eTools Patch Is Out

[Davin]

Speaking of building stuff, it looks like these items can be exported, but how safe/dangerous is it to import stuff that wasn't "intended" to be exported/imported?

As long as the database tracks things with unique identifiers, everything works pretty well. However, some of the new export tables don't have unique numbers in them and thus pose a potential conflict when putting them into someone else's database. DB Sets will warn you when you try to export such data. (The ideal fix for this would be to add unique ids for everything to eTools, but failing that the best solution would be for a community-wide number management scheme.)

A secondary issue is that normally custom data is identified in a "set" that the author can name, thus keeping custom changes separate from the core rules. But for things without set identifiers, it's up to the users to keep track of what's core material and what's been changed or imported from other places. This can make removal of unwanted material problematical, for instance.

I've tried to leave room for the discussion of issues like these in the help file under construction. If anyone would like to participate in that effort by contributing bits of text (or proofreading), please stop by the MSN forum and volunteer to work on something.

 

[EricNoah]

Davin, do you have a "direct line" to the people doing the patching? You are the ideal person to be communicating with WotC about bugs, enhancements, planning for the future (things like those unique ID numbers), etc.

 

[Davin]

Davin, do you have a "direct line" to the people doing the patching? You are the ideal person to be communicating with WotC about bugs, enhancements, planning for the future (things like those unique ID numbers), etc.

(Is this microphone live again??)

Unfortunately not. My last direct line of communication was with Eric Leaf. For now, I'm pretty much in the same boat as everyone else -- submit requests into the darkness and hope something happens to them.

 

[miraclemax]

So is it possible to make prestige classes with e-tools? I have the patch, but I can't seem to make a character w/ a prestige class or raise a character w/ the requirements a prestige class.

 

[Remus Lupin]

Man this is some serious thread necromancy. I haven't used ETools in years! And I don't even think CodeMonkey is still in action. However, I think with various patches and 3rd party utilities, it is possible to make prestige classes and adjust existing ones.

 

[miraclemax]

I haven't been playing D&D for a while, and just resurected my old campaign (talk about necromancy) for a friend that returned. I booted up the copy of e-tools to (I thought) quickly remake her old character she had lost. Then lo and behold I couln't get to the prestige classes.

 

[tenkar]

heh... and here I thought WotC was reissuing E-Tools in Red Box Format - Essential E-Tools

almost an 8 year long raise on this...

 

[Badger1269]

Note to all that posted on this thread in the year 2010: UNLESS you have some major "coding/scripting experience" its been my experience that The producers of Etools (CMP) (probably at the request of WOTC lawyers) made Etools so that actually MAKING your own or entering in new "classes, and PrC's" is damned near impossible....I mean you CAN do alot within the house rule's brown screens...but TRY making your own class features...I dare ya ! lol sometimes you can borrow "old" class features (ie Sneak attack from the rogue, if your new PrC offers it at some level) but in the long run making all new, not already in Etools effects, is nigh on impossible w/o making Etools unstable as crap!

Just my observations of using Etools since its inception.

Badger
Badger1269@msn.com

 

[Remus Lupin]

Honestly, there was not a single product in the 3.x lineup that was as poorly conceived, executed, and supported as etools. A shame too. It could have been so good and useful.

 

[Glyfair]

Honestly, there was not a single product in the 3.x lineup that was as poorly conceived, executed, and supported as etools. A shame too. It could have been so good and useful.

Honestly, I think DDI and E-Tools had similar development. There were some significant differences that have made DDI a success.

Both had the problem early on of not being sure what they were. I remember someone from WotC stating "Master Tools" (the early name for eTools) was not going to be a tool intended for use at the table or online. Then when the sneak peaks began we suddenly saw comments about how they were working hard on developing 3D pictures of characters and including sounds for monsters! Apparently someone didn't get a memo.

To me it seems they spent a lot of energy developing too many things, and then round of of money (or patience of WotC upper level types) and they forced it out the door, in a very incomplete state. Too much time was wasted on non-essential things like monster sounds.

DDI went though a similar phase. A lot of development went into things that ended up not appearing initially, like the Virtual Table Top. At least this time we didn't have someone saying that DDI wasn't going to be for running D&D online. Still, a lot of development dollars went into designing parts that still haven't seen the light of day years later on a complete state.

However, DDI did have solid support in some areas. Also, when certain things clearly weren't going to be ready to go out the door, WotC refocused there efforts in time to get the products close to being ready out the door in a pretty polished state.