Character Builder is Live

[Asmor]

I've done up the 5 characters in my game. I ran into some problems, though.

First and foremost, in my mind, multiclass power swap feats don't seem to work (or at least I can't figure out how to use them...). I was able to remedy this by using the illegal selections open.

Second, I'm having a lot of trouble with custom rules. I've got a dragonborn in my game whose breath is radiant. I put in "Dragon Breath Radiant" as a custom rule for that, and it didn't seem to do anything on the power card.

More importantly, one of my players is playing a custom race. There's no way to add this custom race's racial power or skill bonuses, and the only way to add the racial ability bonuses is by increasing the base stats, which causes the program to get hung up thinking I'm over the point allowance.

Overall, I'm very happy with it, but the multiclass feats seem like they should be a major priority, and I'd really like to see more robust custom options, or at least the ability to manually add in powers and skill bonuses.

 

[morgul97]

Problems with the updater?

It's my understanding that you can download the character generator onto more than one PC, so long as you don't exceed 5 updates in a month. I had no problems getting it to install on my laptop. I then tried to install it on my wife's desktop. I had no problems with the installation phase. However, when I went to run the updater, it is now telling me it can't recognize the files. Is this a general installation issue or am I not understanding someting with respect to the licensing / number of updates?

 

[reveal]

It's my understanding that you can download the character generator onto more than one PC, so long as you don't exceed 5 updates in a month. I had no problems getting it to install on my laptop. I then tried to install it on my wife's desktop. I had no problems with the installation phase. However, when I went to run the updater, it is now telling me it can't recognize the files. Is this a general installation issue or am I not understanding someting with respect to the licensing / number of updates?

A lot of folks are getting that problem. I just wrote a post about it here with some more info.

 

[kenmarable]

Second, I'm having a lot of trouble with custom rules. I've got a dragonborn in my game whose breath is radiant. I put in "Dragon Breath Radiant" as a custom rule for that, and it didn't seem to do anything on the power card.

More importantly, one of my players is playing a custom race. There's no way to add this custom race's racial power or skill bonuses, and the only way to add the racial ability bonuses is by increasing the base stats, which causes the program to get hung up thinking I'm over the point allowance.

I can imagine that true custom features would come last (as a programmer I know how ugly that can get), but if they are able to implement them at least to a basic extent, then I am not using anything else for character creation again.

 

[Agamon]

Huh, 5 updates per month. I didn't read the end user agreement, but is this so that a DM can share with his group?

 

[catsclaw227]

Remember to report your bugs here: Report a Bug.

 

[Arivendel]

Huh, 5 updates per month. I didn't read the end user agreement, but is this so that a DM can share with his group?

I would assume thats the unofficial reason, officially its to cover possible flash updates for unexpected bugs or what not over 1-2 units (because i think scott knows some players like to keep one updated in their PC's and one in their laptops),

 

[Zaukrie]

I'd never make an NPC that detailed, but now I can get all the base stuff in, put a few of the cool powers in there, and move the pieces around onto one sheet. I can pick which of the 10 powers I want him/her to have, it's all there for me (and when I figure out how to edit, I'll add/change the flavor text to re-skin the tiefling warlock to be more far realms in description of what it's doing).

 

[SteveC]

Something which I saw as a bug might prove to be a feature for you here...

If you print the character sheet to PDF, it only prints single pages. A real PITA, as I wanted to give someone a pdf of their whole character sheet for printing, and I had to give them 6 separate pdfs.

But... it might work to your advantage (unless they've fixed that issue since the beta)

Cheers

It's only a workaround, but what I did was use Acrobat to merge the different documents into one. Just use Create PDF from multiple documents, and then select each page...and you've got one document. But this is definitely something that should be updated as well.

--Steve

 

[Scribble]

D'OH!

So I downloaded the program last night, and started to install... The instaling popup screen came up and it said downloading.... and just sat there.

Tried hitting pause, then restart to get it going. Nothing.

So I closed out the program...

Then I noticed what I had failed to notice a moment before. It had teriggered a security request from McAfee asking if it was ok for this random program to use the internet. Silly me. I said it was and ran the program again, but got that silly only one instance can be running at a time error

I reset the computer and this time it ran fine. Same thing happened when I ran the update, but this time I noticed the security request, and avoided all that hassle.

Maybe that will help others.

So far I think the progeram is pretty neat. Won't see a ton of use by me now though, as I'm the DM, but my players are stoked!