Best Character Generator Program

[Pants]

I currently use HeroForge for making up NPCs and PC's, but it has some quirks that are proving to be slightly annoying:

1) As an excel sheet, it runs kinda slooooow at times. Plus, since I'm using Excel 2007, the compatibility mode can make it unreliable at times

2) Entering in new stuff is... difficult. Personally, I'm way too lazy to learn how to edit Excel sheets just to make planning my games easier. Say what you want about eTools, but entering new stuff in was pretty easy.

That said, I've been looking at Dundjinni, RPGXplorer, and Hero Lab, but I'm looking for some feedback from people who have used these.

I've used PCGen and, frankly, I didn't care for it that much.

Some of the things I noticed:
- The output on RPGXplorer looks really nice. Being able to output in the new statblock format is a big plus.

- If I ever get a laptop or an EEEPC, I'll probably want to make use of some electronic help for running combat and Dundjinni looks nice for that.

I'm going to download the demos to see how they run, but I still want to hear some reviews.

Also, I'm running a 3.5 game and I'm unlikely to switch to 4e anytime soon.

 

[dinelendarkstar]

I currently use HeroForge for making up NPCs and PC's, but it has some quirks that are proving to be slightly annoying:

1) As an excel sheet, it runs kinda slooooow at times. Plus, since I'm using Excel 2007, the compatibility mode can make it unreliable at times

2) Entering in new stuff is... difficult. Personally, I'm way too lazy to learn how to edit Excel sheets just to make planning my games easier. Say what you want about eTools, but entering new stuff in was pretty easy.

If you are using Excel 2007 then save the sheet as a Native Excel 2007 file and it works much better. Speeds things up a lot. HF is the best by far, but then again I am biased.

 

[DMFTodd]

Dunjinni is a mapping program - it doesn't do characters or help run combat.

 

[Pants]

Dunjinni is a mapping program - it doesn't do characters or help run combat.

Oops, I meant DM Genie not Dundjinni.

 

[azhrei_fje]

Oops, I meant DM Genie not Dundjinni.

I'm a moderator over at the DM Genie forums, but I'm not connected to the author of DM Genie in any other way.

If you're sticking with 3.5, DM Genie is excellent. There are people who've entered entire campaigns into the program since the 'Genie manages the entire thing. It's also nice that it has a 60-day trial period. There have been some issues with people installing it under Vista, so be sure to check the forums if you're using that OS.

I have to admit that the producer, Mad Scientist Studios, has not been seen around the forums for quite awhile. While I love the software and continue to use it (and it has a large support community), I'm reluctant to recommend it because of the lack of visibility of the author.

That's not particularly fair, but Janik (the author) had a huge presence on the forum in the early days so anything less is ... disappointing.

 

[Anurien]

Easy question, but then I'm fairly biased on this!

 

[meleeman]

Is there a program like Redblade for 4E yet, or at least being worked on that anyone knows about? I loved that thing! 4E just has so much stuff to constantly remember (Powers).