Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 1,528
|
Spellbook extended functionality has been suggested from time to time here on the forums. The problem is that the use of spellbooks has diversified as the game has evolved, and not everyone agrees on what is necessary and what is "extra". With the release of the Arcane Anthology, a Player Companion based around specific spellbooks, and inspired by the really nice work done to support Polymorph options, I am posting this to try to suggest some enhanced spellbook functionality, and to define what is "basic", "advanced", and "extra".. for which I invite others to comment.
Unlike ShadowChemosh's gear items that calculates the number of books required to hold the character's current spells, each of these items should represente a separate physical book because the spellbooks can be loot gained from an enemy, or can be lost or stolen. Base Functionality
Advanced Functionality
Bells and Whistles
Last edited by Silveras; February 8th, 2016 at 11:09 AM. Reason: Added new item. |
#1 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2011
Posts: 6,793
|
That's a good summary, Silveras.
|
#2 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 1,528
|
|
#3 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2015
Posts: 435
|
I particularly like the "Tracking Readability" idea. It would have to record the Spellcraft rank at which an attempt was last made to determine whether another can be made. Maybe with a check to say that it has?
|
#4 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 1,528
|
I think it would make sense to treat the binary "success/fail" status of the understanding as an "Advanced" feature, and the last attempted DC as an "Extra".
|
#5 |
Senior Member
Volunteer Data File Contributor
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 267
|
It would also need options to change the values (cost, pages) for spells, as some feats and abilities (such as Cypher Script from Inner Sea World Guide) change them (this would probably be done on a per spell basis, rather than the entire spellbook).
|
#6 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 1,528
|
Quote:
Part of my intent with this thread was not only to gather such things, but to try to work out which ones are most needed. Thanks for contributing! |
|
#7 |
Senior Member
Volunteer Data File Contributor
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 267
|
Probably as "Base Functionality" if only because not allowing for it from the start would likely require rewriting the base code later, not simply adding additional functionality.
|
#8 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 1,528
|
Quote:
Reasoning: Having it in the post at all serves as a "heads-up" to plan for addition later. The functionality itself is limited to characters who take the Feat mentioned (at this time, anyway), so it is not something I would consider "Base" (expected to be usable in all campaigns, including home-brew). |
|
#9 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2011
Posts: 6,793
|
Alright, I'm taking this on as a non-paid side project. Because I have other, paid demands on my time, progress might be slow.
Right now I am thinking the form will be divided into 3 sections. The Header section will have information like current/max number of pages (max pages will default to some number based on the item, but be an incrementer which can increase or decrease that page count), cost of all spells in spellbook, a section for notes/description, and an incrementer for the number of tables in the last section (min 1, max 3). The Mid section will have a static table for any preparation rituals (or any other abilities the spellbook grants), and a user added table for the spells in the book. All spells in the table will have two checkboxes, for "Understood" and "Free Scribe". Probably for conveniece there will be an "Understand All" and "Free Scribe All" button above this table. The Association section will be a number of tables, each with a selector that chooses a spellbook casting class (other than witches I guess) that the spells in that table belong to. Users can click and drag spells from the table in Mid to any of these tables to associate them as spells known with the selected class. If a user tries to move a spell which is not understood from the pool table to an association table, either a notify window will pop up saying "No!" (if I can do that), or I will add a validation error after the fact (if the notify is not possible). If the spell is one of their free scribes, it will add 1 to the "free spells scribed" field of that class (which I will have to add, including logic to calculate how many free scribes are available for that class, default 2/level). I suppose I will have to add the Free Scribe checkbox to existing spellbook mechanisms as well. If a user knows the same spell for two different classes, add two copies to the pool, and move each to a different association pool (this might throw off value/page calculations for the book? Need a "duplicate" checkbox maybe? Ugh, hate multiple checkboxes, I'll think on it). Background Mechanics I'm going to need to create a gizmo and several helper objects for this gizmo, one for the pool table (for the candidate expression), and one for each association table (for the selector of the class to associate with, and also to verify that all spells moved into that table are indeed valid selections for the class in question, and to add the proper Spellbook tag to the spells in the table). |
#10 |
|
|