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Savage Beastiary - Adding NPCs to a datafile

S

salcor

Well-known member
Hello, so I am playing around with creating a user file for the Savage Beastiary Aliens and Adversaries from Tricky Troll Games to educate myself a little in the datafile process. However, I cannot see how to connect npcs created for the encounter building to a data file. Does anyone have any guidance?

Thanks,

Salcor
 
Hurm. I know I did that with my XCOM game, but no longer remember how; when I get a moment, I'll look at what I did and see what might have done it.
 
Can you explain the problem you're having in a little more detail? On rereading it, I'm not sure I understand, and I want to do so before I try and answer this.
 
No problem. I have been fiddling around with HL a little, and I figured I would take the savage bestiary files and put them into HL. The Savage bestiary is basically a list of npcs. So I stared to create a HL file, but I did not see a sub menu for creating npcs. (I might have missed it). I also tried to create the character in HL encounter generator, but then how do I tie it to an .HL file to be exported?

Salcor
 
Ah. I don't think you can directly embody creatures in the .user file and have it accessible by the encounter builder; to make things available to the encounter builder, I had to pull up a creature from the .user file and save them in the SW directory as portfolios for them to be available to the encounter builder. I don't thing the EB actually interacts with the .user files; my guess is it uses the .stock files, which don't seem to be easily edited (they aren't text files apparently).

I seem to recall that Zarlor doesn't use the Encounter Builder, but if I'm wrong maybe SeeleyOne or CC can come along and disabuse me.
 
If I understand it correctly, the creature has to exist as a Creature definition, and then a stock creature needs to be created in either a .por or a .stock file before it will be available for Encounter Builder.
 
Is there actually anyway for an end user to create a .stock file, CC? It'd be nice to store all that sort of add-on as one file rather than having to dump them as separate portfolios and bloat up the directory.
 
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Paragon is correct in that I haven't really used the Encounter Builder much. I did try to use it for the Deadlands Noir file, though, and I think I have a bunch of what I worked on packed into that .user file, which should presumably create a DLNoir directory in your portfolio directory... I think. It's been a while and while I tried playing around with the Encounter Builder and Combat Tracker routines at the table before I think I didn't end up finding them as useful as I had hoped they would be, but I also didn't invest a lot of time into them. I've ended up primarily using Fantasy Grounds at the table instead and I really like that setup, in general.

As for .stock files, CC probably knows this much, much better than I would but I THINK (and I could be completely wrong about this) that those are just .user files with a .stock extension... maybe. If so I suppose it might be possible to create your .por files making them as Creatures, and using the Exporter to package them into a .user file and renaming the extension from .user to .stock and seeing if maybe that would get those things to start showing up in Encounter Builder for you all from a single file location.

I'd have to do a lot of playing around to test that out, though, so all of that is just a lot of guessing on something that may or may not be on the right track to do what you might be looking to do.
 
Hmm, interesting. I figured adding in creatures for the encounter builder would not be a big deal, I guess I was incorrect. The other interesting thing that I noticed is unlike the Pathfinder system there is no way to create a custom creature. I could I could try to recreate the creatures completely in the SPC2 file then save them to the encounter builder. I look forward to hear how I can export them to other users.

Salcor
 
Depends on what you mean by "custom" creatures. You should be able to create most things as portfolios, just make sure you select "Creature" as opposed to PC or NPC on the Character Configuration setting. Now if you're trying to build custom Monstrous Abilities that are not otherwise available then you may need to use the Editor to create those, although once you've created them you should be able to use them on the portfolio as normal (assuming you've set a source for that thing and selected your source on the Character Configuration screen.)

Now sharing your portfolios and encounters... well, if you did custom Abilities you'd need to include the .user file you created with that using the HL Export utility, which also has the ability to select a directory and file of portfolios to include. Not sure if "encounters" can be included that way, though. At any rate that's how you create a .hl file... which now that I think about it is actually what I meant to say above that a .stock file may just be a .hl file (instead of a .user file as I said above.) That's strictly conjecture on my part, though, I'd have to play around more to figure out any of that part, really.
 
Also, while I never finished it, I did start to create a Custom race for my own data set. This works for characters, not creatures though (unless enough is added as per Step 4 below).

Step 1: Made a race that displays as Custom Race in the Race drop-down.

Step 2: Bootstrapped an Edge that requires it, called "Custom Race Name" which then allows you to enter the name of the race in its Domain, then it makes it so that the Domain replaces the names so that they will change on the screen and on the print-out.

Step 3: Give it 2 "Rewards Points". These will be used to purchase abilities from the list of rewards.

Step 4: (this is the part that I am not done with, and may never be) Make options in the Rewards section. Most of them are unique, and some of them preclude one another. For example, you cannot have +1 strength die, +2 strength die, and -1 strength die. Just pick one of them.

4a: For that part I am thinking about simplifying it and just making a dropdown that looks for the "Simples" and then making adjustments in an eval script based on what is selected. Doing this cannot bootstrap things to a character, but they can modify them. Also, only Edges can have the dropdown so the Reward would need to bootstrap an appropriate Edge.

There are many things that can be done with Edges. Some of them I make free or bootstrap just because of their usefulness. You can make it so that they do not print out so it helps to keep clutter down at least for a printed out character.
 
At least the standard .stock files don't show as text files when you open them (in fact, they don't open properly in the text editor at all); that may have to do with some specific coding in the program since they're official product material and not end-user products.
 
In Pathfinder and 3.5 the .stock files are created by saving a portfolio and changing the .por extension to .stock - that should work for other game systems. Then they will be seen by the encounter builder.
 
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Ah. That explains it.

So does that mean you can essentially just do a multi-character portfolio and change it to .stock?
 
If you look at a .user file it's just an xml file, perfectly readable in any text application. .stock files, however, are zip archives, not just an xml file. However according to this Wiki article presumably a .stock file could also just be a portfolio, so maybe a multi-character portfolio would work, or maybe you would make multiple portfolios and zip them up. I think the only way to really find out is by playing around with that a bit.

If you figure it out, however, definitely let us know what seems to work!
 
Thanks for the update. So I will probably just start working on the playable character races from the savage bestiary documents. Maybe even work on the custom race mechanic from ScifiComp.

Salcor
 
I have not played around with it more than a few minutes quite a while back, but I know that something does let you make a creature that selects things in the Racial Properties (like the things from the Sci Fi Companion). I know because I did it once. I was just playing around and seeing what was available.

But I only use Hero Lab for character management, not monsters or NPCs, so I am not much more help in that regard.

I do know that Configure Hero settings (source) do not always play nice with the animals / creatures / NPCs, which is the biggest reason that I don't touch them. I just write my NPCs by hand or make them more like characters.

I have a mod (yeah, yeah, I have many) that lets me choose between Extra, Competent Extra (an Extra with a wild die, and maybe one or more wounds and maybe one or more bennies, they are on the path for becoming a full Wild Card), and Wild Cards. I use the Group option for this.
 
Let us know what you find out, Salcor. Like I said, when I did my XCOM game I just dumped the Portfolios in the main SW directory, which worked, but is really messy. It'd be good to know what the more compact way to do that would be.
 
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