Very Detailed Pre Purchase Questions (Expert Advice Needed)

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RachelFaith
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Very Detailed Pre Purchase Questions (Expert Advice Needed)

Post by RachelFaith »

Hi !

This looks like an awesome app and I am very familiar with excel macros and how to make stuff like this. We do these for our files and such at work, so that said, I am impressed and know how much time this took.

Here is my goal and questions. We are playing a 3.5 Epic campaign with about a dozen players and it gets very hard to make up a new character when you need one. Most of our existing ones have been around and converted and reconverted since AD&D version 1 in the late 80s.

So, does this work come with or allow multiple classes? And I mean like 10, 20 or 30 classes per character? For example a Lich who has been around for several thousand years and "played" human for this time has trained in this class, then another, then another etc. Say like they were a Mage for their first 100 years as a human, Then were a fighter for 5 years and added 5 levels. Then did the bard thing for 10 years and then added thief, then studied under an evil cleric, then went back to mage but did the Sorcerer class, then added Monk, then Psi, then a few ad hoc non standard classes, etc etc.

I currently use just a cheap excel sheet I did which is just linear going down about 600 lines and each line is the Character Level and added bonuses, feats, hit points, spells, notes etc, where I just use the bare basics to list each level on each line and then what class it was for that one.

So it may have lines 28-30 as 3 levels 12, 13 and 1th for Bard as an Example. Then line 31 is a new class level 1 of Assassin. You get the idea. It works and keeps MOST of the feats, points, addition, math and stuff in line and the Notes explain any "ooops" or additionals.

So, does your app support Multiple unlimited classes? Can this be easily added with just adding more tables (I know how and can link them if you code is reasonably clear and organized). Does it support non standard classes and feats and skills. Say the character light traveled to some other plane or time and studied at Star Fleet or something ass like that? Could those feats and such be easily added with just a new set of tables or appending to existing tables?

I would like to not only BUY this, but really help out on the back end with codes and features, assuming this is the great starting point that it appears to be.

I have many more questions, and needs, for this type of a tool, but these few examples here aught to make or break it without me going into more details than I already have.

Looking forward to the replies (good and insane). LOL

Rachel
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Re: Very Detailed Pre Purchase Questions (Expert Advice Need

Post by admin »

Hi Rachel,

You are correct: TOS+ is indeed a very large expenditure of work - thousands of hours of work which started back in 2003.

Unfortunately, it was not designed to support an 'unlimited' amount of classes, as you seem to require for your game. It can handle 6 different classes (12 if you Gestalt the classes) - a number which seems to cover %99.99 of the needs of players. It was also designed to enter character 'directly', avoiding the 'level by level' seen in practically all other sheets out there; This makes the creation of [high level]Character creation much faster!

Please note that Users are not permitted to change/modify/hack the Sheet (like any other application). So No, you cannot 'add' to the tables and change the Coding.

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Re: Very Detailed Pre Purchase Questions (Expert Advice Need

Post by patransom »

But you can add non-standard classes, feats, races, and skills. Even though you can't edit the underlying coding, the existing tables support the loading and saving of user-created custom content (like feats you might have learned at Star Fleet or something).
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Re: Very Detailed Pre Purchase Questions (Expert Advice Need

Post by RachelFaith »

6 to 12.... Hmmm. That could be problematic. But if there are existing tables for new feats, classes etc to which data can be appended, it may still have good value for my needs. And at $19 is pretty cheap considering that isn't much "per hour" of my time to reinvent the wheel. LOL

Mr Admin... as for the level by level... I do assume that you can still BUILD the character one level at a time over time and use this tool as the means to account for the history? It does keep changes to updates in some log format right? So you could undo it if needed in play right? Like a list form? Or is this just a snapshot of singular data with a nifty front end display? Trying to figure it out. Still at $19 it's probably worth it if it does half of what I need. Right?
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Re: Very Detailed Pre Purchase Questions (Expert Advice Need

Post by patransom »

I'll answer for admin: you can build the character one level at a time. If you want to keep a precise history, you can save a character file (which is a small text file that can be reloaded into the sheet as needed) for each level. The character files are automatically named something like YourCharactersName (level x).tos, so it's easy to keep them organized as a level-by-level record.
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Re: Very Detailed Pre Purchase Questions (Expert Advice Need

Post by RachelFaith »

Hey thanks for stepping up and answering that. I will probably buy and subscribe and then chat in the uber secret forums. Just need to do a little more due diligence and make sure this is what it seems to be and that nothing else out there is truly worth my time. Thanks again!
Last edited by RachelFaith on Mon Nov 29, 2010 2:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Very Detailed Pre Purchase Questions (Expert Advice Need

Post by admin »

RachelFaith wrote:Hey thanks for stepping up and answering that. I will probably buy and subscribe and then chat in the uber secret forums. Just need to do a little more due diligence and make sure this is what it seems to be and that nothing else out their is truly worth my time. Thanks again!
You can check out the Videos (from the Home Page) for example of use...

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RachelFaith
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Re: Very Detailed Pre Purchase Questions (Expert Advice Need

Post by RachelFaith »

Yeah I watched all those. I am truly far more interested in the tables structure for appending new classes, data and making sure the basic code will access those tables the way I think it should. Obviously the 6 classes limit is due to the available room on the form and not any other structural limit, because if the tables to add new classes is editable and the code is written to just take the variable date from those tables and add them correctly, then it would work the right math but just be unable to properly display any classes beyond the six spaces on the sheet... do I understand that right?
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Re: Very Detailed Pre Purchase Questions (Expert Advice Need

Post by Duniagdra »

RachelFaith wrote:Yeah I watched all those. I am truly far more interested in the tables structure for appending new classes, data and making sure the basic code will access those tables the way I think it should. Obviously the 6 classes limit is due to the available room on the form and not any other structural limit, because if the tables to add new classes is editable and the code is written to just take the variable date from those tables and add them correctly, then it would work the right math but just be unable to properly display any classes beyond the six spaces on the sheet... do I understand that right?
The one thing that's not up front and visible is that TOS+ has a good portion of it's operation hard coded. So if I'm understanding you correctly by modifying the "variable data" in the table, for what you see there, the Sheet draws on other data that coding reacts to based on selection.

I suppose, possibly, that with effects and customization, there could well be a way to apply more than the 6/12 classes that the Sheet is deigned for, but that would take a lot of work on the user's end. We've not had anyone before consider the Sheet limited in regards to the number of class. All due respect, even in deities and demigods, I find the most number of classes to be 4 and gods live forever. :P

Editing the existing table is strongly discouraged as that is not the intention of them being "editable".
This is assuming that I'm understanding your intent.

On another note, if you had the sheet, as saw something you felt useful the sheet could benefit from (the design of a new table of data) you're more than welcome to share this with the community and admin will review it. If the table and coding is presented, and all that might be needed is just some modification to fit the scheme of the Sheet, there could be a likelihood of it being added. We do have a place for user suggestions and ideas within the forum.
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RachelFaith
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Re: Very Detailed Pre Purchase Questions (Expert Advice Need

Post by RachelFaith »

Hi Dun. Yes, sharing with the group and becoming part of the design helping team is precisely my aim. I am far from hit and run. And as I stated, I have built excel and old access forms and tables before to do this sort of thing for work. Usually to calculate some employee benefits or loan portfolio scenarios that are outside of the normal mainframe formulas. So, as for how to code, how to write macros, how to edit tables and set macro events, design forms and control, and of course script in VBA and compile into VBE, are all familiar to me. I could just DO this myself from scratch if I wanted to take 200 hours. I most surely do NOT want to do that. Especially not when there is this fine of a foundation already built and what now seems to be a very dedicated and intelligent community of helpful folks supporting it. There is no "I" in TEAM. I should make the purchase tonight and join you in the private forums.
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