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<blockquote data-quote="Silveras" data-source="post: 1517622" data-attributes="member: 6271">One of the difficulties is &quot;where do I stop ?&quot;. Item names and prices are fine. But some items have weapon uses, and having their stats would be good. Other items have armor uses. Some can even be used as both (Shield Bash, for example). And, of course, hardness and hit points; if you're going to list the other qualities, leaving out hardness and hit points seems like a glaring oversight. Oh, but wait, then you have to allow for special materials ... which sometimes add a quality the item did not have before (Adamantine armor grants DR, for example). Oh, and quality ... Masterwork vs Normal. And magic items. And... you get the picture. Database tools would be a godsend to the laptop-enabled DM. Quick, easy reference to often-used information is a blessing at the table. I have an Access-based db that I am working on for my current campaign. it currently has 90% of the monsters from MM reverse-engineered into it (and I send about 30 or so e-mails to Wizards Customer Service correcting what seem to be errors in the skill points of many monsters). Why the reverse-engineering ? So I can take the &quot;base&quot; monster and have the db program apply a Template... so I can take the &quot;base&quot; monster and make an advanced version... or so I can add class levels. The problem with electronic solutions for RPG games is that the games are not static. There is always some new methodology being introduced. I am currently playing in a PBeM game where the DM uses PCGen. We have a lot of multi-classed characters in the party, so I advocate using the &quot;Smooth Fractional Bonuses&quot; house rule from Unearthed Arcana -- which makes multi-classed NPCs a little less hindered at some points. The DM can't find a way to do this in PCGen at this time, because that's a variant that the programmers did not have available when writing the code. It is not possible to foresee every variant and every new idea, so it is not possible to make an electronic tool that is able to address every variant and new idea easily. Anyway, my point is that probably the main reason you don't see a good listing like that is because no one is sure what it should look like, where the end of &quot;price list&quot; and the beginning of &quot;equipment management tool&quot; is.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Silveras, post: 1517622, member: 6271"] One of the difficulties is "where do I stop ?". Item names and prices are fine. But some items have weapon uses, and having their stats would be good. Other items have armor uses. Some can even be used as both (Shield Bash, for example). And, of course, hardness and hit points; if you're going to list the other qualities, leaving out hardness and hit points seems like a glaring oversight. Oh, but wait, then you have to allow for special materials ... which sometimes add a quality the item did not have before (Adamantine armor grants DR, for example). Oh, and quality ... Masterwork vs Normal. And magic items. And... you get the picture. Database tools would be a godsend to the laptop-enabled DM. Quick, easy reference to often-used information is a blessing at the table. I have an Access-based db that I am working on for my current campaign. it currently has 90% of the monsters from MM reverse-engineered into it (and I send about 30 or so e-mails to Wizards Customer Service correcting what seem to be errors in the skill points of many monsters). Why the reverse-engineering ? So I can take the "base" monster and have the db program apply a Template... so I can take the "base" monster and make an advanced version... or so I can add class levels. The problem with electronic solutions for RPG games is that the games are not static. There is always some new methodology being introduced. I am currently playing in a PBeM game where the DM uses PCGen. We have a lot of multi-classed characters in the party, so I advocate using the "Smooth Fractional Bonuses" house rule from Unearthed Arcana -- which makes multi-classed NPCs a little less hindered at some points. The DM can't find a way to do this in PCGen at this time, because that's a variant that the programmers did not have available when writing the code. It is not possible to foresee every variant and every new idea, so it is not possible to make an electronic tool that is able to address every variant and new idea easily. Anyway, my point is that probably the main reason you don't see a good listing like that is because no one is sure what it should look like, where the end of "price list" and the beginning of "equipment management tool" is. [/QUOTE]

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