Can't Renew my DDI SUB

[The Fighter-Cricket]

I used to make characters from PHB1 or the Essentials books quite quickly without the online tools. I even found the character creation process described in the Essentials very useful for an "analog" approach to making a PC. The crucial thing is to know on which resources/books you want to restrict yourself. If you have too many options character creation takes a lot of time even with the help of tools.
But for me as a DM that wants to manage my player's characters (I know, I have control issues...) the digital tools are great to have an overview over the party constellation, their synergies... and possible weaknesses which I could exploit to make their lives miserable... You know, the little things that make DMing fun.

Short: CBLoader ftw!

 

[Neil Bishop]

I'll say it again. I'll be very disappointed if the online tools become unavailable one day and WoTC doesn't make them available in some form for legal offline use. I find the tools very useful and fun to use, warts and all.

Fortunately, the not-legal offline tools are easy to find and work really well.

 

[GameOgre]

I wonder if I’m the only who uses/used only books and pdfs to play 4e. I mean, sure, it can be a problem when you have too many books, but I never had the constant money required for a subscription – and worst of all, was in dollars. So I always did in “old-school” style.
Nothing against those who use online tools: if it works for you, great! I just don’t like them, and I’m interested if anyone also has this opinion.

Never needed online tools. I did play in a game where the DM used them and he always had tons of cool print outs that I'm sure helped and made things faster to plan out but it was very doable without them.

I talked with him about it and I think it's more of like you can do it without ever using them at all and be fine but once you do, it would be very hard to go back.

 

[D'karr]

I never NEEDED the electronic tools to play or prepare. For that matter I was able to run the game simply with the tables in the DM Screen.

However, once I started using the electronic tools, such as the compendium and the offline character builder they became essential. They make preparation and record keeping so much faster and convenient.

I would compare it to using a pen and paper for writing a document, or using a word processor. You can use either and both of them will still get the job done. But one tool is way more convenient and useful for the long term editing needs.