Character builder blues

[Mad Hamish]

I'm having trouble coming up with anything else that fits into that category. I use the Character Builder more than Adventure Tools, and granted it isn't as complex, but it seems far more solid. What else is there, the unfinished 3rd Ed character builder?

Allusions to the shiniest turd in the toilet bowl come to mind.

Champions has character building software back in the 90s, I believe Hero Games still has some.
There are quite a few community built tools for 3rd ed games. I used 1 of them pretty consistantly for a few years (pcgen) and it mostly did the job but I found it was inelegant (especially handling money and purchases), I've used an earthdawn character generator a few years back.

and that's without me really looking for them.
Back when I was really playing consistantly and spending a lot of time on rpgs (in the 90s when I was at uni) I tended to put together character sheets in word with equipment and combat details in excel and customised each of them for the character.
Now I find the character builder does pretty much everything and takes me a couple of minutes to maintain the character.
(annoyances -> cuts off feat descriptions, not enough space for magic items etc...)

 

[Nytmare]

There are quite a few community built tools for 3rd ed games.

Yeah, but community built and OGL inspired programs aren't what we're talking about.

The Character Builder is great, but I think it still falls far short of what it should be (and even farther from what it was supposed to be). It's the pinnacle of game support software amidst a very tiny puddle of competitors.

 

[corwyn77]

I've been developing software for about 30 years, and playing d&d for as long, and I have to say that the Character Builder software for 4E is easily the best software I've ever seen for gaming support.

For DnD maybe, which is a pretty low bar. That being said, it's pretty good, if you don't stray from the books much.

But GCA (GURPS), Hero Designer (Hero/Champions), Herolab (various, including 4e) are all loads better for their relative systems when straying from the gospel.

GCA, in particular makes it easy to add fan-made data files (all text) to incorporate house rules and the learning curve isn't all that steep.

 

[MerricB]

What DOES bother me? That fans can't legally make a better program that lights a proverbial fire under the programmers to do a better job. Open Source frequently kicks the butt of proprietary development, even if it has its own pitfalls on documentation and quality.

Mind you, there's been no edition of D&D where the fans *have* been legally able to make a character builder.

Cheers!