Release Notes for PCGen v5.10.1

Table of Content

What's new for v5.10.1

PCGen v5.10.1 is a maintenance release which is a collection of 73 bug fixes to the 5.10.0 release. For full details of the changes, see the Change Log .

Éric "Space Monkey" Beaudoin for the PCGEN Team -- July 24, 2006.

Migration of Homebrew Datasets

Since the inception of the program we have mistakenly named the Will check Willpower. This has been corrected in 5.10.0. Users with homebrew datasets will need to update the Will check bonuses in their sets to use Will instead of Willpower. Several other objects have also received some name changes as well. In the MSRD the class named "Battlemind" was corrected to "Battle Mind", the class "Archaic Weaponmaster" was corrected to "Archaic Weaponsmaster". In the RSRD the class "Warmind" was corrected to "War Mind".

Also if you refer to the SRD, RSRD or MSRD files in your datasets, you should read the next section as you may need to change some links as these were reorganised.

SRD, RSRD and MSRD Directory reorganization

In the 5.9.7 release we have reorganized the core datasets directories. Essentially we have moved the files loaded by each Partial set into it's own directory. We have done this to simplify maintenance and to stream line their use, since each is now a self-contained dataset you can be confident that no file is double loaded when you mix and match Partial sets. You can also load any combination of sets and know that only the basics set is required (with the exception of the Epic Psionics set which also requires the Psionics set).

Impact: If you have created custom datasets which use relative links to load files from the core datasets these links will be broken. You will need to check out the new structure to see how it need to be fixed. Similarly if you have created a custom pcc with the Customize button in the Sources Tab you will need to manually edit it to correct the paths or simply recreate it.

For the SRD and RSRD this change is not expected to break any previously created characters since the dataset names were not changed.

Changes to the MSRD on the other hand are going deeper as they involve a major overhaul of the PCC Type and Campaign tags. Where the complete set previously only loaded the Basics and Menaces sections of the MSRD, there is now a much more modular structure that will help to better cope with the multitude of genres that can be covered by the Modern game.

The new setup now shows under Complete: MSRD Arcana, MSRD Basics, MSRD Future, and MSRD Menaces. These sets will each load a complete section, as those appear as partially downloadable sections of the MSRD on the WotC webpage. To exactly do that, the section previously called "Core" has been renamed to "Basics" as that is what the MSRD uses. Of course there are still the optional partial sets for users that want to load only certain components, like loading the Basics without FX.

But all those changes to the MSRD come at a price. Pre-existing characters will most certainly be broken and are unlikely to still work with this new version. To work around this you can try the following steps:

This procedure should usually work.

GMGen known issue

There is a known issue with GMGen when used on a Macintosh. In the Initiative Tab when running a combat when you select any character other than the one whose turn it is and click the Damage or Heal buttons the character whose turn it is becomes selected and the damage is applied to him instead of the character which had been selected.

A solution has not yet been found but fortunately there is a simple work-around. The problem will only manifest when using the System Look and Feel, you can change the Look and Feel by going to Preferences/Appearance/Look and Feel and changing it to Java before activating GMGen and then it will work as it should.

Installation

Prerequisites

Java 1.4.x or Java 5. PCGEN 5.10.1 is not compatible with Java 1.3.x and it is NOT SUPPORTED. To get the latest version of Java, go to java.com.

Windows Users

We recommend that you use the Windows installer.

Mac Users

We recommend that you use the OS X DMG Mac Installer, it is now working with OS X 10.4 (Tiger). This has been a problem in the past due to a change on Apple’s part in how the menu bar was handled with java 1.4 on Tiger, a packaged java app set to use the main window instead of the application window caused the program to crash at startup. At this point in time the solution is to set the menu bar to appear in application menu.

Also new in this version is the configuration of the program, all the necessary files are now included with the program package. You can still access the files by right clicking the program and choosing Show Package Contents. See the notes included in the installer DMG for all the details.

Others (or advanced) users

Pick the package with the features you want and unzip it. It is highly recommended that you use a new directory for every new release. Once the package is unzipped, see docs\index.html for the full documentation.

Alpha Data Sets

The Alpha directory that contains data sets that were not judged to be "production" grade, is included in a separate package. They vary from "better then nothing" to "nearly ready for production".

Read the doc!

Please make sure you read the docs to familiarize yourself with the changes. You can access it from docs/index.html located in the PCGen directory.

Want to Help?

PCGen is an open source project. Anyone who wants to contribute whether it is Java programming, data set programming, documentation, helping new users, general cat herding, massage, walking the dogs, etc. is very welcome.

If you want to help drop a mail to Paul W. King (paulking.rhochi@verizon.net) or Karianna (karianna@clear.net.nz), or simply post a message with the title "I Want To Help" in one of the mailing lists (and may the gods have mercy on your soul :-).

Useful Links

Change Log for 5.10.1

PCGen Bugs Closed

Plugin Bugs Closed

Doc Bugs Closed

Output Sheet Bugs Closed

Data Bugs Closed

PrettyLst Changes

Change Log for 5.10.0

PCGen Bugs Closed

PCGen FREQs Closed

DATA Bugs Closed

DATA Feature Requests Closed

DATA New Source Material Requests Closed

DATA New Alpha Source Material Requests Closed

DATA Tag Addition Requests Closed

List File Fixed/New Source Material Requests

OS Bugs Closed

OS Freqs Closed

DOC Bugs Closed

DOC FREQs Closed