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-   -   how to build items with bonuses and/or powers (http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=58450)

jfrazierjr May 18th, 2017 12:50 PM

how to build items with bonuses and/or powers
 
Can someone provide a complete example and explanation of how to build magic items or something like power armor with bonuses? It would be nice to know how to do so in the editor if it can be done completely there, but even in straight XML would be fine. I checked the common code thread as I was hoping this would be something common enough to put there, but did not find anything concrete(and perhaps this could be added to that thread for others to find quickly).

So as two different examples:

  • Fantasy:
    • Belt of Strength
      • Increase Strength Die by 1
      • +2 to Fighting Rolls
  • Super Powers
    • "Steel Man" Armor
      • Increase Strength Die by 2
      • +2 to Fighting Rolls
      • Power: Bolt
      • Hindrance: Slow(reduce Pace by 1)

These are two examples only and not meant for actual use, more to get some examples of how to do stuff out here. Feel free to replace the above examples with others you might have created for your own games which can explain the concepts. I checked through the Common code thread, and did not see

For example, I see all of the existing "magic items" in use currently, have a "gizmo" and I have no idea what that actually means in HeroLab terms and why it's required to make things work.

The ones I looked at have a gizmo of fcMagItemP (what does this term mean?) and they then have their own bootstraps. In the case of the Belt of Strength, it's gizmo has bootstraps of miTpBelt and mipBTrait. What are "mi" an "mip" prefixes meant to represent? Why do these have to be bootstrapped to the gizmo and not the item itself? Are there any cases where it matters and I WOULD boostrap something to the item and NOT the gizmo?


I know I will have a smallish number of existing items I will be converting from another game system to SW's settings(fantasy), so will want to get a good understanding of how this stuff interrelates.

The problem is that I don't have any full reference sources(that I know of, if there ARE some please let me know!) since the fantasy companion is a paid source and thus the source files are not available.

Thanks!

zarlor May 18th, 2017 01:27 PM

Generally for magic items it's just best to have the Fantasy Companion add-on, since it gives a way to make magic items right in the character editor, it also adds tabs for Magic Items and such.

The "mi" prefix you are seeing is from the Fantasy Companion and the new tabs it adds specifically for magic items, and it's pretty much the main reason I don't really have any common code to cover that stuff since it's built-in for the cost of an, IMHO pretty worthwhile, add-on. So while it could probably be done to make magic items without the FC, I guess I'd prefer to encourage folks to spend the money to try and keep the Savage Worlds side of the house at least maybe a little profitable for Lone Wolf.

jfrazierjr May 18th, 2017 02:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zarlor (Post 250174)
Generally for magic items it's just best to have the Fantasy Companion add-on, since it gives a way to make magic items right in the character editor, it also adds tabs for Magic Items and such.

The "mi" prefix you are seeing is from the Fantasy Companion and the new tabs it adds specifically for magic items, and it's pretty much the main reason I don't really have any common code to cover that stuff since it's built-in for the cost of an, IMHO pretty worthwhile, add-on. So while it could probably be done to make magic items without the FC, I guess I'd prefer to encourage folks to spend the money to try and keep the Savage Worlds side of the house at least maybe a little profitable for Lone Wolf.


Yea, I have the Fantasy Companion(I have every module for purchase EXCEPT for the sci-fi one), it's more a matter that without the source xml, it's hard to visualize how things "hook together"(well. it's probably hard ANYWAY...lol). As I mentioned, it appears that all magic items have a gizmo and I am trying to conceptualize what that concept means and why it's important. I have the extra tabs in the editor, but I don't know what each i for in conceptual terms.

I would like to compare this to Racial Abilities vs Racial Properties. I started with the former, and based upon feedback about how they are used, I have switched to utilize the latter. I want to understand how and why so as to avoid making mistakes that will cost me time later on down the road.


For that matter, does the sci-fi module for HL add more tabs in order to deal with stuff like power armor(ie, a la iron man?) I would have no issue with any sample code being prefixed with requirements such as "The below code requires the Fantasy Companion".

I guess I would be very surprised if no one had created their own magic items unless most of the users just don't use the Fantasy rules.

zarlor May 18th, 2017 03:33 PM

I guess I'd point you to the Wiki for Gizmos, then. See http://hlkitwiki.wolflair.com/index....ies_and_Gizmos for the base definition and it's covered a bit in Bootstrapping at http://hlkitwiki.wolflair.com/index....tle=Bootstraps.

For the real use-case I found it under Vehicles where trying to bootstrap things like weapons and such wouldn't work, you have to put them in as a Gizmo. So this is where I found the most useable example of that: http://hlkitwiki.wolflair.com/index....hicles_(Savage)

To be honest I've always had more of a tendency to want to just get the coding part over with so I've always been a bit less concerned about the reasons why something is done some way (or even, at times, what it means) and more about just that it works. So you might need someone like CC or Mathias to get into the nitty-gritty of that side of it.

As for Sci-Fi, it adds quite a bit of stuff, including tabs for power armor, cyberware, robots, lots of extra bits.

Finally, on magic items while I've certainly done some, probably there are a few in the Deadlands Noir setting for example, for the most part I don't think I ever really did anything more than use them like they were Edges. So any bonuses would just be coded on a piece of equipment the same way I would do it for an Edge and I didn't use any Gizmos with them. (As a side note I'd probably say DLNoir is probably the most complete of all the data files I've made and can be useful for examples. The other one that's my go-to especially for vehicles, which use Gizmos and such, is Weird War II. I would probably also recommend the High Space files, as well, just because jbear did some really cool finagling of things to make a data file that changes things up to be able to make ships as the character in his ship building data file, which I thought was pretty cool.)

That's probably especially true when making a settings file for general use because you can't really assume that someone has the Companion add-ons so working within the basic framework is usually best to make it accessible to the most people. Not all modules are like that, I think High Space requires the Sci-Fi Companion, for example, and I know Necessary Evil requires the Super Powers Companion. I think Interface Zero will also be one that requires SFC while I think Rifts will need SPC. But where possible I, personally, try to make settings without assuming the need for a Companion.

jfrazierjr May 18th, 2017 03:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zarlor (Post 250178)
I guess I'd point you to the Wiki for Gizmos, then. See http://hlkitwiki.wolflair.com/index....ies_and_Gizmos for the base definition and it's covered a bit in Bootstrapping at http://hlkitwiki.wolflair.com/index....tle=Bootstraps.

For the real use-case I found it under Vehicles where trying to bootstrap things like weapons and such wouldn't work, you have to put them in as a Gizmo. So this is where I found the most useable example of that: http://hlkitwiki.wolflair.com/index....hicles_(Savage)

To be honest I've always had more of a tendency to want to just get the coding part over with so I've always been a bit less concerned about the reasons why something is done some way (or even, at times, what it means) and more about just that it works. So you might need someone like CC or Mathias to get into the nitty-gritty of that side of it.

As for Sci-Fi, it adds quite a bit of stuff, including tabs for power armor, cyberware, robots, lots of extra bits.

Finally, on magic items while I've certainly done some, probably there are a few in the Deadlands Noir setting for example, for the most part I don't think I ever really did anything more than use them like they were Edges. So any bonuses would just be coded on a piece of equipment the same way I would do it for an Edge and I didn't use any Gizmos with them. (As a side note I'd probably say DLNoir is probably the most complete of all the data files I've made and can be useful for examples. The other one that's my go-to especially for vehicles, which use Gizmos and such, is Weird War II.)

That's probably especially true when making a settings file for general use because you can't really assume that someone has the Companion add-ons so working within the basic framework is usually best to make it accessible to the most people. Not all modules are like that, I think High Space requires the Sci-Fi Companion, for example, and I know Necessary Evil requires the Super Powers Companion. I think Interface Zero will also be one that requires SFC while I think Rifts will need SPC. But where possible I, personally, try to make settings without assuming the need for a Companion.

Thanks a TON zarlor, the direct links will help a ton. I am slowly going through the wiki AND building from the authoring kit baseline, but have not worked up to those sections yet.

While my immediate focus is on fantasy since that's the campaign I am converting from, I guess it would make some sense to go ahead and pick up the sci-fi module for hero-lab as well as the source pdf from Pinnacle. While I have no immediate plans to deal with either in a game, I guess it might make sense if I decided to do something a bit more futuristic in the erm... future.

As for settings, I am trying to learn for my own personal use and possibly to share with any of my players who might pick up HL and don't plan to add settings directly. To be honest, I don't have much interest in most settings SW has and converted mainly to get a simpler game system for fantasy and PERHAPS do some supers or PERHAPS Deadlands one-shots. The only other possible similar genre I would even consider running in Savage Worlds would be something like ShadowRun because I love that universe, but don't really like the mechanics that much. I won't say never, but I just don't really have much interest in other genres.

For example, I see MI Skills and MII Skills, but if I copy them, there are no bootstraps, no fields, nothing on them, so what are they for.. what do they do? Are they used in a way similar to how I "think" the concept of tags works?

I guess I am trying to wrap my head around why a gizmo(vs the approach you did for DLN) is needed, so off to the wiki to see if it can explain it.

CapedCrusader May 18th, 2017 08:50 PM

The MI Skills and MII Skills are wrappers for the actual Skill objects.

A gizmo is a place to hang things off of. It's an object-oriented thing.

Here's an example:
Code:

  <thing
    id="miDuelistB"
    name="Duelist’s Blade"
    compset="miMelee"
    description="This ornately worked rapier is very popular with duelists. It grants +2 to Fighting, +1 damage, and increases the wielder’s Parry by +2."
    summary="">
    <fieldval field="miAttack" value="2"/>
    <fieldval field="miDamage" value="1"/>
    <fieldval field="wpParry" value="1"/>
    <fieldval field="grCost" value="13150"/>
    <fieldval field="gearWeight" value="3"/>
    <usesource source="Fantasy"/>
    <tag group="WeaponDie" tag="2"/>
    <containerreq phase="Initialize" priority="2000"><![CDATA[
      source.Fantasy]]></containerreq>
    <child entity="fcMagItemP">
      <bootstrap thing="wpRapier"></bootstrap>
      <bootstrap thing="mieBlock2"></bootstrap>
      </child>
    </thing>

In this case, the gizmo is called fcMagItemP. The mieBlock2 is the wrapper for the Improved Block Edge. Magic Items got a little weird. It was my first serious project, and we had to do some interesting things to get it to work.

Paragon May 19th, 2017 05:48 AM

Huh. So rather than having the properties be hung on the magic rapier "thing", its an independent "thing" that creates a rapier and any other properties. I've got to admit that's not at all what I'd have expected...

jfrazierjr May 19th, 2017 08:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CapedCrusader (Post 250201)
The MI Skills and MII Skills are wrappers for the actual Skill objects.

A gizmo is a place to hang things off of. It's an object-oriented thing.

Here's an example:
Code:

  <thing
    id="miDuelistB"
    name="Duelist’s Blade"
    compset="miMelee"
    description="This ornately worked rapier is very popular with duelists. It grants +2 to Fighting, +1 damage, and increases the wielder’s Parry by +2."
    summary="">
    <fieldval field="miAttack" value="2"/>
    <fieldval field="miDamage" value="1"/>
    <fieldval field="wpParry" value="1"/>
    <fieldval field="grCost" value="13150"/>
    <fieldval field="gearWeight" value="3"/>
    <usesource source="Fantasy"/>
    <tag group="WeaponDie" tag="2"/>
    <containerreq phase="Initialize" priority="2000"><![CDATA[
      source.Fantasy]]></containerreq>
    <child entity="fcMagItemP">
      <bootstrap thing="wpRapier"></bootstrap>
      <bootstrap thing="mieBlock2"></bootstrap>
      </child>
    </thing>

In this case, the gizmo is called fcMagItemP. The mieBlock2 is the wrapper for the Improved Block Edge. Magic Items got a little weird. It was my first serious project, and we had to do some interesting things to get it to work.

Thanks for the example, this will help some and I will add this(changing the name a bit and the id) to try this out.

You mentioned OO for gizmo. From what I have seen, many if not all of the magic items have fcMagItemP as it's gizmo. To me, that implies that fcMagItemP acts like a superclass or interface in java/C#(those are two languages I know semi decently)? Are then others and if so, when would one use one entity vs another?

The explanation of mieBlock2 is great and that part makes sense now. I see that that thing then just bootstraps the edge from the original core file.

Now on to miAttack and miDamage: I did some searching, and these are defined in miscellaneous.str along with a fairly decent number of other "mi*" things. These are what modifies bonuses to various traits and derived stats right? I ask because right above miDamage in that file, I see miParry, but in the above example, you use wpParry instead, so I am trying to figure out the discrepancy as to why?

wpRapier seems to be added to enforce an "IS A" relationship to the Rapier object. Ie, thing miDuelistB "IS A" Rapier. I assume this is correct?

Oh, and what is the
Code:

<tag group="WeaponDie" tag="2"/>
thing for? I assume this says that the weapon does d6 die type in damage, but is this needed since it appears to "inerhit" wpRaiper. I assume it's required you would not put it there(or is that some type of override from the wpRapier object?)


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