5E monster importer?

So - the plodding glutton for punishment in me has been one-by-one creating monster character sheets w/ token actions for each monster in the current published 5e material. I am sure there could have been an easier way - much like HB's 4e importer, however, in the absence of 5e digital tools (no yet released) these creatures exist only as PDF or print. In the meantime - before someone smarter than I figures out how to import from the up and coming release of 5e tools, is there a way for me to GIVE the community my monster character sheets outside of inviting me to your campaign and i import each individually from my Vault? For example - is there a "character sheet clone API" out that could translate something i have pasted to a document that would import my entire monster repertoire onto that mentor's vault? I don't mind doing the legwork, so to speak, but i don't have the scripting know-how to make the actual translation work. Anyways, i think it would be good to have a collaborative library that mentors can draw from rather than each of us having to manually create all these ind creatures. Anyone interested in tag-teaming this? I'll rewrite monster stats into whatever format that your "importer" requires.

It should be possible to create an export/import script for character sheets. Probably best left for an actual javascript export though and not my hackneyed attempts, lol.

Awesome yeah - i THINK its possible but probably just very painful. Hopefully someone has some ideas - either that or i'll go back and start my codecadmy courses again ;-p

Are you talking about the character sheet (HTML, CSS), or instances of the monster which you have as characters in the journal? (Wizards of the Coast IP, monster stats, etc?) The first one you can do by creating a Gist or a Github repo. The second lands on questionable grounds probably...

ok, so this is probably in the grey area. HB's importer at least had some type of plausible copyright protection since only DDI subscribers could actually "upload" a monster card to a roll20 character sheet with token macros populated. What i am looking at doing is having a word doc file where A. i have formatted every published monster into a specific format (decided by the scriptwriter). B. any Mentor could go to a roll20 thread, find the script, and find the link to this word document. C. cut paste/script into API D. Enter campaign. E. Cut/paste word document onto a char sheet or somewhere. hit a !populate command, and have the script pull data from the word doc and CREATE 100 or so character sheets with token macros, and the stat cards in bio section. Idealy it is PROBABLY better to wait until the new subscriber tools comes out and whatever EXPORT data file they have - use that. Much like HB's 4e tools. so it would be worthless to people that actually dont OWN the monster manual or without paid subscription. Just a shame that've got a whole slew of monster char sheets that i'd like to give to other DM's but without a way to share them. Thoughts?

I wouldn't put them in a word doc. If you want to make it easy on the script writer to import, put it in a CSV file (saved from excel perhaps), or a flat text file with some strict adherence to format. If you want to make it trivial, put it in a JSON file. It is a shame. Maybe if someone can get wizards to sell a Roll20 monster manual. I'd totally buy that. If you are going to do this, you could certainly target anything they have freely given away (all the monsters in the DnD5 GM rules). If you write the importer so it understands the format copy/pasted from the PDF, then you will be ready should more content be released digitally that individual GMs can access.

That's the problem, Roll 20 has no interaction with WotC (and other developers). Us DM/GMs have to do all of the work, and due to artwork rules, and other rules you can't share through the Vault, only import your character. It stinks as there are going to be how many DMs having to each manually repeat this process. I'm going to be starting this process soon.

Yeah me too. If there's a way to scrape this out of a PDF, all the monster stats are free online from Horde of the Dragon Queen here: <a href="http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/hoard-dragon-queen" rel="nofollow">http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/hoard-dragon-queen</a>

@bryan yeah alot of these publishers need to wake up; tabletop gaming via sites like roll20 will be a HUGE chunk of their clientele - and only getting bigger. Sign on now with some hotsh%t like roll20 while they still have a chance to nuance the systems - before the systems (like roll20) dictate when, what, how from publishers like WOTC, games workshop, pazio, etc .

I've almost got one working...

oooooh - nice!

I have not tried this but.... is it not possible for you to give another MENTOR DM access to your campaign. They would then login as themselves and then run TRANSMOGRIFIER so they can copy all of your monsters to their campaign? Let me know if anyone has ever tried this, or if you want to :D

You can only access campaigns that you created via the Transmogrifier.

i mean, techinically, you can be invited to another DM's Campaign. IMPORT any character in your VAULT to that DM's campaign, where they can then take control/alter as need. problem is you cant MASS export in the vault. one by one will take a lot of time.

A parser for the character sheets would be needed I imagine. So a conversion of the Monster Manual book to another Database. Which in turn can be parsed into the Roll20 forms. This however would be specific to Roll20.