Critique my D&D tool

[Tazawa]

This is a really great tool!

Some suggestions/comments:

• The interface to the compendium is already way, way better than WotC's. I love the browse view and the level slider for items. Great work!
  
• Could we get a browse view for monsters too?
  
• I like how the program automatically calculates ability modifiers based on role when building monsters. Any chance that could be extended to auto calculate hp, defenses and abilities based on level and role?
  
• The fonts used for the area and close powers are a little wonky. I know there's better fonts for this floating around the net.
  
• Would it be possible to have more than 9 dice in the die roller? Could we get percentile dice? The die roll results are hard to read against the yellow button.
  
• Any chance of a skill challenge builder?
  
• When I print, there's little curlicue graphics at the top of the page. How do I remove them?

I hope you take all of this as constructive criticism. I am really impressed!

 

[Dannager]

• The fonts used for the area and close powers are a little wonky. I know there's better fonts for this floating around the net.

Noticed this as well. The Game Icons Regular font is a pretty exact duplicate of the icons used in WotC products, and I'd be happy to pass that font along (it also contains recharge die icons). It was created prior to the monster stat block revision, however, so it doesn't include a character for the aura icon - you'll have to figure that one out separately. Let me know if you'd like it.

Also, your monster stat block doesn't seem to properly handle powers with multiple attack icons; for instance, the Dwarf Clan Guard has a power (Double Hammer Strike) that has both the melee and ranged attack icons. Only the first icon is rendered properly as the melee icon. The second is displayed simply as an 'R'.

 

[doublewumpus]

Thanks a lot guys, this has been really helpful so far.

[MENTION=73683]Dannager[/MENTION] Regarding a better font, I've privately tried out the one made by Daelkyr (link), which works great. The only issue is permission to use it, which I don't have. Do you think he would be willing to give me a license?

Also, your monster stat block doesn't seem to properly handle powers with multiple attack icons;

Man...I didn't even know that was possible. Time to fix the parser...

Could we get a browse view for monsters too?

Sure. What stats should they be browsable by? I assume level and role...possibly origin?

When I print, there's little curlicue graphics at the top of the page. How do I remove them?

No way to remove them at the moment. I'll add an option to do so.

Would it be possible to have more than 9 dice in the die roller? Could we get percentile dice? The die roll results are hard to read against the yellow button.

The dice roller is really old and left over from a much earlier version of the site, so...yeah, it has issues. When I refurbish it I'll try to add these features. Just curious though...when do you need to roll >10 dice? Or percentile dice?

All your other points have been noted and added to my todo list

 

[Dannager]

Thanks a lot guys, this has been really helpful so far.

@Dannager Regarding a better font, I've privately tried out the one made by Daelkyr (link), which works great. The only issue is permission to use it, which I don't have. Do you think he would be willing to give me a license?

If you get ahold of him, I'd frankly be surprised if he didn't just say "Go for it!" This is a project you can easily expect a fair amount of community support on, especially if you remain dedicated to improving it.

The font I was speaking of can be found here. It doesn't contain the poison/disease progression arrows, but is otherwise complete (though, as mentioned previously, it was put together before an aura icon existed). Notably, the author (Patrick Murphy) says that he provides the font freely to the gaming community. I don't think you'd have any issue including it in your app, especially if you don't plan on charging for it.

It would be pretty rad if one of the font authors took it upon themselves to update the font set with the new aura icon, just so the community could be working with a complete toolbox.

 

[DNH]

Like this a lot, although I don't know how much I would get out of it as a) I do not currently have an active DDI sub and b) we play our 4e games using FG2. That said though, I have just been playing with it a bit and noticed a couple of things when entering a monster (copy-and-paste from a pdf).

Firstly, the Bloodied value is calculated for you from the hit points but it does not round down and shows half a hit point (55.5 in this cyclops' case).

Secondly, the stat bonuses are also worked out for you but they do not add in half of the monster's level.

Other than that, this is brilliant work and I shall be watching with interest. Well done.

 

[doublewumpus]

[MENTION=63615]DNH[/MENTION] Yeah, I just learned about FG recently. I'm surprised more people don't use it, it seems like a really awesome program.

(goes off to fix the Bloodied calculation)

Stats *should* be taking into account monster level (unless you specify a level that isn't a number). The calculation I'm doing is:

floor(level/2) + floor( (stat-10)/2 )

...unless you're talking about defenses, in which case it doesn't do any calculations =\

 

[Tazawa]

Sure. What stats should they be browsable by? I assume level and role...possibly origin?

Level (with the cool slider), role (artillery, brute, etc.), secondary role (minion, standard, elite, solo), origin, source. You might not be able to present them the same way as the items due to the stat blocks being different sizes - a list could work.

The dice roller is really old and left over from a much earlier version of the site, so...yeah, it has issues. When I refurbish it I'll try to add these features. Just curious though...when do you need to roll >10 dice? Or percentile dice?

These requests might be a hold over from earlier editions when large numbers of dice and percentile rolls were more prevalent. However, falling damage can involve larger numbers of dice and I swear I was rolling percentile dice a few times in the last 4e session I DMed.

 

[samursus]

I just have to say, this is awesome!!

Just for the fact it provides me an easy way to print out monster stats for my games!

One thing to suggest is having the site remember your login info for compendium. (At least as long as you are logged in) Once I close it, I have to type it in again.

Edit: Never mind, I can see that if you click on the table the window hides without having to close it.

 

[doublewumpus]

[MENTION=11334]Tazawa[/MENTION] Thanks!

IOne thing to suggest is having the site remember your login info for compendium. (At least as long as you are logged in) Once I close it, I have to type it in again.

That feature has actually been implemented, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to take on the responsibility of storing people's DDI creds. As it is, once you log in you'll stay logged in until you close the browser window. I'm still deciding how to proceed on this one. Sadly, it's tricky due to legal reasons rather than technical ones.

 

[DNH]

Stats *should* be taking into account monster level (unless you specify a level that isn't a number).

My apologies. I went back and took a look and it turned out that I hadn't cleaned up the pdf copy-and-paste import sufficiently. The raw text for Level was "Level" and the raw text for Role was "14 Artillery". Once I fixed that, the ability score calculations worked just fine. Thought it was a bit odd for you to have missed that.