Template talk:Infobox-ability/sandbox

Unified ability theory

I'm still making changes at too great a rate to consider this stable, but I want to get out a heads-up.

This grew out of the T:Infobox-spell effort. As I moved on to T:Infobox-feat, I realized that spells and SLAs, feats and enhancements, have more in common than not. For instance, they all have mechanics such as target and range, and they all have effects such as damage or movement buff. Furthermore, many abilities qualify as more than one type. For instance, Ruin is a spell feat, and Arcane Blast is an SLA enhancement. The same could be said for Bard songs, Ki abilities, and Channel Divinity effects. Rather than maintain a suite of overlapping templates, it made sense to build one template to encompass them all.

However, over a thousand abilities are already represented using one of a handful of disparate templates. No one wants to sit down with each page and figure out how it maps to a new interface. I therefore created a set of conversion templates to automate as much of the process as possible.

The resulting pages are considerably richer in information than the originals (and prettier, IMHO). In addition to highlighting missing fields such as range or cooldown, they also describe, in general terms, each ability's effects, and assign categories appropriately. Thus, Improved Trip is assigned to C:Tactical feats, while Inspire Heroics is assigned to C:Saving throw songs. While many of the assignments are automated during conversion, manual clean-up is often warranted. (Yes, Cru121, it smells like work.) I also expect people will want to add their own effect categories, or modify existing ones. Depending how many people get involved, the transition could take months or years. But I think folks will be pleased with the results. Feel free to browse testcases or, even better, create your own. At some point I'll have to write a guide for those who want to edit the templates.

As always, any feedback and/or improvements are welcome. ⇒ Hoopy Froodle (Contribs • Message • Email) 13:01, August 24, 2019 (EDT)

• I'm not sold that a unification of templates is needed, but I haven't messed with any of these templates. In any case, if any drastic change is about to happen, careful thinking needs to go into it. So, let me share my thoughts after observing some of the sandbox tests:
  1. AC Bonus/sandbox: When looking at a page, it needs to be clear from a simple glance at the page's layout that this ability is a feat.
  2. Ruin (feat)/sandbox: While it is important to know that this ability is a feat (an epic feat - this information is missing from the infobox), the effect is a spell. So, after sorting out the feat stuff (like level, prerequisites, classes, restrictions, etc.), then the familiar spell infobox needs to be displayed.
  3. Fireball/sandbox: This is a spell. It definitely should have the spell infobox (with spell level, DCs, durations, school, the answer to every question a caster might have before casting the spell such as "What will its DC be, how long will it last, what damage, school, effects, metamagics, ...?"). However, this spell can be cast from clickies, scrolls, as a spell in the spellbook, as a spell from a monster, as an SLA from fire savant. The sources of fireball need to be listed in a clear section before or after the spell infobox (I think before is better since the infobox catches the eye while the sources don't).
  4. Acid Well/sandbox: This spell has "Effect: Damage" in the infobox. Fireball didn't have that yet both spells do damage with fireball having some extra effects (like destroying doors, webs, lighting oil/tents/torches on fire, etc.). I don't think that "effect: damage" offers anything in the infobox. If you wanna put it in the category of damaging spells, do that quietly. Other than that, the spell's description perfectly explains what a spell can do.
  5. Adamantine Body/sandbox: Again, "Effect: Warforged Body"? The effects are explained later and saying "This is a warforged body feat" does not imply "You will not be able to select other body feats". So, this "effect" is redundant and explained better in the notes. This feat also doesn't have that "Monk level 1" that AC Bonus had. Why not? I don't see any information about when this feat can be acquired except from the note that says it can be acquired later, not just at character creation. When a feat can be acquired is critical information and should be displayed at the same place for all feats.
  6. Adept of Forms/sandbox: I see a "Class feat: Monk" in the infobox. What does that mean? Like the fighter feats, or the cleric domains and deities, it can be selected as a monk extra feat? Not really. This feat is granted for free automatically at monk lvl 6 or selected normally for characters with levels of monk (which is covered in the prerequisites). So, this free grant needs to be displayed instead and not as a note since so many feats are autogrants with race/class/level. This feat also mentions "Usage: Passive", but it has active components. I don't think active/passive mention is needed since the effects describe what it does. The feat page may be in both active and passive feats categories.
  7. Cleave/sandbox: "Trainable: Heroic"? But this can be trained in epic levels as well. It doesn't mention in a prominent place that it is a fighter bonus feat. Feats need: Prerequisites, earliest level they can be taken, what classes/levels/races grant them and in what way (extra feat or free). The rest belong to the effects of a feat and can be listed separately (like cooldown, area of effect, restrictions, etc.). The sandbox page also mentions: "Item: Two-handed weapon". This is wrong: cleave also works with single-handed weapons and dual wielding.
  8. Animate Ally/sandbox: Details about the enhancement are intertwined with details about the spell and this creates confusion about what the words in the infobox mean. Again, mention 1st where this is obtained and how and then what the effects are. "Effect: Health" is LOLworthy. This spell is too complex to describe it by "It affects health".
  9. Inspire Courage/sandbox: The information provided is so jumbled that I was about to forget how my bard got it and how he used it. I can't stress enough that when and how you get an ability needs to be separate from the effects of the ability. Also, it's completely normal for some abilities to be unique and not fit into the usual categories. Just describe what and how in the description and leave the other fields blank (which means that the template needs to be able to accept empty fields).

I think I made enough comments to keep you busy thinking for a while. Remember that the pages need to be readable by a complete newb as well as users unfamiliar with wiki classifications and after a thorough reading a player should be able to imagine what that ability would be like in the game and how they could get it. If meeting that criteria means that we should go through all the ability pages and work on them, then so be it. Do not sacrifice quality over quantity. This practice is prevalent in this wiki and I hate to see it reproduce. Thank you. ⇒ Faltout (Contribs • Message • Email) 07:04, August 25, 2019 (EDT)

• Thanks for all the great feedback! I really appreciate the time and thought you put into it. My rebuttal ... er, I mean, responses:
  1. AC Bonus/sandbox: What more would you suggest? For those familiar with the infobox, the color gives it away. For those who are not, the first line states it's a feat.
  2. Ruin (feat)/sandbox: It now indicates it's an epic feat. What would make it more recognizable as a spell infobox?
  3. Fireball/sandbox: Is information missing, other than alternate sources? You're welcome to fill them in, in the granted by field. The field will end up looking something like: Evasion/sandbox (subject to change, of course).
  4. Acid Well/sandbox: My premise is that it would be helpful to tell at a glance from the infobox what general class of effect it has (damage, saving throw buff, etc) without having to read the description.
  5. Adamantine Body/sandbox: Trainable: Heroic indicates when and how it can be acquired. See previous comment regarding effect. I'm not sure you meant to say that Monk level 1 should be listed as a prereq for Adamantine Body, but in any case, I haven't made any concerted effort to fill in missing information, nor do I plan to any time soon.
  6. Adept of Forms/sandbox: I added tooltips to explain the terminology. I gave the class feat term a more precise definition than it previously had, to contrast with bonus feats and class-exclusive feats. (I'll address terminology in more depth elsewhere.) You're right, the field should be more specific, saying Monk 6 instead of just Monk. That will require some modifications, added to my todo list.

     Adept of Forms is passive by definition, since nothing needs to be done to activate it. (Adept Fires of Purity, etc., upgrade existing abilities, without requiring independent activation.) I got the idea for passive/active/toggled from {{Feat}}, and consider it a useful feature.

  7. Cleave/sandbox: Any heroic feat can be trained using an epic feat slot. That doesn't make it an Epic Feat. I got rid of the erroneous item mention, thanks for the catch. It now mentions the bonus feat. Is anything else missing?
  8. Animate Ally/sandbox: I went back to the order from an earlier iteration: name/type, prerequisites, source, usage, mechanics, effects. What do you think?

     "Effect: Health" is LOLworthy. Yeah, I have to agree with you. :/ Some work needs to be put in to defining a taxonomy of effects that is optimally informative and succinct. I imagine that will be a collaborative effort.

  9. Inspire Courage/sandbox: Does reordering the fields provide enough of a distinction? I agree, it's impossible to cover all possible characteristics, and most fields can be left blank, although a few are required for particular types, as demonstrated in Acid Well (missing components).

I'm all for quality, and accessibility to newbs, as I hope is evident. I'm also a fan of incremental improvements, rather than holding out for perfection.

Thanks again for all the feedback. ⇒ Hoopy Froodle (Contribs • Message • Email) 15:04, August 26, 2019 (EDT)

• Bowing to public pressure, the latest iteration (unlike legacy templates) imposes a strict ordering: name/type, prerequisites, source, usage, mechanics, effects. It adds dividing lines between source/usage and mechanics/effects when there is sufficient content for this to be helpful; this decision can also be overridden by an undocumented dividers parameter. Category taxonomies are described in T:Infobox-ability/taxonomy/sandbox; feel free to critique on that talk page. ⇒ Hoopy Froodle (Contribs • Message • Email) 10:32, September 10, 2019 (EDT)

Should Toggled be considered a subtype of Active or its own thing?

Toggled usage is a hybrid between active and passive, in that the ability has to be actively triggered once, but from then on is passive; in some cases, until reincarnation. Functionally, toggled is most often paired with passive, e.g., an active ability requires a target and a duration, while toggled and passive abilities do not. However, in the legacy templates and documentation (such as there is), toggled is considered a refinement of active. It's easy enough to continue to follow this precedent, but I would lean toward treating them as distinct, as demonstrated, e.g., in Improved Precise Shot/sandbox. ⇒ Hoopy Froodle (Contribs • Message • Email) 12:45, September 7, 2019 (EDT)

Should Area be mandatory?

In PnP, every spell description includes Target, Range and Area, among other things. DDO conflates range and area, so you end up with a range like Standard AOE for both ranged spells (e.g. Acid Blast) and zero-range spells (e.g. Negative Energy Burst). Conscientious editors elaborate either target or range to clarify the ambiguity, but that wouldn't be necessary if we simply added the missing field. Unfortunately, that means (a) the wiki would diverge from in-game wording, and (b) hundreds of legacy pages would need to be updated. (a) particularly bothers me, until one considers that ad hoc clarifications already diverge from in-game wording – and inconsistently. ⇒ Hoopy Froodle (Contribs • Message • Email) 13:01, September 7, 2019 (EDT)

• The wiki is not the database for the game. It's meant to clarify things that the game doesn't, report bugs that the game has, methods to tackle the game. When something the game uses is not particularly helpful, then by all means use something more helpful. Be sure to note how you do it though so others can follow your example and maintain consistency in the wiki. ⇒ Faltout (Contribs • Message • Email) 11:15, September 10, 2019 (EDT)

Should an SLA that mimics a spell describe all the spell features, or only those which differ from the spell?

c.f. Curative Admixture: Cure Light Wounds/sandbox vs. Mass Cure Moderate Wounds/sandbox. ⇒ Hoopy Froodle (Contribs • Message • Email) 10:32, September 10, 2019 (EDT)