Mordheim Roster Builder

UPDATE: The Roster Builder has been updated with the ability to SAVE your warbands finally! Read all about it here: http://tabletopgeeks.com/roster-builder-updated-with-saving/

Okay, so it's not THAT secret, but I haven't posted it anywhere else yet. In addition to my other tabletop related projects that I've been cooking up I had this idea... I spent most of the weekend programming this and it's nearing a state where it's ready for release. I've decided to unleash it to you all first to get some feedback.

Enough suspense built yet? Okay, I'll tell you... It's a Mordheim Roster Builder! Here's the link:
http://www.tabletopgeeks.com/mordheim-roster-builder/?warband=undead

So, the idea is that this will let you quickly and easily put together a roster with all the work done for you. It auto-calculates the gold crowns, it calculates your rating, it prevents you from accidentally doing something you shouldn't be able to. It's NOT finished yet so there are some things to note:
1) Undead is the only Warband up right now. Adding new Warbands is really simple assuming that warband has no special rules though, so the others will follow quickly. Tons of warbands now!
2) It does NOT currently show experience. I'm still looking for a good way to do this. Adding 90 checkboxes for heroes I think would make it look a little funny unless I can find a way to shrink them or something. I could potentially look at doing a table... I gotta mess with it. Fixed! Experience is implemented.
3) It does NOT force you to take your leader currently. I'm looking at a few ways of implementing this (like just making the first Hero slot ALWAYS auto-select the hero and prevent you from changing that. Fixed, required heroes are set and cannot be changed.
4) It doesn't have anything in it to account for special rules yet (ie mutations) and that's what is up next. I need to get a list of all the special things that I'll need to implement to do that, so post up anything you think of here! Mutations is the only one I can think of off the top of my head. EDIT: Fixed for the most part. I will add new special rules as required.
5) There is currently no way to get this into some other format. LOTS of plans for that, so check the future plans below. Printable format is now available!
6) This really only works for creating a starting warband at the moment. I would like to set it up to allow you to input an existing one and go from there, see below.
7) It doesn't let you select a spell. Is this something people would like to have? I figure since you're supposed to roll for that it doesn't really need to be here. I could also make an auto-roll that will electronically "roll" you a 1-6 and add a spell automatically if that's something people would be interested in.

So, with all that said... here are the future plans!
1) Adding in experience display. Would people prefer this in the standard roster sheet format with all the boxes, or would something as simple as "Experience: 20" somewhere in the table for each hero be sufficient? Fixed. I did both. :-P
2) Find ways to export this to other formats. Currently I'd like to export it to a forum friendly format. I'd like to try and find a way to overlay it on a regular roster sheet (possibly just as an image) for printing. If you have any requests for specific formats you'd like this to export to, let me know now! Printable Format is available. If other formats are requested I'll see what I can do. However, there is no easy way to do a PDF format.
3) Validate all possible errors. Some things are tougher than others. Forcing a leader wouldn't be incredibly hard, but to do something like require mutations would be a pain. I'm thinking maybe a button at the bottom that says "Validate" or something and it pops up and tells you if there are any errors or suggestions ("You're missing a leader!", "You have more weapons than you can use on Hero x.", etc). Thoughts? Validation is in. You should receive a popup on errors to tell you why you can't do something.
4) More warbands! Undead is the only one right now. After that I plan on going through and adding all the official warbands first. From there I'll attempt to add in Unofficial warbands, Border Town Burning Warbands, and whatever else people want. The code is all there, and all I really need to do is add the specific warband information to an xml database which is really quick. If you'd like to help with that, let me know and I'll send you the format. Most warbands are in. BTB are coming soon.
5) I'd like to add the ability to use this for more than just starting Warbands. I can't decide exactly how I want that to work though. Would you prefer the ability to export to a file and import that later to update? What about just inputting all the current details (amount of gold, existing heroes/henchman and their skills/injuries, etc) and then pressing a "Lock" button that locks in your current data, then you can play around with adding new warriors/equipment and all.
6) Racial Maximums? I like the Roster sheets with the racial maximums listed underneath the stats. I could add a small row underneath the existing stats with the racial maximums if people would like that.

Well, I hope everyone likes it so far! Please give me feedback on the builder and all the things I posted above! Also, let me know if you find any bugs. I think I got rid of most of the ones that were there, but who knows what might pop up. If you have any feature requests, let me know. I want to keep working on this thing to make it a fully featured builder that works for everyone.

Wow, this is brilliant. I'm looking forward to seeing it expanded into more warbands.

A few knit picking problems that I saw in a little test run I had;
-The maximum number of henchmen per group was 6 instead of 5.
-Each henchmen group added 1 to the henchmen experience and warband rating.
-There was no limit on the number of weapons each hero could carry.

But all these are minor problems on the road to something great.

toemasss wrote:

Wow, this is brilliant. I'm looking forward to seeing it expanded into more warbands.

A few knit picking problems that I saw in a little test run I had;
-The maximum number of henchmen per group was 6 instead of 5.
-Each henchmen group added 1 to the henchmen experience and warband rating.
-There was no limit on the number of weapons each hero could carry.

But all these are minor problems on the road to something great.

Thank you, I fixed the first two issues there. The limit to the number of weapons a hero can carry thing is something I knew about but it's a larger issue that will take some examining. That might go under the "Validation" thing I mentioned above.

Out of curiousity, what web browser are you using? I just realized that it doesn't seem to work on Internet Explorer due to a major bug in one of the built-in Javascript functions I"m using that's exclusive to IE. Looking for a workaround...

I'm using firefox

toemasss wrote:

-There was no limit on the number of weapons each hero could carry.

After some thinking on this... I don't think I'm gonna change that. I'll probably have a pop-up box when you try to export it or something that will tell you, but there are cases where a hero might have more than 2 weapons (mutations, tail fighting, etc) and programming all that individually would be very difficult and a huge timesink.

Is there a rule that says a hero can't have more than 2 weapons? They can only fight with 2 (except in the case of exceptions) but couldn't they technically carry more and only use 2?

Using IE here, and it looks fine I'll try Safari on my girlfriends iMac tonight, see if it looks ok there too.

Arathorn wrote:

Using IE here, and it looks fine I'll try Safari on my girlfriends iMac tonight, see if it looks ok there too.

Well, the problem is that it doesn't work correctly. It SHOULD auto-populate the equipment list when you select a member from the dropdown, and then from there let you actually add/remove equipment and all. That stuff doesn't appear to work on IE. If that is all working for you on IE, please let me know which version you are using.

You may not carry more than two close combat weapons and two ranged weapons. However with the many exceptions (free dagger on top, brace of pistols count as one ranged weapon), it surely isn't worth enforcing this.

cianty wrote:

You may not carry more than two close combat weapons and two ranged weapons. However with the many exceptions (free dagger on top, brace of pistols count as one ranged weapon), it surely isn't worth enforcing this.

That was pretty much my thinking. Plus if I just check if you have more than two weapons on your character and let you know, it'll stop you from accidentally having more than allowed without requiring me to try and figure out every little rule for when you can have more.

Fixed the IE bug! Should be working the same in all browsers.

Iv just realiesed that i cant select the number of henchmen it just apears black the same with there special rules but apart from that this thing is AWSOME, makes it so much easyer thanks.

Doc

Plague Docter wrote:

Iv just realiesed that i cant select the number of henchmen it just apears black the same with there special rules but apart from that this thing is AWSOME, makes it so much easyer thanks.

Doc

Weird, that was working before... I'll look into it!

Svenn wrote:

Plague Docter wrote:

Iv just realiesed that i cant select the number of henchmen it just apears black the same with there special rules but apart from that this thing is AWSOME, makes it so much easyer thanks.

Doc

Weird, that was working before... I'll look into it!

Fixed! Had one minor error in the workaround code. Doh! Let me know if you see any more issues.

Okay... so first of all I went ahead and updated it to auto-select your Leader and place him in the first slot (from which he cannot be removed).

Now, I went through all the official warbands and some unofficial to get any weird/unusual rules that would affect the editor... of which there were several. I think what I'll do is put up all the warbands I can without making any real changes, and then go back and start working on the special cases.

Weird things I need to account for:
Mutations/Blessings of Nurgle
Plague Cart
Henchmen Pets
Pirate Swivel Gun
Pit Fighter Equipment

and a few others. I also might add a section for warband special rules since so many seem to have a set of rules for the entire warband.

If you think of anything I need to add, weird rules I need to account for, or find any bugs then please let me know!

If you want to help out with getting all the warbands up, contact me and I'll give you an example on the formatting (it's really simple, I promise!).

I might be willing to help you input the warbands.

this is a really great idea!

are you going to be able to save your list? like if it could be attached to this site, you could save your list - to your username.

then update over time, as you play a campaign?

frog wrote:

this is a really great idea!

are you going to be able to save your list? like if it could be attached to this site, you could save your list - to your username.

then update over time, as you play a campaign?

As I said above, one of my next steps is going to be ways to save your roster to something other than the website, probably in the form of some sort of export to another file type or just plain text. If possible a printable format overlaid on a regular roster would be best.

Updating over time as you play the campaign is something I would really like to add. That's gonna take a little bit more work though so it won't be immediate.

For those who dont want it on a website I have something similar in excel. http://www.teuse.net/games/mordheim/Mordheim_Roster_Sheet_latest.xls. There are a few campaign specific things on it and its got a lot of data but we find it very useful to make sure we do the basic math and rules correctly.

Ok, I did Dwarf Treasure Hunters. One issue, gromril weapons. Unless you make an entry for each gromril weapon type with its appropriate cost something is gonna have to change. For now I'll just list each gromril weapon type. Also did Da Mob, Squigs movement is 2D6 I just put an asterisk. If you need to change it go ahead.

So, we now have Dwarf Treasure Hunters and Da Mob (Orcs and Goblins) up and working on the roster thanks to JAFisher44!

Yeah, one limit to this right is that some of the data entry will need to be hand written out, but only one time and then it works forever.

I'm gonna work on getting up a few more warbands soon and then I'll try and add some of the new features in.

Orcs and Goblins: http://www.tabletopgeeks.com/mordheim-roster-builder/?warband=orcsandgoblins
Dwarf Treasure Hunters: http://www.tabletopgeeks.com/mordheim-roster-builder/?warband=dwarftreasurehunters

Hey, I added a troll and the rating calc didn't count it as a large creature.

JAFisher44 wrote:

Hey, I added a troll and the rating calc didn't count it as a large creature.

Are they large creatures? The warband listing doesn't list them as Large...

I don't know. If it doesn't it should. I don't know if it has been covered in an errata.

it is a larget target. as per the errata.

I had a few troubles when doing up a dwarf and orc warband. I couldn't give the henchmen any experience and some of the stats on the some of the orcs are out.