3.7 is Live!
about 7 years ago – Fri, Jul 14, 2017 at 04:31:32 PM

At long last, 3.7 is live with the Rules Library (features, spells, traits and enhanced items libraries).  

                                http://pubs.d20pro.com/Production/3.7/

You'll want to install this in a fresh location as it contains new and pruned java libraries. If you install over an old (even the most recent beta) directory, you may have mixed results.

It is absolutely okay to copy your Judge/Campaign folder over to the new install however. If you need help doing this or need help cleaning up the install path, let us know over in discord or via email.

I need to step away from the computer and breath (i.e. drink a beer), but will return and send another update with details, instructions and more!

In the meantime, here's a lovely 3.7 announcement blog article from our friends over at Digital Agility!

           http://d20pro.com/2017/07/14/d20pro-version-3-7-now-available/

For those who want to know what went down...

We found a problem where features enabled on a creature who was then saved to the library lost the connection with the source feature. this meant that effects which modified values on the creature would not reset when the originating effect expired or was removed. Ironically this worked perfectly while a creature was in the library, and it worked perfectly while a creature was on the map. It only failed when a creature was moved from one medium to the other.  

That is now fixed and 100x better than how it was originally conceived. With the improved system, you can now place a creature on the map, add armor, weapons, cast spells on it and apply any other feature based effect you'd like, then save it to the library and recall it in the exact state it was in when saved to the library.

This is cool for staging encounters and bad guys who are "spell heavy". 

What else is new?

Well, lots of things. Here's the quick run down:

• Full Native 5e Support.
• A new shiny SpellCasterTemplate_Prepared caster type (for classes.txt editing goodness). This class contains all the definitions needed to handle all of the currently implemented spell casting types in D20PRO.
  
  Prepared Lists, Spells Known, Spell Slots, Special Spell Lists (Domains, Circles, Oaths, etc).
• Right click edit access to items on the map. Items are now using a data model similar to traits and can have all the feature goodness attached in addition to a map icon. We've also updated the item placement system so you can drop groups of items to the map from the Item Library.  To drop items, simply select some items from the library and hold down shift when you click on the grid unit you want to fill with items.
• Updated the game options panel to make it wider and able to be scaled in both vertical and horizontal directions.
• Add refresh, reset, and sync buttons to the Trait tab of creatures.  When you update your classes, races or variants, clicking refresh on the traits tab will load anything from the Class definition and/or traits library.
  
  refresh - reloads any traits that have been lost due to a delete action from your class/variant/race list.
  reset - resets your traits to "factory default" removing any changes you've made to class/variant/race sourced traits.
  sync - pulls from the Rules Library and replaces the content for any traits matching the name and source.
  
• Added width to the Line template and changed the template stepping to be unit based (i.e. 5ft or 1 unit dependant on game system)
• Improved performance on the publish / subscribe networking system to improve stability
• Fixed the "player already present" bug with the new networking solution
• Fixed the player map so creatures are no longer always "transparent" (i.e. hidden). Player map now operates correctly for visible, hidden, and fog of war hidden
• And lots and lots more.  

Many of the changes we made are behind the scenes and probably don't need to be itemized.  I've detailed them all in the release notes. If there's something you want further details on or have an issue with, please just let me know and I'll write up an explanation. All of the topics should get addressed in our docs we're working on, however, if you've got a question now, I'm happy to prioritize to answer you first.

Regards and good gaming!

- Owlbear and co.

to keep everyone updated on 3.7 progress
about 7 years ago – Thu, Jul 13, 2017 at 10:21:14 PM

I opted to delay 3.7 again. Sorry for pulling the carpet but I'll refrain from saying "tomorrow" or later "today" this time so it doesn't bite me on the way out.

We encountered an issue which was less than optimal regarding equipping and unequipping of gear. Hopefully we can sort this out in a relatively quick fashion. We've already made a bunch of strides toward fixing the issue, however, as complex software tends to do, this produced some unwelcome side effects.

As soon as the build passes muster I'll build 3.7 post about it and get you all going with a massive Feature Library system and continue the documentation task!

And just to be clear, the work case would be that we disable the on-equip feature for now and ship without it until we get it fixed. However, both of our devs (myself and Alexey) would rather get this out to you complete.

That being said, we do have a good sense of what comes next before the map update:

• In app Script editor and Script Library -- for extending the feature system with custom commands.
• A Classes Library -- this is a place where you can build out new classes based on features, traits, and spell/abilities.  Classes and Races are very similar in D20PRO so this library would also allow you to build out Races and other "architype" things like Templates, Paths, Variants and more.

After those are knocked out, we'll be moving into the realm of maps, tokens, and reskinning UI as we go.

Owlbear

Cross platform bug in 3.7 RC3
about 7 years ago – Wed, Jul 12, 2017 at 12:33:46 AM

To cut directly to the chase -- 3.7 is going to be delayed due to a cross platform bug encountered in the feature templates.

On Windows and Linux the bug appears to be an inconsistency in behavior when adding a usage template to a trait or item. On OSX, it is a critical failure which freezes the entire application and requires a force quit.

I'm confident we can fix this issue in a timely fashion. Now that we've identified the root cause -- go QA! -- we'll fix this up and ship you a shiny new 3.7 build as soon as it's ready!

We're all sorry to have to delay this release, however it is always better to catch these issues early and before a full launch.

I'll keep you all posted on updates to the timeline understanding our target is still this week!

Regards,
Owlbear

RC3 available now and 3.7 still slated to launch tonight
about 7 years ago – Tue, Jul 11, 2017 at 07:50:50 PM

                        http://pubs.d20pro.com/Public_Beta/3.7.0.0-RC3/

Just a quick note to let you all know we're still pushing toward a 3.7 release today. I've been plugging a few leaks regarding silly things like version number mismatches -- apparently the system did not like being called "RC"!

In any event, I'm behind on the docs but not out. 3.7 will drop tonight and documentation will follow.  We're also working on a couple of tutorial campaign templates which we'll include in the first minor release as they are ready.

About the Rules API for those wanting access. The main limitation right now is the ability to present an entirely different game system at the creature level. We can manipulate all the bits, Abilities, Saves, Defences, Attacks and more, however, the ability to show a completely different sheet style is still not available in the application.

That being said, there's still a lot of creative slotting that can be done with the current engine. If you've got specific systems in mind, please don't hesitate to email me directly and I can help with conversion.

The plan is to push a Rules API template class example to a github repo for those who are looking to code new rules types. 

For the In-App Rules Library there's a lot of great stuff you can do right away with the existing systems. The main limitation is going to be knowing *how* to do it, which is on me and my team to get the docs together.

We've had some health issues to contend with which has impacted team availability but we'll get there and the prognosis is looking good!

I apologize in advanced for sending these announcements so close together.

- owlbear

3.6.11.22 (Public Beta)
over 7 years ago – Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 01:22:04 AM

Another big update as we zero in on release!

You can see the release notes over here

And the download for 3.6.11.22 is here

The highlights are as follows:

• Massive overhaul to the publisher tools to support the Rules library and Rules API hotjars. This system is designed to allow for Game System to be distributed via the Marketplace and downloaded on-demand into existing campaigns.
• A large pile of usability updates and consistency issues between rule sets. Most notable are the fixes that went into the Modify Types for Effect Nodes. All possible options for applying status effect, damage and other "conditions" are available from this drop down now.  So you can have Holy, Adamantine, Poisoned actions if you want too.
• A lot of work was put into adding the Ammunition system to weapons. Basically, with this system you can use Templates to create ammo for items. This could be darts for a blow gun, bolts for a crossbow or bullets for a pistol. The items live as separate listings allowing for consumable ammunition while the player retains the firing mechanism when appropriate.
• We've also added the first round of auto-importers to convert legacy items and feats into feature backed traits and items. For an existing campaign, you'll get a pop-up asking you to import the elements into Rules Library (and Content Library for Items). This can take a little while as there's a lot going on behind the scenes. Please be patient while this process completes. In the beta, it is probably not a bad idea to restart the session after a successful import just to make sure everything is lined up -- we're still working on the live resource update for Rules.
• AC Overhaul phase 1 is underway. For Pathfinder, 3.5, 4e and "default" you won't notice a different but the truth is AC is being generated from a dynamic model based on Rules. This new system lets a Rules file define what are valid AC components for your game system and then present them as string statements such as "Base", "plus", "Armor", "plus", "Shield", "plus", "Dex".  The "plus" keyword is turned into a unicode character defined in the Rules.AC classes lexicon. The lexicon can be extended fairly easily, however, adding custom labels has mixed results if you switch game systems or import/export a creature between systems. This will get refined further as we move along allowing for in-app editing of statements such that a single creature can have any number of AC combos assigned.  
  
  Along these lines, we'll also be migrating the Custom AC's to a "Standard AC's" method which allows a GM or Rules author to define default AC types for the game system. These will then be available for selection by the Player as their default or current AC -- adding in things like SR, CMD and PR are easy to handle with this new system.
• Along the same lines, we've added in a new Speeds UI.  This system lets you define speeds for creatures with various movement types.  You can select the active movement type as well and when the next release drops, you'll be able to see the movement type reflected in the map instrument.  For now, the UI works for tracking purposes, but the map is still reading from the base/normal movement -- close though!

We'll be releasing demo content through the marketplace for the new beta in the next few days. As soon as the content is available, I'll post another update as well as post to discord!

- Owlbear