Beasts & Barbarians Golden Edition Feedback & Updates

[Talyn]

This will be the "official" thread to discuss Beasts & Barbarians Golden Edition (BBGE). Patch notes will be posted to this thread as well.

First off, I was recently placed in charge of the entire B&B lineup, and I would like to take the time to thank @Atrill for all his excellent work developing Golden Edition, two adventures, then Steel Edition. @Atrill has moved on to other interests and has ceased development for Fantasy Grounds, and I wish him the best!

I was more or less instructed to leave Golden Edition alone. Everyone who knows me knows that telling me not to do something is a great way to get me to do it! But hey, if I'm slapping my name on this thing now (or taking the blame for stuff) then I've gotta do something to put my stamp on it. Having said that, barring any game-breaking issues, this will likely be the final update for Golden Edtion.

Edit: I feel I should mention that SmiteWorks' plan for the B&B lineup is for Golden Edition to remain as-is, totally SWD (though as always, all the DLC Developers made sure everything loads into both rulesets) while Steel Edition will be switched over to SWADE since GRAmel published their conversion guide. Golden Edition is already a deprecated product, and unavailable for sale in the store; only existing BBGE owners will see these updates. All future B&B products will be aligned specifically for Steel Edition.

BBGE Setting (all products including adventures)

• [Added] Displayname to GM and Player Guides for improved readability in Library
• [Fixed] Category name to 'Beasts & Barbarians'
• [Fixed] Per SmiteWorks' policy, the theme extension is now separate from the functional extension. Beasts & Barbarians Golden Edition has the scripts to add the new arcane backgrounds and remove the banned ones, and add the BBGE desktop decal. Theme - Beasts & Barbarians Golden Edition is just the graphical theme with no additional scripting.

Besides being 'new' official policy to split the function extensions from theme extensions, I had read a few complaints that customers who owned both Golden and Steel Editions only had the Steel Edtion decal available. That's because both products were using the same filename for the extension, and Golden Edition was in the store first, so it downloads first, then Steel Edition was overwriting the file when it downloaded. Now each edition has its own extension (with decal) and its own theme.

GM Guide

• [Fixed] Improved output of Adventure Generator tables, and the display in the Story Template to improve readability
• [Added] Direct link to the adventure generator story template
• [Removed] "Silly" Edges; moved to Player Guide
• [Fixed] 'Monsters of the Dominion' NPC list now displays in the correct window class
• [Added] Page for the Modified Monstrous Ability to not take up space in the Monsters list

Also many, many, many thanks to @Andraax for writing the XSLT to generate the index for the new 'Monsters' window! That saved me several hours building it by hand.

Player Guide

• [Added] Missing Edges
• [Added] "Silly" Edges from GM Guide; denoted with (Silly) the type field
• [Fixed] Edges now indicate their correct type
• [Fixed] Edges, Hindrances now display in correct window class
• [Fixed] New powers now display in correct list class
• [Fixed] Cleaned up results in the 'After the Adventure Events' table
• [Fixed] Changed Arcane Backgrounds page to the 'sw_referenceinlineindex' window class
• [Added] SmiteWorks licensing text

Finally, the theme. @Atrill did not keep any of his source files or graphical assets, so I'm unable to make new buttons using his graphics. The Unity client, for example, adds that new Assets button. In addition, SmiteWorks will soon be switching over to a new sidebar/button system that will both make things easier for everyone to customize as well as provide more consistency when switching between rulesets. It sounds like the more "minimalistic" text button style seen in the AD&D 2E ruleset and a few others will be what we see going forward, so in light of that news, I've done that for BBGE as well.



I am not a graphical artist or designer by trade, so... eh. The 'modifier' graphic is inherited from the SavageWorlds ruleset, and sticks out like a sore thumb. I am looking for something 'swords & sorcery-ish' to replace it with (preferably with official B&B art) but no luck yet.