Topic: ERA: A question about inventory

[alloowishus]

I notice there is a "Carried Only" button and each item has a "location" free text field. How does this work? How do you indicate an item is worn and should not be counted towards encumberance penalties? Thanks.

[Voriig Kye]

Thanks for the question, and sorry this is not documented.

- If the location is "Worn" or "Mount" it will not count towards the character's total carried weight.
- If the location is "Backpack" or the item is called "Backpack", it will not be considered for casting penalties when checking "Drop backpack" in the casting dialog.
- If the item includes the word "magic" in its reference, effect or description, it will not be considered for casting penalties.

[Voriig Kye]

Carried only is something different, it means "do not show items that no one has, regardless of location".

[alloowishus]

Ok thanks. I suggest having more drop downs in the interface, like why not have a drop down for "Backpack" (if it exists) and "Worn"? Am I supposed to just guess?

This inventory thing regarding inorganic and organic is really wacky though. For instance, items in the inventory are marked as Organic (living) and Organic (non-living) but there is no category for Inorganic? Somehow a players casting penalty is -44 and he is supposedly carrying 27 pounds of inorganic material. One of these from what I can is trail rations. That does NOT make sense. Also, the organic/inorganic thing is an optional rule.

OPTION 10.8: ESF FOR
 CASTING WHILE CARRYING
PROHIBITED AMOUNTS OF EQUIPMENT
This option allows Essence and Channeling spells to be cast when the caster is
carrying too much weight of prohibited
materials. The table below gives ESF
modifications for equipment carried by
type and realm.

How do I turn this off? I tried lowering the Inorganic percentage and it made things worse!

This software has some good points, but there are some serious issues with navigation, functionality and documentation (PLEASE indicate what optional rules are being used and where). THe biggest problem is that one little bug in a section makes the adventure module almost unuseable. I think I may have to switch to Minion.

[Voriig Kye]

The location is not a dropdown because it is meant to allow for flexible options. It will auto-complete if you start writing Worn, Mount, Belt, Backpack or any other location previously used in another item.
For the next release, we will add a hint in the field to suggest the predefined options. Also we will make it clear that carrier can be a character but also a place, in case the party leaves some item in their hideout or something. The same goes for the magic explanation in item description.

This also brings out the fact that many uses of ERA were originally intended for a single gaming group, and once published has been steadily increasing in features, but each group uses different rulings and so requires those missing features to speak up and offer options just like you are doing. Thanks for that!

To turn off the equipment penalties, remove the EquipmentModifications tag in the XML files in the /Realms directory (Mentalism is a good example for this).

There was an initial draft of a document explaining which optional rules were available and how to manage them, but it never got enough attention by the users at the time, so it is not up to date.
If you want to check it out, it's available at:
http://goo.gl/xdMHbd

[alloowishus]

I think you should strongly consider making a web version, especially during these pandemic times since most, if not all, people are playing online. It seems you are halfway there anyway, since it runs from a browser (although locally). It would also make it easier to maintain from your perpsective.

[Voriig Kye]

The requirements for an online server imply not only organizing the hosting, monitoring, upkeeping, etc.
It also means implementing into ERA support for multiple gaming groups at the same time, or some form of login.
This also means designing, organizing, developing and maintaining a subscription for users.
Content available for each group would depend on customization and packages purchases, so it would be a nightmare of database maintenance.
On top of all that, since the content offered is ICE IP, the legals around it would be way more complicated than the current arrangement drafted for ERA.
Despite all those complications, the option of going this route was offered some years ago in an online survey to users at that time, and there was little to no interest. Pandemic times have surely changed that, but they have also heavily cut the time available for developing new features in ERA, and the online server is just too much to be done at this moment.
Thanks for the suggestion anyway!