Dragon Generator

[CRGreathouse]

This is a thread for my dragon generator, found at:
http://mwtools.thyle.net/d_gen.html

As the main page suggests, I have been working on redoing the dragon geerator for some time now. What I'd really like to see is what people think I should work on next. Some aspects are obviously harder than others, and I only have a limited amount of time to work on this. Having said that, please give opinions! I could have made this a poll, but I'm less interested in *what* you want as *why* you want it.

I've already written support for 5 templates into the next version - fiendish, half-fiend, celestial, half-celestial, and dracolich. This required a complete rewrite of a large portion of the generator, so more testing is needed to ensure it won't just crash on certain combinations.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Here's the list of "stuff I could do":

* Random feat selection
* Random skill selection
* Different hit point calculation types (max hp, elite, 75%, etc.)
* Fill in sample spells - very hard
* Minor fixes to skills - fiendish dragons should have more skills, for example.
* More templates - which?
* "Always" -> "Usually" for lung dragons
* Expand "LG", etc. for MM blocks
* Random generation by CR - how many CR 14 combinations are possible, anyway?
* Better support for Netscape - I'm trying!
* Something else - what?

 

[MythandLore]

I've already written support for 5 templates into the next version - fiendish, half-fiend, celestial, half-celestial, and dracolich. This required a complete rewrite of a large portion of the generator, so more testing is needed to ensure it won't just crash on certain combinations.

WOW!
Templates would be so so very awesome!

* Random feat selection
* Random skill selection
* Different hit point calculation types (max hp, elite, 75%, etc.)
* Fill in sample spells - very hard
* More templates - which?
* Random generation by CR - how many CR 14 combinations are possible, anyway?

Random feats would be nice, and save my time at the cost of yours.
Random skills would be nice, and save my time at the cost of yours.
Different hit point calculation types would be nice, and save my time at the cost of yours.
Filling in spells would be nice, and save my time at the cost of yours.

MORE TEMPLETES!:
Wow, what your doing is amazing as it is.
But I would sugjest the ones from the MotP.
Half-Elementals (Air, Earth, Fire, Water)
Element Creatures (Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Wood)
Shadow Creatures
Axiomatic Creatures (Lawful)
Anarchic Creatures (Chaos)
(These 12 + the ones your doing already would be = 17!)

Random generation by CR would be amazingly useful!
If you added alignment to that it would be better, but it's not really that important.
I.E. I want a CR 11 CE dragon and presto I have one I can use, instead on one that is the wrong aligment for my game.
I think this one could be more work then you think considering the AWESOME HD advancement you already have.
Someone could type in CR 189 and there would be 10s of 1000s of possiblitys, it might make a problem.

As it is with Templetes advancment and the 20+ (after you add all the OA ones) they're are more possiblitys then anyone could ever need.

I have used you generators many times, there great, keep up the good work.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Wow, you just want everything.

As it is with Templetes advancment and the 20+ (after you add all the OA ones) they're are more possiblitys then anyone could ever need.

Oh, did I forget to mention that I've added the OA dragons to my personal (untested) version? 27 varieties of dragon, 12 ages, and 11 ways to combine templates makes over 3,500 different dragons, not including advancement by HD and different stat arangements.

I'd love to add the MotP templates, especially the anarchic and axiomatic. You seem to really like the idea of random generation, so I think I'll get started on that - it should take me less than 2 hours of programming (plus an hour for testing), so it's no big deal.

Any other comments?

 

[EOL]

Here's the list of "stuff I could do":
* Fill in sample spells - very hard

Rather than a random selection of spells if you just developed a best choice list. For example at 3rd-level the list might look like: Haste, Dispel Magic, Displacement, Suggestion. If the dragon got 1 3rd level spell he would have Haste on his list, if he got two then it would be Haste and Dispel Magic. So it would just be a matter of truncating the list at the right point. I think most DM's use this to give them a basis and if there was a spell list already in place it would be easy to swap a few out here and a few out there and have the complete Dragon with spells, which can be a large part of the Dragon's power.

From there it might be nice to see a stat block with all the spells cast, but obviously that would be a lot more difficult and not as useful.

I think my first suggestion would be the biggest return on effort, at least from my perspective.

 

[CRGreathouse]

I may well try that, though it's harder than it sounds. Any idea of what spells I should include? If we could come up with a quick list, I'd try to include it... it would take at least 4h to write, though, plus time to test. That's a week or two, once I've fit it into my schedule.

 

[SpikeyFreak]

Cool.

What language are you doing this in?

Your code in other posts I've seen has been C++, is that the language? If so, what "environment" are you writing it in?

--Interested Spikey

 

[CRGreathouse]

Cool.

What language are you doing this in?

Your code in other posts I've seen has been C++, is that the language? If so, what "environment" are you writing it in?

I write my generators in JavaScript so they can run online as well as offline, on as many systems as possible. It's a little limited, but I can live with it.

You can see the code with View Source; I'm sure it will make sense to you, even if you don't know JavaScript.

 

[Wippit Guud]

Well, this would be sweet, and get really really really REALLY big code-wise.

Easy stuff:
Lair locations
Individual personality traits (DMG has one that could be modified to dragons)

Medium stuff:
Traps within lair, dependant on type of lair
Character class advancement

Hard stuff:
Typical cohorts/slaves/companions/allies, with attendant stat blocks.

Extremely hard stuff:
Automatically generate the dragon hoard through the treaure generator, identify which items would be immediately useful to the dragon (like rings, for example), and incorporate them in the stat block.

If I was a coder, I wouldn't suggest half of this stuff, cause I'd know how hard it would be

 

[CRGreathouse]

If I was a coder, I wouldn't suggest half of this stuff, cause I'd know how hard it would be

You're right about that. I'll look into it, but it'll take some time.

Do you have any specific suggestions for the individual personality traits? I might look into that, as it should be seperate from the rest of the generator (seperate = easier to do).