For one, I don't have a paypal account at all. I don't even buy stuff from ebay to be honest.

For a second thing, I'd not accept money for it personally as I don't want WotC/Hasbro coming after me since I'm not holding an official license for the data either.

Third, I'm still cranking on it as I get time to do so. I just don't have the hours of free time to sit down with the data and work on it at this time. It's still got a pretty decent list of things yet to be done. I've done all the simple things but I still have a few complicated tasks I need to get done before I could say its usable. Right now I would not call what I have done usable (which I already saw enough arguing over on the 5e SRD threads). I will not make available unfinished code. That's just not how I roll folks. I want this to at least be usable before making a release of it officially. Character sheets are still not finished to my liking. I am working on it but its not a simple process to get through. There are still many hours of tinkering to be done (and that's not even including statblock output). It's pretty far along but not something I'm comfortable with releasing. I will make it known when its done though. That is one thing people don't need to worry about it. Once I have it done I will make it known that it is, in fact, finished.

For one thing, I've been rethinking magic weapons and armor after some talks with Mathias. I may just have one table in the end with magic gear listed under its own heading but all weapons and armor having the ability to edit and add enchantments. It's something I am considering at this time because it would simplify the interface a lot just having one table, but this little change will take me a bit of time to do. I still have a few things to work on, but this is something that's likely to happen first as it will be easier to do. I've been leaving the harder things off until my skills improved a bit.

Newb here, have not read the entire thread (at work). Is it possible to take this rule set and reverse engineer to a 1st Edition AD&D framework?

While it may be possible, I am not 100% certain on that. I do not deal with 1st edition AD&D personally and I have no incentive to really get into the work required for that system, personally. I don't think it would work the same way because in 2e the rogue/bard got to spend their percentage points on thief skills whereas in 1e you had a fixed progression for each rogue skill if memory serves correctly. That would involve altering the rogue skills and take a bit more work than I'm willing to do. Honestly it might be pretty easy to code 1e from scratch rather than trying to reverse engineer what I have done with 2e. 2e was a lot more complicated overall. Also I'm not looking at making the data available anytime soon, as I've said before I will not release it in an unfinished state and the to-do list still has a lot of things on it that I haven't gotten done yet. I won't release incomplete work, so you might be better off trying to code up 1e from scratch.

Okay. I get that. How would you rate the tools to create rule sets? I am not a programmer, so if it takes actual programming skill I'll probably not be able to do it. Also what do I need to do this? The HL licensing structure with rule sets and authoring tool, etc. Is confusing to me, which has stopped me from purchasing anything more than I currently have.

You would need the authoring kit which is included with the purchase of Savage Worlds.

You would need some basic programming skills. You don't need to be a professional programmer.

You would need an advanced text editor. I use UltraEdit, mainly because I opted for unlimited upgrades back when the combined cost of that plus the program was around $40.

Notepad++ is a free option, but I've never used it, so I can't comment on how well it would work for Hero Lab files.

Designing a game system from scratch is not something that is going to be quick and easy. It involves a lot of time, a lot of work, and if you're just starting out, a lot of learning and A LOT OF FRUSTRATION.

I'm not trying to discourage you. I'm just setting expectations.

Notepad++ works great once you set it to use XML for Hero Lab's files.

I use EditPad Lite as that was what Mathias recommended. I won't deny there is a learning curve. You kind of have to break up tasks into small tasks. Progress comes slowly usually but as long as you focus on one thing at a time its not too bad. I spent the last five years studying xml and learning under the hood so to speak. There is a kit wiki but it is not up to date (there are references to data files that used to be accessible which are no longer accessible, i.e. world of darkness). It's a good starting point but I learned from just diving into the skeleton files in the data and slowly tinkering and altering them.

RavenX

Just checking in to see how you are progressing. I am impressed with the work you have put in so far. The rest of us are just waiting on your efforts. Obviously your paid work must come first. Just know your efforts are appreciated.

God Bless

Portanas

I hate to be a pain, but have you had a chance to do any more work on AD&D2e?

Pain, not hardly. Alot of people ask about this, to be honest, no I haven't. I'm currently three knuckles deep in Exalted hammering out the sourcecode and adding data for Exalted 2nd edition for a campaign I'm running. I'll get back to this when I have more time to do so.