I just recently released the Monster Advancer and it does a lot of quick creation of npcs and monsters with class level handling, advanced hit dice, templates and more. I was wondering in this general area were there things that people really wish a free online tool did well that you haven't found yet. I hoping to see if there are still some needs out there that haven't been met for 3.5 monster generation or 3.5 npc generation.
Monster Forge does well for a Monster Generator and advancer. It doesn't set up random encounters or NPCs. Heroforge is good for setting up PCs, but not random quick NPCs.
I have to say that your Monster Advancer looks very good.
Am I to understand that this is a work in progress and that all SRD materials (both creatures & applicable magic items) will eventually be incorperated into the database? If not, I would certainly move to include those things.
Having the ability to give an advanced Ogre a pair of Boots of Striding & Springing with the stat block reflecting the change would be invaluable. I would also suggest creating a popup form that allows a user to add custom data to the displayed statblock.
While it's not a huge deal, it would be nice if the creature's default feats from the MM were preserved in some way and then you were given the option to change them as opposed to simply being forced to pick their feats. It would also be nice to see some prestige classes (dmg at the very least).
Another suggestion would be to allow some direct way of adjusting the hit die rolls of both hit dice and character classes as an option that could be toggled on & off (switching between manual input and averages).
Perhaps allowing the statblock to be exported in various forms such as HeroForge & PCGen?
All in all, a very good program, and an amazing effort for a single person. Bravo!
Am I to understand that this is a work in progress and that all SRD materials (both creatures & applicable magic items) will eventually be incorperated into the database?
You understand correctly. All SRD creatures for sure and probably most (if not all magical items). There are also several great OGL materials such as all 3 Tome of Horrors books that I would like to include.
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While it's not a huge deal, it would be nice if the creature's default feats from the MM were preserved in some way and then you were given the option to change them as opposed to simply being forced to pick their feats. It would also be nice to see some prestige classes (dmg at the very least).
I am planning on entering their feats again as defaults. I had them in at one point and moved away from that. I realize now the value of keeping them (I made that decision before I developed the quickened and random monster versions). The prestige classes and npc classes will be included some time soon.
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Another suggestion would be to allow some direct way of adjusting the hit die rolls of both hit dice and character classes as an option that could be toggled on & off (switching between manual input and averages).
Perhaps allowing the statblock to be exported in various forms such as HeroForge & PCGen?
I have considered these but I will. The ability to roll stats or set them to be rolled is a good idea at the very least for the main application...We shall see.
Thanks for all the feedback, criticism, compliments and support! Keep it up.
Is this a bug? I advanced an allip from 3 HD to 12 HD and its CR went up from 3 to 5.
On feats, at least in the Quickened version how about giving everything a standard sequence of Weapon Focus, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Great Fortitude, Toughness... so you can play the monster right as it comes out of the generator.
Hmm -- looks like the main generator lets you define your own progression like this. I never saw that because the first time you linked, I went straight to the Quickened to evaluate if the thing was even worth trying. (Probably where a lot of your new visitors will go.) I saw that I was still going to have to pick the feats, armor, and spells and thought "eh, I'll bookmark it, but it's not the Holy Grail." I never realized the main generator had checkboxes for a lot of that stuff, because I never saw it. Maybe pimp the main generator at the bottom of the Quickened results page? Like "for equipment, feat progressions, etc, try the Main Generator."
Perhaps if you supplied a gp budget for each creature, so we would know if they can afford a +5 amulet of natural armor?
I have like five character generators and I usually switch between all of them because some do spells, some do armor, some do hit dice. The PHB 2 suggestions of the best armor and spells for each class and level is actually the most helpful thing.
One more thing, fighter feats don't show up in the total number of feats. You could just say "3 (plus fighter feats)".
Last edited by Noumenon; 26th May 2009 at 09:26 AM..
It is indeed my goal to become the holy grail of monster & npc advancement and generation but I realize I am not quite there. I am currently in the process of entering the default feats for most creatures and will probably set up some system to auto-assigning of relevant feats beyond the basic creature.
Undead gain +1 CR for every 4HD so your 9HD advancement is not enough to warrant more than a +2 to CR thus...CR 3 to 5.
The idea of mentioning what the main generator can do in the quickened one is actually a good idea. I will figure out what is worth mentioning and get something up. Eventually I will have a few more selections on the quickened one such as generate treasure horde as well as equip relevant items from horde.
I currently calculate budget when I generate but I don't display it until after you have done so. I will move the display someplace reasonable prior to advancing so you can determine what budget you may have.
As far as getting each class to properly have their powers show up--That is what I am currently working through. The monk is the most complete in that respect, but I should have most of the classes powers done fairly soon. I just set up my bonus feat system and so the fighter should get hooked up right along with that.
I realize that I could have waited until I had all these things in my generator but that would have delayed release by several months and I thought there was enough potential for now to get it out to the people. If you keep mentioning what you want...as you just have...I will forge your holy grail from the fine steel of the Monster Advancer.
I truly appreciate the feedback...your pleas do not fall upon deaf ears.
New Features Released over Memorial Day Weekend '09
New creatures have been released:
Blink dog, Chimera, Chaos Beast, Centaur, Goblin, Gnome, Gnoll, Troll, Roper, Clay Golem, Iron Golem, Owlbear, and all ages green dragons and the red dragon great wyrm.
Also skills now are displayed and auto-assigned using a fairly intuitive strategy that tends to try to max out class skills and emphasizes a few specific skills based on creature type, or character class. Your Bugbear shouldn't usually get assigned 3 different perform skills unless he has bard levels.
Feats are now properly calculated including class levels. (Does not yet include bonus feats--although monk bonus feats are set up to assign randomly already)
There is a place on the display screen that now shows how many stat points the creature should have gained from advancement. (Just as a side note...if you ever actually do the math on the creatures you will realize that most monsters in the books ignore the whole extra stat point every 4 levels completely so I tend to not worry about it...keep in mind that in the main application that the table that shows the stats can be clicked on and every stat can be edited manually so the stats are always up to you.)
Also the main application now opens a new window for each creature you advance so that the javascript heavy page doesn't have to keep reloading.
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Comments after just after a very brief perusal:
Adding all those strange templates without any references to where they are from is not such a good idea, IMNSHO. A tagline stating where each template is from would be a fantastic boon to just confirming the values.
Secondly, I'd have liked to see the ability to generate more meaningful thematic random encounters, based on Climate, Environment, Energy, Religion, Giantkin, humanoidal whatever.
As it is now, you are left wondering just how they all tie together, so becomes rather less meaningful (as a random encounter generator).
The more I look at and use your generator the more I think the Holy Grail is on its way. You have a lot of ease-of-use features right -- a lot. Add 5 levels of druid with a drop box? Generate 5 CR 5 monsters to pick from for a random encounter, including "vampire gelatinous cube" and an aranea pre-advanced in hit dice? Wow. You could actually run off of this thing someday.
That's an interesting factoid about the allip and undead hit dice. I always thought "1 HD = 1 CR", but now I'm starting to remember a table in the MM that says different.
I am gonna make more suggestions, as per the thread title. I don't know when you will find time to do it all, but I don't know when you found the time to do what you've done already. So...
When you include advanced monsters in the random generator, maybe explain that. Not "aranea CR 5," but "aranea, advanced 2 HD." I know araneas aren't CR 5, so I was confused, and I am used to using unadvanced monsters. Eventually I think the random generator should have checkboxes:
x Include basic monsters
x Include monsters advanced by Hit Dice
x Include monsters advanced by character class
x Include monsters with templates (vampire, etc)
green slime's idea is cool too, though hard to implement -- imagine a random generator for forest encounters that could give you a pack of wolves, and an elf druid master! I guess a shortcut version to what he wants would be to let you generate by creature type. You want forest encounters, generate animals and elves. You want crypt encounters, generate undead and oozes. That way you, the programmer, doesn't have to categorize every monster into whatever type of environment. The DMG has tables for that anyway.
I suggest making the picture logos at the top of each screen (which look nice) into links that take you back to the main page. In particular, there's no way to get from here to the main page.
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There is a place on the display screen that now shows how many stat points the creature should have gained from advancement.
In the results to the advancer, the line that says "Stat Points Gained From Advancement: 2" should be directly under the Abilities line, not separated from it by Feats and skill points.
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keep in mind that in the main application that the table that shows the stats can be clicked on and every stat can be edited manually so the stats are always up to you.
I don't see how. In Firefox, that table on the left of the screen has only one clickable thing, the button that says "reset gnome stats." (I am using gnome for everything because it's a PC race. I wish you would include "human" so I could generate "generic fighters." Human's not in the SRD, but how about "elf" at least, so I don't have a size bonus messing up the AC calculation?
Oh, I see, you can edit the stats "in the table." That's weird. Never seen an app that works like that, and the rest of the stuff in the table you obviously can't edit, so I never guessed. I'm actually not sure what the purpose of the box with "reset gnome stats" is -- all the information in it about the stats and stuff is already in the table. If the only reason is to show the changes to the base stats, maybe you should just let people change stats in the second screen instead, with dropdown boxes, and get rid of that box.
The fact that you can pick a feat progression for a Ghoul doesn't scream "awesome" to me, just "eventually handy if I use this enough." But when I actually tried it, picked the feat "Ability Focus" and it popped up "what kind? fever, paralysis, or stench?" and then it actually included that feat in the DC in the ghoul statblock I generated, and told me about it? That was entirely awesome. You should call attention to your work there by calling it "pick feats to include in statblock" or something.
"Advance Monster" is a good name for a button, but somehow it gets me thinking that I should be doing this: "Choose a monster to advance on this screen. Then click the button." But that's not how your thing works. You need to have your feats and stuff picked before you click the button, and you can't go back and adjust them after (not as easily as you can change your fighter level, anyway... I get a little confused by your whole 2-screen interface thing because they don't have the same visual design, so they don't appear to be connected parts of one monster design process.) So maybe you should a) move the button to the bottom center instead of top center and/or b) name it "Final step: add levels and hit dice." "Finish monster" would keep that simplicity which is important.
Like I said, your generator shows a huge amount of promise and a whole lot of work must have gone into it. I sent you $15 with PayPal just because I have this image of the Holy Grail. It's funny because I have DMGenie, which probably has just as much work in, but I never paid for it after the 60 days because it was already a finished product.
I was thinking that if humans are not an official monster entry, then providing ways to advance them might be like providing a way to advance player characters and it wouldn't be OK.
You guys really got after it on those feature requests. My focus for this weekend's release is all the main classes that are common NPC fodder. Human, elf (multiple varieties), dwarf, half-orc, orc, etc. As well as most of the dragons.
The Random Encounter Generator right now is more of a truly "Random" creature generator right now but I have every intention of having that be one of the first things I upgrade due to the use it is getting. I was already planning on having several options such as frequency of template addition as well as narrowing the focus of the encounter by creature type and Environment. These will be coming soon...that random encounter generator was a flight of fancy shortly before release that really has been excellent. You will also eventually have the ability to decide frequency of any number of things in this generator so that, while random, it is more tailored.
As far as the main application...the class level selection options will appear on this page as well as on the final output so you don't have to guess that you will have the option for class levels later. This will avoid confusion there. Do take note that the front screen does not lose any of the data you have entered so if you generate a monster and then realize you forgot to add feats just select your feats and hit generate again. Voila, you have a new monster identical to the previous in all ways except that it now has feats. Because this window never closes you might also eventually realize that each monster has its own feat list so if you start by advancing an allip and create one sequence of feats and then start working on a ghoul and create a different set of feats...and then finally go back to the allip you will find your original feat selections still there. It keeps track of most things.
The stat reset was originally there because if you edited the stats in table there was no way to know what they were originally...thus a button that could reset to default stats. I suppose drop downs in each stat field that always had the default stat as the top option would work as well. I will give that a try and see what I think. I think I may need the space where that panel is for class level selections anyway. Especially if no one is using it at all.
Templates for familiars and animal companions and paladin mounts are also on the way.
Anyway, I will add all these to my upcoming features lists so that I make sure I don't miss any of them as I move forward. Keep it up, the Overlord's furnaces are fueled by the blood of...I mean by your suggestions!
This probably could be its own thread but just for fun...
I believe Wizards always realized the potential of applications for their products but never managed to figure out how to accomplish it. They attempted character generators, e-tools and several other application and not a single one was a success. I believe they found that outsourcing the development to people who didn't know the game inside and out was incredibly difficult. Character builders/creators are incredibly tricky. There are things you have to take into account in an application that don't ever matter when you just play it on paper...and good luck imparting those things to a developer who doesn't know the game...and good luck even realizing what all those things are until you are deep into development.
For example...keeping track of skills. If you spend a point in a skill while just playing the game all you really care about is whether it is a class skill and if you DM later lets you swap a few skill points around you just swap 'em 1 for 1. You will realize when I describe what you need to take care of in an app that the just swap 'em method leads to all sorts of small inaccuracies that don't matter on paper but will matter in an application.
What class is spending the point? Was it a class skill when you spent the point? Did the skill later become a class skill due to cross-classing? If you refund a point which class are you refunding it to? You need to know when the point was spent into the skill if you are going to determine whether it was a class skill or a cross-class skill at the time.
Fun example. I take 1 level Ftr, 1 level Rogue and then another level in Ftr. At level 1 I spent a cross-class point in use-magic-device. At level 2 I spent a rogue skill point in use magic device which is now a class skill. At level 3 I spent a fighter skill point in use magic device which is still a class skill because the rule is once a class skill always a class skill. I now have 2.5 ranks in Use magic device.
Now I want to change just that 1/2 a rank out...
In an application if I wanted to simply remove a skill point...if I am not forcing the user to designate which point to remove things get tricky. Which one do I remove? Do I remove the most recent point and just let the user somehow know it was a fighter skill point from level 3? Because if I refund the cross-class skill point in fighter it must be spent as if I were still a level 1 character with only fighter skills as class skills...and oh, by the way, I have to display the skill list properly so that I even know that at level 1 my class skills were different than they are now at level 3.....Have fun with all that.
Obviously, I haven't even gone into the full detail but to keep a program from allowing all sorts of rule-breaking one has to handle these issues. This by the way is not the most difficult thing to overcome when writing a character generator. You will just have to take my word for it. I cannot spill all my secrets.
You are going to need to go through Sage Advice questions in Dragon Magazine, I think I drove beta testers crazy doing skill generation because I was releasing an update once, twice and often three times a day.
I think the discussion of skill points applies more to character generators than to monster advancers, where you apply the levels all at once. You don't swap in and out if you change your mind, you just generate a new one. The level of detail isn't necessary either, since "select {Int + 2} class skills and max them out" is an acceptable approach for NPCs.
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At level 3 I spent a fighter skill point in use magic device which is still a class skill because the rule is once a class skill always a class skill.
I'm not at home with my books, but I thought that rule was for determining your max ranks in the skill. I thought you still need to pay double for a UMD point when you take it as a fighter.
I'm not at home with my books, but I thought that rule was for determining your max ranks in the skill. I thought you still need to pay double for a UMD point when you take it as a fighter.
Correct, page 59 of the PHB with an example on page 60 which you need to look at because on page 59 it never actually states it in the rule. The rule merely deals with the max rank allowed. There are also several Sage Advice questions directed towards multi class characters as well.
With direct experience from coding NPC Designer I can tell you that it is a lot tougher then it seems handling skills.
I think the discussion of skill points applies more to character generators than to monster advancers, where you apply the levels all at once.
You are dead on there. A little bit of customization after generation isn't that tough...but maintaining information about everything to continually jockey it all around is a lot tougher. And you are right about my example. The max ranks is what is class skill always a class skill but skill point spending is always by the class skill list. Sorry about that.
The Monster Advancer came into being mostly because the concept underneath was fairly straight forward which is simply not the case for character development anyway. There is a lot more to consider and a lot more that players want to do when customizing a PC than when you are generating NPC's or monsters. And because there really wasn't anything out there that really made things quick and painless.
Apparently there aren't enough good random generators either because the hits on the random generator have far exceeded my expectations.
I have started working on several user options for random encounter generation to allow more tailored results. Such as results restricted by creature type, environment and/or "theme" (crypt, sewer, etc.)
I will have a version out fairly soon that will allow these new restrictions as well as continuing to have the "old" way on the off-chance that some people really like the "random" aspect of that. More thoughts on this part of things would be appreciated. I will get what I have out as soon as possible so you have some idea where I am going with it versus the things you guys have already told me to include.
Not everyone has a laptop to drag to a game, not everyone has a computer that's easily accessible for game time, and outside the U.S., (like say here in NZ) you have data limits. Go over X amount and either you pay more, or your connection gets capped (hello dialup). And of course, there _are_ folks that don't have broadband accounts for a variety of reasons too.
Also as a practical aspect... let's face it, when you've got a hosted program, eventually... it's going to go away. You'll get bored maintaining it, something will happen with the hosting... whatever. Nothing is forever.
A downloadable version though, means that even when life has come up and you just can't work on it for [whatever] reason, or you're bored with it, or whatever, at least folks can still benefit from the work you put into this thing.
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