user created L5R

[Mathias]

Originally Posted by SAbel

Okay so I have added this code to the tag.1st file.
I am not sure on some things about it I understand that the id="Start" ref back to the tag I added to my School but the value id="Samurai" I am not sure about, do I have to add a Samurai tag in with school then add that tag to each school that is a samurai? which would make sense b/c then I should add the tags courtier and shugenja as well.
OR did I miss the boat and is Samurai suppose to lead to a different referance?

By the way thank you for the help, sometimes I get so caught up in attempting to learn via these post that I forget to let you all know how much you have helped me w/ out all of you I would have given up a long time ago!

The Samurai tag was a suggestion on how to solve this problem:

Originally Posted by SAbel

I now believe that I will have to tag all items from each school ect AKA the above item would be starting weapon for nearly every samurai class so a tag for each one needs to be added.

By defining a School.Samurai tag, you only need to add <tag group="School" tag="Samurai"/> to the Katana (and add the same line to each Samurai-type school), instead of adding a tag to the katana for EVERY school that offers a katana as starting equipment.

[Mathias]

Rob or Colen, you may have better suggestions for this problem than I do.

Originally Posted by SAbel

Okay so I found that in bootstrap.1st I can add items to the character
<!-- Add kimono pick -->
<bootstrap index="25" thing="eqKimono"/>

<!-- Add sandal pick -->
<bootstrap index="27" thing="eqSandals"/>
Which saves time

Try selling those items - if you bootstrap something, it can never be removed. That's why the only equipment that's normally bootstrapped to a character is the punch attack. If starting equipment in L5R means "If you pick this school, you get this gear for free", I think you're better off highlighting the starting equipment in the inventory. That way the user knows to purchase that with "Buy for Free" checked.

[SAbel]

Hum Lost my post back ? I wonder what I did with it?
I removed teh Kimono and Sandals from the bootstrap.1st file b/c you are very correct Mathias they could not be removed.

I still have not gotten the auto add equipment to work yet.

I have in my traits.str
<component
id="School"
name="School"
autocompset="yes">

<!-- Each School needs its own identity tag to configure the hero appropriately -->
<identity group="School"/>
<identity group="Start"/>
<identity group="Samurai"/>
<identity group="Shugenja"/>

<!-- Track the School on the actor by assigning the appropriate tag -->
<eval index="1" phase="Setup" priority="5020"><![CDATA[
perform forward[School.?]
]]></eval>

<eval index="2" phase="Setup" priority="5025"><![CDATA[
perform forward[Start.?]
]]></eval>

</component>
*** Only using the Start and the School tags as of right now until I get them working correctly (well school is working the start is just there I gues)

I have in my thing_school.dat file
<thing
id="scHida"
name="Hida Bushi School"
compset="School"
isunique="yes"
description="The Hida War College or Hida Bushi school is well known for having the most relentlessly brutal training grounds in Rokugan. They have a grueling regime of kenjutsu drills, mock combat, and military philosophy, designed to sharpen the mind and toughen the body. They also train in full armor, which, in Rokugan, is a practice unique to the Hida school. The students need to be strong and are trained to have the stamina to fight for hours without tiring and hold formation against any aggression. (Trait Bonus +1 stamina)">

<tag group="Clan" tag="clCrab"/>
<tag group="Clan" tag="Start"/>
<eval value="1" phase="PreTraits" priority="5020">
<before name="Calc trtFinal"/><![CDATA[
~apply whatever adjustment(s) are needed here
~hero.child[resAbility].field[resMax].value += 1
#traitbonus[attrStam] += 1
]]></eval>


</thing>
I have started adding in my thing_skills.dat the following to skills
<tag group="Start" tag="scHida"/> which the sc is for the specific school example

<thing
id="skDef"
name="Defense "
compset="Skill"
isunique="yes"
description="Ability to move out of harms way">
<fieldval field="trtAbbrev" value="Agi"/>
<tag group="DashTacCon" tag="NonCombat"/>
<tag group="Skill" tag="Bugei"/>
<tag group="Start" tag="scHida"/>
<tag group="Start" tag="scKuni"/>
<tag group="Start" tag="scHiruma"/>
<tag group="Start" tag="scMirumoto"/>
<link linkage="attribute" thing="attrAgi"/>
</thing>

In thing_gear.dat file example

<thing
id="eqKimono"
name="Kimono"
compset="Equipment"
description="Kimono form the most basic outfit of the samurai caste, but even members of the lower classes possess a kimono or two for special occasions. Includes an obi - a cermonial belt used to tie the kimono.">
<fieldval field="grCost" value=".2"/>
<fieldval field="gearWeight" value="1"/>
<tag group="Start" tag="scHida"/>
<tag group="Start" tag="scKuni"/>
<tag group="Start" tag="scYasuki"/>
<tag group="Start" tag="scHiruma"/>
<tag group="Start" tag="scKakita"/>
</thing>

in the thing_armory.dat file example

<thing
id="armHeavy"
name="Heavy Armor"
compset="Armor"
description="Heavy Armor consists of large, heavy torso pieces, an elaborate helmet, and intergrates armored sleeves and leggings. Although the wearer's mobility is impaired, many bushi find that a worthwhile tradeoff. Suffer a +5 TN penalty to all skill rolls involving Agility and Reflexes">
<fieldval field="defDefense" value="10"/>
<fieldval field="defStrReq" value="1"/>
<fieldval field="grCost" value="50"/>
<fieldval field="gearWeight" value="85"/>
<tag group="Start" tag="scHida"/>
</thing>

and in the tags.1st file

<group
id="Start"
dynamic="yes">
<value id="Start"/>
</group>

That is all I have done so far to make the equipment and skills that a character recieves for free by picking the starting school. I have to finish advantages/disadvantages list, then after I get those in I will start working out the specifics of what each one cost and then I will work on the discounts that are granted if a character belongs to a certain group (based mainly on which family the character is from).

wow this is a long post sorry for that I hope it helps clear up what I have been doing.

[Mathias]

Actually, I don't need to see your work, in general. I need you to be able to explain what it is you want to accomplish, and what you've done towards that goal.

What does it mean if a skill is a school's starting skill? How does this behavior differ from the normal behavior for a skill?

What does it mean if a piece of equipment is starting equipment for a school?

[SAbel]

Oh yea I can answer those:
Character creation starts with (this may be to much info but here I go
picking the clan one is born into ex. Crab Clan, the clan allows a set of families that server the clan ie Crab has 6 families to pick from Hida, Kaiu, Kuni ect. The family that is chosen gives the player a bonus to a attribute ie Hida gives a +1 to Strenght. The next step is to pick the school that your character was sent to train at until they started adventuring/serving the clan. The school is picked from the Clan schools (ussally) example is the Hida Bushi School or the Kuni Shugenja School. Schools also give a bonus to an attribute ex Hida Bushi schools gives a +1 to Stamina, they also give the character starting equipment, skills and a few Koku (gold) to begin their life with. All Schools allow the character to pick 10 personal items in a travel pack (another topic for much later in set creation).
The starting equipment is free to the character if they wish more they must pay for it. and most are set items by the school a few are player choice. In the same idea each school trains a specific set of skills which are free to the character. Any skills above the starting value cost character points to learn or progress (skills are on a level base from 1-10) so a starting skill does not effect the character CP amount unless the move it above the "free" value
this is the starting package from the Yasuki Courtier School (another in the crab clan)
skills = "Commerce (Merchant)", "Courtier", "Deceit (Lying)", "Etiquette(Bureaucracy)", "Stealth",
"1|Any (Low)",
"1|Any (Bugei)"]
***anything in () are emphasis which I have not made it into to program yet, the 1/any is what type the skill needs to be picked from (still for free) I do have tags for the types but I am still loading those to skills.
outfit = [ "Wakizashi", "Courtly Dress", "Finger of Jade", "Kimono", "Sandals", "Traveling Pack", "10|Koku" ]

I hope this helps. It is a complex system but great RPG.

[Mathias]

So, a skill that's not on your list begins at 0, but can be bought higher during character creation. A skill that is on your school's list begins at 1, and can be bought higher during character creation.

Are all skills present on a character? Are most skills present on a character (example: d20, where the specific crafts/professions/performances are waiting to be picked), or are no skills added to a character by default?

If no skills are added to a character by default, then what you'll do is have each school bootstrap all the skills it grants. Each bootstrap will assign a tag (for example: Helper.StartSkill) that tells the program to start this skill at 1 instead of 0.

If all skills are added to a character by default, then each skill will have many Start.? tags. They'll use the intersect test I mentioned earlier to determine if they are a starting skill or not. If they are, they'll grant themselves the same Helper.StartSkill tag I mentioned before.

If it's a mix of pre-selected and optional skills, you'll probably use a mix of those methods. The fixed skills will have Start.? tags, and make their own tests, and the optional skills can be bootstrapped by the school.

As I mentioned in post 32, you're best off highlighting the starting equipment, since there's no way to add it to a character and still let it be delete-able down the road.

For that, you'll put the intersect test into the position script in the equipment's display template.

Skills are a more fundamental thing for a character than equipment, so let's skip equipment for a while. Starting with what I've told you about how to identify the starting skills, talk through what code you'll need to write for that (We'll get to the "Select one (Low)" skill stuff later) (although for later, please look through all your schools, and make a list of how many different selections each school will need - your example offers 1 Low skill + 1 Bugei skill, so it'll need 2 different selectors).

[RedBeardSean]

Has there been any progress? It's been some time since any updates were posted.

[SAbel]

Sorry RedBeardSean,
Real life has been keeping me out of most of my personal life. I have not really done much with it since I picked up the 4E L5R book. I started working over files that I have in place and making them work for the latest addition but I am not moving further at this point. I am not a program by an means so this take me 10x longer to fingure out (break) and then maybe fix or beg for help which the wonderful guys at Lone wolf bend over backwards to help me learn what I do wrong. Next time I get a few days to look over the material I will start pluggin in again.

[SAbel]

for the derived trait health in L5R there is a bit of work that I am not sure how to handle. The issues is that health in L5R is a stage progression, you have wound levels and then you have penalties as damage increases. (page 82-84 L5R 4thEd book)
The defualt for this system isthe Earth Ring *5 for healthy and then the Earth Ring * 2 per level. so that each level progress as damage is sustained by the character until they are down or out for that combat.
Example a character with an earth ring of two would be healthy until they take over 10 points then they progess down the track every 4 points
Healthy (10) 1 -10
Nicked (4) 11-14
Grazed (4) 15-18
Hurt (4) 19-22
Injured (4) 23-26
Crippled (4) 27-30
Down (4) 31-34
Out (4) 35-38
pass 38 the character is DOA

[Mathias]

It doesn't sound as though L5R has any trait called health - unless you use that to represent the maximum wounds you could ever take (38 in this case - Earth Ring * 19) - I'd suggest either removing the Health trait and altering the way the life points mechanic from the skeleton files works, or using Health to represent the highest you can go, and then modifying the life points to figure out which category the hero's in.