Chummer for 5e, really! Options

[nylanfs]

http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=17200.0

So here I go with my attempt to make my first post here be something special...

TLDR: I've been working on updating Chummer for 5th edition, the beta is ready, it uses the same .NET 4.0 Framework as original Chummer, and here's the link: https://code.google.com/p/chummer5/


Longer Version: About a year ago, my roughly 15 year old gaming group decided we'd had enough of playtesting D&D Next and wanted to play something different. Once we settled on Shadowrun the next question was 4th or 5th Edition. After discovering Chummer and realizing that 5th Edition at that time was only one book, well... we settled on 4th Edition pretty quick.

As we played though, we found a number of things that were cumbersome, or vague, or cumbersome and vague. And for some of these issues we were finding that 5th Edition had some nice fixes... but no Chummer. Every time we'd look at 5th, the lack of Chummer stopped us cold. But hey... I'm a programmer, I've worked in C# for close to 10 years and WinForms (in VB) for about as long... I could do it!

Fast forward a little over a month and I had my first alpha build for my gaming group. Fast forward another month and here we are... my first beta ready build.


There are a few things that haven't been added as of yet but will be added in a future build:
- Multiple specializations per skill during post character creation advancement
- PACKS (I was considering pulling ideas for strictly armor, weapons, and gear PACKS from the forums)
- Critter creation (it's still there from Original Chummer using the Karma Build system, I just haven't taken the time yet to make sure it all still works let alone how the rules have change if they even still exist)
- Street Level and Prime Runner creation options along with any other optional rules
- I've updated the main character sheet but still need to update the others
- This build only has a current language file for English. I will update the German, French, and Japanese language files in a future update.


Now there's a few things you should know about this build:

First, it's been renamed Chummer5 and uses .chum5 files so that it won't step on original Chummer and you can associate .chum files with original Chummer and .chum5 with Chummer5.

Per the 5th Edition rules, you can raise attributes and skills past the point where you have run out of points granted to you from your priority selections by using karma. But exactly how...? Let me give you a couple very simplified examples:

Say you have skill "A" and skill "B". You have 6 skill points you can allocate to skills. You raise skill A to 4 and skill B to 3 so you've gone over your allotment of 6 points by 1.

Original Chummer handled this problem for Knowledge Skills by running through the list of skills you have one point at a time and then charging karma for the highest points. So it would allocate 1 point to A, one to B, see it wasn't out of points yet (it's spent 2 points) and then raise A to 2 and B to 2. Still not out of points (it's now spent 4) it would raise A to 3 and B to 3. You're now out of points and will have to pay 4 karma to raise skill A from 3 to 4.

Before I stumbled across that code, I had already coded Primary Attributes, Special Attributes, Skill Groups, and Active Skills to use the optimal path. In other words, it would allocate 4 points to skill A because it was the highest, then it would allocate the last 2 points to B leaving you to pay 3 karma to raise skill B from 2 to 3. This is the more efficient path but can look strange in practice because raising or lowering an attribute or skill might change the optimal path so the change might cost (or refund) more or less karma than you would initially expect.

Which approach is the correct one? No bloody idea. I'm hoping one (or more) of you fine people reading this will be able to tell me so I can get everything using the same approach.

I ran into one other area that I simply wasn't sure what the correct approach was to take... Magic with Cyber/bioware. Perhaps I've just not found the right entry but I haven't found an explicit 5th Edition rule that explains how this is supposed to work. The way it is coded currently is that losing a point of Essence will reduce your current and maximum Magic by 1 point. And to raise your Magic (presuming you haven't hit your maximum or have raised your maximum with Initiation) it will cost you karma as if you haven't lowered your Essence with 'ware. So as an example, if you have 5 Magic and buy Muscle Toner which reduces your Essence by one point, you will now have 5 Essence and 4 Magic. To raise your Magic by one point, it will cost 30 karma (what it would cost to raise your unaltered 5 Magic from 5 to 6). Again if I got this wrong, please explain and I'll update the code accordingly.

Skill limits are calculated and there's a new tab where you can track limit modifiers from qualities and gear and the like as well as manually add your own. As these are often conditional, they aren't added to the calculated limits automatically but are shown on the character sheet so you have them handy when it is appropriate to add them.

And then there's auto-update. 4th Edition Chummer was written such that it would auto-update the data files. I don't have a long-term location to host the data files so I had to disable that code at least for now. Sorry.

Build numbers for Chummer5 have changed from the original. I started with 5.101 and have been incrementing upwards since my first alpha build. As of this writing, the current build is 5.109. You should always be able to find the current build at the link at the top of this post.

As of this build, it includes the core rule book, Run & Gun, Gun Heaven 3, and the Assassin's Primer. I just got Street Grimoire today and I'll add it in as fast as I can, I just didn't want to postpone this beta release.


Lastly, I have a few very important things to say:

First, none of this would be possible if it weren't for Nebular and the work he did writing the original Chummer. He made it possible for our group (and I'm sure many more besides ours) to ease our way into Shadowrun and I cannot thank him enough. This update to Chummer was done with his kind permission.

Second, I want to thank my gaming group for all the hours they put in testing the alpha builds I put together. The list of bugs you're not seeing in this code is long and it's because of their work. Thank you Marc, Randy, Arian, Stacy, Ed, and Jennifer. You guys rock!

Third and last, I've already had a heads up that the workload at my regular job is very soon about to pick up significantly through the end of the year. I'll be available for a while to do updates and bug fixes but I can't in any way guarantee that my availability will last so I'm not going to commit to maintaining Chummer5 long term. I'll do my best and that's all I can promise. But, this code has remained open source under the same license Nebular gave it and the code for Chummer5 is in a new repository on Google Code (I kept it separate so it wouldn't step on the 4th Edition Chummer).

I'll be posting this on Dumpshock as well (as soon as they get around to approving my login) and will try to keep up with the threads both here and there. I've also set up srchummer5@gmail.com as an address just for handling bug reports and issues so feel free to contact me there as well.