DM Monster Library/Encounter Builder

[bobcat_grad]

Edit: Issue with Zombie from Monster Manual 1. I'll try some workaround but this one is more troublesome. How can I make an encounter without using Zombies?

Edit 2: Managed to copy the Zombie by changing his initiative from -1 to 0. There was probably a problem with your display setting preventing negative value. I still can't find the problem with the other monster though.

First off - thanks for the heads up. Yup, the negative value for initiative was throwing off some string parsing I was doing. Honestly I never knew a monster that had a negative initiative, so I wasn't accounting for it.

Second, the bulk of the monsters you mentioned, I had no issue with. Not sure what to tell you about those other than try again (and give WOTC's Monster Builder a second or two after you copy the monster to let it get to your clipboard - it's slow to respond sometimes, some pretty severe memory leaks in that app).

Third, the dragon was failing because he had hitpoints more that 999 and therefore had a comma in his hit points. Again, wasn't accounting for that. Any monster with more than 999 hitpoints would have failed.

I'll be posting an update installer tomorrow at some point along with a note about how you can uninstall the current one you have, and reinstall without losing the monsters you've already imported.

 

[h112211]

Strange - I just tried it and it worked fine. Don't suppose I could convince you to try again?

Nope, I tried all of the Abyssal Ghouls, and the Hungerer and Myrmidon work but the rest of them won't. It just says "There was an error with the Rich Text of the monster. Please try again.". It fails consistently with those monsters, I tried them all several times, and waited a bit after copy as you suggested.

Perhaps you could include a way to get the stack trace from the error dialog?

 

[jester_gl]

Tried the Abyssal Ghoul again and still could not copy it. I edited the monster until I managed to copy it, and after removing every attack, skill, stat, language, keyword, aura, etc. I still could not. But when I changed his role to minion I could copy it. The same thing happens with all the Abyssal Ghoul, and also with all the other monster listed above (Arath Nightcrawler et al.)

I tried the exercise in the opposite direction (changing the Abyssal Ghoul Hungerer from a copyable minion to a standard brute) and suddenly that ghoul was not copyable anymore.

Good luck with this program. I really like it in general.

 

[bobcat_grad]

Tried the Abyssal Ghoul again and still could not copy it. I edited the monster until I managed to copy it, and after removing every attack, skill, stat, language, keyword, aura, etc. I still could not. But when I changed his role to minion I could copy it. The same thing happens with all the Abyssal Ghoul, and also with all the other monster listed above (Arath Nightcrawler et al.)

I tried the exercise in the opposite direction (changing the Abyssal Ghoul Hungerer from a copyable minion to a standard brute) and suddenly that ghoul was not copyable anymore.

Good luck with this program. I really like it in general.

I made an update - including something to help me track down these "you have an error, but I can't reproduce it" errors.

Check the original post for an update. The .zip file there is the updated version.

 

[h112211]

I made an update - including something to help me track down these "you have an error, but I can't reproduce it" errors

Abyssal Ghouls do still not work. Here's the error message:

Exception: Input string was not in a correct format.Source RTF: Abyssal Ghoul Devourer Level 18 Skirmisher
Medium elemental humanoid XP 2 000
Initiative +17 Senses Perception +12; darkvision
Sepulchral Stench aura 3; enemies in the aura take a -2 penalty to all defenses.
HP 172; Bloodied 86
AC 32; Fortitude 30; Reflex 29; Will 26
Immune disease; poison; Resist 10 necrotic; Vulnerable 5 radiant
Speed 6 , Climb 4
m Bite (standard; at-will)
+23 vs AC; 2d8 + 9 damage, and the target is immobilized (save ends). If the target is a living creature that is already immobilized, stunned, or unconscious, the bite deals an extra 2d6 damage
C Dead Blood (when reduced to 0 hit points) • Necrotic
Close burst 1; all enemies in the burst take 10 necrotic damage.; 4d10 + 7
Alignment Chaotic Evil Languages Abyssal
Skills Stealth +19
Str 24 (+16) Dex 22 (+15) Wis 16 (+12)
Con 20 (+14) Int 16 (+12) Cha 10 (+9)
Monster found in P2 Demon Queen Enclave and Compendium
© 2009 Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. This monster statistics block has been generated using the D&D Adventure Tools.

Note that it is still plain text even if I paste it to wordpad - the source RTF is not actually RTF after the copy operation.

 

[bobcat_grad]

I'm purposely not trying to parse the rich text. There's a way to get just the text off of the clipboard, and that's what I'm using.

Regarding the error, I received a few other samples via PM that makes me think I know what's going on. All of the monsters throwing errors are ones where XP is a number with a space in it. I'll fix it.

Along with that fix, I am adding a new thing (which will unfortunately cause you to need to re-import all of the monsters you've brought in):

Tooltip pop up of the monster details (check the attached screenshot).

Still working out kinks on it and will eventually provide a way to print out all of the monster sheets for the encounter you've built.

 

[msherman]

Another feature I'd like to see: my game has fluid attendance, so typically when I build encounters, I'll mark some of the monsters as only appearing for certain number of attendees. If your tool tracked that, and displayed the various encounter levels on the chart, that'd be helpful. It should also render the "N PCs or more" for conditional monsters on the summary page, and the monster block pages when you get that done as well.

For bonus points, an "auto-suggest" feature would be awesome -- I select a handful of monster types, and an encounter difficulty. It then automatically suggests how many of each monster to use for a range of PC numbers.

 

[bobcat_grad]

For bonus points, an "auto-suggest" feature would be awesome -- I select a handful of monster types, and an encounter difficulty. It then automatically suggests how many of each monster to use for a range of PC numbers.

Only issue with doing something like this is it would be my subjective opinion on what should be added. Sure, the DMG gives a rough idea to mix different monster types, but I've never seen a formula that I could follow

Otherwise it's just me making things up like 1 luker + 2 soldiers + 2 brutes + 1 controller = fun.

 

[bobcat_grad]

There's a new update to the monster library and encounter builder in the first post.

New features include the full monster block as a popup in the app as well as when printed out. Check the first post for full details.

 

[h112211]

There's a new update to the monster library and encounter builder in the first post.

Thanks, but my problem with all high level monsters persists. Seems you were correct about it being related with a space in the XP field: I copied the Abyssal Ghoul and changed the XP to 999 and it works.

Dunno if it matters, but I'm using WinXP with Finnish locale, which uses spaces instead of commas as a thousands separator.

BTW, could you add a "about" dialog with a version number? That could help tracking down problems.