Advanced Bestiary - Green Ronin

[huntercc]

Anybody out there working on adding the templates from this book to the HL Pathfinder dataset? I've started with some, but it wouldn't make sense to duplicate work that someone else already has done.

Even if there are only have a few specific templates completed, we can always combine our end results into one big file.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

I know some monsters where done for the AP bestieary by the community. I don't remember which one but I can find out in a day or so.

I also know that the .1st files on d20pfsrd has a source created for the advanced Bestiary. I would recommend using it so that everything is tagged to the same source.

Sorry can't be any more clear right now.

 

[huntercc]

Thanks, I have been using that .1st file for my work. And I have seen some mention on here of people working on some of these templates, so I was hoping we could bring them all together as much as possible.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

so I was hoping we could bring them all together as much as possible.

Totally agree on this. So may as well mention a plan that has been on my to do list for a few months now. I want to combine all the bestiary AP's together into a single data set. Then like we did for the d20 project I was going to offer it as a Secondary Update URL. This means after a one time setup the data set would auto download and install just like the official updates do.

I figured DMs would find this very useful especially with all the pregenerated .por files that come with the APs.

Anyways I think what you have in mind would fit in perfectly. One thing that I would ask you to do would be to keep track of anything you bootstrap that is from a data set other than core. I want to start letting people know when they install what data sets are required.

 

[huntercc]

I was hoping to accomplish the same thing with the Advanced Bestiary. I don't believe I have used any non-core bootstraps, I tend to avoid that anyway, but I will do a review to be sure.

For starters, I here are the handful of templates I have completed so far:

Amphibious Creature
Apocalypse Swarm
Arboreal Creature
Bipedal Creature
Blood Knight
Blood Knight, Dread
Bramble Creature
Cave Creature

I skipped the Amalgam for now because it's so complex... thought it would be better to tackle that one later on.

 

[hangarflying]

Hey,
I'm working on the Dread Ghoul and Dread Ghast in order to bring the RotRL into PF. I think I've got them pretty much finished, but right now I'm having an issue getting the Ghast's stench ability to list on the "Special" tab as well as appearing in the header of the stat block as an "aura", nor does it appear in the "Special Abilities" section of the block.

I just copied the "stench" racial ability and modified it so the Eval Script gives the range instead of range and rounds. I also changed the text, and added the "Extraordinary" ability classification.

Any ideas?

 

[bodrin]

I did the Dread Skeleton for the D20 data files, and a element (fire) infused template in the Council of Thieves data sets. Plus a mock up of an amalgam creature also in the council of thieves! The amalgam template is a beast though, which is why it's only a mock up creature and not a proper template!

 

[bodrin]

Hey,
I'm working on the Dread Ghoul and Dread Ghast in order to bring the RotRL into PF. I think I've got them pretty much finished, but right now I'm having an issue getting the Ghast's stench ability to list on the "Special" tab as well as appearing in the header of the stat block as an "aura", nor does it appear in the "Special Abilities" section of the block.

I just copied the "stench" racial ability and modified it so the Eval Script gives the range instead of range and rounds. I also changed the text, and added the "Extraordinary" ability classification.

Any ideas?

Look in the editor for the ability type buttons where you can select extraordinary, supernatural etc. Tick the correct classification and then do the same with the aura selection box, make sure "show in specials" is also active! Plus bootstrap the abilities to the template, the last bit is just in case you forgot to bootstrap them.

 

[hangarflying]

Look in the editor for the ability type buttons where you can select extraordinary, supernatural etc. Tick the correct classification and then do the same with the aura selection box, make sure "show in specials" is also active! Plus bootstrap the abilities to the template, the last bit is just in case you forgot to bootstrap them.

Ok, I got it figured out:

I copied the "raStench" to use as a base ability to modify. It had an eval script in it that would put the range & number of rounds the affect lasted in the header section. I deleted out the duration part, which had "abValue" associated with the duration and "abValue2" associated with the range. I deleted the duration part, but didn't change "abValue2" because I didn't think I needed to do so. Well, I removed the "2" in "abValue2" in the Eval Script and in the Field and now it shows up like it is supposed to!

Hooray!

Thanks for your help.

PS - I'd be happy to add these to the pile, if you haven't done them already. Would I have to send out my entire .user file, or can I send just those elements that deal specifically with these templates?

EDIT - after the fact, I just went in and deleted the eval script and field and just included that information in the "name" section of the bootstrap on the template.

 

[Lord Magus]

I have the Inveigler and the Dread Mummy done somewhere.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

Nice this seems to be picking up.

For those that plan to be doing allot of work for this project I would recommend we get you setup for DropBox. We have a Pathfinder folder setup and it worked out really well for the d20 project.

If you just have a single creature or two you wish to add you can just attach the .user file to a post in this thread.

DropBox is 100% free and is a cloud based software that is as easy to use as copy/pasting your .user files to the new DropBox folder on your computer. Anything put into the folder is synced back to the cloud and then to everyone's computers that is shared on the Pathfinder folder. Plus it provides 30days of backup also so if your computer crashes we won't be losing your work.

So for those interested send me a PM with your email address and I will send off the invite to the Shared folder. Then simply follow the very simple setup with includes downloading a very small piece of software. Once setup then everything currently in the Community Project folder will get synced to your computer.

Thanks

 

[ShadowChemosh]

I have added a new .user file to the DropBox called PFRPG_Bestiary_Tags.user. This file once added to your HeroLab\data\pathfinder folder will add a new "Product Identity For..." tag called "Hero Lab Community". I would like to ask that others use this so that the new stuff you are creating gets marked to the Community. This will allow us to easily identify Things as the data set grows.

Also after going through the RotRL data set I wanted to bring up a few Standards that will also help.

1) When you make a new "Racial Special" you should ProductID it to the Community but DO NOT Source mark it. This way others can use something you created for another monster.

2) We really should not be re-creating NEW Universal Rules like Grab and Constrict. We should decide either a) people will need at least B1 official data set or we could b) make up our own Universal Rules in a single location first so that we can use those. I am open for opinions here but just want to stress that making up Grab 500 times for each monster is sort of a waste of time where someone could instead being doing something more important. So thoughts here?

3) Races should still be Source marked to the correct book which hopefully we use from the .1st files.

Thanks and happy holidays!

I updated the PFRPG_Sources 2011.12.28.zip on d20pfsrd with the new Product ID tags.

 

[huntercc]

I agree, kind of annoying to have to re-create things like Grab multiple times for multiple creatures. Problem seems to be each copy that already exists has race-specific information in the descriptions.

If I understand you correctly, I like the idea of creating a "Universal" set of common items like Grab, etc.

I'm still recovering from the holidays, but I have received a few emails with data files (thanks to those who submitted them!) that I plan to combine into one working user file. I will add it to the dropbox folder when I get the chance.

 

[Mathias]

Problem seems to be each copy that already exists has race-specific information in the descriptions.

Are you looking at the newest creatures for your examples, or the oldest ones? Remember that we've refined the way we handle a lot of things in Hero Lab as we've proceeded, but we haven't had much time to update older material. For example, it looks like there are only 3 special versions of Grab in B2 and none in B3 - we've been switching over to the universal grab special except in a few cases that really need their own special.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

Are you looking at the newest creatures for your examples, or the oldest ones?

Think he is looking at the Community Created bestiary stuff for the AP's. There I am finding Grab a bunch of times as it includes the "Race" in the description.

Instead they could have just Bootstrapped the "Grab" generic ability, which hopefully is marked to B1, and saved themselves the time of creating the same ability again. Having the Race specific name in the text is not that important to what the ability does.

I am sort of leaning to the side that B1 is sort of Mandatory to using the "Community Created" bestiaries as I am not really for recreating the stuff LW already did.

@Mathias are the "Universal Monster Rules (ie grab, constrict)" usable if a person just has B1 or B2 or B3?

Thanks

 

[Mathias]

The goal when entering the Universal Monster Rules appendix from the Bestiary was that the generic version of every ability there should be available no matter what packages you own.

I've verified that raGrab, the generic version of Grab, is available without purchasing any packages.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

The goal when entering the Universal Monster Rules appendix from the Bestiary was that the generic version of every ability there should be available no matter what packages you own.

I've verified that raGrab, the generic version of Grab, is available without purchasing any packages.

Wow I was not expecting that actually. Totally cool then no reason at all to not use them then.

That is really nice that they are part of CORE.

 

[bodrin]

Stuff......

I am sort of leaning to the side that B1 is sort of Mandatory to using the "Community Created" bestiaries as I am not really for recreating the stuff LW already did. :

Totally agree with this comment although some universal abilities aren't in B1 they appear later!

I had to recreate capsize for the aspidochelene in the Council of thieves AP just because it referred to a Whale instead! Also IIRC capsize isn't in B1 it's in B2.

Edit... Capsize is a special ability not a universal monster rule, although IMO it ought to be!

 

[bodrin]

Dammit, capsize is in Bestiary 3 as a universal monster rule!

Ninja'd by myself!

 

[Mathias]

Totally agree with this comment although some universal abilities aren't in B1 they appear later!

We've tried to keep the UMRs up-to-date and find any new ones - for example, grab changed from defaulting to max = your size - 1 in B1 and max = your size in B2.

If there are any generic abilities that don't match their B3 versions, please report them as a bug so we can update the text/code.

Capsize appears to have been missed, so I'll put that on the to-do list.