Question for the Community....

[ShadowChemosh]

Hello Community.

I am trying to put together the latest Community Bestiary package and what I am finding is that more and more "Official" Hero Lab packages are required to be able to load a Community package. I have done my best in the past to limit this as best I can but especially with the Community Bestiary its gets really hard and eating up more time than I have really...

Mostly because the monsters from the AP use more and more stuff outside the core. As most of the community editors have all the packages they reference stuff from the Official packages. This means to load the in example CB v1.9 we are looking at needing to require the following Official Packages: CORE, Bestiary, Bestiary 2, Bestiary 3, APG, UC, UM, Companion Golarion #1, Campaign Setting #3 & Campaign Setting #6. Just a note that I am not done yet so this can easily grow.

This means if you try and load CB v1.9 and don't have the above HL will display an error and then go into Safe Mode and not load ANY custom created stuff including anything you have made.

I would like to know if this is a big deal or not? In other words do most everyone have all the above so I am worrying about nothing or is it actually a big deal and time should be taken to limit the more Odd packages like "Campaign Setting 3 & 6" for example. Their would be no way to limit them all currently but never know about the future...

 

[bodrin]

I plan on purchasing the data packages as they release. For me it's the better way of maintaining a cohesive and current HL rule set. I would very much prefer to utilise the official data whenever possible and strip out any community duplicates. So for me it's not a vast inconvenience.

I don't have the time now to sit for hours on end entering custom stuff, I barely manage to run my game once a fortnight

However I do understand the implications of maintaining the large community project to comply with the standard HL vanilla package with or without the add ons.

 

[Fuzzy]

I plan on purchasing the data packages as they release. For me it's the better way of maintaining a cohesive and current HL rule set. I would very much prefer to utilise the official data whenever possible and strip out any community duplicates. So for me it's not a vast inconvenience.

I don't have the time now to sit for hours on end entering custom stuff, I barely manage to run my game once a fortnight

However I do understand the implications of maintaining the large community project to comply with the standard HL vanilla package with or without the add ons.

It seems it may only be possible if the community package was split up into multiple parts for which source material they require - again, more work for you it would seem. So you'd end up with CB_v1.9_Core, CB_v1.9_B1, etc. out of curiosity, what parts of the extra data are they pulling from, and can this functionality be pulled from somewhere else?

 

[bodrin]

... [snip] out of curiosity, what parts of the extra data are they pulling from, and can this functionality be pulled from somewhere else?

For example Council of Thieves have the Cerberi creature in it. No big deal but bestiary 3 with the cerberi was released just as I was completing the datafile . As I had worked for a long time inputting that particular file I didn't remove my version, however I did stop inputting the Kalikang which can be found in the Inner sea world guide.

There's also coded powers / abilities etc. that get bootstrapped from most sources.

No need to duplicate once it's in the official files.

 

[ValaraukarU]

I do not have all the above listed data packages (only CORE, Bestiary, Bestiary 2, APG, UC, UM). I had always preferred those package be split by publication rather than one large package. This is mainly because I tend to like to add only specific parts that I need out of the current add on package rather than including things I don't need. I also don't plan on buying all those above listed packages so this would preclude me from using it as a whole anyway.

 

[Fuzzy]

There's also coded powers / abilities etc. that get bootstrapped from most sources.

No need to duplicate once it's in the official files.

This is what I had figured. But I wonder if it is just a few powers that are shared among multiple monsters, and if duplicating just a few effects would eliminate 80% of the problem.

 

[Thazar]

I personally have everything that is out so I am good either way. That being said I would say it is reasonable to assume that the community will or should have all of the core material... but they may not have the campaign material.

So all the hard back books can be assumed, but the campaign stuff not assumed. That seams like the best compromise for a large community.

Alternately, you could have two versions of the package. The main one that requires 100% of all purchasable content. This add on would be the most complete. There could then be a second copy that only requires core material. This would exclude any creatures that require campaign material content be purchased.

EDIT - When I say core I mean Core, APG, UM, UC, B1, B2, and B3.

 

[ChrisRevocateur]

I have (or at least plan to purchase) pretty much everything, so for me, it is not a problem.

 

[chiefweasel]

I have everything as well, so no issue for me.

 

[Fuzzy]

I agree with Thazar on the 'core material'. I can see purchasing Core, APG, UM, UC, B1, B2, B3 - but don't really see purchasing any campaign material (we run our own campaigns, not pre-written ones).

 

[Troedel]

For me it´s only the stuff I need that I buy, what use is there for data sets I won´t even see? So I would be out of the community stuff. As HL with "all" expansions is a pretty cost intensive project I think there are plenty of people out there with just a "core" build. But to figure that out is the purpose of this thread....

 

[Sendric]

I'm with Troedel. I mostly only get the stuff I need. Right now, that's pretty limited, so I'm out of the community stuff as well.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

I do not have all the above listed data packages (only CORE, Bestiary, Bestiary 2, APG, UC, UM). I had always preferred those package be split by publication rather than one large package. This is mainly because I tend to like to add only specific parts that I need out of the current add on package rather than including things I don't need. I also don't plan on buying all those above listed packages so this would preclude me from using it as a whole anyway.

I understand the need for separate pieces but it gets allot harder to maintain from my side of the world. Also I saw many times where the same creature or racial special was being made 2 or 3 or 4 times.

So similar to what we did for the d20 project was to instead merge it all together into one big one. Its why I work very hard to make sure everything is Source marked correctly. At least this way you can only turn on the pieces you need.

But as I saw before with all the different AP packages trying to maintain them all is rough. Also if its all together I tend to see new things and fixes being done even if the original author no longer has time.

Just some thoughts on why is all...

 

[ShadowChemosh]

In other news if anyone is interested if I put together everything in one package that was given to me for v1.9 of the CB its over 570megs. That is over half a gig in size! Frumple is a machine!

So part of what I will have to do no matter what is move the character files(.por files) off as separate downloads. I don't think anyone wants to download half a gig file. Especially myself as my server bandwidth will be gone in a couple days!

So my other question is how does everyone feel about having to go to d20pfsrd and download a zip file of the .por character files. I am thinking I will package the zip by AP or Module and then if you are running Skull and Shackles you just download the SS zip file. This way you can still get to them but we are not killing bandwidth and space on your computers with files you may never need.

I know its not ideal but I am sort of out of options...

 

[ShadowChemosh]

Awesome thanks for those that have posted and I would appreciate anyone jumping in with thoughts. Even if its just which packages you have and may or may not get in the future.

With community stuff I would prefer to not limit that work to only certain members of the community. On the other side I understand why the editors do what they do. Why re-invent the wheel as they say. For Universal Monster abilities and many others its much easier to just bootstrap an official HL made version then recreate it all again.

I have in the past for the the "Campaign or Regional" stuff that was required I have created a Community Version so that the official package is not needed. But this is very hard with the bigger packages like Bestiaries or UC or UM.

Any and all feed back is welcome!

 

[blzbob]

There used to be a freeware product called Chainsaw. It would allow you to cut the product into a bunch of pieces then you could reassemble them at the end. It would create a batch file that handled that for you. If possible, would you be able to do that? The file wouldn't be usable in chunks, but you could have them be separate downloads that don't eat up the bandwidth as much. Or at least have them zipped as chucks that would automatically load into the proper HL folder.

Maybe I'm over thinking this. I really don't know much about how you do what you do. I'm just thinking about how I used to send very large emails before I had better options.

 

[Fuzzy]

There used to be a freeware product called Chainsaw. It would allow you to cut the product into a bunch of pieces then you could reassemble thm at the end. It would create a batch file that handled that for you. If possible, would you be able to do that? The file wouldn't be usable in chunks, but you could have them be separate downloads that don't eat up the bandwidth as much. Or at least have them zipped as chucks that would automatically load into the proper HL folder.

Maybe I'm over thinking this. I really don't know much about how you do what you do. I'm just thinking about how I used to send very large emails before I had better options.

Nothing really needs to be reassembled, they can remain separate XML files. If bandwidth is a concern, p2p would help with that.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

Why P2P or Chainsaw both sound like good things the issue is that Hero Lab, as far as I know, can only deal with a single file called a (.hl) or Import File. It stores the Package ID's and folder info.

So unfortunately I can't break the file up and still have it work with "Powered by Hero Lab" feature that informs gamers when we release a new version.

Which is why sort of my backup method is to separate out the .por files into individual downloads. Its sort of accomplishing the same thing just not as nice.