Talk:Scribe scroll/Tables

This discussion originally started in User talk:The Krit, hence the antecedent-free reference to "you" in some places.

Initial planning
I"ve noticed you have considered converting the 2da information related to crafting magic items (that mysticjester posted in the WoG forum) into Wiki format. Since I've extracted this same information myself I could potentially process a form suitable for the Wiki.  Unfortunately, my formatting expertise is in HTML rather than the mark-up form used by Wiki and requires some experimenting to process a list this large.

Displaying a single table (approximately 10cols x 400rows) seems too large for easy access, but you are a better judge than I in regards to what makes the most sense. Although the columns are very narrow, there are substantial rows of numbers.

I'd suggest an index page to parse the comprehensive list into smaller spell name-alphabetized groups and provide linking to the individual data pages (links like A-D, E-H, etc.) Another way to index might be according to spell level, I suppose. But rather than expend duplicate conversion effort, I would like to know what is already in process by others towards this project. Also, I would like your opinion of the maximum table size (columns, rows) to display on a single, efficiently-managed page. Thank you for your attention. --Iconclast 21:15, March 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * I haven't started the conversion yet, so if you want to do this, go for it. As for the table size, you have one row per spell and the ten columns are spell name and three columns (gp, xp, caster level) for each of brew, craft, and scribe? I think I'd split that into three tables -- one for brewing, one for wand crafting, and one for scribing -- that can go in the associated articles. The number of rows does seem like a lot for one table, but it might work out OK if the tables are put at the end of the articles. Might as well see what it looks like before assuming it's too much. (Besides, it's the compiling of the information into a wiki format that's the big step. Refinements of the format can be done later in smaller steps.)
 * Have you figured out the wiki codes for tables? The basic format is
 * Have you figured out the wiki codes for tables? The basic format is


 * Different from HTML, but should not be too hard to handle. (The class is something defined in this wiki to give tables similar formatting. The "compacttable" class is probably best for these tables, but "centertable" is another possibility.) Hope it works out. Those tables have been missing (and missed) for a while now. --The Krit 00:18, March 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * do y'all really want this on the wiki? can you just add a link to the web page i did?  the interactive stuff really makes it easier imo.  incidentally, if you absolutely do want this on the wiki, i can do the tables.  i wrote a script that auto-generate wiki tables based on excel data.  should be a lot easier than hand coding.  Mysticjester 01:29, March 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * I think it would be good to have the information directly in NWNWiki. Of course, that doesn't mean we couldn't also have a link to an interactive web page. --The Krit 02:14, March 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * good enough. how do you want it organized?  alphabetical?  by level?  by class?  alternately, do you just want to add the information on a spell by spell basis to each of the spell pages? that would probably be more annoying to do but it would integrate the information to the existing spell descriptions.    Mysticjester 03:09, March 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * I think alphabetical would be best, so people can more easily find a particular spell in the table. Adding the info to each spell page seems like a big project without much in the way of additional benefits (and even if we went that route, a table under each of the crafting feats would still probably be a good idea). --The Krit 04:36, March 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * good enough. we can always later decide to add the info to each spell.  i take it you want the tables on the specific feat page which works.  how do you want to split the division of labor?  Mysticjester 16:55, March 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * If you already have a formatting script, that would be cool. I had intended to export the Excel data as delimited text into a handy editor and do several global substitutions to insert the table formatting... a bit tedious, but it works (I find Excel annoying for pure text editing.).  One thing I did add to your original WoG data was two additional columns.  One contains the spell level (0-9) and the other the spell type, whether arcane ("A"), divine ("D") or both ("A/D").  Seems helpful for crafting wands, especially under the standard level constraints.


 * Personally, I would love the link to the web page that has this information already on it. However, I find one of the best features of this Wiki is having all the information in one place without needing to surf externally.--Iconclast 04:05, March 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * icon: have you seen the interactive web page version i did of the base table?  that required me to add columns for spell level & caster type (bard, cleric, druid, mage, paladin, ranger).  i'm almost done with the cleric domain spells as well (though i forget if vanilla nwn/sou/hotu allows those to be crafted.  tk?).  i'll post the output to my script either later today or tomorrow & we'll see if that works.  i expect that some hand coding will be required regardless.  appreciate your enthusiasm on this, btw, & i think that this is a great idea.  :-)  Mysticjester 16:55, March 6, 2010 (UTC)

Proposals
something like this work?

a feat specific one would look like this (for craft wand):

not sure about listing the full class name as that messes up the table for spells that have multiple classes. alternately could use letters i.e. C=cleric. also, should it be organized by spell level? or do we want to organize it by both spell level and class? that would get rid of the caster class column but would add more duplication. also, i'm working under the assumption that the craft wand table for example would only include spells that could be crafted into wands & not comprehensively list all spells with dashes for the ones that can't be crafted onto wands. that make sense?

anyways, what do y'all think?Mysticjester 17:15, March 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * I was thinking the same thing. The Craft Wand list would be the shortest of the three.--Iconclast 22:16, March 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * I'd change "Spell level" to "Innate level" and move the class listing to the rightmost column. Sort of as if the class listing is a footnote, and to separate the classes from the innate level (because the innate level is not always the spell level for each class that can cast the spell). Abbreviating the class names would fit the idea that this column is a footnote, and should work as long as each class is linked (since hovering your mouse over a link gives the name of the linked page as a tooltip). As for the sorting, one thing that could be done is to enter the table sorted by spell name, then add the class "sortable" to it, giving something like:
 * And the domain spells are not craftable scribable by default but they can be brewed or crafted if they meet the other requirements for those feats . --The Krit 19:03, March 6, 2010 (UTC) Corrected. --The Krit 09:30, March 11, 2010 (UTC)


 * Ahhh! So they treat domains like metamagic then. I was wondering about that.


 * I feel any of the visual examples above are quite informative and allow easy access (I'm really not hedging, just have considered all these formats and others, all of which seem adequate.) Swinging the associated class designations to the RH border makes sense to me now that I've seen it displayed (my local XL table will be suitably modified *g*). Krit has examined so many tables on the Wiki I can't help but defer to his judgment when it comes to presentation effectiveness.


 * So the spell level explained in Craft Wand (re: The spellcaster can create a wand of any spell of 4th level or lower that he knows.) is actually referring to the innate level of the spell rather than the spell level for the class? Hmmm.  That's is a good way to resolve the class-level differences then and makes the table easier to configure.


 * When I assessed the challenge of compiling this, the massive length of a single list display was a concern and hence the option to use an index seemed one viable remedy. Designer types that are used to staring at 2da's are probably not intimidated by vast tables, but plain jane players can be...  just one factor to consider is all.


 * p.s. MJ... if your table is on the WoG pages I'm sure I can hunt it down but otherwise a preliminary link (before adding to the wiki pages) would be most helpful. Thanks guys for staying on top of this. This should be a wonderful addition! --Iconclast 22:16, March 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * tk: that works.  & very sweet on the sorting.  i didn't realize that wikia had that set up.  oh, question:  any particular reason that the gold & xp columns right aligned?Mysticjester 02:19, March 7, 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm only guessing, but TK probably made it that way on purpose. Unless an entire column contains values with the same number of digits, it should always be right-justified.  Centering variable length numbers in the same column makes it difficult to compare the rows visually.  It would be handy to be able to widen the padding between the rightmost digit and table border, but that possibly will make the coding more complicated than it needs to be.--Iconclast 03:08, March 8, 2010 (UTC)


 * Basically what Iconclast said. Something else we could do is create a template for the rows, and do the formatting of columns there. That way, if we decide to change the format, we can make one change and affect all the tables. The source for that would be something like:


 * (I checked, and this currently produces the same table as before.) Is it just as easy to produce wiki code like this? If you're wondering about the switch from setting "sorcerer" and "wizard" to mage: either way works with the template's current definition, so use whichever is more convenient. --The Krit 03:50, March 8, 2010 (UTC)


 * definitely doable. lemme tinker with the code & see what i can come up with.  Mysticjester 05:48, March 8, 2010 (UTC)

k. new version is up on my user page. btw, tk, feel free to edit comments for formatting. i'm starting to get lost. *lol* Mysticjester 06:26, March 8, 2010 (UTC)


 * I moved and edited the comments. Hopefully they're a bit easier to follow now that they are on their own page. --The Krit 21:53, March 9, 2010 (UTC)

brew potion is up on my user page using the new table format. Mysticjester 06:49, March 8, 2010 (UTC)

Different levels?
One question I had was why there are multiple rows for some spells? Are there delineation points depending on class level to determine which category of spell potency will get created?--Iconclast 04:05, March 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * The multiple rows are because WoG has enhanced crafting. The default crafting system would be described by removing the extra rows for each spell, but I forget which rows would be kept. (I could always look it up. I think I kept a record of those.) Often, but not always, it's the lowest caster level that the default system produces. --The Krit 04:30, March 6, 2010 (UTC)

craft wand table on my user page. lemme know what you think. one problem: the data i had was with your better craft magic casting levels. DOH. will need to figure out a simple way to id which casting levels your script added. *lol* Mysticjester 04:40, March 7, 2010 (UTC)


 * I can trim the extra rows out later. It is far easier to cut rows than to add them, and as long as I (or some other enterprising fool) get to it quickly enough, the extra rows should not cause too much confusion. I hope. --The Krit 03:50, March 8, 2010 (UTC)


 * figured that it would be easier if i just did it for the base list since this way we'll have to trim three separate lists as well as all the associated coding. but eh, good enough.  :-)  Mysticjester 05:48, March 8, 2010 (UTC)

Sanitization of craft wand data
I have started with the Craft Wand list MJ loaded to his wiki page and marked up an MSWord doc in color fonts to make the changes more noticeable. I used a primary ascending sort of the Innate level followed by an ascending sort of the spell names. Every modification reflects an actual in-game result using a pristine (no haks, utilities, overrides, CEP, etc.) v1.69 NWN-SoU-HotU installation. There was a bit of information which could not be verified in-game and remarks to that effect have been furnished in the mark-up file. So when you guys get a chance, check it out and confirm the information contained therein. K?--Iconclast 17:23, March 9, 2010 (UTC)

[[Media:Wand_Craft_Markup.doc]] is the mark-up document.--Iconclast 17:23, March 9, 2010 (UTC)

One issue that became exposed was the spells used to craft wands granted by clerical domains. I had no problem creating fully-functional wands from the domain spells... wands that could be used by any class having divine casting abilities or an adequate UMD simulation. Perhaps this is conflict with the intent of the designers but that is the way it works. Also, other custom modifications (like CEP) may have adjusted the wand crafting to prohibit domain spell usage. I can't comment on that since I have not installed any of the custom haks, just custom modules that work with my current configuration. The method to integrate domain-granted crafting into the table is problematic and I have suggested one way to keep the link to cleric class but trail with a note reference. We should discuss this issue further I believe. --Iconclast 17:23, March 9, 2010 (UTC)


 * Hmmm... maybe it was just scribe scroll that was blocked for domain spells? I'll take a look at that. --The Krit 21:53, March 9, 2010 (UTC)


 * Probably was the scribe data you remembered, TK. Inserted below is a compilation from the vanilla installation which should be accurate barring typos.  The scroll craft column may surprise you.


 * [[Media:Domain_Craft2.doc]] is a comprehensive list of the scribing, brewing and wand crafting for all the cleric domains.--Iconclast 22:54, March 10, 2010 (UTC)


 * Why would the scroll craft column surprise me? --The Krit 09:28, March 11, 2010 (UTC)


 * Because there are several domain-granted spells that can scribe scrolls. Then again, maybe I didn't understand what you meant by the term "by default" mentioned earlier in our original discussion about what the crafting tables should contain and how they should formatted .--Iconclast 15:14, March 11, 2010 (UTC)


 * Ah yes, I had overlooked the fact that the methodology for brew and craft is different than that used for scribe. Brewing and crafting domain spells is no problem; it's just scribing (non-divine) domain spells that is problematic. --The Krit 09:28, March 11, 2010 (UTC)


 * That non-divine vs. divine relationship was the key to explain the logic used with scrolls. Thanks for picking that out, TK!--Iconclast 15:14, March 11, 2010 (UTC)

Another issue was one of actual in-game Innate Level. There are two instances (Identify & Protestion from Elements) that I have proposed (via the associated talk page) to change pending suitable confirmation of course. The third instance, Owl's Insight, seems to have incorrect Innate level reported in-game. However, the crafting failure seems to infer what value for the innate field is actually being used by the game so no problem except for inconsistency. No more patches means tough luck, right?--Iconclast 17:23, March 9, 2010 (UTC)


 * nice work. :-)  tk, can you verify?  incidentally, once we know which spells work with the vanilla nwn/sou/hotu, i should be able to generate new tables so row by row table editing isn't necessary.  Mysticjester 19:17, March 9, 2010 (UTC)


 * I'll take a look at this later, too. I've picked up a small backlog of things to do this past weekend, but I should get to this later today or tomorrow. --The Krit 21:53, March 9, 2010 (UTC)


 * I've had my first inspection of the spell.2da and it is a much bigger spreadsheet than I had anticipated. I had checked some of the other spell-type 2das but none of them are as vast as this one.  Still haven't found the 2da that cross-indexes the target and range descriptions for each spell. The only values in spell.2da are some alphanumeric codes that mean nothing to me. I would need to access the file that translates the codes into in-game text if it is done that way. --Iconclast 22:54, March 10, 2010 (UTC)


 * The target and range fields are explained in the spells.2da article. --The Krit 09:33, March 11, 2010 (UTC)


 * That's handy. Thanks for the link.--Iconclast 15:14, March 11, 2010 (UTC)

In a few cases, I've found a conflict between what is reported in the item screen (like the innate level of Identify, Owl's Insight, Protection from Elements) and what the game is actually using (the 2da). I suppose that means that the only totally-reliable information that can be gathered in-game is via the log. In any case, when an anomaly has been identified, it would be helpful (for players, at least) for the Wiki page for that spell to notate the difference.--Iconclast 15:14, March 11, 2010 (UTC)

Comparisons with WoG
Mj... you may have some use for the domain data (see link above) in the WoG pages you are constructing. Unless, of course, they have overridden the vanilla domain structure for their own content. Anyway, it's valid for the plain version.--Iconclast 22:54, March 10, 2010 (UTC)


 * nice work icon. i'll take a look at it as soon as i get some time.  if we can't get a 2da that lists the information, then we'll have to go with the ingame testing.  incidentally, i did this initially for wog which is why my list is specific to that server.  i basically had a character in game do what you did except obviously on the server.  probably looking at reinstalling nwn on my system to make sure everything is clean & running through the process though obviously it'll be easier in single player as i won't have to deal with running out of gold & xp.  *lol*  will download or set up a test module for testing & essentially duplicate what you're doing i.e. in game brewing/crafting/scribing of all spells & then cross reference the data with what you're coming up with to verify everything.  i think 2 people verifying all the information should provide good enough accuracy & if we run into conflicts, we can retest specific areas.  Mysticjester 03:01, March 11, 2010 (UTC)


 * Here is the trainer I am using, Mj. There is a full inventory of boosting items available to add all the slots you need to keep testing without resting often. After leveling enough to craft, just add enough XP with the console to cover the costs and away you go. Still hunting through the 2das but giant spreadsheets like these are hard on my eyes so have to take a lot of refocus breaks. Excuses, excuses, excuses *lol*--Iconclast 03:36, March 11, 2010 (UTC)

Listing and finding info
incidentally, i think that it would be a good idea to have a comprehensive list of all spells & note which spells can't be brewed, crafted, or scribed. for brew potion & craft wand, we can make a blanket note that spells over level x can't be brewed or crafted. but this i think will allow wiki users to specifically find the spell & know for sure that it's been considered. what say you? Mysticjester 03:07, March 11, 2010 (UTC)


 * This list you would basically be the article for, so sure I could get that done. I'll just have to remember to make the table with the file contents sortable. --The Krit 09:28, March 11, 2010 (UTC)

tk: is there a file that lists casting levels for vanilla nwn/sou/hotu? that's actually what i need. i did a cursory look through the des craft 2da file & the spell entries seem to match what i have in my file. the main issue is that some of these spells have multiple entries based on casting level. what i'm wondering is if there is a 2da file that lists the base casting level of each spell in vanilla nwn/sou/hotu. or will we need to do in game testing to determine that? Mysticjester 01:47, March 12, 2010 (UTC)


 * There is no direct listing of the caster levels. To get the caster level for potions and wands, use the "IPRP_SpellIndex" column of  as the row number in   and look up the "CasterLvl" column in that file. For scrolls, it's messier. The file   basically contains a list of ResRefs of standard scrolls. Whatever caster level that scroll has is what you get. A quick way to trim down the scroll list is to go into the Toolset and see how many scrolls are defined for that spell. To be careful, you should make sure the ResRef matches what's in , but if there's only one standard scroll for that spell, it should be the right one to look at. That's how I planned to do a first pass at trimming down the scroll info, at least. --The Krit 03:23, March 12, 2010 (UTC)


 * verified that the list icon compiles pretty much matches the 2das. :-)  bestow curse & protection from alignment need to be verified in game. Mysticjester 06:40, March 12, 2010 (UTC)