Jadeite
Hero
Scribble said:
Like this?
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/lists
If the Compendium only contains informations relevant to character creation it would have been better to just include it in the character creator.
D&D 4e Rules Compendium in online!
- Thread starter Simplicity
- Start date
Like this?
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/lists
If the Compendium only contains informations relevant to character creation it would have been better to just include it in the character creator.
Brown Jenkin
First Post
Scribble said:
That assumes that it is kept up to date with everything. Even given that no MM stuff will ever appear in it it so far doesn't have errata or the Dragon information which is also supposed to be "core." It will be useful in the future only if it is kept up to date and so far the track record is not good.
Scribble
First Post
Jadeite said:
Yes, just like that, only with added features, and, hopefully, faster updates.
It's not only relevant to character creation. Since each power is essentially its own rule, it will be a big help to prevent those, wait, are you sure that's how that works? Hrmm maybe not, let's look it up... where was that again? moments...
Plus it will be good for people like me, the DM, who want new ideas to mine, but don't have the time/ energy to look through the books.
Let me say, what can I do that's arcane... and uses acid... etc...
Ruin Explorer
Legend
Scribble said:
Oh, I agree, but not including the rules means they're basically still forcing me to waste my time finding the rules that go with the power. They don't EVEN give me the page reference for the rule, which is pretty rude.
Also, if you don't think that there will be additional rules in future books, then I'll go as far as to say that I'm quite certain you're wrong. Not being able to look up monsters or diseases, for example, severely hurts it's usefulness.
As it stands, this is not a feature I would be willing to pay money for.
Comparisons to 3E are ill-warranted, I would add. In 3E, the way spells and abilities were handled, you couldn't possibly write them all down without adding several dozen pages to character sheets. In 4E, if a player DOESN'T have them all written down, I will be mad with him. It's not like there are that many. We shouldn't need to be referencing these things with any degree of regularity outside of chargen/advancement. Which is not time-critical stuff, and the page-number version or even just using your noggin would be close enough, frankly.
PS - http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/insidernews/20080623a
The above makes it clear that this is what they intend it to be, but they say they are listening to feedback, so presumably if we tell them it's not good enough, they may listen.
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Scribble
First Post
2WS-Steve said:Inductive evidence for WotC's online tools:
- Mastertools
- eTools
- Gleemax
- Magic Online 3.0
- Compendium
Shrug? I'm not going to attempt to prove it will do what it's supposed to? If you want to assume it won't work, that's fine.
My comment was really only that the usefulness of something liek this only gets really apparent when there are tons of places to find the info, and this becomes an easy searchable catalog.
If you assume it won't be updated (for whtever reason) then yeah it probably won't be that useful? But that's a separate argument then whether the tool itself is useful.
Scribble
First Post
Ruin Explorer said:
Again, I'm assuming that the basic rules of the game will be in known locations. The PHB.
If I'm looking up a basic rule, I know to look in the PHB.
If I'm looking up a random power, then it gets tricky.
Shrug. That's fine. However, the basic rules are the things everyone should always know for the most part. If I say make an attack roll, as the Dm I'm going to assume you know how to do that.
I agree it would be nice to have a way to look up these elements too. They talked about an encounter builder, as the mirror to the character creator. I'm guessing (unless that was scrapped) that stuff will be in there.
Rock on. It's your money spend it how you want to.
I used 3e because it's a game that has a lot of little rule breaking rules in various different sources. I could have just as easily said GURPS, or RIFTS, or any number of ganmes that have powers and such located in more books then one.
I'm not talking about just durring play. I'm talking about in general.
Why not?
Maybe I'm trying to decide how my charactr will advance? Or what my next character will be, or if Im the Dm what kinds of things I might put together for the chicken mage of elwick... All things that I need to think about what options are available.
Depends on how you value your time?
People constantly ask for indexes of things when they're found in multiple sources... How many Can we get an index of Dragon magazines were there in the past?
That's all this thing is... An index with a bunch of added features (ability to search, to browse, to copy directly from it... plus if all you want is the index that's free...)
I could just as easily take a boat to get to Europe, but it's worth more timewise to fly.
if YOU personally don't think you will use it, GREAT! Don't buy it... But don't say it's a bad tool just because you personally find no use in it.
I don't work on cars, but I can see how a torque wrench would be a good tool for someone that does.
Ruin Explorer
Legend
Scribble said:if YOU personally don't think you will use it, GREAT! Don't buy it... But don't say it's a bad tool just because you personally find no use in it.
I don't work on cars, but I can see how a torque wrench would be a good tool for someone that does.
What are you even talking about now? It doesn't do what they implied it would, and it's not got any potential to be useful DURING play if your players actually write stuff down.
It doesn't contain monsters, monster abilities, diseases, traps or the like, so it's useless for improvising stuff.
It's only possibly purpose at this time is to speed up chargen or advancement for players. As far as I can tell, it has literally no features directly useful to a DM.
What really disgusts me, I have to admit, is that you think it's "just fine", when WotC themselves say it could be changed. That's a downright bad attitude imho. You know it has issues and you choose to ignore them.
Scribble
First Post
Ruin Explorer said:
What did your feelings get hurt? Ok, great they thought it would have more use durring play, but now it doesn't appear that it will to you.
I make the descision to buy things based on whether or not I can use it. I don't base it on what they said they wanted it to be in the past.
I can see a use for a searchable index of powers, abilities, classes, feats, rituals, etc.
If you don't feel the tool is useful to YOU that's your right, but to say the tool will be absolutely useless because you can't use it at YOUR table?
AgainI think it would be cool to have a resource for those things, which is why I'm hoping they haven't scrapped the encounter builder.
I can also see why they would keep that stuff seperate from the index of feats and powers and such.
DM's need that stuff too man. I'm building an adventure and I want a ritual that does X. Or to give an NPC a certain type of power, or to give out a certain magic item...
If I disgust you so much, stop posting to me? You have a way of coming off very insulting my man.
Sure, there can be features that would make it even more useful. If they're added, that would be awesome. All I'm arguing is that I feel it's already useful, and saying it's useless in my opinion is a bit overdramatic.
It would be awesome and extra helpful if they also added the base rules, but I can also understand their decision not to, and feel that even if they're not in there, the tool is still useful.
If that disgusts you? That's your issue, not mine.
