Before I buy etools. . .

[Jubelo]

I'd followed the WotC MasterTools boards until Etools was announced, then followed those until the disappointing reviews of that program surfaced. With the new patch, I thought I'd ask what Etools actually does now.

With Davin's program, could I enter new classes, character races or whatever? Can I create new monsters, feats and spells easily?
Do you think I could move to 3.5 fairly easily?

I'm not really good with computers or programs. . . is etools fairly easy to understand and run? I know that Code Monkey has a forum dedicated to etools and I've posted there as well.

Thanks for any general information you can give me.
Jon

 

[KenM]

The patch that Code Monkey did is not out yet. It's being approved by WOTC. It looks like it fixes alot of stuff and might be decent. Hard to say until its out.

 

[EricNoah]

If you're hesitant I would wait to see how the CMP patch works. I use eTools now and even with its flaws I still really can't prep my games without it.

To answer your questions:

Davin's program is awesome, and it will let you enter many kinds of aspects of new classes. After the CMP patch I would anticipate even more functionality in this area.

Races, monsters, spells and so forth can be entered into eTools without Davin's program. Feats and magic items can be, too, though they don't really "function" (a stat-changing feat doesn't change your stats). Again, after the patch I would expect Davin's program to maybe address these areas.

eTools as it is now is D&D 3.0 compatible. CMP is planning on selling data updates for D&D 3.5.

 

[Jubelo]

Thanks for the quick replies!

I had believed the patch online was from CMP. . . it must be the Fluid Beta patch.

Are many of the current bugs trivial? Reaction on the Wizard's boards was almost entirely negative and Fluid's boards seemed to disappear rather quickly.

Again, thanks for the help,
Jon

 

[EricNoah]

Some bugs are trivial, and some are not. The beta patch creates as many problems as it solves, sadly -- it adds some useful features (free-text notes fields, for one thing) but also breaks part of the race generator and some of the house rules editors (the feats screen and the spells screen come to mind). I have worked around the race/monster issues by using custom stat blocks that report out the "Special Attacks" and "Special Qualities" sections of the race info.

Being part of the eTools community means developing an almost zen-like patience. Things that are supposed to happen "soon" arrive at a glacial pace, and things that "might happen" actually probably won't happen. But eventually it's all gonna work out, I believe. So sit back, make yourself comfortable, and prepare to seek tranquility!

 

[Chaz]

Jubelo, I dont blame you for the hesitation. As somebody who has been following the whole MT / ET thing since the demo CD first came out in the 3rd ed rule books. And been disapointed many times since. Id just like to say that I have high hopes for the work that CMP is doing on the ET project. I wont repeat all the good info EricN has already told you, I will just add another voice to the 'I have high hopes' for the feuture of ET club. If the CMP patch / support is as good as hoped for then ET will be around for a long time to come.
Peace.

 

[jdavis]

I use E-tools all the time, it works, but it has some issues (I got rid of the Beta Patch as it was just more trouble than it was worth). I have high hopes for the cmp patch and it looks like they are in this for the long term, but it was a very rough ride to get here.