Gamemastery Guide conversion

[Grivenger]

Since time remembers, the Gamemastery Guide conversion is in the early stages. The variant rules and all the extra subsystems seem like terrible task to add to FGU -- at least to someone like me. Is work still progressing?

I'm mostly just wondering one thing, and I hope someone more versed in the way the FGU rulesets work could answer it. In the vein of the No Alignment variant rules. Is there a way to rename the different damage types such as positive, negative, lawful, chaotic and evil in the ruleset?

[Trenloe]

It's not being prioritised at this point - we're working on more core functionality before we look at coding optional rules from the Gamemaster Guide.

You could write an extension to change the ruleset damage types, which are stored in LUA tables in scripts\data_common.lua - but there is some additional code to cater for alignment damage that might have to be changed, depending on exactly what you're trying to do.

[esmdev]

Since time remembers, the Gamemastery Guide conversion is in the early stages. The variant rules and all the extra subsystems seem like terrible task to add to FGU -- at least to someone like me. Is work still progressing?

I'm mostly just wondering one thing, and I hope someone more versed in the way the FGU rulesets work could answer it. In the vein of the No Alignment variant rules. Is there a way to rename the different damage types such as positive, negative, lawful, chaotic and evil in the ruleset?

You might be able to clone whatever is doing the damage and change the type to magic or whatever, but it would need to be done on an individual basis until a more permanent solution comes out.

[Grivenger]

It's not being prioritised at this point - we're working on more core functionality before we look at coding optional rules from the Gamemaster Guide.

You could write an extension to change the ruleset damage types, which are stored in LUA tables in scripts\data_common.lua - but there is some additional code to cater for alignment damage that might have to be changed, depending on exactly what you're trying to do.

Thank you for the conversion status! I want to achieve what the variant rule states: "If you're using the no alignment variant, remove or replace aligned damage (chaotic, evil, good, and lawful damage), which requires significant adjustments for creatures like angels and devils that were built with a weakness to aligned damage. One option is to replace them one-for-one with new damage types like "radiant" and "shadow" that don't have any moral assumptions."

Would an extension be enough to rename the damage types in the abilities and spells for example? I want to reskin it, for now.

You might be able to clone whatever is doing the damage and change the type to magic or whatever, but it would need to be done on an individual basis until a more permanent solution comes out.

Yes. I'm hoping something similar would be possible.

[Trenloe]

Would an extension be enough to rename the damage types in the abilities and spells for example? I want to reskin it, for now.

The issue is that the damage types used are embedded in the data records - for example, angels do "good" damage which is included in their attacks within the bestiary entry. You'd need to either manually change those, or write code in FG to change them when the creature is added to the combat tracker. You'd also have to decide on what different names you were going to use, code those into the ruleset as valid types and also code other damage type replacement - in resistances, weakness and immunities for example.

It's possible, but it's not straightforward and would require changes in a number of places in the ruleset.

You could write a more simple extension that added some damage types that you want to use instead, and then manually change creature statblocks, spells, etc. as needed.

[dsaraujo]

If I would implement this, I would probably just remove the alignment resistance check for PCs and Creatures (immunities), and add a bypass for alignment vulnerability, while keeping the NPCs stat block as is: just assume any good/lawful damage is "radiant" and evil/chaos is "shadow", without actually changing anything.

But in practice (playing myself from 1-17 twice), alignment damage is uncommon enough to be an issue: just adjust the PCs abilities and edit the few monsters that would be impacted. I'm assuming a campaign without alignment wouldn't feature a lot of angels and fiends, so you should be good.

[Grivenger]

The issue is that the damage types used are embedded in the data records - for example, angels do "good" damage which is included in their attacks within the bestiary entry. You'd need to either manually change those, or write code in FG to change them when the creature is added to the combat tracker. You'd also have to decide on what different names you were going to use, code those into the ruleset as valid types and also code other damage type replacement - in resistances, weakness and immunities for example.

It's possible, but it's not straightforward and would require changes in a number of places in the ruleset. I appreciate your explanation, and of course all of the work you've been doing with the ruleset.

You could write a more simple extension that added some damage types that you want to use instead, and then manually change creature statblocks, spells, etc. as needed.

Yes, adding some more damage types and adjusting the creatures and abilities manually would probably be easier.

If I would implement this, I would probably just remove the alignment resistance check for PCs and Creatures (immunities), and add a bypass for alignment vulnerability, while keeping the NPCs stat block as is: just assume any good/lawful damage is "radiant" and evil/chaos is "shadow", without actually changing anything.

But in practice (playing myself from 1-17 twice), alignment damage is uncommon enough to be an issue: just adjust the PCs abilities and edit the few monsters that would be impacted. I'm assuming a campaign without alignment wouldn't feature a lot of angels and fiends, so you should be good.

Yes, I considered just reflavouring them as part of the homebrew world without modifying things in FGU. What do you mean by removing the alignment immunities and adding a bypass for vulnerability?

[dsaraujo]

Currently if you character is good, it takes damage from evil (i.e., is vulnerable) and it is immune to good. You can set all the PCs to neutral and don't worry about it (but this would slightly nerf some creatures, especially angels and fiends).

[Grivenger]

Currently if you character is good, it takes damage from evil (i.e., is vulnerable) and it is immune to good. You can set all the PCs to neutral and don't worry about it (but this would slightly nerf some creatures, especially angels and fiends).

Sorry for my late response. Thanks for clarifying this for me.

I'll have to dive in lua to see if I can end up adapting things to my wishes.