Breaking free of eTools reliance

[Kralin Thornberry]

Is that where I would go to add new feats as well? Under house rules?

 

[Kralin Thornberry]

Never mind...it is. I bothered to check!

 

[caudor]

Thanks for all the responses

I really don't feel so bad about using eTools since getting all this feedback. Evidently, there are still more eTools users than I thought. I'll play around with this ET Helper and see if I can add some of the newer classes I want to use. Thanks for that tip

I hope the PC generator that comes with the digital initiative, if there is one, will be better or match the options we have today. If there is no tool planned for the DI, then I hope WotC will give the license back to CMP.

The only reason I can imagine that WotC would pull the license is because they have something new on the way.

Thanks again!

 

[thalmin]

Add another voice to the users of ETools. I have created many custom classes using ETHelper. And I've created the major races of my world in ETools as well. Big time saver for me.

 

[talien]

Hunh?

I've seen more errors and stupid junk in eTools than by hand 99% of the time. I told my players to not use eTools, as it messes up calculations, etc. Plus adding abnormal or weird stuff to a character sheet is never easy in that app. As they say, "YMMV".

Oh I don't disagree. But eTools is more right than wrong in our case.

And mostly, as long as we all use eTools (and I handle all the PC sheets through it as well as the adventures), and it's CONSISTENTLY wrong, then that's almost the same as being right.

'Cause, as previous threads have clearly indicated to me, not everyone understands the rules anyway (myself included).

 

[Mercule]

Wow. People are starting to make me wonder if I should have gone with E-Tools instead of PCGen. Oh, well. Too late now.

 

[The_Gneech]

Without E-Tools, I would have no game. I ain't got the time (or the desire!) to do all that math by hand.

When WotC yoinked the license, they really shot themselves in the foot as far as my gaming dollars go: I don't buy any of their books that I don't have an E-Tools dataset for.

Now they aren't getting any money from me for Dragon and Dungeon, either. Considering how much money I drop on my hobby, you'd think WotC would want a part of it. But apparently not. :\

-The Gneech

 

[kigmatzomat]

Etools, the latest version, is probably easier to use that PCGen. Earlier versions, not so much b/c it required some for-pay software to really hack into the data. PCGen only needed notepad and skill, so a much lower barrier to access.

PCGen is probably a more complex tool than Etools at this point because it supports several d20-variants. Etools has the advantage of only supporting D&D as well as being a for-pay product so it isn't a volunteer project. On the other hand, PCGen can't be killed and ETools is now pretty much dying a slow death.

I'm not really hep to the CMP product line but you might want to keep an eye out on the RPG Foundry product, which I imagine is what CMP would have released as the next version of ETools.

 

[Birmy]

Oof! I guess I can see how these programs can be a crutch, but I'm very happy with Hero Lab myself, and I don't seem to have the... I'm gonna toss out "co-dependency" here... that some of those programs seem to inspire, especially ETools, users of which seem to be in various stages of grieving...

 

[Mercule]

Oof! I guess I can see how these programs can be a crutch, but I'm very happy with Hero Lab myself, and I don't seem to have the... I'm gonna toss out "co-dependency" here... that some of those programs seem to inspire, especially ETools, users of which seem to be in various stages of grieving...

How is the customizability (is that a word?) on Hero Lab? Can one enter in things like Tome of Battle, Tome of Magic, spell points, etc.?