Core Rules vs. E-Tools

[Nine Hands]

I used both Core Rule II and E-Tools. I really liked the customization of Core Rules II (except for the inability to customize standard data, which I discovered a work around for), the graphics looked good. It did pretty much what it was advertised to do. I had wanted a more robust package for character creation and the Expansion mostly filled that desire. I have to say that the patches to CR2 and the Expansion were well done and that the development team went very far in making the customer happy.

As for E-tools, I was pretty disappointed. It had lots of bugs and Fluid Entertainment just could not make the product the way it was originally advertised. Code Monkey Publishing has breathed new life into E-tools. I think they are doing a good job of fixing someone elses mistake.

 

[astralpwka]

I hardly remember Core Rules I, at the time I only used it for the DM choices, prefering to do my character by hand.

Sounds like I'm in the minority of really liking e-tools. Despite its failure with templates, I use it very frequently for creating original monsters (to check my work). I use it for quick stat blocks for adventures, to upgrade monsters for CR's, etc. It cuts tons of time out of my DM preparations before games.

CMP is fantastic for devoting their time to making it better.

 

[DaveStebbins]

I liked CR (or CR II, can't remember which I bought, now) for the books. Having the SRD for 3.0 and 3.5 removes the major reason I bought CR. Didn't use the mapper much, though I liked it and still have it on my PC.

I like e-Tools also and am anxiously awaiting the 3.5 version.

 

[Henry]

Victor, I don't have E-tools so I really can't compare, but I did buy core rules 2, and enjoyed its abilities immensely.

My biggest complaints on it were the inability to save to PDF natively in the program (though the html sheets were good, they were not very customizable short of monkeying with it after the fact), and the limited campaign cartographer mapper in the package; I consistently had problems getting certain tasks done (some of the controls never worked right for me) until I bought Campaign Cartographer in 2000.

Keep in mind that the program had some very different spec's for it back then, compared to character creators for 3.5 - character options were MUCH more limiting.

One other note, though - I still have the Core Rules help files still loaded to my PC at work. Those things are very useful for digging up old rules. Kudoes to whomever worked on those.

 

[Fast Learner]

eTools major failing, other than all the management and design switches, was that it's using a Access database,

This has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Access is a perfectly good database and is every bit as flexible as it needs to be for this tool.

and the code isn't flexible enough.

While this is absolutely true, and is the reason that it was so difficult to modify simply via changes to the database (and the reason CMP had a hard time making little changes, as "little" can be "huge" if the code is poorly written).

The Access-based db engine has nothing to do with any e-tools failing, and is in fact one of its strengths.

 

[Henry]

I'll second the Access Database claim. I myself on Eric Noah's board lobbied long and hard to ensure the format was a non-proprietary one, and Access is quite available and open to many programmers. At the time I did not know that much about XML as a database standard, though they could have done almost as well with it, and been even more open.

The fact it's in Access is one reason why I've been told it's fairly easy to write changes to the tables. I use Access myself in quite a few databases with scores of tables and hundreds of thousands of elements with no problems; I do recognize it's limitations on records in the millions, as well as complex VB programming, but overall it's a solid standard.

 

[MythosaAkira]

That and I LOVE the map maker. Lots of fun, that. I know that arguably CCII is better, but really the CR II mapper is far easier at making a quick overview of a continent.

Forgot about the MapMaker program. That was very cool.

Outside of the mapmaker, I can't comment too much on CR or CR2 since I don't remember enough about them. One thing I do recall, though, was the non-standard interface (things like graphical gems for buttons come to mind). If I'm playing a game, that's one thing. But for something that's essentially a database front-end, give me a standard Windows UI. The character generator in the Player's Handbook that was the precursor to eTools suffered from the same problem, though moreso. Fortunately, eTools is better, but still has issues (example: tab order is screwed up, or was in the version I used).

 

[Thrombin]

Hi Victor, it's been a while

I never used CRI but I used to use CRII and CRE pretty extensively. I found the program pretty much indispensable, particularly for the online help and the character generation.

My biggest problem was that I used to use all the Player Option rules and even CRE didn't support them completely. Using the program always involved a lot of workarounds and the kind of customization that you could do was often pretty limited, even with the extension. I was also not terribly fond of the linear approach to character generation. E-tools' ability to jump instantly between different screens is a great improvement from a user interface point of view. As is the multi-window approach.

CR II scored best with the help feature. Having the books online with a fully-indexed help system was hugely useful. E-tools is catching up with this, I understand a lot of the text from the books will be added soon, but it's way behind CR II on that one.

CR II scores over e-tools with its ability to stow equipment in specific locations and the character sheets were pretty flexible, if I remember. The fact that the e-tools character sheets are output in XML is a plus for e-tools, however, especially for programmers like me who can mess around and customize them. Having the database accessible in Access is also very useful from a customization point of view.

I think with the latest 1.4 patch to E-tools, the customization available even without accessing the database, is light years ahead of CR II and with ET Helper you can even create classes (something that was a huge hole in CRII functionality, I recall). The support of the splat books through the new datasets is also much more complete with e-tools now that CMP have taken over and tentative dates from CMP reckon that the 3.5 datasets should be available within the month.

CR II was prettier than e-tools with its animation etc. but I think that from a user interface point of view and from a flexibility point of view e-tools definitely has the edge. Of course without the success of Core Rules WotC may never have agreed to commission e-tools so I don't really see the programs in competition. E-tools is just the next step on the way to the perfect character generator and with CMP at the helm things can only get better

Regards

Thrombin

 

[Kalex the Omen]

It's been a while Victor, but here is my entire experience with computer D&D game aids...

I started using computer game aids for D&D on a 286/16. In those days it was the SSI Dungeon Masters programs (I don't remember their exact names anymore, but there were two of them). I think they were for 1st Edition and they were DOS text based monstrosities. They worked well enough and did save me some time generating encounters for my games.

I bought CRI when it came out. While I thought the minimovie was very cool, I wasn't as excited about the program itself. If I remember correctly my players and I struggled to make accurate characters before giving up entirely. I believe I may have still used the program for NPCs and encounters.

When CRII came out I decided to give it another try. I was very impressed with how it worked, but due to the lack of support for the Player Options books we couldn't get as much use out of the program as we'd have liked. The addition of the mappers was great though. We used them extensively.

When CRE was released we went right out and bought it for the Player Options support. However, as was previously stated they didn't not implement those rules flawlessly. That is when I came up with a very simple rule. If CR didn't have support for it, my characters wouldn't be able to do it. This worked very well in allowing us to use CRII w/CRE extensively for a few years.

Then 3e came out and we converted immediately. We used the Character Generator from the back of the Player's Handbook for a while, but it wasn't much good for anything but initial character creation due to lack of support for magic items and such. So we eagerly waited for the release of Master Tools...and waited...and waited.

In the intervening time I tried to use PCGen, and (at the time) found it to be unusable.

When eTools came out, I went right out and bought it. It wasn't very long before I realized that I couldn't use this program. There were too many bugs and data errors to be able to create workable characters. The errors were so prevalent that I couldn't even implement my rule that we'd used for CRII w/CRE.

Now that eTools has been patched, and the datasets are coming out (3.5 soon I hope) I have some optimism for the future of computerized gaming aids again. I use it to create my adventures, mainly by pasting stat blocks into the adventure Word documents. The guys at CMP are perfectionists and I think they'll put out a quality, solid 2.0 version of the eTools product. I will be willing to buy that program when it is released.

I should note that I have used PCGen (and now GMGen too) since my first experience with it, and I like it well enough. I have suggested that my players use it for tracking their characters, so that they can be loaded into GMGen for initiative and experience tracking. In fact we used the initiative and combat tracking last weekend for the first time and I think we all loved it. I think it took some of the war gaming aspect out of miniatures combat when the players didn't know initially what their initiative was. Makes for a tense first round.

I look forward to more integrated player and DM game aids in the future.

The world according to
Kalex the Omen

 

[Vpenman]

It's been a while Victor, but here is my entire experience with computer D&D game aids...

I started using computer game aids for D&D on a 286/16. In those days it was the SSI Dungeon Masters programs (I don't remember their exact names anymore, but there were two of them). I think they were for 1st Edition and they were DOS text based monstrosities. They worked well enough and did save me some time generating encounters for my games...

The world according to
Kalex the Omen

The first SSI program was the Dungeon Master's Assistant (I was the developer on that project). I believe the second was the Dungeon Master's Assistant II.

I am glad you found them useful.

Victor