D & D D&Di - Monster Builder Beta Launch Announced

[Keefe the Thief]

I´ve always thought that Blood Elementals should get that "pick PCs up and hit the others with their comrades" - and i added that beside my DDI statblocks by writing it down.
Now, this took me 2 minutes:



Wow... thats all i can say. I even threw in another necrotic power. And it´s so incredible easy to change it to Solo on the fly if i want to give my party a real challenge.

This is awesome.

[vagabundo]

Tiz and awesome program. Whipping up a custom adventure is easy as pie now.

Some issues I've had:

- If you enter text in a description and then delete it the space is left blank on the monster/npc, sometimes there are hanging brackets.
- No way to add a template yet - that I seen. Hopefully there will be soon, although not a big problem.

It is surprisingly stable for a beta app. To be honest this is worth my DDI sub.

EDIT: I'll submit to the Wiki Jurgen, in work right now, have to wait til I get home.

[arscott]

My one huge gripe is that Equipment isn't customizable--Anything I want to give my monster, I've got to pick off a list. The fact that I can make up a language or a keyword, but not a posession is pretty silly.

I'd also like the option to recharge powers under specified circumstances (such as, but not limited to "recharge when bloodied"). There doesn't seem to be a way to do that right now--it's just recharge 4, recharge 6, or whatever.

[avin]

Played around last night and find it very cool.

I'd change the interface to something with a more light look.

My only fear is creating unbalanced monsters. You guts who tried more, is there any program advice towards balancing?

[Glyfair]

Originally Posted by arscott

My one huge gripe is that Equipment isn't customizable--Anything I want to give my monster, I've got to pick off a list.

Worse, it's not an alphabetized list. Finding something in the list is a royal pain.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by avin

Played around last night and find it very cool.

I'd change the interface to something with a more light look.

My only fear is creating unbalanced monsters. You guts who tried more, is there any program advice towards balancing?

Don't give monsters too many powers from other monsters too many levels above their own.

[Obryn]

I LOVE that the Monsters button in the upper-right corner is our buddy Rawr the Gnome.

"I have a lair!"

-O

[knifie_sp00nie]

Originally Posted by Moniker

Looks great! But one bit of feedback - it would be nice to have a filter for Powers by Level. Right now, there are only filters for Type, Action and Usage.

This would help me assign powers by simply selecting ones that fit other monsters by level.


Cheers,
Daniel

I'm not sure if that's very necessary. When I was dragging some powers around the application was scaling the to-hit and damage numbers for me based on the level of monster I was creating.

[fanboy2000]

1. Near as I can tell, it does the math.
2. It makes it pretty. So far, I'm cutting and pasting using the "rich text" option into Open Office.org's Writer. I get a table that works the way a table should and things go quite nicely from there. Way to go, Ryan Milligan and
Corey Fellows. (I assume their the progamers responsible, they're credited as the devlopers.)
3. The program is very easy to use, though I'm still not sure what the monster button and the holding pen do on the right. But I can make and customize monsters fine.
4. All in all, it's easier that making statblocks in Numbers or Pages.
5. This is a stable program, nice for a beta.
6. In fact, most of what seems to make this a beta are things like lists not sorted alphabeticly.
7. The user interface is surprisingly flexible. A person can pretty much set the with of the columes any way he or she wants.

The only things I want added are templates from the DMG and powers from the various PC resources like the PHBs, and * Power books.

[Hjorimir]

The Monster Builder (as it stands) is already better than sliced bread. Once they fix a few bugs and incorporate templates and PC powers it will be better than sliced pizza.

I think my favorite aspect is the ability to shave or add levels for monsters in less time than it took me to write this sentance. It really opens up options for adventure design.

GREAT job, WotC!

[Klaus]

Originally Posted by Hjorimir

The Monster Builder (as it stands) is already better than sliced bread. Once they fix a few bugs and incorporate templates and PC powers it will be better than sliced pizza.

I think my favorite aspect is the ability to shave or add levels for monsters in less time than it took me to write this sentance. It really opens up options for adventure design.

GREAT job, WotC!

Dude, the application is awesome. But better than sliced pizza? Not happening.

[ki11erDM]

It is working well in Windows 7 64bit. While installing it throw and error but then W7 restarted the install and said to use the 'recommended settings' and everything worked just fine.

Also, for some reason I cannot do the copy as rich text and paste into Onenote... it acts as if my clipboard has nothing in it. Not sure if that is a Onenote issue or not.

[Kamikaze Midget]

This stuff is pretty awesome! Now I have all the mosnters I ever need! But, of course, now I REALLY don't need an MM3 just full of stat blocks.

PS: Having the ability to design a class by selecting powers and stuff would also be FRIGGIN' AWESOME.

[w_earle_wheeler]

Excellent -- now I can have offline access to all the monsters.

If DDI keeps progressing like this, I'll probably re-subscribe 3 or 4 months down the line.

[Scribble]

Originally Posted by Klaus

Dude, the application is awesome. But better than sliced pizza? Not happening.

Maybe unsliced pizza though.

[wayne62682]

It seems to have issues with 64-bit Vista; I installed it and it simply hangs at the "Download" screen after telling me there are updates; nothing happens and nothing gets downloaded (the progress bar doesn't move at all)

[Scribble]

Originally Posted by wayne62682

It seems to have issues with 64-bit Vista; I installed it and it simply hangs at the "Download" screen after telling me there are updates; nothing happens and nothing gets downloaded (the progress bar doesn't move at all)

Make sure Vista isn't sitting there in one of it's do you want to allow this modes... I remember when I wanted to first install the CB I got hung on that. It didn't give the usual signs it was asking a question, but instead had the popup hidden behind another open folder or something I forget what it was behind.

[Obryn]

Huh, works fine for me under Vista x64 on both my gaming rig and my laptop.

If you have issues with it, maybe run the installer as Administrator? It had no problems getting permission from me, though.

-O

[odhen]

I also have installed it on both my laptop and desktop, both of which are running Vista64 with no issues.

[Nebulous]

What a badass program. WotC, you have outdone yourselves, thank you. Keep working on some tweaks and additions and you'll probably have undying gratitude from legions of fans.