Simplify dealing with multiple weapons for (N)PCs

[phylll]

Instead of requiring an individual config script per weapon, it would be much easier -- in particular for the busy GM with his hordes of NPCs -- if there was a generic weapon selection script that could be called for any token/character sheet. It would

• look up the character's available weapons (ideally, the token's available weapons, since Barbarian 2 may have already lost his battleaxe even though it would still be listed in the Generic Barbarian character sheet, as indicated by an appropriate status marker);
• generate some means for the player to select which weapon to use for attacking (or, for that matter, for defending if a warrior wants to switch between a shield and a parry weapon, for example) -- the most feasible solution seems to be generating a Roll20 chat menu;
• somehow transmit the necessary information about the chosen weapon (its ID in the character sheet) to the attack script that is being called. This may be possible without new MMM functionality by simply storing that ID in a new attribute with the respective character -- something worth trying, I guess.

[phylll]

So we can easily generate and display a list of a character's available weapons:

!mmm script
!mmm   for weaponLabelAttr in findattr(sender, "Angriff", "Waffe")
!mmm     do whisperback(getattr(sender, weaponLabelAttr))
!mmm   end for
!mmm end script

weaponLabelAttr is the internal ID for the weapon label entry in the attack table, so we can get all the weapon's other attributes by looking it up like this:

!mmm set weaponDamage = getattr(sender, findattr(sender, "Angriff", "Waffe", getattr(sender, weaponLabelAttr), "WaffeSchaden"))

Now we have a problem, though. How do we transmit the weapon ID if a chat menu can only call static commands/scripts, and MMM cannot generate scripts (if it could write into abilities rather than just attributes, we could easily generate a customize script, for example).

Building a chat menu generator that would take a particular character, pull out all the weapons and build the chat menu is easy.

Expanding the attack/defense scripts such that they take a stored weapon ID to determine the weapon details is equally easy.

But how to get the weapon ID from the chat menu into some place where it can be retrieved...?

[phylll]

One somewhat ugly but functional solution, at least temporarily, would be to manually create a centralized batch of config scripts per weapon that can be used for any NPC. Like this:

!rem // ~MacroSheet|npcAttackWeapon_Magierstecken
!mmm customize
!mmm   set cWeaponLabel = "Magierstecken"
!mmm   set cWeaponType = "Stabwaffe"
!rem   // the following is generic for NPC tokens & could also be encapsulated in another config script
!mmm   set cHealthAttr = "bar3"
!mmm   set cEnduranceAttr = "bar2"
!mmm   set cOwnID = "@{selected|token_id}"
!mmm end customize
%{MacroSheet|meleeAttack}

We would need probably two dozen of those to cover everything including natural weapons (claws etc.) that our GM's NPCs use to kill us, and occasionally the GM would have to copy & paste this for a new weapon.

Once we had those, we could build a chat menu for weapon selection like this:

!mmm script
!mmm  set token = "@{selected|token_id}"
!mmm  combine chat
!mmm    chat: /w GM ${"&"}{template:default} {{name=${token.token_name}: Angriff mit...}}
!mmm    for weaponLabelAttr in findattr(token, "Angriff", "Waffe")
!mmm      chat: {{ [${token.(weaponLabelAttr)}](~MacroSheet|npcAttackWeapon_${token.(weaponLabelAttr)}) }}
!mmm    end for
!mmm  end combine
!mmm end script

This works already for the weapon Magierstecken in our TEST game (all the druid tokens have access to it). Need to find a solution to deal with spaces in weapon labels, though...

[phylll]

I don't see a solution for weapon labels with spaces, without https://github.com/michael-buschbeck/mychs-macro-magic/issues/31 to escape/replace them somehow.

This blocks the temporary solution, too, since even a "light crossbow" won't be possible to use across different NPC character sheets this way.

[phylll]

We implemented an ugly but workable workaround for now in which our GM created all these scripts and renamed his NPC's weapons without using spaces.

[phylll]

Check if new features allow for auto-selecting only weapons if just one is available for a particular type of attack (melee, ranged) or defense. Might depend on syntax for manipulating struct data types, but maybe not.

[phylll]

fafcb1638228d729f03d7cf45dd6f42af178420a (defense 1.10.0) automates defense weapon selection for standard cases:

• If there is only one defense "weapon"
• If there are more but one is called Abwehr ohne Schild

a968d48f9dce2e461a6e1f96f6c3fa18be120a9a (meleeAttack 1.12.0) simply picks the only melee attack weapon if there is just one. Since ranged attack weapons need more information (ranges, a place to find the number of ammunition left), no further default behavior in rangedAttack so far.

Generating selection menus requires that for each menu item, a separate customize script is available and assigned. For players, given the problem with spaces identified above, I'm leaving this to everyone's own initiative and liking.

[phylll]

So there is another idea. MMM scripts can write attributes, and attributes can contain executable user controls of the ?{...} variety. Every player's autorun script could generate a set of weapons selector dropdowns this way and store them in an attribute used by the respective attack script to ask the player to select their weapon of choice. Would relieve us of the need for manually maintained config scripts per weapon if a single weapon identifier would be sufficient to grab all the weapon info -- and since some weapons have quite a few complicated pieces of data attached to them, this might work

• only for standard weapons (could help for all the standard stuff, NPCs and unarmed combat defaults)
• for any weapon only once MMM allows storing structured data (such as JSON) in attributes -- see https://github.com/michael-buschbeck/mychs-macro-magic/issues/159.

[phylll]

/dev/mgd/weapons-selectors has the beginnings of an implementation:

• For all selected tokens, buildWeaponSelector puts together three separate Roll20 weapons selector dropdowns for defense, melee and ranged attacks, and stores them in the linked character's attributes m3mgd_defense_weapon_selector, m3mgd_melee_weapon_selector and m3mgd_ranged_weapon_selector. For generic NPCs, this means that you only need to select a random token based on that generic NPC sheet, and the sheet will get its weapon selector attribute.
• cc08bacc197598bc33124bad873ba89060d96eff has functions to provide the data for which we have so far needed customization scripts for every weapon. For defense and melee attack weapons, this is only the weaponType according to the lists of valid weapon types. For ranged attack weapons, the code returns a list including the type, low/mid/far range and a standard name for an ammunition attribute.

TODO:

• Write a script that checks new (generic or not) (N)PCs for being ready for our combat scripts, adds the weapons selectors, perhaps the ammo attributes, as well, and tells the player a list of manual todos for non-standard weapons.
• Modify combat scripts to pull missing info automatically (but still prioritizing customizations when present, to allow for special or magic weapons).
• Clean up character sheets and remove newly redundant customization scripts.

[phylll]

Per bfb57bc3971ae0b0c0d8cf1c3120ec15cf951607, there is a better system of weapons selection implemented that does not need selector attributes in every character sheet. All the above-described functionality is available, except for the automatic check for (N)PC sheets if ranged attack ammunition attributes are present. charCombatValidator could easily expand in that direction, though.

Ready to close with next PR.

[phylll]

Closed via https://github.com/michael-buschbeck/mychs-macro-magic/pull/188