Adding Items to Tabletop Almanac (Patreon)

tl;dr: Look at the images, over the next couple of days I'll add all the SRD items to TA so you can quickly build statblocks and characters 🗡️.

Okay... This took me way longer than expected. Since the start of the year I was looking at a really big dataset: DnD 5e Items. Specifically the items from the SRD. And just like with spells and statblocks from the SRD it was always the idea to also add the items from the SRD to TA, so everybody could use them quickly and build a character or statblock fast and with all features.

But while I added items to TA I realized that they are maybe one of the more complex features when it comes to DnD. And then I was done and I wanted to import the SRD items but now i needed to translate the existing data into my own datastructures. And as soon as I looked through the dataset in detail I knew this would take me longer than expected.

So I kept putting it off for a bit because there was enough to do anyway but for the DnD Beyond importer and a lot of functions I was planning to introduce this year it became a bigger and bigger necessity. So I finally sat down during the night while my family was asleep and looked through all the items. I wrote test scripts that parsed the possible values of the top-level data and then of the sub-level data and then of the sub-sub-level data and then of the sub-sub-sub-level data and ...

I put all these info into spreadsheets and then I matched it to my own data structure. Then I formed a plan on how to calculate the things I needed to calculate to make the items work like I wanted them to work.

It took me about 20 hours (in comparison I was able to add spells and statblocks in under 2 hours) and I finally had a script that worked and did what I wanted it to do. And it turned out even better than expected.

SRD Weapons

I started with the weapons, because with them statblock actions can be simplified and a few features I always wanted to introduce would become easy to share and explain.

When you create a statblock you can now go to Equipment and search through all the SRD weapons (it's part of the free dataset so no patreon subscription required, although I do appreciate it). When you add a weapon and equip it, you automatically get all the actions this weapon provides. All the damage and hit calculations match the statblocks ability scores and if you set the item as proficient also the proficiency score get automatically added to the rolls.

As you can see it also automatically creates finesse and versatility actions as well, and when you test it out you can also see that the use the same limit (because they take an action). And this limit is automatically reset when the next round starts.

But there is more

Ok, woohoo actions are automatically handled by weapons... big deal. I know what you mean this is the most basic thing but I got another big thing, spells are also automatically handled by items:

And as you can see each spell that comes from an item defines how many charges it's going to use from the item. But it's still visible and filterable in the spell list. Honestly that unclutters so much stuff and makes trackig what spells are still available so much easier.

Whewww so that was a lot and I have even more but I spare you the details, you will see it when you equip items to your statblocks or characters. And obviously you can use these items as templates when creating your own.

I hope you like this, I'm very exited to create my statblocks like this and use it in my sessions.Josh