User:Hoopy Froodle/Sandbox

Unified ability theory
I'm still making changes at too great a rate to consider this stable, but I want to get out a heads-up.

This grew out of the T:Infobox-spell effort. As I moved on to T:Infobox-feat, I realized that spells and SLAs, feats and enhancements, have more in common than not. For instance, they all have mechanics such as target and range, and they all have effects such as damage or movement buff. Furthermore, many abilities qualify as more than one type. For instance, Ruin is a spell feat, and Arcane Blast is an SLA enhancement. The same could be said for Bard songs, Ki abilities, and Channel Divinity effects. Rather than maintain a suite of overlapping templates, it made sense to build one template to encompass them all.

However, over a thousand abilities are already represented using one of a handful of disparate templates. No one wants to sit down with each page and figure out how it maps to a new interface. I therefore created a set of conversion templates to automate as much of the process as possible.

The resulting pages are considerably richer in information than the originals (and prettier, IMHO). In addition to highlighting missing fields such as range or cooldown, they also describe, in general terms, each ability's effects, and assign categories appropriately. Thus, Improved Trip is assigned to C:Tactical feats, while Inspire Heroics is assigned to C:Saving throw songs. While many of the assignments are automated during conversion, manual clean-up is often warranted. (Yes, Cru121, it smells like work.) I also expect people will want to add their own effect categories, or modify existing ones. Depending how many people get involved, the transition could take months or years. But I think folks will be pleased with the results. Feel free to browse testcases or, even better, create your own. At some point I'll have to write a guide for those who want to edit the templates.

As always, any feedback and/or improvements are welcome. &rArr; Hoopy Froodle (Contribs • Message • Email ) 13:01, August 24, 2019 (EDT)
 * I'm not sold that a unification of templates is needed, but I haven't messed with any of these templates. In any case, if any drastic change is about to happen, careful thinking needs to go into it. So, let me share my thoughts after observing some of the sandbox tests:
 * AC Bonus/sandbox: When looking at a page, it needs to be clear from a simple glance at the page's layout that this ability is a feat.
 * Ruin (feat)/sandbox: While it is important to know that this ability is a feat (an epic feat - this information is missing from the infobox), the effect is a spell. So, after sorting out the feat stuff (like level, prerequisites, classes, restrictions, etc.), then the familiar spell infobox needs to be displayed.
 * Fireball/sandbox: This is a spell. It definitely should have the spell infobox (with spell level, DCs, durations, school, the answer to every question a caster might have before casting the spell such as "What will its DC be, how long will it last, what damage, school, effects, metamagics, ...?"). However, this spell can be cast from clickies, scrolls, as a spell in the spellbook, as a spell from a monster, as an SLA from fire savant. The sources of fireball need to be listed in a clear section before or after the spell infobox (I think before is better since the infobox catches the eye while the sources don't).
 * Acid Well/sandbox: This spell has "Effect: Damage" in the infobox. Fireball didn't have that yet both spells do damage with fireball having some extra effects (like destroying doors, webs, lighting oil/tents/torches on fire, etc.). I don't think that "effect: damage" offers anything in the infobox. If you wanna put it in the category of damaging spells, do that quietly. Other than that, the spell's description perfectly explains what a spell can do.
 * Adamantine Body/sandbox: Again, "Effect: Warforged Body"? The effects are explained later and saying "This is a warforged body feat" does not imply "You will not be able to select other body feats". So, this "effect" is redundant and explained better in the notes. This feat also doesn't have that "Monk level 1" that AC Bonus had. Why not? I don't see any information about when this feat can be acquired except from the note that says it can be acquired later, not just at character creation. When a feat can be acquired is critical information and should be displayed at the same place for all feats.
 * Adept of Forms/sandbox: I see a "Class feat: Monk" in the infobox. What does that mean? Like the fighter feats, or the cleric domains and deities, it can be selected as a monk extra feat? Not really. This feat is granted for free automatically at monk lvl 6 or selected normally for characters with levels of monk (which is covered in the prerequisites). So, this free grant needs to be displayed instead and not as a note since so many feats are autogrants with race/class/level. This feat also mentions "Usage: Passive", but it has active components. I don't think active/passive mention is needed since the effects describe what it does. The feat page may be in both active and passive feats categories.
 * Cleave/sandbox: "Trainable: Heroic"? But this can be trained in epic levels as well. It doesn't mention in a prominent place that it is a fighter bonus feat. Feats need: Prerequisites, earliest level they can be taken, what classes/levels/races grant them and in what way (extra feat or free). The rest belong to the effects of a feat and can be listed separately (like cooldown, area of effect, restrictions, etc.). The sandbox page also mentions: "Item: Two-handed weapon". This is wrong: cleave also works with single-handed weapons and dual wielding.
 * Animate Ally/sandbox: Details about the enhancement are intertwined with details about the spell and this creates confusion about what the words in the infobox mean. Again, mention 1st where this is obtained and how and then what the effects are. "Effect: Health" is LOLworthy. This spell is too complex to describe it by "It affects health".
 * Inspire Courage/sandbox: The information provided is so jumbled that I was about to forget how my bard got it and how he used it. I can't stress enough that when and how you get an ability needs to be separate from the effects of the ability. Also, it's completely normal for some abilities to be unique and not fit into the usual categories. Just describe what and how in the description and leave the other fields blank (which means that the template needs to be able to accept empty fields).
 * I think I made enough comments to keep you busy thinking for a while. Remember that the pages need to be readable by a complete newb as well as users unfamiliar with wiki classifications and after a thorough reading a player should be able to imagine what that ability would be like in the game and how they could get it. If meeting that criteria means that we should go through all the ability pages and work on them, then so be it. Do not sacrifice quality over quantity. This practice is prevalent in this wiki and I hate to see it reproduce. Thank you. &rArr; Faltout (Contribs • Message • Email ) 07:04, August 25, 2019 (EDT)


 * Thanks for all the great feedback! I really appreciate the time and thought you put into it. My rebuttal ... er, I mean, responses:
 * AC Bonus/sandbox: What more would you suggest? For those familiar with the infobox, the color gives it away. For those who are not, the first line says it's a feat.
 * Ruin (feat)/sandbox: I reran the updated conversion script, and now it correctly says it's an epic feat. Beyond that, it's the same color as the familiar spell infobox, with all the same content, slightly reformatted (for the better, IMHO). What's the issue?
 * Fireball/sandbox: Is information missing, other than alternate sources? Those weren't in the original, so they're not in the result. You're welcome to fill them in, in the granted by field. The field will end up looking something like Evasion/sandbox (subject to change, of course).
 * Acid Well/sandbox: My premise is that it would be helpful to tell at a glance from the infobox what general class of ability it is (damage, saving throw buff, etc) without having to read the description. Do you disagree that this could be helpful?
 * Adamantine Body/sandbox: "Trainable: Heroic" indicates when the feat can be acquired. Same response regarding effect. I'm not convinced that "Monk level 1" should be listed as a prereq for Adamantine Body, but in any case, I haven't made any concerted effort to fill in missing information, other than copying from the description to relevant fields.
 * Adept of Forms/sandbox: This fits the definition of class feat as given in C:Class feats, which I added a link to. It's also defined in a comment in the template. I gave the term a more precise definition than it had previously, to contrast with bonus feats and class-exclusive feats. I'll address terminology elsewhere.
 * You're right, the field should be more specific, saying "Monk 6" instead of just "Monk". That will require some adaptations to the template, added to my todo list.
 * Adept of Forms is passive by definition, since nothing needs to be done to activate it. It does modify active abilities, however. I got the idea for passive/active/toggled from Feat, and consider it a useful feature to see at a glance. Do you not find it so?
 * Cleave/sandbox: Any heroic feat can be trained using an epic feat slot. I don't feel the need to explain that here, do you? Cleave is not an Epic Feat.
 * I reran the most recent conversion script. This time it caught the bonus feat. Is other information missing?
 * I got rid of the erroneous item mention, thanks for the catch.
 * Animate Ally/sandbox: It's funny, originally I had it as you say, more precisely: type/name, prerequisites, acquisition, usage, mechanics, effects. However, I adapted it to more closely reflect layout of existing templates, specifically Feat and Spelldescription. I've reordered it according to my earlier plan. What do you think?
 * "Effect: Health" is LOLworthy. Yeah, I have to agree with you. :/ Some work needs to be put in to defining a taxonomy of effects that is optimally informative and succinct.
 * Inspire Courage/sandbox: Does reordering the fields provide enough of a distinction?
 * I agree, it's impossible to cover all possible characteristics, and most fields can be left blank. A few are required for particular types, as demonstrated in Acid Well.