d20 Release 1.4 Testing and Intergration...

[ShadowChemosh]

Release 1.4 - ?/??/????

Enhancements & Changes

• Complete Psionics - Mantle powers added (Sendric).
• Complete Psionics - Ardent and Divine Mind classes added (Sendric).
• Races of the Dragon - Dragon Devotee PrC added (IamtheEvilTwin).

Bug Fixes

• MIC - The Strongarm bracers now reduce the Oversize weapon penalty correctly (bodrin).
• MIC - Specific Weapons and relic items added (bodrin).
• Complete Adventurer - Natural Bond feat was not capping the bonus based on the character's hit dice. (Sendric)
• Complete Adventurer - Brutal Throw feat is fixed to apply Strength bonus to the ranged attack value of thrown weapons (ShadowChemosh).
• Spell Compendium - Elf domain now grants the Point Blank Shot feat and as its list of domain spells associated to the domain (ShadowChemosh).
• Monster Manual - Dozens of creatures, from A to H, where added to the data set (Lawful_G).

Data File Authoring

• CPsi - Lurk.user. Blanked out as it was combined into the CPsi - Classes.user (Sendric)
• Feat Names have been changed to remove the book abbreviation. This was done as many feats are being found that exist in multiple books. Going by information from WotC the latest release of a feat, spell or ability is to be considered the most correct. So when duplicate entries are found for a feat it will be updated from the most recent book and source marked to both books. (Sendric)
• Blank .user Files - Their are blank .user files in this data set. This was done as a way to remove older outdated .user files from the end-gamers systems. These empty .user files should NOT be used. (ShadowChemosh)
• Data set information page now included in the data set. This .html file is stored in the d20 data folder with the name ~ Lawful_G_d20 Release Notes.htm

 

[ShadowChemosh]

Perhaps every so often, at "major releases" we can consider asking users to clean their data folder before adding the new release. Its probably unrealistic to ask for that with every release, though.

That is not a bad idea at say at release of 2.0 could be a major change over that we can try and have this done. Will need to have a good explanation of how to do this and how to recover if someone does NOT do it before installing the 2.0 release.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

I'm still working on a fork of v1.2, and I've got to do the following before I merge:

1) Learn the "new" way things are being done as a result of LG's clean up of monsters.
2) Migrate all the random monsters I've done to this way.
3) Migrate the merge specials into v1.4 beta.
4) Finish Wild Shape monsters so people have forms of most things people want all done.
5) Clean up remaining Wild Shape feats that I don't current handle (Frozen, etc)

I'm going to do some of this by starting on LG's skeleton of monsters at Z and work toward him.

Risner what is your projected time line for these to get done? Is it something that you think can really be rolled into 1.4 or should you just do a few for 1.4 and the rest in 1.5?

P.S. - I added your Pathfinder Improved Natural Attack feat to my house rules file and it works great. Thanks much for that.

 

[risner]

Risner what is your projected time line for these to get done? Is it something that you think can really be rolled into 1.4 or should you just do a few for 1.4 and the rest in 1.5?

P.S. - I added your Pathfinder Improved Natural Attack feat to my house rules file and it works great. Thanks much for that.

If we want to get 1.4 out quickly, I'm not your man. So maybe target my stuff for 1.5?

I'm busy this week installing a VM for the Wiki, and I should have that upgraded/installed/ready by Sat.

Your welcome on the INA edit. I'm not sure if it will get integrated, but if not we can keep it in the user mods section. I'm very detail oriented, like the Dawnflower edit, I made that because a Player added both to a PC and I needed to make sure that presented an error. I guess Mathis is not inclined to add if checks in non stacking things checking for their non stacking brothers? I can understand why. You would need to add more if's whenever new non-stacking things are created.

 

[Sendric]

This may not be for 1.4, but do we want to consider cleaning up names that have the book title? For instance, all the feats from RoS have (RoS) in the name of the feat. This appears to be fairly standard practice, but I wonder if its necessary.

I only bring this up because I was going to start working on the CPsi feats. The first one (Deep Vision) is also in Races of Stone. The easiest thing to do here is modify the RoS - Feats file to allow this feat with either source. Then I thought this might be confusing if someone had Complete Psionics selected, but not Races of Stone and sees a feat from RoS. I suppose I could just create a new feat and stop over-thinking it, but I wanted to get opinions from other developers on how to handle stuff like this. Any thoughts?

 

[risner]

Then I thought this might be confusing if someone had Complete Psionics selected

Officially, a newer printing of the feat is the only one that exists.
So in the scenario where a DM is using a book printed in 2002 and the feat was updated in a book printed in 2005 that the DM isn't using. The feat from the unused book in 2005 is the one by RAW the DM should be using.

Anyway, I think we should use the newest version of the feat and tag them to both books. Then whichever book is enabled, they will get the same feat.

Now, that being said. I'm not sure I like the book in the feat/feature like "(RoS)" unless there are multiple items that shouldn't be combined (not sure of why they wouldn't be combined based on the above "newest printing is only printing" rules.)

So I'm in favor of removing the "(RoS)" tags.

 

[bodrin]

I agree with removing the book name from the feats. As is noted here updated feats overrule earlier versions.
When I added the complete warrior data I tagged the name CWar as a reminder of the source. However since more custom data has been added then duplicates have been uncovered.
I think the replace Id mechanism is the best method to deal with older duplication, Users that don't have both sources flagged would only see the newer data.

On a side note ETA on the MIC - Specific Weapons data, Friday 25th February. All weapons from Magic item compendium have been entered only the relic weapons need to be fully coded. I'm grinding through the deities and the respective abilities.
Hopefully it should be in the 1.4 release.

 

[Sendric]

Yes, updated feats do over-rule earlier ones. In this case, the feats are the same though the wording in Complete Psionics is slightly different. I'm not sure that's a big deal, but what I will do is create a new feat that over-writes the old one and sources both books (since Complete Psionics is the "newer" version).

I would be happy to do some clean-up of the feat names as well if that's the general consensus.

 

[risner]

I will do is create a new feat that over-writes the old one

I really think that is a waste.

Why not do as I suggest?
Update the feat as printed in the newer book.
Tag the feat as available in both sources.
Done.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

what I will do is create a new feat that over-writes the old one and sources both books (since Complete Psionics is the "newer" version).

Something to think about is that only one Override (ie Replace Thing ID) can be used. So if we start to use the feature it prevents others from creating houserules against our Data Set.

What if a DM wants to have this Feat work in a different way. The proper way is that they simply can do New(Copy) and a Replace Thing ID. The community should be able to treat our data set the same way they would the official version.

So something else to keep in mind.

I know at least for the Pathfinder stuff that is officially being added if a Thing is in two books the latest text is used and is Source marked to both books.

 

[Sendric]

I really think that is a waste.

Why not do as I suggest?
Update the feat as printed in the newer book.
Tag the feat as available in both sources.
Done.

Maybe I was confused. I originally said the easiest thing to do was modify the original and it sounded as if you were suggesting something else.

 

[risner]

Maybe I was confused. I originally said the easiest thing to do was modify the original and it sounded as if you were suggesting something else.

Sorry, no I was suggesting changing the original to display the text of the new one and tagging both as sources. If I misspoke I'm sorry.

 

[Sendric]

No worries, Risner.

I've updated all the Feats files to remove the book name from the name of the feat. Shadow, do you want me to drop them into dropbox?

 

[ShadowChemosh]

Shadow, do you want me to drop them into dropbox?

Yep if they are reading for testing and stuff drop them in. Just an FYI Lawful_G is going to be helping out with the testing this time so I don't slow things down so much.

 

[Sendric]

Ok. Done. Glad you'll be getting some help. One person shouldn't have to do all the work.

As for the CPsi feats, and Deep Vision in particular, I won't provide an updated RoS file until I manage to complete the CPsi - Feats file. I'd rather do it all at once just to keep things straight in my head. Plus, there may be other over-lapping feats that I haven't discovered yet.

 

[bodrin]

No worries, Risner.

I've updated all the Feats files to remove the book name from the name of the feat. Shadow, do you want me to drop them into dropbox?

That was quick i've just got home from work and had noticed that 33 files were updated.

A quick look through the feats list and i've spotted Ccha and CArc names at the side of some feats plus RotW next to a 4 Races.

Too late for me to start editing now got work in 5 hours again 00:24 at the moment in UK i'll look into it when i have time unless it's been corrected before i manage it!

Also MIC - Specific Weapons has been deposited in Dropbox ready for testing.

 

[Sendric]

A quick look through the feats list and i've spotted Ccha and CArc names at the side of some feats plus RotW next to a 4 Races

Thanks for catching this. I did only the files named [book] - Feats.user, and ignored the two compiled files (CArc and CCha).

Also note, I only did feats. Do we also want to remove this information from spell names, race names, etc? I can do those as well.

As a side note, I find it odd that there is a Complete Arcane compile file, but there are also 6 other CArc files.

 

[Sendric]

Well, here's an interesting wrinkle. I came across the spell 'Telepathic Bond, Lesser' while working on this. Originally, this spell was published in the Expanded Psionics Handbook. It was re-published in the Spell Compendium. In the user files, the SC version is named with an (SC) at the end, which I will remove, but it doesn't use "replace id" to remove the original. This is easy enough to fix, but what's really interesting is that the version in SC isn't a Cleric spell whereas the original is. Any thoughts on what we want to do about that, if anything?

 

[ShadowChemosh]

Any thoughts on what we want to do about that, if anything?

Well the SC version is still sort of a cleric spell as it is attached to the Mind domain. Which makes sense actually. The SC is suppose to be the authority on the spells so I would say make it match the SC version and Source mark it then to both books.

If someone else disagrees they can then do a Replace ID and make it work how they wish. I think we should go as RAW as possible and use any latest Errata rules also.

 

[risner]

what's really interesting is that the version in SC isn't a Cleric spell whereas the original is. Any thoughts on what we want to do about that, if anything?

I've read forums about this type of stuff before. There were some forgotten realm spells that used to be for all casters. They were updated in a newer book to explicitly remove them from the classes. In some of these threads, they mention classes that were not the defaults and mentioned a newer printing that doesn't contain strange classes doesn't mean the spells were removed from those class spell lists.

So, in my view the spell is no longer on the Cleric spell list and the newer SC one should replaceid the XPH one if it comes from Lonewolf or just remove the XPH one if we supply both.