🐛 Adventure-specific creatures missing from bestiary if they exist in another source

[ntrarar]

Describe the bug

After 5etools reorganized its creature suffixes, a new behavior emerges (using latest 5etools and ttrpg-convert-cli) --

Some creature statblocks that appear in printed adventures are reprinted from other official monster books. When this occurs, importing the adventure -- which should include every creature therein -- does not know how to grab the statblocks from alt sources, and therefore these creatures are missing from the conversion.

Example Adventure: WBtW
Example Creatures: Darkling, Darkling Elder, Boggle, Korred, Redcap, Quickling
Statblocks appear in: WBtW
But originally appeared in: VGM

So, I have a bunch of empty notes for darkling-vgm, boggle-vgm, redcap-vgm etc... because I didn't also import all of Volo's Guide to Monsters.

In this specific case it's simple enough to rope in another source or two, but a more complex adventure shouldn't require importing every book it's ever drawn from.

Expected Behavior

Import Creature statblocks that appear in adventures on a per-adventure basis

TTRPG CLI Version

3.3.0

Which Operating Systems have you experienced this on?

• Android
• iPhone/iPad
• Linux
• macOS
• Windows

[ebullient]

You should get the newest-only by default. You have a few options. Use include keys to make sure the monsters you want are included (so you have both), or mess with the reprint configuration (e.g. all) so that versions don't collapse.

I haven't seen empty notes before.

[ebullient]

wait.. did you import some of VGM?

Please run with --log and attach the output so I can understand what happened.

[jboehm77]

So I tested this with a fresh config file. Solely including WBtW as an adventure only generates notes for content that originated from that publication source and not elsewhere, but no empty -vgm suffixed files were generated. This is the behavior for every variation of reprintBehavior. I'm not sure how to get the aforementioned empty files to appear, but if there is a way, that would be the only thing here I'd consider a bug.

However, I understand op's desire for simplicity when they're only using one adventure, and just wants all the content that comes printed in that publication. Perhaps there's room here for some sort of feature enhancement that pulls any -vgm, -mtf, -mpmmm etc content that's printed in an included source even if you don't explicitly include any of VGM, MTF, MPMM etc.

[ebullient]

hmm. depending on which reprinted what, that should already happen. I check other sources (if listed). So if darkling lists wbtw in one of its sources (source, alternate, other), it should be included. If it doesn't, there is no way I can find it.

[jboehm77]

Strange. There may be something weird going on then, because the VGM version of Darkling does list WBtW under referenceSources. But it doesn't get generated unless I explicitly include VGM or MPMM.

[ebullient]

oh is that new? referenceSources? I may not be looking for that

[ntrarar]

I’ve been slammed with work but will endeavor to share a log file asap. I did end up adding VGM to my convert list after posting the bug, so I’ll have to revert my config file to replicate.

[ntrarar]

ttrpg-convert.out.txt here's a log file from me trying to replicate the problem. I could not locate any empty files within Obsidian per my OP, so -- guess that's that. I am still craving a method to convert creature callouts within a written adventure without converting their whole legacy source, but it's a minor quirk easily solved by adding more sources.