No Character Builder Update

[the Jester]

(Yes, paper and pencil are still available. No, they are not actually useful ways to render 4E characters)

I see this kind of comment a lot, and find it as amusing as it is inaccurate.

I ran a game from 1st to 17th level with 8-9 players where nobody ever used the CB to make their character. Not once, not to update, not to create, not for anything- despite the group having access to my account.

You know what? It worked fine.

YMMV, but if you don't find paper and pencil a useful way to render your 4e characters, perhaps you aren't trying hard enough. A few hints: The point of the pencil is what makes the marks, and if you make a mistake the gummy pink thing on the back end of it will remove them. The paper is where you write stuff down. The dice are what you roll when you generate stats, and the books are where you find the rules.

Really, I swear, it's not that hard.

 

[Infiniti2000]

You know what? It worked fine.

It worked. But, "fine" is subjective. Dial-up modems worked fine, but now that I have broadband I realize just how much dial-up modems suck. The same thing, in my opinion, for the CB. Now that I have the CB, paper/pencil does not work fine in a similar sense that chisel and stone doesn't work fine.

 

[Renshai]

I really do grow tired of the pencil and paper crowd's attitude. Can you make characters with pencil and character sheets? Yes. Do I want to... NO! Did I pay for the luxury so that I don't have to.. yes I did and I would prefer if it WotC kept up its end of the bargain and provided timely updates. The news about online tools does nothing for me, how about using that team to help figure out how to make Essentials work with CB...

I came back to 4E because of Essentials and how easy character creation and maintenance would be using the computer tools available with a DDI Subscription. Essentials is great, but I want the computer support already. I'm not unreasonable for expecting this, neither am I (or anyone else for that matter) unreasonable for wanting to use a computer based character generator over pencil and paper.

 

[Ahrimon]

You can build custom elements into the CB. I built a Mul (templar) SK pact warlock just fine. The power cards aren't perfect. They look like utility cards. And sometimes you have to change some numbers manually. But in the end you have a fully functioning character sheet. The CB still does 90% of what you need it to do. It's only a few power, feats or other numbers that need to be manually entered.

I call it the 90% solution. 80% being pencil and paper and 100% being a fully updated CB.

 

[Moon_Goddess]

The dice are what you roll when you generate stats,

Really, not sure your playing the same game as me then, we don't use any dice while creating characters.

 

[Anaro]

and my dapper devil tokens.

Thanks for mentioning dapper devil! I'd never seen their products before - very cool.

 

[SteveC]

I see this kind of comment a lot, and find it as amusing as it is inaccurate.

I ran a game from 1st to 17th level with 8-9 players where nobody ever used the CB to make their character. Not once, not to update, not to create, not for anything- despite the group having access to my account.

You know what? It worked fine.

YMMV, but if you don't find paper and pencil a useful way to render your 4e characters, perhaps you aren't trying hard enough. A few hints: The point of the pencil is what makes the marks, and if you make a mistake the gummy pink thing on the back end of it will remove them. The paper is where you write stuff down. The dice are what you roll when you generate stats, and the books are where you find the rules.

Really, I swear, it's not that hard.

I'd say for some definition of "easy," and "characters" this statement is true. There are currently well over 1000 feats, split over a couple dozen rulebooks and over two years of dragon magazines.

Using the old character builder, I can see every feat for a class or race in 30 seconds, and plan appropriately. Doing so with only paper and pencil would be an... interesting exercise. The same is true for powers, and even moreso for items for your wishlists.

So I'd say that if you want to create a simple character and use only core options, the paper and pencil method can work just fine. Trying that while attempting to view all of your available options is something I could definitely do, but why on earth would I? How long does it take to look up all of the level 8 magic weapon enchantments that can be applied to a dagger (something I recently did when designing a level 7 rogue)? Character builder? A minute, tops. By hand? Good luck with that.

--Steve

 

[Grabuto138]

I'd say for some definition of "easy," and "characters" this statement is true. There are currently well over 1000 feats, split over a couple dozen rulebooks and over two years of dragon magazines.

Using the old character builder, I can see every feat for a class or race in 30 seconds, and plan appropriately. Doing so with only paper and pencil would be an... interesting exercise. The same is true for powers, and even moreso for items for your wishlists.

So I'd say that if you want to create a simple character and use only core options, the paper and pencil method can work just fine. Trying that while attempting to view all of your available options is something I could definitely do, but why on earth would I? How long does it take to look up all of the level 8 magic weapon enchantments that can be applied to a dagger (something I recently did when designing a level 7 rogue)? Character builder? A minute, tops. By hand? Good luck with that.

--Steve

Did you play 3rd edition? There was plenty of content. Character creation could be very complicated because there were (it seems to me) more options to modify your attack and damage, plus situational bonuses, DC modifications, potentially multiple prestige classes, wild multiclassing combos and the various related options etc. I managed using just pencil and paper. I prefer the OCB, but but I am not sure it is all that onerous a task to make 4e character by hand.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The way I see it, the task isn't all that onerous. Do it enough times and you won't have to look it up at all. However its unquestionably faster (at least short term) with some computer power behind it...but what isn't?

 

[ourchair]

The way I see it, the task isn't all that onerous. Do it enough times and you won't have to look it up at all. However its unquestionably faster (at least short term) with some computer power behind it...but what isn't?

Exactly.

I know some of us don't like the idea of gaming that requires some math homework, but I think it's akin to learning how to do arithmetic without a calculator.

Sure, you can compute some problems faster with one, but after a while it gets easy enough to do without one. Heck it's all adding and subtracting. Multiplication and division is scarcely a factor in 4e.