D&D 3E/3.5 D&D 3.5 character creation programs

[Yehlan]

I know this question has been asked a million times in different ways but every one ive found has either been too old to be useful or concentrated on less complete programs.

Im a DM and a player but i find flipping through endless books tedious. I own all the books so its not a matter of wanting a free way into the material. What im looking for is a character building program that has all the books, it would even be nice if it had the dragon magazines included in it but that isnt a big deal. But specificaly a program that will go through the entire character process allowing for all the different options what would also be nice is a built in spell book for caster characters.

I have been searching for about 3 days now (which works out to be more than 14 hours a day as no work means lots of free time) and ive found many programs that claim to be able to do what i need and some that come close but are always missing something.

Currently im running a Spellscale gestalt wizard/binder/master specialist/initiate of the seven fold veil with the GM running taint rules from heroes of horror and the fortune rules from one of the dragon magazines as well equipment from weapons of legacy. so as you can see im running multiple books and lots of options and though i dont expect a program to be capable of covering every base i havnt found one yet to cover enough things to warant using it.

The main problems im running into is none have tome of magic class support which automatically makes the program useless to me. Several dont support spellscales from races of the dragon and just as many dont support gestalt character. Having no support for taint rules or the fortune rules isnt a big deal there very obscure and not very often used so not a big loss, as well i dont require the spellbook option as i have an excel sheet already that does a good job with it.

So far i have tested or rejected the following:
Heroforge- didnt support tomb of magic but i am using there spellforge for my magic
PCgen- havnt rejected it but as i cant find a complete data set to see just how much they will support i cant use it (codemonkey has stopped selling there data sets)

theres several java sites out there as well one that was highly recommended again didnt support binders, gestalt and or spellscales.

Im looking to use this program for my personal character as well easy and standard building for players in my games, im more than willing to spend money on a program that will do everything i need it to.

the following are things that must be supported:

all complete books e.g. adventurer, arcane, mage
all race books e.g. stone, divine, dragon
unearthed arcana
all core books
both heroes books (horror and battle)
all settings e.g. forgotten realms, dark sun, greyhawk

If anyone can point me in the direction it would be greatly appreciated as ive hit what feels like a dead end, im going to continue to search for PCgen data packages and im going to try out e-tools but im doubtful that they will have any better support from what i have read

Thank you everyone who responds in a helpful manner

 

[mgbeach]

Check out The Only Sheet.. I've found it to be wonderful
The Only Sheet | Character Sheet for D&D3.5 and PF RPG

There's a really good forum there, and you should be able to get all your questions answered pretty quickly.

 

[TheOverlord]

Hurdles

I can fully appreciate what you are looking for. It was worth mentioning that the primary reason you will have a tough time finding what you want is that applications cannot include what you want legally. At least not without doing tricky things. Except for the core books, none of the material you mentioned is covered by the OGL. This means that while an application can provide a quick and easy way to add new classes or races, they cannot include classes or races from non-OGL books. This also means that fans could probably get away with passing around datasets that provided this data for applications in some way but even this practice is often shot down if done openly. Several companies have sought special rights to use non-OGL content such as PCGen (they have done a great job by the way (PCGen 3rd party source list) But, other than that you are going to have a hard time. Note also that it will be a warm day in Stygia when Wizards of the Coast provides a 3.5 Character Creation tool official license to use their non-OGL content.

With all that said it might be in your best interests to take another look at the tools you went through and judge those tools' ability to add new classes and races and rules by hand yourself...as this may be the only way you will ever get close to what you want.

 

[Yehlan]

Thank you for the OGL explanation that does explain alot of things

So far Heroforge has to be the best ive found, after spending alot of time with it i found out how to make a custom class and was able to make my binder class in full and selectable which was the only thing it was missing. The only thing that stopped me from using it is the lack of a complete calculation system due to not supporting synergies which again made it not useful enough since id have to spend alot of time each level recalculating all my skill points which isnt bad.

in the end i just found a word character sheet so i could input everything myself and print it off complete the save it at its level and recalculate for the next level saving each document seperately for level 1-20 which is probably overkill but at least it works.

But for anyone else looking for a really complete program id really recommend heroforge as its only missing 1 book which is the tome of magic in regards to character options unlike other programs which seem to be missing not only the tome of magic but alot of others that most players couldnt and shouldnt be left without.

Due to this ive decided to run my personal campaign in 4E due to the D&D insider tools since i have alot of newer D&D players in my groups and i find 3.5E being a bit intimidating in regards to the amount of options and it being difficult to put all your options together though Crystal Keep has helped me alot with this for the campaign im playing in even as a fairly experienced 3.5E player it took several days to put everything together to my standards (which are ridiculously high)

 

[irdeggman]

Check out The Only Sheet.. I've found it to be wonderful
The Only Sheet | Character Sheet for D&D3.5 and PF RPG

There's a really good forum there, and you should be able to get all your questions answered pretty quickly.

I echo this one - it is an outstanding sheet.

 

[fauntix]

Does any of these support Eberron and Psionics?

 

[irdeggman]

There are a lot of fan supported "packs" for The One Sheet and all of the OGL (inlcuding base psinics) are inlcuded in it. Requires a subscription to get though - but it is well worth it IMO.

 

[fauntix]

if I get the one sheet. where would i pick up the OGL and Fan packs.... and what does IMO and all these other abbreviations i see all over the place mean?

 

[irdeggman]

if I get the one sheet. where would i pick up the OGL and Fan packs.... and what does IMO and all these other abbreviations i see all over the place mean?

Try this link to the one sheet - it should answer some questions - all of the OGL (Open Gaming License) information is already built in to the sheet.

The Only Sheet | Character Sheet for D&D3.5 and PF RPG

IMO - In my opinion

 

[Drindin]

*performs Threadcromancy*

This is an interesting question, but I was surprised no one mentioned PathGuy's CG 3.5.

Javascript D&D 3.5 Character Generator

It's a big Java App, but it has support for tons of stuff, both OGL and non OGL, it includes Tome of Battle, but it doesn't include Tome of Magic (Which he specifically states), and was continuing receiving updates until very recently. he also has a 4e, a Pathfinder, a D20 Modern, a 3.5 dragon generator, and a bunch of others from systems I know nothing about.

Worth a peak at.