, or impact stride as needed.

4)exhaustion points? not sure if most players use them. probably not. But your system would be ideal to track them, the totals, how they are used up for actions how they are recovered. Might actually make that system work as intended without much effort during play. at the least for those who use them calculating the totals on the character sheet might be nice. along with height, stride, recover modifier, soul departure wt limits etc.

5) is it possible to have a rounds to death (or other status) box like there are for bleeding/activity/spell effects? or how do you do handle that in your play? (spell effect: life lasting for 6 rounds?). character fighting on for 6 rounds and then dying for example.

6) the initiative box do you enter the 2D10 summed roll? does the system add the Qu bonus to that to determine initiative?

7) anyway to incorporate range modifiers (probably not I suspect it would be too complex). anything to cut down on table looking up is nice.

8) Would love to have a way to save NPCs/Monsters prior to a adventure. It would be ideal to have all encounters preloaded in the system. in some way other than creating a character and leveling them. Most monsters are not leveled characters, just enter OB, hits, DB, level, resistance info, some skill bonuses and ranks that might apply, some notes, and spell lists then save. As it is on the fly how do you use the template do make it so the npc/monster can utilize spells?

I think it will be great if/when Creatures/Treasures is available because I suspect that will be all worked through in due time.

9) in terms of what I would love to see I GM'd mostly fantasy settings, but used rolemaster/spacemaster for scfi, post-apocalyptic, and cross-genre type stuff. So I would love to see:

-The Armory damage tables
-Weapons Law: Firearms
-Spacemaster: Blaster Law and Spacemaster: Equipment Law damage and critical tables. The Spacemaster/ modern armor types incorporated into the system

-the other Spacemaster content (future law/privateers)
-smoothed stat bonuses
-Creatures and races from Creatures and treasures ( or whatever it is called these days)
-essence/channeling/mentalism companion content
-Shadow world content
-black-ops?

Also played around with the XML files. I had no problem modifying professions, adding races etc. Made a new instance and heavily modded trying to make a spacemaster instance reflecting those skills ( new categories and skills, removing some categories), 4 of the races, 2 professions, the culture files etc.

I am hung on launch because it can not find a category named power manipulation in the named group power manipulation. I deleted that group/skill/category from all the config files profession/culture/race files. searched all those files and could not find it. not sure why it looks for that. All the non-modified profession, race, culture and extra downloaded content files were placed in a separate folder. You should be able to remove a group correct? Like I said adding races and professions individually seemed to work like magic!!

Also when working on the culture files for the adolescent ranks I noticed something. Spacemaster doesn't specifically assign those ranks always to specific categories or skills. There might be several ranks assigned to a group, to be applied to various categories in that group, or for example, several skill ranks to be assigned as the player chooses to skills within a specific group or category. multiple ranks to assign to Science/Analytic group categories and skills for example. Rolemaster was always very specific about adolescent skill assignment. There is much more player choice in the process for Spacemaster.

I suspect that getting around that would require more than just fiddling around with xml files to assign those adolescent skills. Probably something similar to how you assign the weapon skill ranks currently.

Anyway I am having a good time playing around with this.


I noticed that Adrenal Deflecting was listed twice as a skill once under the group martial arts and once under the group combat maneuvers. Was not sure whether that was intentional.

Offline krusteh

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #26 on: July 26, 2015, 07:05:06 AM »
So it seems that the Groups are in some way tied to the core rule set info. By adding back the groups I had removed I was able to get the server to run. These were the Spells and the Power Manipulation Groups. I just made the spell list skills prohibitively expensive. It also seems that though there is no specified skill for Transcend Armor in the Skills .xml, that does show up on the actual character sheet/ level up process.  The new added Groups are unable to be added to during Hobby rank assignment.

Otherwise every other aspect worked fine. Creation of a handful of new professions, and races. Addition of new cultures. Though given the way spacemaster does this its not complete. But I added text to the culture description that defines what needs to be manually chosen. I added new groups, categories, and skills. The only issue is that the new group skills can not be added to during Hobby rank assignment ( no big issue). I added additional weapon categories (1-H Energy, 2-H Energy, 1-H Projectile, 2-H projectile) making for 10 categories total. The assignment of the development costs worked fine with the greater number of categories.

I did not add a new realm...I instead just based all the classes on mentalism and used PP development for the psion skills. But that would the next thing to dabble with.
I did add new resistances (Psion). This does not show up on the character sheet.  That I guess is due to the size of the box that displays that data, and likely to there being no resistance check keyed to that in the ruleset. The added resistances also do not show up when you print the character sheet.

One issue I had is that the Psion skills are handled similar to weapon skills with a variable cost. Within the category are several separate skills/abilities. The first category developed is the lowest cost and it varies upward from there. unfortunately you cant assign the costs like the weapon category costs given the limitation of the ruleset . I figured though that I would be able to edit the costs as needed once I got to the character sheet. However, once there I found they were fixed and uneditable based on how they were specified in the.xml files. I wonder is there a way to edit those costs on the character sheet or make them editable in future versions? That seems like the easiest fix. Programing to allow assignment of Psion category dev cost at character creation is likely something that would only be done if Spacemaster specific content is developed.

This was all to see just how customizable the system is. I found that for the majority of users adding races, professions, adjusting skill costs or changing skills the system is extremely flexible.

Offline Voriig Kye

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #27 on: July 26, 2015, 01:47:52 PM »
First of all, WOW! You really did a run on the features! I am honored that you covered so many of them and all the tweaking you tried. And I am happy to know that you had fun doing it.
Let's answer each of your comments in turn.

1) needs some tuned up documentation such as a step-by-step walk-thru of character creation and combat and maneuvers. I still am unsure how you set out the effects of parrying for example. do you place the percentage of OB used for parrying or defense in the percent box? or do you use the raw amount of OB in that box?
Yes, up to date tutorials videos are on my to-do list. I really haven't found the time to do them. With ERA RMU in the works, that has taken all my available time.
Parrying is briefly mentioned in this part of the tutorial video you need to choose the skill used to parry, and the percentage of that skill to apply. The Hits and Other boxes are for adjustments to the skill, meant for penalties the defender might be having.
But, you could assign 100% parry, and use the Other box to put as a penalty the amount used to attack. In that way ERA also support parrying as a direct number.
Assigning 0% and Other as a positive value would not work, since the formula is: [ Skill + Hits Adjustment (normally negative) + Other Adjustment (normally negative) ] * Percentage.

2) how do you chose to perform a maneuver during combat. did not see that as a tab in the options during the round. specify drawing a sword, diving behind cover, etc? I saw a lot of data in the combat actions .xml file so I suspect its in there somewhere I just hadn't figured it out.
Only combat actions that have a “representedBy=” attribute in the XML will appear as options. This is done to avoid visual clutter, and allow some specific campaigns that might require a lot of those actions to add them on demand.
Now, as to what options you have for the icon there, you are entering even muddier terrain. I'll let you dabble further, just point your eyes to a file “…\Resources\adventuring.css”.
During an adventure, I normally use the Concentration action, since it does not have any effect when clicked on during the round, it will just be marked as “done”. Then I enter the specific action in the notes input during the round declaration. You can get a tooltip for those details when hovering on the action in the round sequence.

3) Height in inches so it can more closely reflect the characters actual height as a record, or impact stride as needed.
Height is in feet but you can use decimal numbers to represent any value. It is a pity the imperial system does not use base 10 for its measures, so you will need to convert extra inches to feet and add them. For example 5’ 8’’ would be entered as 5.67 in the height input. Stride should be correctly computed with that, and will be considered for movement actions.

4)exhaustion points? not sure if most players use them. probably not. But your system would be ideal to track them, the totals, how they are used up for actions how they are recovered. Might actually make that system work as intended without much effort during play. at the least for those who use them calculating the totals on the character sheet might be nice. along with height, stride, recover modifier, soul departure wt limits etc.
It is true a system as ERA could handle exhaustion and make it finally usable. The truth is I have never used it because …who does? So I wouldn't know where to begin. Just a box for the number, or tracking it like what is done for hits could be added.
Recovery modifier and soul departure are missing, that is true. It would not just be a box in the character sheet, I would need to make sure that is included as well in the races. I will add it to the to-do list, so a future version might surprise it with it.

5) is it possible to have a rounds to death (or other status) box like there are for bleeding/activity/spell effects? or how do you do handle that in your play? (spell effect: life lasting for 6 rounds?). character fighting on for 6 rounds and then dying for example.
I think those criticals almost never came up during my adventures, so if they happened I might just record them with rounds of staggered/must parry, or maybe a spell effect with the duration according to the rounds remaining, or just editing the character notes. I think the character information dialogs are stuffed enough to justify adding that information.

6) the initiative box do you enter the 2D10 summed roll? does the system add the Qu bonus to that to determine initiative?
Yes, quickness it automatically added. So you just enter what you rolled, adjust for any situational details and let the system handle it. Initiative modifiers from the character sheet are also considered. Mental actions will always use SD as the optional rule, my to-do list includes making that configurable. Also, there is some debate related to how character penalties are affecting initiative. I encourage you to try some scenarios and let me know if you find it correct.

7) anyway to incorporate range modifiers (probably not I suspect it would be too complex). anything to cut down on table looking up is nice.
Attack tables can hold range information, which has been there from the beginning. What I never got around to doing was adding a “distance” box in the attack dialog, to make use of that information. It has gone down in the priority list because a lot of other ideas have taken precedence, but it will be there one day.

8) Would love to have a way to save NPCs/Monsters prior to a adventure. It would be ideal to have all encounters preloaded in the system. in some way other than creating a character and leveling them. Most monsters are not leveled characters, just enter OB, hits, DB, level, resistance info, some skill bonuses and ranks that might apply, some notes, and spell lists then save. As it is on the fly how do you use the template do make it so the npc/monster can utilize spells?
I think it will be great if/when Creatures/Treasures is available because I suspect that will be all worked through in due time.
What you ask for is called “ERA Creature Module”. Sadly it has never been implemented, due to lack of time. With the advent of RMU Creature Law there is more reason than ever to have something like that. But it would take quite some time to program.

I think it is obvious by now that your thorough analysis has touched on most of what I have been leaving unfinished in the application. I try to add features in the order that best adds value to as many campaigns as possible, mostly by making a balance between number of requests and time required.

9) in terms of what I would love to see I GM'd mostly fantasy settings, but used rolemaster/spacemaster for scfi, post-apocalyptic, and cross-genre type stuff. So I would love to see:
-The Armory damage tables
-Weapons Law: Firearms
-Spacemaster: Blaster Law and Spacemaster: Equipment Law damage and critical tables. The Spacemaster/ modern armor types incorporated into the system
-the other Spacemaster content (future law/privateers)
-smoothed stat bonuses
-Creatures and races from Creatures and treasures ( or whatever it is called these days)
-essence/channeling/mentalism companion content
-Shadow world content
-black-ops?
I have not received any requests so far for Black Ops nor Firearms. Some people have mentioned an intention of using ERA for Spacemaster, but since I have never played it the time variable is greatly increased, and the chance for mistakes in the functionality for lack of knowledge quite high. Reports such as yours, which allow me to know which features of Spacemaster are not available with the current version, will help a lot in polishing those details.

Shadow world content and E/C/M companions are not difficult at all, since I use them for my campaigns. The work pending here is that I have only created so far what my players needed, but in order to offer it through RPGNow it would to review and complete the content, then polish it and bundle it for sale. Shadow World content was also the top voted feature on a poll I did some time ago. As soon as ERA RMU is ready, that might be my first order of business.

The armory tables could be done, if enough people were interested in them.

The smoothed stat bonuses option, at least as mentioned in RM2 Companion I, is already included, since I use it for my gaming group. It is not available in the configuration options though, but there have been requests for it so I have added the option, and the next version we make available to the public will include it.

I am hung on launch because it can not find a category named power manipulation in the named group power manipulation. I deleted that group/skill/category from all the config files profession/culture/race files. searched all those files and could not find it. not sure why it looks for that.
Since you are using the RMFRP ruleset, there are a number of categories/skills that the system needs to consider for all characters. Spells, Power Development, Body Development, Weapon and Armor groups should be left untouched. You can add additional groups, but too much is dependent on these basic groups to allow them to be removed. Of course a truly independent Spacemaster ruleset would have its own “core” groups/categories/skills.

Also when working on the culture files for the adolescent ranks I noticed something. Spacemaster doesn't specifically assign those ranks always to specific categories or skills. There might be several ranks assigned to a group, to be applied to various categories in that group, or for example, several skill ranks to be assigned as the player chooses to skills within a specific group or category. multiple ranks to assign to Science/Analytic group categories and skills for example. Rolemaster was always very specific about adolescent skill assignment. There is much more player choice in the process for Spacemaster.
I had no idea Spacemaster had that difference over RMFRP. For my gaming group we have a similar ruling, and I have already developed something like what you mention. Eventually I could try to add that option when configuring the system, such that category ranks are interpreted as “ranks for the player to distribute among skills in the category”.

I noticed that Adrenal Deflecting was listed twice as a skill once under the group martial arts and once under the group combat maneuvers. Was not sure whether that was intentional.
That might be a leftover from the Martial Arts Companion. I think they moved the skill location, so by having it in both places the GM might choose which one you should develop.

The new added Groups are unable to be added to during Hobby rank assignment.
I tried adding a group, category and skill, and it appeared during hobby rank assignment. Hobby ranks in RMFRP should allow all skills in all categories. Send me a PM with the Groups, Categories, Skills, and Profession XML and I will check if there is something missing.

I did not add a new realm...I instead just based all the classes on mentalism and used PP development for the psion skills. But that would the next thing to dabble with.
Adding realms is complicated. Lots of features in the adventuring module rely on knowing the casting penalties, resistance adjustments, and other factors. So that makes it quite difficult for me to offer such a possibility for now.

I did add new resistances (Psion). This does not show up on the character sheet.  That I guess is due to the size of the box that displays that data, and likely to there being no resistance check keyed to that in the ruleset. The added resistances also do not show up when you print the character sheet.
As you guessed, the resistances are also wired into the ruleset. It would be easier to make them customizable than it would be realms, but still I guess that feature it not a top priority.

I figured though that I would be able to edit the costs as needed once I got to the character sheet. However, once there I found they were fixed and uneditable based on how they were specified in the.xml files. I wonder is there a way to edit those costs on the character sheet or make them editable in future versions?
You can see at this point of the tutorial video that all skill costs are indeed editable by character. Let me know if that solves the issue.

This was all to see just how customizable the system is. I found that for the majority of users adding races, professions, adjusting skill costs or changing skills the system is extremely flexible.
Again, I am glad you found it interesting, and thanks for such a complete review!
I hope the next versions can add on the features you need the most.

Offline krusteh

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #28 on: July 26, 2015, 02:28:37 PM »
I found that I was able to edit the cost of the skill once I got to the character sheet. What I was not able to do was adjust the cost of the skill Category which is the more important issue.

I also looked out how the armor and attack tables were set up. For Spacemaster / Modern stuff there are basically another 11 armor classes above AT 20. I was playing around trying to add a new armor type, and tried to write out one of the blaster tables that might included that armor type. That's when I found out that each are designated by a number. Right now adding further types isn't possible. I am not sure if it is possible to add some "overhead" for further armor types without breaking the system.

Anyway I have enjoyed playing around with this. It has a lot of potential. I wish we had something like this 25 years ago!!! I remember when I could I would use the condensed combat system that was presented in Rolemaster Companion 2 back in the day. Cut down on looking up as much in the tables. Anything to make things smoother.  With this I even was able to run combat on my ipad. Of course the blaster pistols were firing shockbolts!!

I definitely would focus on the new stuff. We are all waiting to see what its like! For me I think the most useful next bit would be something like a creature module. I think that's something that a lot of folks would make use of. I can just imagine hopw much work it is to put all this stuff together. Thanks for sharing!




Offline krusteh

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #29 on: July 26, 2015, 02:53:56 PM »
BTW the hobby skills worked fine. The skills that it would not let you choose I think were limited by development cost. My guess is everything 25 or greater in cost is prohibited from being selected. Tweaking the costs lower they all showed up.

Offline krusteh

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #30 on: July 26, 2015, 07:23:25 PM »
On the height I just tried it when creating another few characters. the box lights up red if you do a decimal point. it seems to just accept
integers in feet.

On further checking if you save and download the file it will stay as it should.

Offline Voriig Kye

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #31 on: July 29, 2015, 06:35:50 AM »
I found that I was able to edit the cost of the skill once I got to the character sheet. What I was not able to do was adjust the cost of the skill Category which is the more important issue.
Editing whole categories seemed like too much for a specific character, since that would be deviating far from the profession as a development template.
Maybe such cases should be handled as alternative professions.
But that is coming from my RM2/RMC background, where you wouldn't develop ranks for the category anyway, so it might be more important to RMFRP players.
I could eventually add that possibility if there is enough interest.

I also looked out how the armor and attack tables were set up. For Spacemaster / Modern stuff there are basically another 11 armor classes above AT 20. I was playing around trying to add a new armor type, and tried to write out one of the blaster tables that might included that armor type. That's when I found out that each are designated by a number. Right now adding further types isn't possible. I am not sure if it is possible to add some "overhead" for further armor types without breaking the system.
I think you should be able to add new armor types without problems. They must be numbered mostly to help with presentation issues. I could add the type description somewhere, but the armor dialog is quite cluttered already.
RMU uses 10 armor types, just like RMC Combat Companion did. Both systems have been used in ERA just by changing the armor type XML files. If you add or remove files there, you just need to make sure that the attack tables have result for all of them.

Anyway I have enjoyed playing around with this. It has a lot of potential. I wish we had something like this 25 years ago!!! I remember when I could I would use the condensed combat system that was presented in Rolemaster Companion 2 back in the day. Cut down on looking up as much in the tables. Anything to make things smoother.  With this I even was able to run combat on my ipad. Of course the blaster pistols were firing shockbolts!!
I have been using it for 9 years now, and it has certainly changed our way of playing. The character status module that the players access from their phones has also simplified a lot of the upkeep during play.

BTW the hobby skills worked fine. The skills that it would not let you choose I think were limited by development cost. My guess is everything 25 or greater in cost is prohibited from being selected. Tweaking the costs lower they all showed up.
Hobby skills with a cost above 20 are not allowed. This comes from the restriction in RMFRP Character Law stating that 40 DP is the limit for hobby ranks. I changed it to 20 for my group due to some house rules, but never realized that it was wrong by RMFRP rules. I will try to fix it in the next version.

On the height I just tried it when creating another few characters. the box lights up red if you do a decimal point. it seems to just accept
integers in feet.
On further checking if you save and download the file it will stay as it should.
I tried it and my browsers do not light up in red, but in any case I'm glad it saves the values as intended.

Offline allanon74

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #32 on: August 04, 2015, 06:03:05 AM »
Hi, i have a question... i bought the 3 packages for RMFRP but i would use it for a science-fantasy setting.... i know that i must add a lot of skills for the space master settings.... how can i add the new skill group costs to the characters in the compiled .ERA file???

There are some tweaks to help that..?!?

thanks in advance.

Offline Voriig Kye

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #33 on: August 04, 2015, 06:33:38 AM »
Hmmm... once you add new groups and categories you will most likely be unable to use the professions included in the RMFRP Character Law files.
I will try to make some changes in the next version so that you can at least create the character and then manually edit the cost in the character XML file.

I am starting to believe that offering something like ERA for Spacemaster would make a number of people happy.

Offline allanon74

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #34 on: August 04, 2015, 02:16:34 PM »
Ok... but that's very unpleasant... couldn'T be the system condigured to permit some "editing" to the core professions?

i mean... if i create a file Magician.prof.XML the XML included could be ADDED to the data of the magician in rmfrpCharacterLaw.professions.era ....
or in case of exinting data, it could OVERWRITE the old values.

i mean... Armor - Light of the magician (core) costs 9. If i add a row in the Magician.prof.XML that sets che cost of Armor - Light to 12, the base value will be overwritten.

And if i add a note to the Magician.prof.XML thas sets the cost of Psion - Base Psion field to 6/6/6 (after defining the skills and sgill groups and categories in the right files), that cost will be added to the magician.

Too complicated?


too complex?

yes, i think that an ERA addendum for spacemaster would be very cool.

Offline Voriig Kye

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #35 on: August 04, 2015, 05:50:46 PM »
I'm not sure if I understood your suggestion, or it may be that my previous post was not clear, so I will try to rewrite in light of your last post.

If you add categories to the Categories.XML files, all your professions must (in the current version) have a cost for that category.
So, if you download the base free product which comes with 2 professions in XML format, you need to edit them and add the cost for the category, then everything will be fine.

BUT, if you install the RMFRP Character Law package, you will get and additional file in the professions directory: "rmfrpCharacterLaw.professions.era".
Due to IP / legal issues, this file can't be edited, and since it contains a lot of professions without a cost for your new category, the current version of ERA will not be able to create a character for those professions and include your new category.

BUT, since the .prof.XML files take precedence over rmfrpCharacterLaw.professions.era, you could in theory manually create all of the .prof.XML files and include as well a cost for your new category. This would be equivalent to deleting the rmfrpCharacterLaw.professions.era from your directory anyway, since you are offering personalized versions for all the professions.

My recommendation would be:
1) After installing the RMFRP book files, delete rmfrpCharacterLaw.professions.era, edit the sample .prof.XML files to add costs for your new categories. Then if you want additional professions you need to create the relevant .prof.XML files. In a Spacemaster game I guess you would be creating new professions anyway.
2) If the previous idea seems to much work, you could wait for the updated version I am preparing (but since RMU is top priority at the moment, I can't give a date). With it, you could add categories, and create professions without a cost for that category, then manually edit the character after creation and set the cost for the category.

Let me know what you think about those scenarios. It is possible as well that I misunderstood your post and my suggestions make no sense :o, either way I am interested in your opinion.

Offline allanon74

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #36 on: August 05, 2015, 05:19:43 AM »
sorry, i'm Italian.. it's hard to explain my suggestion.

I understand your advice, but i will only suggest a new feature to the program:
It would be very handy if the .prof.XML files don't overwrite ENTERELY the record for the rispective profession in the .era file, but simply to patch it.

i mean.. if i create a prof.xml file that contains ONLY the modification to the core profession (i.e. new group costs, modified group costs), i suggest that the program read it and "patch" the core version with this customization....

btw... what is RMU? :D :D :D

Offline Voriig Kye

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #37 on: August 05, 2015, 06:13:21 AM »
i mean.. if i create a prof.xml file that contains ONLY the modification to the core profession (i.e. new group costs, modified group costs), i suggest that the program read it and "patch" the core version with this customization....
That is quite a complex feature to add, it would complicate the way the files are read and the way professions are built and... I'll avoid the technicalities, let's just say it would require too much work and the features pending are already quite a lot.

With that said, I can assure you that it will be considered. Maybe some day, after RMU and the ERA Creature Module and the Shadow World book files to add races, spells and kulthean weapons, after the RMFRP Ess/Ment/Chann/Arcane Companions, I might find the time to implement your suggestion.

btw... what is RMU? :D :D :D
Just in case you are really asking that... Rolemaster Unified is the future of tabletop RPG, and you can read more here:

Offline allanon74

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #38 on: August 05, 2015, 07:02:58 AM »
the arcane companion... that's great! :D

HAHAH i read all, and thanks in advance. I know the complexity of the work (i'm a programmer too) but i believe in the usefulness of that.

but now i have a new target to wait... the companions! :D :D :D

Yes, i'm an old RM-fan... i bought near every manual i found HAHAH ... the next will be surely RMU, when available. (i didn't know that RMU was the new beta, sorry... )

Offline allanon74

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #39 on: August 11, 2015, 03:08:52 AM »
Hi... another question... i wanna translate ERA in Italian... but i think that i cannot change the name of groups, categories and skills... if I do that, i lose the profession skill costs in the .ERA files.... right?