4E Item Parser

[MrSavaroth]

Awesome!

Thank you very much for this

[askaval30]

absolutely brilliant! fast, easy to use and well crafted... worthy of all thanks and admiration!

[primarch]

Hi!

Kudos to you Valeros!!

I was wondering you ever thought adding functionality that would parse themes and related powers for use? Currently we can't do that. I think its the only thing left no one has tried.

Thanks for your excellent work!

Primarch

[valeros]

How would that work (themes that is.) There is no theme template. The description of the theme could work like backgrounds (just a formatted text in a reference text window.) But how would the powers be associated to the theme? I do not know a add a link for the associate powers to something like that.

[Zeus]

How would that work (themes that is.) There is no theme template. The description of the theme could work like backgrounds (just a formatted text in a reference text window.) But how would the powers be associated to the theme? I do not know a add a link for the associate powers to something like that.

You would need to write an extension which adds a new windowclass for 4E Themes. As you suggest you could use the Backgrounds class as a template and use the formattedtext field to link to associated powers.

You can use the <listlink> tag within formatted text fields to reference other objects in the module. e.g.

<listlink>
            <link class="reference_classpowerlist" recordname="refpowerlists4eAP.bardpowers@4e Arcane Power">Bard Powers</link>
            <link class="powerdesc" recordname="powerdesc4eAP.powerJinxShot@4e Arcane Power">Jinx Shot</link>
</listlink>

Where in the above example 4eAP and 4e Arcane Power are the module id and name of the module.

4E uses reference_classpowerlist and powerdesc as the windowclasses for Class Power Lists and Power sheets.

[primarch]

Hi!

Thank you DrZeuss for giving valeros that tidbit of code!

Valeros, as it stands, themes is the only thing missing to be able to have a complete scraped and parsed 4e database.

As of now, I basically use just your parser for monsters and items. Getting themes would be the proverbial cherry on top of an already great desert.

Heck, have you ever thought of making utilities for just downloading feat and powers like you did for monsters and items?

At least for me, having these "master" lists is proving to be leaps and bounds more convenient than separate in their own books.

In any even, I'd like to reiterate my thanks to DrZeuss and you for all the great stuff you've put out. Personally, I will be staying with 4e, so all these great tools are of immense long term value.

THANK YOU!

Primarch

[valeros]

Thank you for the code DrZeuss.


So I took a quick look at powers. There are a lot (9356 to be exact), but I glanced through some of them.

I got a little confused about how the XML would look for powers, so I used Tenian's parser to parse Arcane Power. I found some oddities looking at the XML output from Tenian's parser.

Example oddities:
1) Tenians parser outputs tags like special, hit, miss, effect, etc. which translate into the text with the tag name bolded at beginning of the line. (So "<effect type="string">Some effect text here</effect>" translates on screen to "Effect: Some effect text here" with the word "Effect" bolded.

2) Tenians parser outputs other special tags like firstfailedsavingthrow, hit_fortitude_, etc. that translate to headers other than the name of the tag. When I look if FG, they are translated into meaningful headers like "First Failed Saving Throw" or "Hit (Fortitude)"

3) sustain is another tag like the others but instead of the tag name being bolded, everything before the first ":" is bolded.

4) When trying to link a power, Tenian's parser output a "<linkedpowers>" tag as opposed to the "<linkedlist>" mentioned. It seemed to work.

5) I noticed what seems to me to be the same case to be parsed differently at different times. For example, Grease, Evard's Dreadful Mist, and Shard of the Endless Avalanche all parse the second power differently. Grease tries to link the power, Dreadful Mist has the second power text under the sustain line, and the second power of Endless Avalanche looks like a continuation of the main power.

Especially for the first four, do you know where this is documented or how was I supposed to know this?

[Zeus]

Thank you for the code DrZeuss.

So I took a quick look at powers. There are a lot (9356 to be exact), but I glanced through some of them.

I got a little confused about how the XML would look for powers, so I used Tenian's parser to parse Arcane Power. I found some oddities looking at the XML output from Tenian's parser.

Example oddities:
1) Tenians parser outputs tags like special, hit, miss, effect, etc. which translate into the text with the tag name bolded at beginning of the line. (So "<effect type="string">Some effect text here</effect>" translates on screen to "Effect: Some effect text here" with the word "Effect" bolded.

2) Tenians parser outputs other special tags like firstfailedsavingthrow, hit_fortitude_, etc. that translate to headers other than the name of the tag. When I look if FG, they are translated into meaningful headers like "First Failed Saving Throw" or "Hit (Fortitude)"

Yes. The powerdesc window class defines the expected fields for a power. When Jamie first wrote the parser, powers only used formattedtext fields. At the time, access the data in a formattedtext field was programatically constrained (no getValue and setValue methods) and so over time Jaime added individual string fields in the module output to make accessing data a little easier from within the ruleset.

Each power's flavour text is parsed (in its entirety) and added as the flavor tag using formatted text. In addition, the same text (minus mark-up tags) is added as a string flavour field (stringflavor). Similarly each power's descriptive text is parsed (in its entirety) and added as the shortdescription tag using formatted text. In addition, the same text (minus mark-up tags) is added as a string description field. Finally any special tags are also captured e.g. <effects> <sustain> etc. etc.

The formattedtext fields are used for displaying the power as its prettier. The string based tag data is used by the ruleset e.g. power list filtering and the keyword fields are used by the ruleset to manage the various format changes that can occur when dealing with class, item, feat powers etc. They are also used for parsing attack/damage/effect strings on the charsheet and CT.

3) sustain is another tag like the others but instead of the tag name being bolded, everything before the first ":" is bolded.

Hmm, not sure. Probably a bug. I am guessing that the Parser traps lines containing a : character and bolds all text prior to the : assumming its a name. If a line contains multiple : characters I am guessing this breaks the capture he has setup.

4) When trying to link a power, Tenian's parser output a "<linkedpowers>" tag as opposed to the "<linkedlist>" mentioned. It seemed to work.

Ah yes, each power sheet contains a small subpower list under <linkedpowers> for handling ***GRANTED*** powers. I guess you could use this to store any linked power information however the association here would be to each power and not to a theme (which I thought was what you were asking for).

Linking powers from within formattedtextfields will only work if you use the <linkedlist> tag I mentioned.

5) I noticed what seems to me to be the same case to be parsed differently at different times. For example, Grease, Evard's Dreadful Mist, and Shard of the Endless Avalanche all parse the second power differently. Grease tries to link the power, Dreadful Mist has the second power text under the sustain line, and the second power of Endless Avalanche looks like a continuation of the main power.

Especially for the first four, do you know where this is documented or how was I supposed to know this?

They all parse identically for me? Jaime's parser uses the ZPOWER tag to link to sub powers and attacks. I am guessing the input power text is not marked up correctly between all three powers, check to ensure you have the ZPOWER tag added.

Aside from the ParserDocument.txt file which is included in the Parser folder which details the expected syntax for the various different content types, I am not aware of any other documentation. You could try PMing either Tenian or EugeneZ for more information.

[valeros]

Thank you very much for the info.

So I if understand:
1) The "description" tag/field is the one used to display the data in FG. (That makes sense and matches teh fields specified in "ref_power.xml".)

2) The other special tags/fields (like effect, firstfailedsavingthrow, etc.) were used by the 4E ruleset. Do you know if they are still used by the ruleset (and therefore I would need to include them in addition to the data being in the "description" field)?

3) Same thing with the "shortdescription" field. That only seems to be used by custom powers. Do you know if I would need to include that tag/field.


Feats seem to work like powers. That is, they have special tags/fields that are duplicate of the text in the "description" tag/field. Same question as above, do you know if those duplicate fields are still needed?

Thank you

[valeros]

2013/04/07 Added Feats & Powers

The ~374 powers that have an additional power in the compendium entry (e.g., Evard's Dreadful Mist) have the additional power currently listed as part of the main power as opposed to a second separate power.

Also, for powers, there is now a required file called "Power Classes.txt". It is used to categorize the powers based on the class of the power. It is in the form "Category: Class". You can change it to make categories more to your liking. If you make a better one, please post it.

Thank you