User Content File Repository
 

Hey everyone. Well I am back from Gen Con with lots of new ideas and games to play. For those who don’t know me I am the Chiefweasel at Cheese Weasel Logistics. I have been using the Hero Lab product for about a year now and find it one of the best on the market. The only problem I have found, other than my own lack of programming skills, is the lack of D&D 3.5 content. I do not blame the Lone Wolf folks for this because the only content they can use is the content from the 3 basic D&D 3.5 books.

In order to fill in the rest of the content the user community needs to supply it. To that end, I am offering to host all user created content on my website, www.cheeseweasel.net. I have already spoken with a few of the more active members on the forums about collecting the content and everyone seems to feel that a central point it needed and would be a help to the community. Over the new week or so, or as soon as I can get to it, I will post all the files that I have created on my site. I also encourage anyone who has created files to send them along and I will post them, give you the credit.

Along with maintaining the file repository, I also would like to be able to coordinate people or groups of people to work on projects. I know that a lot of effort is being duplicated out there. there isn’t any sense to have 5 different people working on the same list of spells from the Players Handbook II. If we can connect people together the content can b

it would be nice if hero labs' automatic updater links to that central point.

Sorry, we wont be able to do that. All the content that will be hosted there is outside of the OGL and thus illegal for Lone Wolf to create and sell.

Hey all, it seems my original message got chopped off, lets try it again:

Hey everyone. Well I am back from Gen Con with lots of new ideas and games to play. For those who don’t know me I am the Chiefweasel at Cheese Weasel Logistics. I have been using the Hero Lab product for about a year now and find it one of the best on the market. The only problem I have found, other than my own lack of programming skills, is the lack of D&D 3.5 content. I do not blame the Lone Wolf folks for this because the only content they can use is the content from the 3 basic D&D 3.5 books.

In order to fill in the rest of the content the user community needs to supply it. To that end, I am offering to host all user created content on my website, www.cheeseweasel.net. I have already spoken with a few of the more active members on the forums about collecting the content and everyone seems to feel that a central point it needed and would be a help to the community. Over the new week or so, or as soon as I can get to it, I will post all the files that I have created on my site. I also encourage anyone who has created files to send them along and I will post them, give you the credit.

Along with maintaining the file repository, I also would like to be able to coordinate people or groups of people to work on projects. I know that a lot of effort is being duplicated out there. there isn’t any sense to have 5 different people working on the same list of spells from the Players Handbook II. If we can connect people together the content can be produced faster and made available sooner to the entire user community.

So if anyone has any user content they would like to send along to me and have me post just send it to chiefweasel@cheeseweasel.net. Be sure to include:

Your alias (I really don’t want to user people’s actual names).
The system the file is for

File Name
Type
Books it’s From
Date file was submitted
Author
If the File Complete/Incomplete
Contact for this project

An example is:
Kensai
Prestige Class
Complete Warrior
07/15/09
Chiefweasel
Complete
chiefweasel@cheeseweasel.net


if you wish to be included on a team of users creating content, please send along your information in the following format:

Book its from
Sub area you are working on (spells, feats…)
How far along you are with it
Your email address
Your alias


I will then take this information and connect you up with someone who will act as a team leader for the project. When the project is complete you can send the user file back to me and I’ll post it on the site. I think that’s about it. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at chiefweasel@cheeseweasel.net. Thanks.

I am sending over some files. I am open to work on whatever.

There might be a half-solution for this that is significantly better than no solution. We call it the "secondary updates" mechanism and it is intended for use by playtest groups using our products during game development. In the case of Hero Lab, it can just as easily be used for accessing the various user-created data files for d20.

For details on how it works, you'll need to refer to the Army Builder documentation, since it's not currently documented publicly for Hero Lab. To access it, install AB, then open the Authoring Kit documentation (it's all HTML files for AB). Go to the bottom of the main page and click on the "Design & Playtest Support" link. Read the sections on Playtest Distribution and Updates Configuration File.

If you set this up on the cheeseweasel site, then any interested user can add the URL you setup as their secondary updates URL. After that, everything is integrated into the HL updates logic and it's all being managed completely separate from anything we're involved with.

Let me know if you have any questions about this stuff. I'll be happy to answer them.

Sounds interesting. Can the documentation be viewed with the demo version of Army Builder? Also if we do go forward with this option, would the information need to be in individual files or would it need to be in game systems, such as all the information for a specific book?

Thanks.

can that be extended to all games systems that aren't related to D20 like legend of the five rings.

I'm looking to post any and all user created content, regardless of the system. So far I have been working with D&D 3.5, but i will take submissions from any game system.

As for looking the information up as Rob mentioned, i'll need to look into that some more before i can comment on it. But it seems like the process should work for any system since they are all written using the same Hero Lab product.

Yes. All the docs are installed with the demo version of AB.

The context would need to be packaged up into Hero Lab "import files". This is done using the HLExport tool that is installed with HL. It takes a collection of data files and packages them up into a compressed file that can be instantly imported into HL via the Tools menu.

You can have as few or as many data files as you want in a given import file. And those data files can have one thing or a thousand things in each file. Your choice.

The only important detail is that the import files should contain content that logically works together. So you could have one import file that contains all the content from Book X, or one that contains all the books from a series (e.g. Complete books). You could also just have a single import file for each game system that includes everything for that game. This is purely to keep things organized for users in some logical way. It's entirely up to you to decide on what logic you wish to use.

Yep. One mechanism works generically for everything.

Well maybe I can create one large file per book. I think that I will still do smaller parts first until a book is completed though.

This is really great! As soon as the editor gets done for Pathfinder I'll start sending you some PFRPG specific stuff.

Cool. I am starting a Pathfinder game in a few weeks and would be curious to see what you have. I hope the Lone Wolf folks can get to the rest of the Pathfinder information as well.

If anyone has any completed information for any of the HL game systems, please feel free to send it along. Thanks.

I've got a Deadlands Reloaded data file I've been working on. It works, but it's buggy and needs some cleanup. I'd be willing to post it for anyone who's interested ...

A note on your site, chiefweasel, it's "Hero Lab" not "Hero Labs".

Ops, sorry about that, i'll make the change.

Hello. I am brand new to HeroLab, but liked it so much that immediately bought almost all the licences based on how well it handles M&M and the SRD.

In looking for user created content (which the Lone Wolf website alludes to, but does not clearly provide a link to), I was happy to see the Cheese Weasel site. Four questions, all of which, I'm sure, display my noobishness:

(1) Are there any other sites with user generated content of which I should be aware?

(2) To what directory do I copy the .user files to use them in connection with a given game system?

(3) Is there anything else I need to do to "activate" these files for use?

(4) I have bought the license for the Authoring Kit, but opening it up it is not immediately obvious to me how to use it. Is there a tutorial or documentation that explains the process of, say, using it to create a magic item?

My ultimate goal is to implement a series of houserules that I use in, and content otherwise vital to, a game I DM, which will require me to do crazy things like rewrite the Paladin class, add new spells, add some Tome of Battle content, add some new Tome of Magic and Incarnum content, add a few prestige classes, etc. While no one has any interest in my customized material, I'm sure, I am happy to share my more generic creations (like anything I pull from Tome of Battle), but I feel a little lost with the interface at the moment.

All the files on the Cheese Weasel site are available for free to anyone who wants them. They are all created by users of the HL community and are presented as is, that is to say that there might be some errors with them. So feel free to download all the files and use them, all you should need to do it add them to the folders for the system they were created for. For example, if you are using D20 you would add the file to the c:\HeroLab\data\d20\.


There is nothing needed to activate the files.

I'm not sure of any other sites that have HL content, if there are, please let me know and i will add a link to it.

The authoring kit to it create new game systems, not to create content for existing game systems. for existing system you would use the editor.

Hope this helps.

Hello! I'm new to HeroLab, having just purchased it. I have to say that i like what I am seeing, but i have a couple questions about importing user content. My players love the spell compendium, and I found a user created data set of all the spells (or at least most) but when I place it in the /data/d20/ folder, it seems to process it, but does not add the spells to the spell list. When i open the file in the editor, if i test each spell individually, if it passes it then adds it to the spell list. Is there a way to test all of them at once? If so, how?

Thanks again?

Did you move the file into the data/d20 folder while HeroLab is active? If you placed the file there before opening HeroLab, you should see all of the new content.

Pressing ctrl-r while in Hero Lab (not while in the editor window) will quick-reload the data files. Selecting "Switch Game System" in the file menu and selecting the game you're already on will also work.

You may also want to look on the configure hero form (the one you see when you start a new hero, or select it from the character menu), click the clipboard icon there, and make sure that any new content you've added didn't come with a required setting. If it did have a setting, select that.

That actually did it! Sweet thanks!

On a side note, i dont know if this is the right place to put it, but i am doing Book of Exalted Deeds right now, and am currently tackling Vow of Poverty, its going well, but im running into a weird error. When i try to do damage reduction and energy resistance, i use the scripts from the page such as:

~Add Energy Resistance 5
#applyresist[xDamRsAcid, 5]
#applyresist[xDamRsFire, 5]
#applyresist[xDamRsCold, 5]
#applyresist[xDamRsElec, 5]


~Add damage reduction of 5/Magic
#applydr[xDamRdMag, 5]

And both of these macros are returning "Non-Existant Pick" Were these macros not updated for a recent change? I cant seem to find the datastructure break down for DR and ER, can someone toss me a link?

Thanks again!

Actually, I figured it out. The problem was that the character didn't have any damage reduction and damage resistance, and HL doesn't create those fields for everyone, until something creates it. I just bootstrapped in its creation, set its values to 0, and bam, worked!

Yeah!

Which one worked?

You also need to bootstrap the damage resistance thing.

I suggest you go to the races tab in the editor, and press "New (Copy)", then open up a race that has some resistances. Aasimar for example. You'll see that the bootstraps button on the top right is highlighted because there are bootstraps. Click on that button, and you'll see where to add the xDamRsAcid thing, so that the macro has something to find.

For future reference, each game system has its own folder on this forum, which is the appropriate place to ask questions about how to create content for that game.

When you say "at least most", can you tell me which spells are missing from the spell compendium files? I wrote those files and if you've noticed something lacking please tell me so I can update.

Sorry to imply that i might have noticed anything is missing, that is definitely not the case. I have not gone through all the book to make sure that everything is there, so I didn't know if any were left out for whatever reason. It certainly had the ones I needed!

Thanks again for all your work, im sure it took a while!

I am trying to setup the above for my players that use HL and this Secondary URL feature seems just like the thing I need. I went over the documentation in AB and think I have it setup correctly, but I keep getting the following error from HL.
Unable to retrieve updates from secondary server. Please verify the URL is correct and try again.

Here is the URL I am trying to use:
http://www.shadowgameworld.net/pathf...ab/updates.xml

Going directly to the URL via a web browser seems to show it working correctly as the XML file is displayed. So I have to assume I did something else wrong in the XML file setup.

Any help would be welcome.

The XML that you have looks correct, but it's being served as an HTML page with a "frame" directing the browser to the actual file, which lives here:

http://www.shadowsoftware.net/shadow...ab/updates.xml

If you use that URL as the secondary updates URL, the updates are found as normal. :)

Ahhh. Thanks that was the problem. It works perfectly now. This will make things so much easier for my players.

The more I find the more I like this tool.... :)

WeasellyChief and ShadowyChemosh: the data file for the Dwarves no longer appears on the Cheese Weasel site.

I found a backup of the .user file, but thought I should let the two of you know.

I dont seem to have that file anywhere. I must have missed it some place along the way.

If you have a copy, send it along and i'll post it up. Thanks.

Assuming as I am included I think that means we are talking about the Dwarves Of Golarion .user file for PFRPG? If so I don't think that one ever got sent to chiefweasel's site as it confirms to the OGL and CUP standards of Paizo so I would have posted it to d20pfsrd instead. Mostly only .user files that don't confirm to OGL and CUP have I sent to chiefweasel's site.

So if it is the Dwarves Of Golarion or other Pathfinder Companion books you are looking for you can download them from d20pfsrd.

I must've misremembered where I'd downloaded it from. Sorry to cause any consternation.

We now return you to your regular programming...

Actually, I'll take any and all content created by users. It doesnt matter the file extension or the materials, so send everything you have along.

Hey chiefweasel, I like the new setup for your sites file repository, but I have a few nitpicks, which I'll point out below.

1 - It is spelled Exalted in Book of Exalted Deeds, not Exhaulted.

2 - For the Complete Warrior feats I should get partial credit, B0drin did start them, but I completed the rest and did a lot of programming for my part.

3 - Complete Scoundrel Skill tricks is listed twice, but the second listing for Mindcloud does not have a link. Also duplicated with no link is Mindcloud's Spell Compendium file. The same no link issue with your MIC Item powers, Halfling Outrider and Kensai files, my dragon magazine compendium feats & Beholder Mage PrC files.

4 - Most importantly for me, I'd like to request a "last updated" date listed. Even when I list a particular set as "Done" I may have to revisit them later. For example, I just started doing monster feats that depend on things like creature type, so I went through and changed all the races I have entered to have a Race.typXXX tag for pre-req purposes.

It would help me to know what version you had so I could send you more recent ones.

I had an idea about that. I propose we create a simple thing in our files name it something like Name = "Version 1.0" UniqueID = "__(book abbreviation)" This would allow us to incorporate version numbers, update notes, release date, author, ect... in a place we could all reference. We could also also benefit from a standardized naming system for our files i.e. something like Spellbook_Compendium.user or SBC.User. What do you guys think?

I think you are talking just about your 3.5 stuff, but I like the idea of the Simple Version thing. Plus I could put in the change notes in their also. I am going to start doing that I think for my pathfinder files.

Thanks

My naming system is thus:

Book Abbrev - Content type (Degree of completion & date last updated/modified)

Example:

CWar - Feats (C 6-15-10)

Here is an idea that sort of expands on Mindcloud's about versions. Though I think it will be more important for the Pathfinder editors than for 3.5. Pathfinder is still growing and changing so I and others have lots of fixes we have to keep putting into the books that are already done. This includes new errata and changes for Pathfinder Society games.

Things are going to get confusing so I plan to not only use the Simple thing version, but also plan to put a version number at the end of the Source Description. This way non-editors will easily and quickly know what version of the book they are currently using in HL and if they should/need to get a new version.

The description for a source can easily be edited using notepad directly in the XML files. So very easy to update.

If anyone has a better way of doing this I am all ears, but I think this will help the community to keep track of all the changes and updates for the Pathfinder data.