Talk:3.5e Monsters

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Properties[edit]

blah blah nav blah blah properties blah blah. sometimes i feel like I'm saying the same things over and over again...

Thing 1 - Templates need to be pulled from this list. They have their own section in the monster manual, they get their own section on our wiki too. We have two options for templates and creatures:

  1. Do like we do with classes, and keep them under the same section of 3.5e homebrew, but give them separate pages within the creatures section. So navigation would look like 3.5e homebrew -> creatures -> templates and 3.5e homebrew -> creatures -> monster writeups.
  2. Give them both their own entry on the 3.5e homebrew page. Navigation would look like 3.5e homebrew -> monsters and 3.5e homebrew -> templates.

I prefer option 1, and if I don't get any strong opinions the other way that's what I'll do.

On layout, the table actually isn't bad as is. It gives you a page which may include several sub-monsters, and actually gives you each of the sub-monsters' names and CRs as well as a description of the entire entry. That's pretty good actually, since it lets you find individual creatures who are part of a larger page. About the only thing I'd add to the tables is a Type (and maybe subtype, though I'm inclined to skip it for space reasons) and Environment column.

On properties, we have individual names, summary, CRs, types, subtypes, environment... we could toss in ECL and LA for those writeups that double as races. We can also do size, but I'm not sure that would be a useful search item or what else to add if not that. Thoughts appreciated. - TarkisFlux 01:16, October 14, 2009 (UTC)

Template:3.5e Creatures Breadcrumb
Back to Main Page3.5e Homebrew → Templates
I prefer to keep the page called 3.5e Creatures rather than Monsters for the main reason that all the articles are (3.5e Creature). Monsters kinda has a connotation of well, being monstrous. If type and subtype could be added to the table, it would be cool. Environment might be more for data browsing than the main listing. Same for size. Handy for browsing entries, but probably not needed for the main table listing. --Ganteka Future 20:24, October 16, 2009 (UTC)
Easy enough Gan. Are you opposed to naming the over-page 3.5e Monster Manual (or something similar), with sub-pages for creatures and templates?
Also, is there a preference between displaying multiple creatures from the same entry on different lines as opposed to the same line separated by commas? The current ask table does the former (and is my preference), while my placeholder table at the bottom does the latter (and makes it harder to read I think). - TarkisFlux 01:20, October 24, 2009 (UTC)

On a Separate (but related) Note[edit]

The Glossary needs a new home. It contained pages like 3.5e Creature Abilities, Terms (which I don't think we ever had), new Types and Subtypes, Conditions and... I think that's it for glossary article categories. Anyways, it was originally under the creature page heading. Any ideas where it should go now other than directly linked from the 3.5e Homebrew page? --Ganteka Future 20:24, October 16, 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean the SRD glossary, or is this something else I haven't seen yet? - TarkisFlux 20:29, October 16, 2009 (UTC)

Familiar Catagory[edit]

Would it be possible to have a catagory which makes a creature down as being suitable for a familiar, animal companion, or paladin mount? I think, for those searching for such things, that would be a useful benefit. What say you? -- Eiji Hyrule 19:23, February 24, 2010 (UTC)

Go ahead, just make sure you include the relevant rules for using the monster as that in each page that has such a category. Surgo 19:38, February 24, 2010 (UTC)

Reorganization by type?[edit]

Is it possible for someone (I'd try to do it) reorganize this page by monster TYPE or monster CATEGORY? Like instead of having all the dragons in different places on the list, to just consolidate them to 1 portion of the list so that someone who wants to pick through the list just for dragons can find what he was looking for faster instead of having to Control-F search or tab-search the whole list? Just wondering if that can be done. Sure would make this list look neater and nicer, too. So, instead of reading "super duper dragon blah blah blah" how about we instead reorganize the table into something like "Dragon, super duper", or "Dragon, less-than-stellar" (for example)? It would make much more sense in terms of order. --ProphetPX 06:12, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

See those little black up & down arrows on the right side of each column? Those are the sortable tabs. Click those. They resort the listings instantly on the page based on the tab you click. They sort alphabetically either way (depending on how many times you click it). --Ganteka Future 06:15, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
Also, if you're feeling up to it, you can always make a custom semantic search (like you see on the left sidebar under Navigation). Here's an example for finding dragons: [1] --Ganteka Future 06:34, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Dead/Old Link[edit]

The entry for "Artathi, Letathen" on here is dead or not linked properly. The original page got deleted and moved a few times so this may be why. Since it is sorted from a database query, there is no way I can fix the link for it from here :( Please forward the link to this right page for it: Publication:Mythic_Races_(3e)/Artathi/Letathen Thanks. --ProphetPX 06:14, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Pages with queries are refreshed periodically by the server. Admins can refresh them manually when needed. Optionally, you can always just try refreshing your page in your browser. I Didn't see the red link when I checked, so you might want to try that. --Ganteka Future 06:34, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
Forgot to mention, but worth pointing out that the Artathi won't show up in this listing. It's not 3.5e and it's not Homebrew. --Ganteka Future 06:37, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Further Results & Query Formatting Goofs[edit]

So like, there's an overflow here. The limit is set to 9999, but clearly it overflows anyways. "Further results..." leads to a semantic search results page of course, but the formatting is goofed and I am unsure on how to get it looking right (may require the creation of a template). Not sure how to solve this (after trying for like 20 minutes), but bringing it up since reading entries further down the alphabet is hideous because of that. Also, is it worthwhile to have a navigation page for homebrew monsters by CR (like we do for SRD ones)? I have one set up for myself at the moment, actually, in a sandbox (see it here: User:Ganteka_Future/DrawingBoard10). Making more work for people, as usual. --Ganteka Future (talk) 00:49, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Maximum returned limits got changed server side after Eiji's article count and associated navbox started breaking things. I think it's down to 500 or so now, and we can't exceed that on pages even if we try with the query parameter.
The formatting of all further results pages is screwed up when you use the table row template (or something similar) to format your results. It's still using the template to format the results, but without the table header on the custom page. The solution is to move away from the table row template setup, but that breaks the Type [Subtype] thing we have going on because we can't combine fields like that anymore. Still, nothing for it I guess. I'll sort it shortly.
And a by CR page would be a nice addition/replacement I think. You'll want to use the alternate table setup though (which I haven't done on the page yet), in case of overflow and for consistent formatting and blah blah. Let me get the big one here sorted first... - Tarkisflux Talk 01:40, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
Ugh, I forgot how the default listing dealt with multiple property values. Splitting by CR and just avoiding the maximum is a prettier solution, so I'm just going to grab your sandbox and use that instead. Thanks Gan! - Tarkisflux Talk 01:50, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Pokémon In The Main Navigation[edit]

Yeah, can we like, move the pokémon entries into their own category or something since they're basically only going to get used as a subset/campaign specific thing? It might be fairly easy as many appear to have a Pokemon d20 category already. Bringing this up since there may be objections. --Ganteka Future (talk) 07:15, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes please. I never understood why the creator was so opposed to a Pokémon subtype that would have IDed these creatures if you wanted to reference them in items, find them, or avoid them. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 07:44, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
Sounds like a good idea to me. The best way to do this is to add a subtype "Pokémon" (like Eiji says), because Semantic Mediawiki can search by "NOT property" but can't search by "NOT category". Surgo (talk) 23:32, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
I think SisterAcacia's intent was to allow any monster to be treated as a Pokémon. That said, I have no problem with this idea, and I think it's a good one besides. I'll get the ball rolling with the Pokémon articles I've written. --Luigifan18 (talk) 04:04, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
So, I tried running a test (by adding a Pokémon subtype property to Diglett (3.5e Monster) and adding a not property on Template:3.5e Creatures by CR)... but it didn't work how I thought it should have and like, removed a bunch of stuff unexpectedly from the navigation. I suspect it removed everything without any subtype as well as stuff with the Pokémon subtype. Not sure how to correct that. Hopefully it's simple. --Ganteka Future (talk) 00:31, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
You're right. Ugh, that's an obnoxious design. I can't imagine why they thought that would be a good idea. The easiest solution is to have the 3.5e Monster template set an invisible subtype property on the page with #set; so all monster pages will have a subtype property. Call it "null" or "dummy" or whatnot. Surgo (talk) 02:33, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
Ick. If the nice solution failed and the workaround us to add bullshit null subtypes to everything, I think it's time to consider just removing the pokemon from the monster category and placing them in a pokemon category instead. Which I'm fine with.
But if you end up doing the subtype thing, don't use #set, use the blank display property set method - [[property:: value| ]]. - Tarkis
Is it possible to modify the two monster stat blocks so that if subtype= isn't set or entered its instead set as a null/space? If not, then yeah, remove Monster category and add Pokémon category. Also, there's unfortunately a gross overflow on CR6 I think it was right now. --Ganteka Future (talk) 09:03, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
Wait. You're going to remove the monster tag?!? I really don't think that's a good idea... For one thing, it'd probably mess up my navbox... --Luigifan18 (talk) 17:22, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
On a side note, I'm trying to set up a page for the Pokémon subtype. But it's not going well... it's setting off the spam filter, despite having no external links whatsoever. W. T. F. --Luigifan18 (talk) 22:14, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
Done, edit at your leisure. Not sure what the problem was on your side. Our spam filter is wahcky sometimes, but it keeps the bots at bay. --Leziad (talk) 22:18, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
Not sure if this is what the problem is, but could be as a result of template-calling in semantic media wiki for populating lists. While there's not a name for it that I know of, I'm dubbing it now the Grandfathered Link problem. Some articles have non-whitelisted links. These pre-existing links on articles from before the whitelist can still be accessed and used despite still not being on the whitelist. The problem arises when the article is edited and it thinks the link is being added, resulting in a "this is blocked/spam/whatever" and it won't let you save the article. It actually happens a lot on people's user & talk pages, especially where those talk pages are really long with comments from lots of people pointing out things. It could be possible that one of the articles in the populated list or something is triggering the whitelist getting angry because it contains an external link. Again though, not sure if this is the problem. --Ganteka Future (talk) 22:30, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
It probably is, actually. A few of my Pokémon articles have links to Bulbapedia in them. And as far as I'm aware, Bulbapedia's not in the spam filter's exceptions list (dunno why, it seems like it'd be reputable enough).
This does, however, explain how the spam filter could be set off when there are no slashes whatsoever in the article itself — yes, I used Control+F to check. How annoying. --Luigifan18 (talk) 22:45, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
At an actual keyboard now and have some time, so less terse comments.
If the goal of this change is to separate the pokemon from the monsters, then I'm not really sure what the reason for keeping them in the Monster category in the first place is. When we have material that's not supposed to appear in main nav for whatever reason, like it's sourcebook specific or whatever, we just use transclusion or some other method to make sure it shows up where it needs to be, and we just leave off categories that would put it somewhere we don't want it. And I don't see why it's different in this case. Replacing [[Category:Monster]] with [[Category:Pokemon]] changes nav lists and may require a refactor of any lists that are supposed to retain the pokemon on them, but it's a solvable problem (for example: use [Identifier: 3.5e Monster] instead of category, or do a category union search, or just use a second nav box, etc.).
I like the aesthetics of that solution much much more, but we can do [[Subtype:: | ]] if we need to. It means that every monster page without a regular subtype has a subtype of " " or "None" and a property listing for it, but it's workable. And it's relatively easy to add. I'll probably go do it right now, and someone can just revert if we instead do the category changes. But it's ugly and makes me sad and grumpy. - Tarkisflux Talk 23:01, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
I prefer the straight category change since it's less ugly. For those people who want to still include pokemon and all other monsters in the same SMW lists, its still easily possible as well I believe. Can we just do that? Also, any idea on that CR6 overflow table grossness? --Ganteka Future (talk) 23:09, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

→Reverted indentation to one colon

Yeah, it's really easy as long as your list isn't also containing a bunch of other categories. There are limitations, and Luigi is bumping against a few of them already with his nav. I've added an additional navbox group to try to help with that. Anyway, I'll not make the template change yet, because we're now split on the category issue (I'm not voting unless I have to break a tie in this case).
The whitelist issue was basically the grandfather issue Gan, but it only triggered in this case because the offending links were in the summary property field of the article and so were transcluded into the nav page when the table was built. So even though the core text of the page had no links in it, it brought in new links when the table was built and those links blocked page creation. People should probably not put web / wiki links in properties because of aesthetics, but it will also just break stuff once in a while. BTW - the links were to dropbox. And since I don't see myself ever whitelisting links to content that someone else decided to share with the world, I have just removed the links.
I'll take a look at the CR6 overflow issue now. I haven't seen it yet. - Tarkisflux Talk 23:36, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
Oh, yes, my poor navbox can't handle all the different types of articles I've created. :( --Luigifan18 (talk) 00:36, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
I say go for the category change. You can do a disjunction of categories as well as properties. Surgo (talk) 01:51, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
Unless there are other objections soon, we will be doing a category replacement and not the subtype. No subtype changes should be made for articles that are not your own at this time. - Tark

CR 6 Overflow[edit]

It's fixed... here anyway. The fix is probably complete in this namespace, but could possible break something in the SRD if there are > 50 monsters at a particular CR. I haven't looked. - Tarkisflux Talk 02:38, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Missing monsters[edit]

Monsters like the Catoblepas ATW-225 Armored Walker (3.5e Monster) aren't showing up on the list. I suspected it was because the CR is "20 or as pilot +3 (whichever is higher)". I added a comma hoping it would recognize it but it didn't. Is there a way to fix this? -- Eiji-kun (talk) 00:29, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

You can replace "cr=" with "cralt=", which will bypass the semantic annotating of the challenge rating as long as you do some manual annotation. It just lets you do that with whatever flexibility makes sense. I've handled it already in this case (separated rating for 20 and as pilot +3, with clarifying text left out), and verified that it's in the table. - Tarkisflux Talk 05:28, 29 October 2016 (UTC)