4th Edition DnD PC tools

[breen12345]

Hey everyone,

I realize that WotC will be release new digital tools for 4e DM soon.

1) does anyone know when the release date is?

2) till then can any recommend any PC tools that would help a DM keep track of an encounter?

I've got like 5 PCs and I'm having a hard time keeping track of encounters with all the new powers and effects and various stats. I was hoping there was something that could keep track of all that for me.

Cheers,

Breen

 

[CubeKnight]

I'm a big fan of RPTools' InitTool for keeping track of whose turn it is and what buffs/debuffs each PC/NPC has.

It's for 3.5, but you can just ignore the preloaded NPCs and add the ones you'll use.

 

[Ferdil]

I also suggest you to use the other RPtools, even offline.

We use MapTool offline, with the EEEPc of one of the players, and we go in the house of another player to use his pc with an huge screen.

We start maptool on both pcs, and we connect. The DM uses the EEEPC, while the others look at the huge screen to see the battlegrid.
We were lucky to find a person with an EEEpc and another with a huge screen , but you can do it with any laptop connected to any pc with a reasonable screen size.

Now we do not have to worry about minis or grids or whatever. And also the lighting calculations in MapTool are very cool.

 

[Orcus Porkus]

I love minis

I think I'll always use minis.
You know, I started playing in the 80's.
Minis were rare, expensive, made of lead, and unpainted.
We had no dragons, displacer beasts, oozing cubes. Just a bunch of oblins and silly looking "magic users".
I stopped playing in the early 90's and now 4th ed. pulled me back in.
I discovered the amazing painted minis WOTC is producing. I bought hundreds of them for cheap on ebay, bypassing the silly random boxes scheme.
A dream came true! Nothing beats the real monsters in front of you.

Anyway, for tracking initiative I use
GameMastery: Combat Pad
Google it for cheap deals - it's really cheap. Not a PC tool, but does the job for everybody, not just on the screen for the DM.
This thing sped up combat significantly, because you can move around magnetic tokens and the order is visible for everyone.

Regarding PC tools, unfortunately many developers halted their 4E products because of licensing problems, otherwise we would have plenty already, like a new version of DM Genie (google it).

I for my part am just waiting now for the WOTC tools. They seem to be on the right track releasing them soon since they demoed them already in an almost bug free state on Gen Con this month.

 

[Griogre]

I would second the using a Combat Pad. Not only can you keep initiative on it you can also keep conditions next to a character to help remember ongoing damage and saves. Alternatively for my 3.5 games I use to use initiative cards and the cards at the back of the DMG should work great. WotC put up a PDF download of them. Poker chips make good marks.

 

[Nytmare]

At Gencon, Randy Beuhler was saying that a demo version of the character builder should be out in the next couple of months.

The full release should be out before the end of the year.

The visualizer will be out at some point before the game table next year.

The game table will (probably) be out by the end of next year.

As for combat I made an excel program that rolls initiative, and tracks conditions, damage, bloodiedness (ation?), and death. It also allows you to shift people up or down in the initiative order and to tally XP at the end of the night. http://www.pmw.org/nytmare/dnd/Initiator.xls

I want to stress that my biggest fear thusfar had been D&D Insider and the electronic tools. I was worried about the delays and was really unhappy with a goodly chunk of the sneak peaks we were getting of the software. After spending a couple of days playing around with what they have so far and talking to Randy and Didier Monin, those fears are gone. I'm bummed that we don't have the toys to play with now, and it would have been great to have them ready when 4th Ed hit the shelves, but I would rather have a program that's solid, that got the time and energy it needed, and that works, than something that's half finished and rushed that was realeased with everyone knowing that it wasn't ready.

 

[Griogre]

It WotC is willing to stick with it, I think DDI might eventually be pretty good. If they do another half ass job like with e-Tools, Gleemax and Tiny Adventures it will probably take a while.

If you want to play *now* you can use the free RPTools Ferdel mentioned or you can use Fantasy Grounds II which I have been using to play D&D online for the last couple of years. I've been playing 4th edition online since KotS was released. I totally agree that if WotC is going to release software - it needs to work - with their track record of publishing they do not have much credibilty and can't afford to release something half made.

In a way I find it encouraging they have delayed the release instead of just shoving it out the door. However, I'm not going to wait, and wait, and wait... hoping *someday* they'll release something. I'll look at DDI when they actually release something. Until then, well, I'm going to use software now that I *know* works and is useable.