Author Topic: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use  (Read 20162 times)

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Offline Voriig Kye

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #40 on: August 11, 2015, 06:39:24 AM »
Translating ERA? That's a flattering thought, but the underlying architecture was never designed with that in mind. It would take a major rework to allow for the language to be changed after creating the executable files. It might be a little easier for me to release the application in different languages, but in that case each version could only be expanded by using the skills, professions, etc in that language only.
I'll keep the idea anyway, and I will let you know if I think of some way to implement it.
Thanks for asking!

Offline allanon74

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #41 on: August 11, 2015, 07:55:35 AM »
ok... if you need help for that.... i mean... rolemaster exists in italian language (from 2004 to 2011 strategiochi and red glove translated and printed some manuals in Italian).

That's the reason for the asking. I tried to translate directly the XML files, but the program references the skills, groups, categories, professions, etc. directly by name, so the translation don't works without re-writing completely the XML files for professions, etc.... and obviously it's impossible to translate the .ERA files....

But anyway, if you need some help for that, let me know....

Offline Erik Sharma

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #42 on: August 16, 2015, 04:17:49 AM »
I have had the bought FRP packages on my computer for a while now. But haven't used it yet but we have recently made the transition from Pathfinder to RM for our current campaign and it seems to be a stick so time to dive in to ERA. Either way had to create some custom Professions so I can write some of our current characters into the program. I was just wondering what modifier you use for Occupational skills. Looks like Everyman skills are modified with 0.5. Does that mean Occupational are modified with 0.33 or something similar?

Offline Voriig Kye

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #43 on: August 16, 2015, 10:10:07 AM »
I use 0.33
For example, to add Herb Lore to the Animist as Occupational, you need:

<SkillsCostModifier modifier="0.33" groupName="Lore" categoryName="Technical" skillName="Herb Lore" classification="Static Maneuver"/>

Offline Erik Sharma

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #44 on: August 16, 2015, 10:22:18 AM »
Ahh! Used 0.3 but didn't work but when I changed to 0.33 it seemed to work fine. Thank you!  ;D

Offline Voriig Kye

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #45 on: August 16, 2015, 11:29:46 PM »
... had to create some custom Professions so I can write some of our current characters into the program ...
I was left wondering, which professions did you create? Are they from a companion not currently available for ERA, or some profession you made specially for your players?

Offline allanon74

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #46 on: August 17, 2015, 05:36:58 AM »
Hi, three "simple" questions:

1. The program can somehow track the fatigue points? If no, there are plans to implement it?
2. The program can  somehow track XP gain trough attacks, spell casting, manouvers etc? If no, there are plans to implement it?
3. At the current state it's impossible to add the Arcane Realm to the system through customization, why that conflicts with the rmfrpCharacterLaw.professions.era file bought, right? there are some workarounds, other than manually re-write all prof.xml files? same if i add new arms category... right??


Offline Voriig Kye

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #47 on: August 17, 2015, 07:20:33 AM »
1. The program can somehow track the fatigue points? If no, there are plans to implement it?
The current version has no feature to track fatigue points. At least as a starting point, future versions might have a box for fatigue points in the character details in the Adventuring Module, to be manually edited as required. Something like what is now shown for hit points and power points.
In the meantime, I can suggest manually adding a combat skill, and change the ranks of the skill to reflect the number of exhaustion points left. I have never used them, so I am not sure if my suggestion is useful, but that is how I would handle it if required in an emergency during an adventure.
On the other hand, RMU has a different way of handling that, and I might add support for its way of doing things in ERA for RMU, which is currently in the works.

2. The program can  somehow track XP gain trough attacks, spell casting, manouvers etc? If no, there are plans to implement it?
There is a feature, not documented yet nor spoken in the tutorials, which does almost that.
If you create an adventure, and play through it, a file will be created in the same directory as the adventure.XML, which contains the summary of actions that could be interesting for tracking XP.
I created it to be simple, since there is too much that might be relevant for XP, but it mentions which maneuvers were successful by each PC and its difficulty, the names of the spells cast, damage received, and tracks who attacked who.
I know it could be made more comprehensive, but each GM would need different functionality here, so it has not been reviewed not spoken of yet.
But, now you asked, and now you know it is there. Please try it out and let me know what you think.

3. At the current state it's impossible to add the Arcane Realm to the system through customization, why that conflicts with the rmfrpCharacterLaw.professions.era file bought, right? there are some workarounds, other than manually re-write all prof.xml files? same if i add new arms category... right??
The current version does not allow adding additional categories without requiring a complete new set of professions.
The next version I am working on corrects this, by giving a cost of 0 to any skill or category not mentioned in the profession.
I am not releasing it yet since most of the work in that version is for the preliminary RMU ruleset.
If the inability to add new categories for existing professions is blocking the current users of ERA from playing, I could try to release an intermediate version including the fix.

Offline allanon74

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #48 on: August 18, 2015, 05:04:22 AM »
Thank you... it's only a little hard to incorporate arcane spell list without the appropriate skill category.....
I hope you will consider to add that particular skill cost.

Another question... i inserted a custom race for my campaign... that race have Underwater Breathing as default (sea elves). How can i insert that talent as default for the race?

Offline Voriig Kye

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #49 on: August 18, 2015, 06:11:55 AM »
Thank you... it's only a little hard to incorporate arcane spell list without the appropriate skill category.....
Until better support arrives, I'd suggest adding the spell lists to the TP Spells category, then changing the cost manually.

Another question... i inserted a custom race for my campaign... that race have Underwater Breathing as default (sea elves). How can i insert that talent as default for the race?
Racial talents are normally listed in the race description (there's a tag named <ImportantInformation>), and if relevant my players normally add them again to the character notes.
You could also add it to the character manually during character creation in the background step, with a cost of 0.
But I think what you ask for is "automatic talent assigning due to race", that is a feature I have not thought of before, I'll add it to the TO DO list... thanks for the suggestion!

Offline allanon74

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #50 on: August 18, 2015, 07:11:41 AM »
May i advance a "technical" suggestion for the "new" category cost? You wrote that in future all the cost non specifically set to a value in the profession files will be set to "0".

What if the category xml file in each category entry we could add a "default cost" tag with a value to be used in case of an missing category cost in the profession entry, instead of an arbitrary "0" ?

Offline Erik Sharma

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #51 on: August 18, 2015, 04:06:37 PM »
I was left wondering, which professions did you create? Are they from a companion not currently available for ERA, or some profession you made specially for your players?

The profession I wrote in to the program are Priest (Metalwork) and Priest (Lightning) from the Channeling Companion. I will also add the Channeling Alchemist from the Treasure Companion soon. Still adding the new spell lists for the previous professions at the moment. Have even added some of the spell lists from the Construct Companion. Still plenty of work to do but really looking forward to try out ERA for the first time our next session the 29th of August. :-)

Offline Erik Sharma

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #52 on: August 25, 2015, 02:56:18 AM »
I am a bit curious about the Herald function. Is it finished and how does it really work? Seems like have to connect to the local server and be assigned one of the characters for it to function.

Offline Voriig Kye

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #53 on: August 25, 2015, 05:39:28 AM »
It is finished, at least for now. And one of these days, once I find the time, I intend to add a tutorial video for it.

The feature is quite simple really. After adding the characters to the adventure, you can have a tab open in your browser with the Herald Module.
There you get a box for each player, and can write text to them. What you write will appear on their respective Character Status Module, which is supposed to be open in the players' phone/tablet during the adventure. That way you can send messages exclusively to a single character, and they can review it without the others knowing.

There is a lot of room for improvement. I created it some time ago and haven't used it much really. I am open to suggestions on how to improve it.

Offline Erik Sharma

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #54 on: August 25, 2015, 08:02:01 AM »
I tried it out earlier today actually. Created a server on my laptop and used my Tablet to connect to the server. Seemed to work fine. Will give some feedback after we have tried it out. Would have been perfect earlier in our current adventure since I have never seen so many secret notes pass between the GM and the Players as this adventure did. Hence why I was so curious about it since it would help in the future if there are excess notes to be sent to the players in secret. One thing I can think of now that would be welcome is for the players to send secret messages to the GM. Seem to be one way communication now.  ;D

Offline markc

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #55 on: August 25, 2015, 08:49:38 AM »
It also can speed up play if the GM can create some notes in advance.
MDC
Bacon Law: A book so good all PC's need to be recreated.
Rule #0: A GM has the right to change any rule in a book to fit their game.
Role Play not Roll Play.
Use a System to tell the story do not let the system play you.

Offline allanon74

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #56 on: August 27, 2015, 04:23:48 AM »
is the Harald function already available?

Offline Voriig Kye

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #57 on: August 27, 2015, 07:07:14 AM »
is the Harald function already available?
Yes!

At this moment of the module overview tutorial you can see how to access it.

Let me know if you have any questions about it.
If there is enough interest, I will try to do a specific tutorial as soon as I am able.

Offline allanon74

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #58 on: October 01, 2015, 07:57:24 AM »
a quick question... what's the meaning of the parameter "codes" in the tag <herb> in the herbs.xml file?
THe code is 5 characters but in the tables of the core book of RMFRP system the code is like "s-O-2"....

Offline Voriig Kye

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Re: ERA for Rolemaster configuration, customisation and advanced use
« Reply #59 on: October 01, 2015, 10:19:38 PM »
The herb codes are based on the most updated source on herbs: Shadow World Emer III.
There, they describe even previously presented herb with more detail.
So you have: Climate Code + Locale Code + Frequency + Compass Area

In case you don't have Emer III, use area Code "U" (Universal).

Frequency is a value used when considering the number of doses found.
Quote
[(1-100) on open-ended D100) + modifiers + frequency -100] divided by 5 OR the frequency, whichever is LOWER.

I guess you could translate the "Difficulty of finding" presented in RMC and RMFRP into a frequency value using some inverse of the doses formula.

As a side note, thanks to your question, I reviewed the climate and locate codes to confirm that they were the same used in RMC and RMFRP herb charts. They are, BUT the Emer III chart has a bug: they assigned D instead of Z to Desert, which overlaps with Deciduous/mixed forest. It may not affect other ERA users, but for my Shadow World campaign I will have to deduce which herbs are located in deserts by checking against Character Law and fix the herb list I have created.

So thanks for your question, and thanks for helping me find this ambiguity!