The MacroPolicebox: Second Regeneration (D&D 4E Framework)

Framework(s) for D&D 4e, including Veggiesama's.

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StarMan
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The MacroPolicebox: Second Regeneration (D&D 4E Framework)

Post by StarMan »

For the past 18 months, I have put in hundreds of hours of work laboring to produce a D&D 4E framework that met my standards of what that should entail. Fueling this drive was a desire to make the MapTool experience as smooth and enjoyable as possible for everyone. My toil is at an end. It is now time to humbly (or should I say “Rumbly?”) :wink: solicit the opinion of the D&D 4E community here.

If the powers-that-be could make this a “sticky” then that would be much appreciated. Feel free to play around with the framework and ask questions on this thread for anything you can’t figure out on your own. It is my sincere hope this offering gives you and your group as much joy as it has given ours.

New petitioners to my group can click this link to watch my videos as per my Facebook page:
Merry Christmas, everyone! :D
Last edited by StarMan on Fri Sep 18, 2020 1:32 pm, edited 8 times in total.
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Azhrei
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Re: The MacroPolicebox: Rumble Edition (D&D 4E Framework)

Post by Azhrei »

Heh-heh. That usually happens once the framework has some support, i.e. people using it or at least talking about it. PM me in a month or two and we'll look at this again. :)

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StarMan
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Re: The MacroPolicebox: Rumble Edition (D&D 4E Framework)

Post by StarMan »

You're right Az, that was a stupid thing for me to say so I am withdrawing the suggestion until (as you say) it gets on the radar. The request was borne from the excitement a release after 18 months of work brings. Given your exalted stature here I would at least like to know what you and (of course) Rumble himself thinks, though. Thanks for the speedy response and have a good long weekend.
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Azhrei
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Re: The MacroPolicebox: Rumble Edition (D&D 4E Framework)

Post by Azhrei »

StarMan wrote:The request was borne from the excitement a release after 18 months of work brings.
I understand! LOL

Don't think I'm snubbing you. It's just policy here; sort of like bug reports being posted in the general MapTool forum first, then when they are confirmed by someone else actually getting moved to the Bug Reports forum.
Given your exalted stature here I would at least like to know what you and (of course) Rumble himself thinks, though. Thanks for the speedy response and have a good long weekend.
Exalted? Me? No, I'm just the "Site Admin", there are other users with "Demigod" status. :shock:

;)

I know Dorpond plays 4E (I don't) so I think he and Rumble are your best bets for feedback...

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Re: The MacroPolicebox: Rumble Edition (D&D 4E Framework)

Post by Longshot »

Just thought I'd speak up since I'm sure if I made a framework such as this I'd like very much to hear anything regarding attention it gets. I have downloaded it and created my first token. I chose a Thief since they work by using a move action that augments (not meant in the 4E "Augment" definition) a melee basic attack. I am currently checking on how to go into a power to make changes to it.

I am drawn to the features this FW has. In fact, due to time issues, I was just about to use the Rumble FW for nothing more than an importer of Stats to tokens without building powers, weapons, etc. I also was going to manually run state changes etc. I really need to cut down on prep time (you know, import, then open each token and manually fix, fix fix...). Not that this is in anyway a dig against the import features of Rumbles FW, there is no way they could reasonably work out all the details of all classes and monsters in an import. But this one seems to pick up from the untouched import and let you quickly finish it off.

As a DM that can code reasonably well, that has used Rumble's excellent work for over a year, the only thing I find that really matters is something to that can quickly grab a PC or NPC from DDI, and get it working. I was going to just build my own framework and focus on that, but I think this may save me alot of trouble. So I will post feedback as I have time to. Looking forward to finishing testing and using it soon.

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Re: The MacroPolicebox: Rumble Edition (D&D 4E Framework)

Post by Longshot »

Messed around with it some. Not going as well as I hoped, but it still looks very promising.

So far;
-Don't see how to edit a power that has been created wrong to make it right.
-The melee basic attack on my PC does nothing but display the power, no actions take place.
-Created a Move action that will add 2 to the genDamage, but it didn't affect that property when I ran it. I was preferring it to only affect the next Basic attack made, but didn't quite see how to do that.

Mind you, I am still learning the Ins and Outs of this FW, so none of this is particularly discouraging me. Rumble's broke on me regularly until I got the hang of it's Do's and Don'ts

RACK Importer looked like it worked perfectly in some cases, need more testing to be sure.
Will post more later when I get some serious time to work with it.

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Re: The MacroPolicebox: Rumble Edition (D&D 4E Framework)

Post by StarMan »

Thanks for the feedback, LS! You have the possibly dubious honour of being the first. Answering your questions in order:
  • Yes, you've hit upon the achilles heel of my work. I freely admit this is one of the few areas Rumble has me beat on. There is no way to GUI-edit a power once the RACK has converted it. You need to go into your library token and edit it the old-fashioned way using guidelines set forth in the Programmer's Reference of the website. You can also delete it there, look where you went wrong in Rumble and then convert again. Failing that, post the macro here and I'll look it over. Ideally, you want to thoroughly test and make sure it's working under Rumble before RACKing it.
  • Hmmm, if your MBA was working under Rumble it should be OK under the MPB. Maybe you could attach your rptok? BTW, I just delete the basic attacks before closing Rumble's GUI and use the "Melee and Ranged Basic" ones described here.
  • Include this line in your move macro:

    Code: Select all

    [MACRO("Register Effect@Lib:MacroPolicebox"): "Name=Long Shots Move; State=DamageBonus; Property=GenDamMod; Mod=2; Duration=Turn"]
    Again, this should work under Rumble if you configure a condition with the DamageBonus state and a duration of "Special". Note that this bonus will apply to all attacks (basic or not) until the end of your current turn. I don't see the need to get any more specific than that for the purpose of the games I play. For non-basic attacks, just zero-out the GenDamMod when being asked for damage.
Keep in mind that way back in the summer of 2010 I created this as a programming-only framework. The RACK is an afterthought which I just finished a couple of weeks ago. Yes, it's a "9-months of very hard work" afterthought but an afterthought nonetheless. The idea is to run it then use the Programmer's Reference to edit the generated macros if they don't work properly. If you can weave your way through Rumble's code then you will find this reference to be child's play.

If you're still having trouble then go through the Training Videos and Programmer's Reference parts of my site and see if they enlighten you. If not then post your rptok here and I'll be happy to help.
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Re: The MacroPolicebox: Rumble Edition (D&D 4E Framework)

Post by Longshot »

Thanks for the reply, I'll see if that helps.

So far, I've gone through about 60, 70 percent of your documentation, so I won't really consider anything I have attempted a failure until I have comprehended all of it. I figure that's only fair.

Once done, I might be able to add to your code, if there is no slight to you in doing so. Seeing as automation is my key goal, I figure the least I could do is pony up and share some of the workload if I want to get finicky about something.

A dream result is incorporating Blakey-type access to DDI, and importing straight into this framework. But, no idea how far off that goal is what with school looming in the near future.

Thanks again for all the hard work!

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Re: The MacroPolicebox: Rumble Edition (D&D 4E Framework)

Post by StarMan »

Longshot wrote: But this one seems to pick up from the untouched import and let you quickly finish it off.
Bingo, this statement hits the nail right on the head. The goal of the RACK is to recreate the Rumble power as accurately as possible. The idea is for it to do as much of the work as it possibly can so the programmer has the best starting point from which to customize the code. If I have fallen short of this goal, then I want to know about it. Hence my request for everybody to try putting their Rumble tokens through the RACK and rigorously testing the resulting MPB versions. Kindly report any discrepancies on this thread.

Thanks very much for your offer to help! As long as you agree to my direction (i.e. the exact opposite of Rumble, in most cases), then I am grateful for any contribution you make. Just make your changes and attach the MPB to a post here describing them in detail. If I like them, I will incorporate into the current build I am working on and give you due credit on my web site. I plan to have my first beta revision (containing very minor bug fixes) out on Monday so I suggest you work off that.

However, it is critical that you keep in mind that the things I don't have in my framework are also the things I don't want! For example, if you say, " StarMan, I can make you a really cool HTML character sheet display macro! " then I will reply with a rather large yawn. I know HTML and CSS so I would have done that by now if I wanted to. As explained on my site, I believe duplicating the functionality of other applications is pointless. In this instance, Rumble's pop up stat sheet and my status macro are quite sufficient for my group's purposes. Anything else can just be looked up in the Character Builder and/or Compendium.

Put another way, I believe anything Rumble can do, we can do better. "Anything he can do we can do best. No we can't! Yes, we can ..." oh, never mind! :D By the way I did briefly glance over Blakey's work but did not see the feature you were referring to. Nevertheless, I completely agree that we should be making the conversion path between DDI and fully functioning MPB token as short as humanly possible.

To that end, my next major project will be creating the JACK (aka JamesManhattan Automatic Conversion Kit). Unfortunately, I have likewise not had the time to look over his work in this regard. If you have ideas on how to proceed with that then I am all ears! This way we can cut Rumble out of the process entirely.
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Re: The MacroPolicebox: Rumble Edition (D&D 4E Framework)

Post by AidyBaby »

Noticed your link to beta2 is actually beta1 and the link to the props file is broken.

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Re: The MacroPolicebox: Rumble Edition (D&D 4E Framework)

Post by StarMan »

Oops, good catch and it's been fixed. Beta 3 will be out by end of weekend and you don't really need the props file unless you're converting a Rumble campaign file ... which isn't recommended. It's easier to start building from the Beta 2 campaign.
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Re: The MacroPolicebox: Rumble Edition (D&D 4E Framework)

Post by wolph42 »

Hi,

It seems I'm missing something. I always like to check out new material on this forum and am very curious with what you did with Rumbles FW. However I can't seem to find any link to download your work. I did see the link to the Policebox site and checked it out, but on that site I only found the link to rumbles version. What am I missing?

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Re: The MacroPolicebox: Rumble Edition (D&D 4E Framework)

Post by Longshot »

Did you register at his site? It's required to get the FW.


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Re: The MacroPolicebox: Rumble Edition (D&D 4E Framework)

Post by StarMan »

Thanks LS and good to have you on board, Wolph! At the risk of mildly frustrating you, I've just put up Beta 3 which contains some major reworking on my effect-ending functionality. Again, I really recommend going through the Transition Guide on my site before downloading from "The Code" page. Speaking of which, sorry about the registration thing. That was the only way I know of telling how many are actually trying it as opposed to window shopping.

I haven't really "done" anything with Rumble's framework. I am simply using it as a data entry front-end for my own. As you will have seen in my RACK demo videos, the idea is to convert your Rumble tokens to MPB format and then exclusively use the MPB from there. Why would anyone want to do that, you ask? Because (at the risk of sounding immodest) the MPB contains all the higher features Rumble users have been clamouring for is why! :wink:

You and AidyBaby are heavy-hitters on this site so I would be very interested in your feedback. Thanks for your time!
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