Hail, fellow MPBers ... assuming there are any of you left!
Last user to sign up was a couple months ago and we only exchanged one or two messages. That's OK as my efforts here are primarily to chronicle my progress in blog form for posterity. Of course I have dragged my heels for so long making a post (retirement is just way too fun!) that I find myself shocked this is the very first (and likely ONLY) update for 2024! What better way to break the silence than with a centenary release? SL 700 is ready for download! I would like to dedicate this release to our favorite Sith Lord who has now become one with the Dark Side of the Force.
RIP Mr Jones!
Yes I know 1.15 was just released but my groups are not itching to upgrade yet so 1.14.3 users are still good. We will take the usual wait-and-see attitude but please feel free to share your feedback regarding performance in the latest release. Of course there have been countless MPB bug fixes since my December update above but you can read about those in the Release Notes.
The first exciting new feature is also the latest. Brand new for SL 700 is support for importing from
https://tools.omnichron.net/dnd/mon.html . Enter your home-brew monster there being extra careful to accurately write out each power in proper MM1 format. You may then copy/paste the MM1 block into the notes tab of a new token. You know what to do from there!
As explained in my last update above, you will also see a new field in the power editor called "AttackFrom". Default is the calling token but you can set this to any token you like. If course, for close blasts and area bursts this automatically switches to the ABOS. Just as in that case, you will be teleported to the designated token and your attack will take place there. This will be your mount for mounted combat, BTW. If said token is larger, you will be temporarily polymorphed into it so the ranges work out correctly. Note that shaman tokens still need to specify their spirit companion in the Situational property of the shaman's Lib as normal. Select the "Prompt" option for maximum flexibility.
Although not really a new feature, I recently ripped out and almost completely rewrote the marking code. Too many inconsistencies were cropping up and trigger def effects left running. On this latter point, define such effects as "{mark state) Trigger Def". You can see an example of this in Combat Challenge Class Feature on Lib:MMHof. That way the system knows how to remove it when your mark is superseded or simply runs its course.
Another very recent improvement is the total reworking of state refreshing. If you register 100 effects on X tokens, the Register Effect macro would run Refresh States for every single one of those effects. Considering each run of Refresh States goes through ALL tokens on the map looking for attached registrations, this can take a significant amount of time. Granted this is a rare scenario given 95% of macros only register a handful of effects. For the remaining 5%, consider something like Divine Tilt which potentially registers DOZENS depending on mow many tokens are affected. A guy in my Monday group does this and it used to take a while to complete. The same macro now takes SECONDS as Refresh States only runs ONCE for each token at the end of the macro. YMMV but should notice at least a small performance improvement.
Other new features include the Send Rest facility which allows you to request same from your players (which then iterates token to token as Initiative does), more choices when running Surge, Mass Remove Effect (saves you from using the OSP by giving an Undo-type checklist), a simpler weapon editor (only gotta answer the standard questions the first time), Get DCs which records the encounter level on the Info token and gives you the attendant DCs for such, Create Duplicates now only letting you choose colors for those NOT present on current map, Portrait macros if you need to output more art and Scale Monster if you need to jack up your monsters more than Change Level will allow.
There are more improvements but this post is already too long. There will definitely be a post in June for the MPB's 15th anniversary. In the likely event I don't do one before then, have a great fall and winter and happy gaming to you!
PS: As of this writing we could use a player for each of our Monday and Wednesday groups as explained at
http://macropolicebox.ihostfull.com/ind ... 4e-players . DM me if interested!
We will do more testing in our group but it seems you can still click those links manually. Yes I know it's not ideal but at least non-popup macros like Play Clip still seem to work OK. If this proves to be a legitimate bug then I will see if it has been reported as yet.