Token Change Proposals for 5.15 Alpha

The following are the philosophies underlying these token change proposals for the 5.15 cycle:

1. Elimination of magical values: Values like -1 that represent unlimited should be replaced by "UNLIMITED" or a String otherwise explictly identifying the meaning of the special value.
2. Elimination of duplicate code by consolidating tokens
3. Completion of Ability Object changes
4. Preparation for CDOM parsing of tokens
5. Performance (in one or two cases)
6. Elimination of complicated, undocumented interactions

The following are the definitions of the Reason in the token change proposals:

• Syntax: This is a proposed syntax change to improve clarity and eliminate a magical value that is not clearly identified
• Consistency: This is a proposed change to improve consistency between tokens
• Duplicate: This is a proposed change to eliminate an alternate way of achieving an identical result
• Upgrade: This is a proposed change based on upgrades made to PCGen to keep the application consistent
• Nonfunctioning: This is a proposed change due to the token not functioning in the current rev of PCGen
• Unnecessary: This is a token that provides insights, but requires no processing by the code
• Performance: This is a proposed change that will reducing parsing complexity and thus improve speed
• Complicated: This is a proposed change that eliminates complicated behavior

The following are the actual proposed changes to tokens:

There is a complete rebuild of CHOOSE proposed: CHOOSE Proposal for 6.0

Token LST File	Token Name	Current Syntax	Syntax Change	Future Syntax	Reason	Justification for Change	Discussion/Approval/FREQ
Template	BONUSSKILLPOINTS	BONUSSKILLPOINTS:x	TBD		Consistency	XTRASKILLPTSPERLVL in Race matches behavior of BONUSSKILLPOINTS in Template LST file	_exp 7511
Race	XTRASKILLPTSPERLVL	XTRASKILLPTSPERLVL:x	TBD		Consistency	XTRASKILLPTSPERLVL in Race matches behavior of BONUSSKILLPOINTS in Template LST file	_exp 7511
Class	HASSUBCLASS	HASSUBCLASS	REQUIRE :YES	HASSUBCLASS:YES	Consistency	Tokens are A:B, not A	IMPLEMENTED
Class	HASSUBSTITUTIONLEVEL	HASSUBSTITUTIONLEVEL	REQUIRE :YES	HASSUBSTUTIONLEVEL:YES	Consistency	Tokens are A:B not A	IMPLEMENTED
Class	HASSUBCLASS	HASSUBCLASS:	Deprecate	special SUBCLASS:Foo.FORGET	Duplicate, Unnecessary	Unused in the code
Class	HASSUBSTITUTIONLEVEL	HASSUBSTITUTIONLEVEL:	Deprecate	special SUBSTITUTIONLEVEL:Foo.FORGET	Duplicate, Unnecessary	Unused in the code
Class	HASSPELLFORMULA	HASSPELLFORMULA	Deprecate	none	Unnecessary	This is for intelligence gathering/debugging value to the data team, unneeded by code	IMPLEMENTED
Class	CHECK*	CHECK*	Deprecate	none	Unnecessary	Unused code	IMPLEMENTED
Race	FAVCLASS	x	Deprecate	x	Consistency	FAVOREDCLASS is used on Template LST Alternate to this is to change Template LST to FAVCLASS Also consider making this specific to Class vs. Subclass... ??	_exp 7466 _exp 7511
Class	CRFORMULA	CRFORMULA:x	Deprecate	CR:x	Consistency	NOTE: This is an undocumented Token, it is NOT the GameMode Token CR: is used on Race, there is no reason to state FORMULA in the token name	_exp 7467] _exp 7511
Global	ADD:	y,y	TBD		Consistency	Desire to make ADD: consistent with SPELLLIST and SKILLLIST	[_exp 7512]
Global	AUTO:	y,y	TBD		Consistency	Desire to make AUTO: consistent with ADD:, SPELLLIST and SKILLIST Also for AUTO:, convert to putting PRExxx at end of the Token	[_exp 8018]
Class	SPELLLIST	y|y	to ,	y,y	Consistency	Desire to make ADD: consistent with SPELLLIST and SKILLLIST	_exp 7512
Class	SKILLLIST	y|y	to ,	y,y	Consistency	Desire to make ADD: consistent with SPELLLIST and SKILLLIST	_exp 7512
Global	PREALIGN	PREALIGN:x (align abbr) PREALIGN:x (number)	Eliminate Numbers	PREALIGN:x (align abbr)	Not fully functioning, Consistency	Simplifies Token, makes Alignments clear across game modes
Global	PREDEITYALIGN	PREDEITYALIGN:x PREDEITYALIGN:Deity	Eliminate Numbers	PREDEITYALIGN:x PREDEITYALIGN:Deity	Not fully functioning, Consistency	Simplifies Token, makes Alignments clear across game modes
Template	REGION	REGION:x REGION:Yes	Deprecate YES	REGION:x RACEREGION:x	Complicated	Simplifies Token to perform one action, rather than two
Global	ADD:SPELLCASTER	Arcane	Make Type require a type	TYPE=Arcane	Consistency, Disambiguation	Avoids name conflicts with classes and types of Spellcasting, keeps token consistent with other tokens
Global	PRExxx:	PRExxx:	Expand/Rebuild Behavior	... REQ:xxx|... EQPRE:xxx|... EQREQ:xxx|...	Disambiguation, Validation, Consistency, Performance, Syntax
Class	LEVELSPERFEAT	LEVELSPERFEAT:x	Eliminate Magical Value (0)	LEVELSPERFEAT:x	Syntax	The general issue here is that this is PER something, implying division. Using zero implies division by zero, which is non-sensical (it implies infinite feats). Since that is not the case, it is either a bug in the datasets that contain it, or it is a magical value that needs to be eliminated.	exp_8382
Spell	CT	CT:	Dead Code	TBD - required for Alpha set?
Spell	COST	y,z	y,z causes error - loads as zero			Fix for data use of COST	Tracker 1968742

In addition, it would be nice to define for the 6.0 branch the preferred output format of SOURCEDATE: ... once it is actually stored as a DATE, I doubt we want it written out in the default form (e.g. Wed Mar 28 00:00:00 EDT 2007)