Mongoose Publishing

[ryhopewood]

Hi all

After being increasingly frustrated with the existing character generator programs and their lack of easy utility to Conan RPG, I set about building my own in MS Excel 2000. Spending more hours on this than I care to remember (or am willing to admit to) it is nearly finished.

I would like to make this labour of love available to all for free but need to know what procedures I need to go through so that I don't upset anyone at Mongoose re-copyright issues.

Basically the character sheet allows you to:

(1) Enter ability scores
(2) Select race (from Conan RPG book only)
(3) Select up to six different class and level combinations (e.g. Barbarian 2 / Thief 3 / Scholar 1 etc ...) from Conan RPG and Signs & Portents (for Bandit)
(4) Select skills, feats and spells (Conan RPG plus Scrolls of Skelos).
(5) Select armour, weapons and equipment.
(6) Assigns racial and class abilities automatically based on selections PLUS gives you pulldown lists for the optional ones.
(7) Calculates about 90% of the intermediary values and collates the circumstance bonuses into summaries (e.g. apply +3 when cooking in Shem)
( Generates a character sheet - not to dissimilar to the one in the Core Rules.

It is about 1 MB unzipped and requires Microsoft Excel 2000. It uses three macros to load list options, assign racial features and assign class features but everything else is contained within the spreadsheet.

Aside from the mechanical crunchy bits I have been careful not to include any additional descriptive text and to refer to the Conan RPG rulebook wherever possible.

Would the people at Mongoose mind if I e-mailed the spreadsheet directly to them for comment? I definitely don't have any commercial interest in this whatsoever (apart from the time saved to game with my friends).

Regards,

Ian Martin, Ashby UK

[sbarrie]

I hope you get a positive response.
_________________
Scott

[SableWyvern]

Sounds like there's no Conan IP in there (hmmm ... on second thought, maybe the races...), which would mean you could legally release this under the OGL.

Of course, getting specific approval from Mongoose might save you the hassle of ensuring that you did in fact meet all the OGL requirements.

[ryhopewood]

Hi there

No one from Mongoose has responded to my earlier post so can I ask them to do so again?

My spreadsheet is ready to go. I've appended the OGL licence conditions from the Wizards web-site and left the archectiture totally open - you can see it all guys - as per the licence condition.

I need word from Mongoose itself before I start distributing re: race names and possibly spell names.

Guys at Mongoose Hall - happy to send you a copy if you want to see it.

Cheers,

Ian

[sbarrie]

You may consider changing the race names from "Cimmerian" to something like "+2 Str, -2 Int, Preferred Class Barbarian".

I doubt the spell names will be a problem, as they were created by Mongoose and aren't a direct part of the Conan licence.
_________________
Scott

[ryhopewood]

Hi there

Good thought but my macros work on the real names so I would need to edit the VBA code more than I want to.

Given the other thread on this site involves fairly liberal dissemination of materials with race names etc..., perhaps I'm worrying too much.

Anyone out there with a Conan themed website who would mind hosting the download for me - about 250k zipped?


Ian

[bolen]

any chance I could get a copy of this spreadsheet?
_________________
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and concientious stupidity--

Martin Luther King

[Camelon75]

I too would like to get my hands on a self calc sheet

Have you found a web home for it and is there a link?
or
Can you send it to individuals or does that infringe anything?

[ryhopewood]

Hi all

I have forwarded the spreadsheet to a website for hosting. It should be available to all soon ...

Version 1.1 will be available that adds the commoner class and fixes a bug with the skill points total (the INT modifier wasn't being properly applied).

I'm working to add in Noble today, which leave only pirate missing.

Ian

[albjohnson]

Cant wait to see the sheet how long untill its on-line somewhere

[Fearguis]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ConanD20/


There's all kinds of files hosted here. Join up and you can add it to the files section. A good portion of the Mongoose boys are members, as well.
_________________
Play Conan in Neverwinter Nights!!
http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/modules/data/1057205173134.shtml

[ryhopewood]

Thanks for this.

I've applied to join the group. I will post the latest version as soon as I can.

Release version 1_2 now includes all 9 classes from core rules and bandit class from Signs and Portents.

Also generates a handy NPC stat block as well as the full character sheet.

Version 1_2 fixes a few bugs as well including skill points and power points.

Cheers

Ian

[ryhopewood]

Hi all

Version 1_2 of the Excel spreadsheet has been successfully uploaded to the Conan D20 group at Yahoo.

You can download it from the files section. It is the file entitled Conan_release_1_2.zip.

URL: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ConanD20/files/Mongoose%20Game%20Aids/Conan_releas\e%201_2.zip

All comments greatly received so that I can improve it. Post remarks on this thread please.

Hope some of you (ok maybe too ambitious, at least one of you) finds it useful.

Best wishes, Ian

[Fearguis]

You'll need to join the Yahoo Group before downloading files. I keep the group closed for approval only, to screen out the email spammers. (Of which there have been many that tried
_________________
Play Conan in Neverwinter Nights!!
http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/modules/data/1057205173134.shtml

[sbarrie]

That's really, really great, man.

A few notes:
I created a South Islander who has 2 levels of Barbarian and 4 levels of Pirate.

On the User Sheet:

It gave me 5 feats, but I think I should only have 4. Barbarian and Pirate are each favoured classes, but they don't each give a bonus at their first level. Figured that out myself - the combined Barbarian/Pirate levels reached 5th.

It would be nice if you only recorded what you rolled for hit points, and then let the sheet add the Constitution modifier. That would make it easier if you keep updating the same sheet as a character gains levels. You could even fill in the first level automatically, since you ask for the starting class.

Missing religion. +2 to Will Saves can be pretty important

On the Character Sheet:

It writes that I have a +1 to hit with spears, but it doesn't include that under my War Spear's "Attack Mod" (a very minor quibble).

I gave him a Stygian bow, and apparently I have a -4 Attack Bonus with it even though I have Versatility.

A column with the Total Attack Bonus of each weapon would be nice. (Right now it only includes Weapon Focus, Unfamiliarity and maybe others)

Under Class Abilities, I have "Sneak Attack (+1d6/+1d8)", like a thief. It may be useful to keep track of Pirate and Thief sneak attack bonuses seperately, so multiclass Thief/Pirates know how many d8s and how many d6s to roll when using their favoured weapon.

Dodge and Parry totals shouldn't have pluses prefixing them.

I'd like to add that this is a great tool as-is. Just because I can find things to nitpick doesn't mean it isn't complete or I won't use it.
_________________
Scott