D&D 4E What are the options for living without DDI?

[adamc]

I'm a subscriber to DDI but I don't think I can stand it much longer... too many issues with Silverlight.

But what are the alternatives besides using the books? (Because if we have to look it all up on paper, we will be transitioning to 13th Age ASAP, if only because there are fewer of them.)

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I'm a subscriber to DDI but I don't think I can stand it much longer... too many issues with Silverlight.

But what are the alternatives besides using the books? (Because if we have to look it all up on paper, we will be transitioning to 13th Age ASAP, if only because there are fewer of them.)

The offline Character Builder can be updated with CB Loader.

I don't get why you feel you can't just use the books (and paper sheets). You don't have to use all the books. It's better not too, 4e got bloated. Frankly the PH1 and the first two players' Essentials books are more than enough, and you don't have to use the PH1 or Essentials (just one or the other) if you really feel like it.

 

[The Little Raven]

I'm a subscriber to DDI but I don't think I can stand it much longer... too many issues with Silverlight.

But what are the alternatives besides using the books? (Because if we have to look it all up on paper, we will be transitioning to 13th Age ASAP, if only because there are fewer of them.)

As mentioned, there's CBLoader for the Character Builder. It has been updated to date, with the last one coming earlier this month.

There's also an offline Compendium that uses XAMPP to run a local version, which can use a DDI account to scrape new content (last update to the DDI Compendium was in November, next one is supposed to be in March and will be the final one). It's not as easy to find as CBLoader, though.

Finally, there's Masterplan and its plugin CompendiumImport that will pull most of the monsters from the Compendium, and allows you to edit them as you wish. You'll have to do a bunch of work yourself to get everything you want in place, but it'll handle 95% of the heavy lifting for you.

 

[adamc]

I don't get why you feel you can't just use the books (and paper sheets). You don't have to use all the books. It's better not too, 4e got bloated. Frankly the PH1 and the first two players' Essentials books are more than enough, and you don't have to use the PH1 or Essentials (just one or the other) if you really feel like it.

1. We've been using the online character builder. Taking things away that people have would not be fun. If we were starting from scratch I might use PH1, but we aren't.
2. They will not want to look through several different books, and most of them would need to use mine. It will make level-ups take longer.

If we switch to 13th Age, however, it is beyond my control (sort of) and we can switch to one book.

Thanks for the advice (and The Little Raven as well). I've looked at masterplan before but never really got into it... didn't feel like my kind of tool (too much upfront organization).

 

[Jester David]

I believe Hero Labs, who does the character builder for Pathfinder, also has a 4e toolset.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Finally, there's Masterplan and its plugin CompendiumImport that will pull most of the monsters from the Compendium, and allows you to edit them as you wish. You'll have to do a bunch of work yourself to get everything you want in place, but it'll handle 95% of the heavy lifting for you.

I could use more info on that. I'm interested in the monster stuff.

 

[The Little Raven]

I could use more info on that. I'm interested in the monster stuff.

Masterplan: http://masterplan.habitualindolence.net/

Compendium Import: http://compendiumimport.codeplex.com/

Install Masterplan (unzip it somewhere).
In the Masterplan folder, create a folder named AddIns.
Put the Compendium Import DLLs in the AddIns folder.
Run Masterplan. Go to TOOLS > LIBRARIES and make sure you have at least one Library that exists. Go to Tools > AddIns > Compendium Import > Import Creature to begin the importing.
Put in your DDI information and download them by source/book. Some won't download, some will. Any that don't download would need to be entered manually.

 

[C4]

If you don't mind pdfs, I went to a lot of trouble to compile the greater part of 4e's classic character options into my Complete 4th Edition pdfs. My group's been using them for about four years now, and I've gotten no complaints.

 

[sabrinathecat]

1: learn to love books, and "rock it old school". (Sorry, I've never said that before and hopefully never will again)

2: program your own character builder.

3: find someone who already coded a character builder and is willing to share.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

Here's what we did:

• Download all issues of Dungeon and Dragon
• Have the players level up their characters until the end of your desired level range, saving them as .DND4e-file and PDF for each level
• Review the characters and grab needed infos (feats) from the Compendium
• Download .monster-files for the relevant books we don't own as hardcopy
• Buy the Rules Compendium as pdf

The PCs are ready to go, even have the desired magic items, if you let them select items freely. For running combats we use the D&D 4e Combat Manager, which does a good job reading .dnd4e and .monster-files.

With this preparations in place, we can continue our campaign without much problems or changes to the way we play. We risk, of course, that character deaths can generate problems