What Character Generator Is Your Favorite?

[Thomas Percy]

I tired of making any single NPC (with DMG2 style statblocks) one hour.

I'm lookin for character generator software containing options below:
1) DMG2 style statblocks
2) Using game rules from SRD and from WotC books untill 2006 with a hope of upgrade (such as Book of Nine Swords)

What's your favorite such software?

Thanks for an advice.

 

[Arkhandus]

I call it "pen 'n' paper". See, I got this inkpen, right?, and this sheet of paper here, see?, and sometimes I have dice on hand like this, yeah?, and, well, you get the idea......

*makes an Olympian attempt at dodging sour tomatoes and the bad humor police*

 

[arscott]

MS Word.

Computers are for formatting and cut-and-paste. I know better than to trust a computer to check the math.

 

[Herobizkit]

This one. It's Jamis Buck's NPC generator, and it does everything I need. He has an alternate 3.0 version as well that covers all of the monstrous PC/NPC races.

 

[jujutsunerd]

I tired of making any single NPC (with DMG2 style statblocks) one hour.

I'm lookin for character generator software containing options below:
1) DMG2 style statblocks
2) Using game rules from SRD and from WotC books untill 2006 with a hope of upgrade (such as Book of Nine Swords)

I prefer pcgen. (Not all that strange given that I'm a (fairly inactive) pcgen developer.

The DMG2 dataset for pcgen sold by codemonkey publishing has the dmg2 statblock. They also sell datasets for most other wotc books (Book of Nine Swords is not available yet though, it usually takes a couple of months for a dataset to become available for a new book.)

/Jonas

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Paper and pencil.

The hardest part about making NPCs, IME, is choosing skills and feats. A computer program can't choose these things for me, so they aren't useful in speeding up the process.

 

[Kerrick]

I use NPC Designer, mostly for NPCs. It saves me a LOT of time doing sample NPCs for the books I work on; it used to take me about an hour per, but now I can bang them out in about half the time, depending on the class (no spells takes about 20 minutes). It's not perfect - no random generator is - but it's a lot less work than I'd have to do normally.

 

[Mercule]

I use PCGen. I think HeroForge has a better UI, but PCGen has a lot of power.

Really, the biggest weakness that PCGen has is the lack of an interface for cooking up a custom setting. I have a love/hate relationship with the list and mode files.

 

[Screaming Monkey]

I've always used Jamis Buck's NPC generator. It's simple, easy to use and does the job done.

 

[Tinner]

It's not entirely user friendly, it'll will take some money, some time, and some effort to set it up properly, but e-tools by Code Monkey Publishing will do everything you're looking for.
It's got nearly all the WotC books available as data sets. But you do have to pay for them all individually.
It will produce DMG2 statblocks, if you can find, download and install the fan produced add-on that handles that.

Despite the fact that it's slow and a pain in the neck, it's still my favorite chargen software.
I've tried a lot of others hoping to find one that is free, easier to use, or at least one as good, and I haven't found anything I like better.

YMMV.