The Adventurers' Guild

I updated the link in my signature with a Data folder. There's a new status.xml you can use for the default game. It's got a new page called "Skills:" and will show skills based on whether or not the character possesses it. Thanks to Dulsi for the "can" command.

I'm going to see if I can't make a default Status screen that will skip irrelevant pages, using the can command, for classes, like Warriors.

Methuselas wrote:Here's a new status.xml. It's one I use for my personal projects. It moves Spell Levels to it's own page and adds another page for Skills. The only thing is, the numbering for items is turned off (I allow 16 items), 'cos it caused issues and skills apparently can go over 100%. Dulsi, was this intentional? As it stands, there's no chance of failure over 99%.

If you have over 9 items, you need to turn off numbering as it will not work.

Skills going over 100% is intentional. Even with over 100%, you fail if you roll the lowest value on the die. The reason for the over 100% is because skills have "defaultDifficulty" not "difficulty". The plan is for you to have things that require a different difficulty. Maybe the traps on a chest in a high level dungeon have a difficulty of 121. Also the skill rating is a percent because that is what BT uses. You could easily switch it to use 1d20 or 1d36 or 1d1000.

dulsi wrote: Skills going over 100% is intentional. Even with over 100%, you fail if you roll the lowest value on the die. The reason for the over 100% is because skills have "defaultDifficulty" not "difficulty". The plan is for you to have things that require a different difficulty. Maybe the traps on a chest in a high level dungeon have a difficulty of 121. Also the skill rating is a percent because that is what BT uses. You could easily switch it to use 1d20 or 1d36 or 1d1000.

Yeah, I just figured this out, in the past couple of days. ;D I created a Module that is D20 based, just to mess around with the xml files and it's fairly spot on. Any chance we could get a skill check conditional and action for specials, where we could modify difficulty? I realized how much I could do that I haven't been able to do, simply by forcing skill checks all the time. Also, mundane skills, but ones that would be a nice addition for gameplay could be added, easily with just having a skill check conditional. Bards could have Perform, Rangers have Scouting, etc. I actually created a Tavern a Bard character could go into and perform. It would run a percent check that would either give the party gold, based on the roll or have the tavern get upset, possibly being attacked by patrons. Having skill check conditionals and actions would make that a lot easier and allow more.

I was also wondering if we could get a Base Hit and Base Save Value for Monsters.

There's a new Status.xml in my shared folder. It now only displays skills that the Character has, so Warriors will have blank Spell and Skills pages. The Inventory page now replaces the Character's name with "Inventory:" for aesthetics. There's no way to go through the pages and skipping them, based on jobs, so this was what I could do.

Also, the BTBuilder Manual is out in the root shared folder. It's just text for now, so don't expect anything fancy, and a good chunk of it is ripped directly from the BTCS manual, but it's updated for BTBuilder.


Oh, one more thing about the manual. It doesn't have anything on editing xmls, right now, but that's 'cos there's not much we can hand edit.

Hey Meth nice work on the new status and manual! Any chance for some alpha/beta testing on that new map of yours?

sombunall wrote:Hey Meth nice work on the new status and manual! Any chance for some alpha/beta testing on that new map of yours?

Unfortunately, no. There's a lot I need to get it up and running. First of all, being the Review Board increasing Skill Levels, based on Skills, not Jobs. As it stands, only Acolytes/Priests can currently cast all the Realms they have available, 'cos they have rank of at least 1 in each, whereas Adepts/Mages/Archmages have to purchase Spell Realms, 'cos they only get 3 (Divination, and 2 more, based off their race.) BTBuilder doesn't recognize Skills that have a rank of 0. It crashes the Engine. So, I need that, as well. I need a way to do skill checks through specials and I need the ability to make more skills. I need items that will grant skills (permanently) and I need a special that either a) allows the special to change classes and skills, or b) a special that will load a building.xml that I can hand edit, to do a). That's just a few of the things I need to make it presentable.

Oh, Dulsi, is there ANY, possible way we can have the item types saved out in a file called "itemtypes.xml" or something, so we can just make the additional types we need? I really want to get away from the "hand weapon only" problem. It just seems to me that if the default items followed the same numbering scheme, we could strip them from being hard coded and have them read from an external file, that would allow us to create the items we need.

Methuselas wrote: As it stands, only Acolytes/Priests can currently cast all the Realms they have available, 'cos they have rank of at least 1 in each, whereas Adepts/Mages/Archmages have to purchase Spell Realms, 'cos they only get 3 (Divination, and 2 more, based off their race.)

Wouldn't that make btbuilder a racist engine? I think it should be more like what clan they grew up in.

I tried to play the sounds in BTCS. Dosbox is not providing any sound for BTCS. Luckily I found a document that list the sounds.

0 = Character hurt
1 = Character dead 1
2 = Character dead 2
3 = Monster hurt
4 = Monster hurt 1
5 = Monster hurt 2
6 = Weapon miss
7 = Member healed 1
8 = Member healed 2
9 = Spell success
10= Spell failure
11= Raise from dead

We can either use those for the first 11 spells or translate the BTCS to new btbuilder mappings. Looking at your list:

Character hurt = 0
Weapon miss = 41? (48?)
Member healed 1 = 15
Raise from dead = 16

Looks like you don't have a 41 yet. (I would assume you would prefer a mapping because you dislike having to conform to BTCS's order.)

I know this is dumb but with "ripped directly from the BTCS manual" I can't include it. By directly copying it would be a copyright violation to distribute. Much of the text is factual and may be fine but I can't include it as is.

I did think it was odd reading:

If a spell is cast at a magic resistant monster, it gets to use its magic resistance when the spell is cast and each subsequent round (if any) that the spell operates. A group of monsters gets one roll for the entire group. If all monster groups are affected, the group with the highest magic resistance rolls. In any case, a resisted spell shatters and ends immediately.

That's not how it works in btbuilder. If you cast a spell on a group, each member gets a chance to resist. If you cast a spell on all monsters, each member gets a chance to resist. One monster resisting doesn't break the spell. It does count as having saved so he takes half damage and no effects.

sombunall wrote:

Methuselas wrote: As it stands, only Acolytes/Priests can currently cast all the Realms they have available, 'cos they have rank of at least 1 in each, whereas Adepts/Mages/Archmages have to purchase Spell Realms, 'cos they only get 3 (Divination, and 2 more, based off their race.)

Wouldn't that make btbuilder a racist engine? I think it should be more like what clan they grew up in.

It's keep it respectable, okay? I'm of mixed ethnicity, as is my son.


Humans and Wolfen have Divination, Evocation and Abjuration. Wood Elves and Dark Elves have Divination, Conjuration and Enchantment, or Divination, Conjuration and Necromancy, respectively.

dulsi wrote:I tried to play the sounds in BTCS. Dosbox is not providing any sound for BTCS. Luckily I found a document that list the sounds.

0 = Character hurt
1 = Character dead 1
2 = Character dead 2
3 = Monster hurt
4 = Monster hurt 1
5 = Monster hurt 2
6 = Weapon miss
7 = Member healed 1
8 = Member healed 2
9 = Spell success
10= Spell failure
11= Raise from dead

We can either use those for the first 11 spells or translate the BTCS to new btbuilder mappings. Looking at your list:

Character hurt = 0
Weapon miss = 41? (48?)
Member healed 1 = 15
Raise from dead = 16

Looks like you don't have a 41 yet. (I would assume you would prefer a mapping because you dislike having to conform to BTCS's order.)

I didn't even realize I hadn't updated the sounds folder.

BTBuilder is your baby, Dulsi. If you want to follow the BTCS ordering, it will only take a few seconds to rename them. Some will be missing, though, but I can fill the empty holes later. Just tell me what you want and I'll update the sounds folder on my shared DIR accordingly.

I think you misunderstand my dislike of the BTCS picture slots. I just want BTBuilder to support using "slotXX_# and slotXX_$$." If Orcs are Slot0, I want *ALL* my Orc pictures to fall under that slot number. So, it's Slot0_1, Slot0_2, etc. For male and female pictures, it's Slot0_f or Slot_m.

I've worked in the game industry and being from the art department side of it, I like to have things as organized as possible, for future revisions, is all.

dulsi wrote:I know this is dumb but with "ripped directly from the BTCS manual" I can't include it. By directly copying it would be a copyright violation to distribute. Much of the text is factual and may be fine but I can't include it as is.

It's perfectly fine, as I had never intended it.

To my knowledge, there are only 3 or 4 of us using BTBuilder. When you add new features, I add it to my Manual, so it's accessible. I really don't have time to write a manual and even if I did, it would pretty much read word-for-word, from the original manual, 'cos it's pretty much the same and for the most part, unless already changed, I haven't found a better way to re-write it.

Hence, it's on *MY* shared drive. If I wanted you to include it, I would have emailed it to you. Trust me, I know where you're coming from. Now, if you want me to remove your intro and email, I will.

I did think it was odd reading:

If a spell is cast at a magic resistant monster, it gets to use its magic resistance when the spell is cast and each subsequent round (if any) that the spell operates. A group of monsters gets one roll for the entire group. If all monster groups are affected, the group with the highest magic resistance rolls. In any case, a resisted spell shatters and ends immediately.

That's not how it works in btbuilder. If you cast a spell on a group, each member gets a chance to resist. If you cast a spell on all monsters, each member gets a chance to resist. One monster resisting doesn't break the spell. It does count as having saved so he takes half damage and no effects.

And that was taken directly from the original manual. Thank you for clarifying how it works in BTBuilder (and that's exactly how I want it to work). I'll update it. If you notice, I've already updated the Base AC and Experience definitions, so not to cause confusion with negative AC.

I don't really understand what your mixed ethnicity has to do with this but I apologize. I think I might have used the wrong emoticon.

Methuselas wrote:

sombunall wrote:

Methuselas wrote: As it stands, only Acolytes/Priests can currently cast all the Realms they have available, 'cos they have rank of at least 1 in each, whereas Adepts/Mages/Archmages have to purchase Spell Realms, 'cos they only get 3 (Divination, and 2 more, based off their race.)

Wouldn't that make btbuilder a racist engine? I think it should be more like what clan they grew up in.

It's keep it respectable, okay? I'm of mixed ethnicity, as is my son.


Humans and Wolfen have Divination, Evocation and Abjuration. Wood Elves and Dark Elves have Divination, Conjuration and Enchantment, or Divination, Conjuration and Necromancy, respectively.

sombunall wrote:I don't really understand what your mixed ethnicity has to do with this but I apologize. I think I might have used the wrong emoticon.

No apologies are needed, my friend. I am just trying to keep things unoffensive.

Give you an example of my poor choices, when I first got on the dev team, I would post screenshots of my testing tilesets with my lone character, Testecles. (Based of a 2nd PnP Gladiator character I had in an old D&D campaign, Testecles the Roman God of Sweat.) Dulsi made note that the name could be found offensive by others. So, from that point on, I used my current Test party.

We all make mistakes. I wasn't pointing a finger or crying foul, but someone may have found it offensive, which was why I said what I did.

So, no worries, I hope.

Disregard