Critique my D&D tool

[eriktheguy]

Hmm. Worrisome. I've been trying to track that bug down for a while. Hrmph.

I get this one occasionally (chrome). I just close the print tab and open another. It always works the second time.

Awesome! I'll probably put up a donation link after I finish the next update. Need to think of a nice perk for donating, like unlimited spaces for a year or something....

I would also consider donating. Be very VERY careful with this. I don't think you are at much risk for receiving a C and D right now, but if you begin to profit off of wizards material (strictly, off a tool that accesses compendium) you might. I'm not sure how these things work. Maybe accepting donations is perfectly okay, maybe it isn't. When you start to offer perks in exchange for donations it starts to seem more like a transaction, so maybe that is more risky.

I also know that companies like to send legal threats to people who actually aren't violating any laws/copyrights. If you can't afford or don't know a lawyer to ask advice of, they might hope you give in to avoid any ramifications because you can't buy as much law as them.

So just be careful; google the hell out of it or ask a buddy who knows some law before you make any serious changes in this direction. Maybe you can even email people who have had their tools shut down by Wizards before and ask them what the trigger was. I'd love to see you get paid for this as much as the next guy, but I'd hate to see you get shut down.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Hmm. Worrisome. I've been trying to track that bug down for a while. Hrmph.

I can live with it for now; I like to do most of my DM work on a netbook anyway, but I was trying to use it to print custom and customized powers for some of my players and got stymied there. I just went back to good ol' Magic Set Editor, but power2ool is even better

Awesome! I'll probably put up a donation link after I finish the next update. Need to think of a nice perk for donating, like unlimited spaces for a year or something....

How about remembering your DDI login? I know there may be legal complications there, but it would be a nice perk.
Seriously though, more space is a swell idea. It woulld also be neat, following on my almost suggestion from last post, if on the Zoomed out view, you could draw lines between the workspaces and label them in a flowchart like manner.

Yeah, the automatic stats button has been confusing people. Are the rules for monster level adjustment in the DMG still valid or are there updated ones?

I do believe all the monster math (including levelling/delevelling) has been updated and has been reprinted in the DM's Kit.

 

[Kannik]

This is a crazy great tool.

I'm using it right now for some campaign planning. (coupled with One Note)

I gave it a try as a player in the game I play in by throwing into the tool all of my power cards, edited at the bottom to say the specifics for my character*. I placed die rollers under each card, customized for the specific attack/damage rolls for that power.* I placed a few other die rollers to the side for my most oft-used skills.* And I gave it a whirl to see if I could play a game with it, running most of my combat through it (albeit still needing my character sheet for defences, hit points, etc)*

I wasn't sure I'd like it, I'm very partial to the feel of rolling dice, the tactile nature of paper and pencil, etc. And I wanted to give it a go. And, I liked it! It worked out remarkably well. I could grey out my power usage, the die rollers didn't feel too bad and were quick, and... I dunno. I think I could keep on playing this way for this character.

This is a crazy great tool.

* - feature requests/suggestions: How about enabling a toggle for power cards to let you put in your character's specific attack and damage that would show up at the bottom of the card (or as a separate daughter card). Clicking on the specific values would automagically run a die roller and spit out the result.

* - similarly a special card for your character's vital bits -- stats, skill values, HPs, defences, etc) would be grand. For the stats/skills, as per previous paragraph, clicking on them would generate a value roll. For the HPs, clicking on it would let you enter a + or - value, and it would adjust your current HP total. Clicking on a healing surge will apply a surge, and you can enter in a bonus. That kind of thing, and it/they can be reset via the rest menu/option already in the tool.

* - oh, new thought -- the ability to dim items to indicate the usage of their powers (or just the section of their powers that say either encounter or daily -- though that might be tough given some items have multiple powers, hmmm...)

Doublewumpus, serious rockage on your part in creating this tool, very well done.

peace,

Kannik

 

[Dalamar]

Second the possibility of a special card for vital statistics, though personally I've just used the monster card as a base so far. Since you can name sections however you want, I've recorded racial abilities, class features and feats in there instead of powers.

Though that does remind me... The ability to add notes to the HP and Defenses section would be nice. For example, I'd love to be able to add "see Zombie Weakness" right next to the HP line for a zombie

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Ignore my previous request for multiple dice rollers open - you can do that very easily. Turns out I was trying to drag new ones down from the bar to where I needed them, when what I needed to do was simply click the bar to get a new one, then drag it to where I want it.

 

[Mechanimal]

I finally got to actually try it during a session, and I've got to say it worked out pretty well. After doing that, I was able to think of a few more things that I think would be a great addition to this:

• Able to highlight multiple items to drag as one
• Auto pin items when they are together
• Maximize and minimize certain blocks (when minimized, can only see block title)
• Also, maybe there could be a way to have a certain block "always on top," if there isn't already a way to do that.

- What I mean on the last one is that I could put, for example, all of my encounter powers for my character together, and maximize one when I wish to read it, but overall it won't take up all of my screen, because I won't need to read all of them at once. As of now, I have to do some scrolling, which isn't a huge deal, but I figured it would still be a good thing to implement. Thanks again for the great application!

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

After using it, my biggest and only real complaint about it so far is that my netbook doesn't have enough screen real estate to display a whole encounter's worth of critters all at once. I can't think of a "real" solution to this besides "get a real laptop."

Adding flowcharting on the larger scale view, and a combat tracker in the zoomed view are my only two requests. Oh, and fixing your printing bug.

Keep it up, and add a "donate" button!

 

[eriktheguy]

Just want to reiterate how awesome this is, and bump for anyone who has missed it. This program is so sleek/minimalist/intuitive/smooth. It's like the chrome of D&D Tools.

 

[Dalamar]

I've ran into what I think is a new bug, but I can't exactly replicate it on a consistent basis.

Sometimes, when I'm repeatedly alt+tabbing between power2ool and another window, power2ool seems to lose the Finnish/Swedish layout of my keyboard. I'm using Chrome on a Win7 32bit, if that matters.
The first time I ran into the bug, I was alt+tabbing between two different Chrome windows, and another time between the power2ool Chrome window and an Adobe Reader window.
The problem seems to be with power2ool only, as I was able to type normally in the address bar of the same Chrome window that power2ool was in.

 

[TheClone]

I just watched the video, but it looks really cool! I will have to check for its supporting capabilities for DMs. Can you click monster powers if you used them? If so, an automated dice button for recharge would be cool. Can you import custom monsters from the old offline builder?

I wouldn't use it as a player, I guess, since I always print out the charakter sheets and maybe use markers if I used a power and that works okay. But DMing online is will be pretty usefull to put in all the monsters, one screen per encounter and then click out all the used powers, maybe track HP/status or click out the dead monsters and so on. As a DM its really nasty to print out all that stuff, because no table will be large enough to handle it easily, if you still need room for a keyboard and a mouse, as it is the case with online groups.