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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The_Gneech" data-source="post: 2009338" data-attributes="member: 6779">FIRST IMPRESSIONS...Well, I brought it home and have been playing with it; I'm withholding full judgement until I get into it more, but I have found some problems right off the bat.* Templates Not Supported. You can make characters of any monster type -- unless it is a templated monster. So no vampires, no ghosts, no liches, no weres. Say WHAT?* No Non-Standard Classes. All core PC and NPC classes as well as DMG Prestige Classes are in there. And that's it. One of my players' "Mystic" Prestige Class character (created by Monte Cook and published in Dragon magazine) cannot be written up using E-Tools. My other player's "Monte Cook Alternate Ranger" character is similarly SOL. There is no class editor.* The Help System Doesn't, And There's No Manual. Jump right into the deep end of the pool, kiddies, 'cause there's no other way to learn to use it.AFTER A DAY OF PLAYING WITH IT...Regarding templates: This is workaroundable, by creating a new monster race for the templated creature. For example, since the program doesn't support the Vampire template, if you want to create a human vampire, you create a new monster race called "Human Vampire" using the rules in the Monster Manual. Not hard, but kind of a pain in the tuckus, given that the point of buying the software was to have that kind of thing automated.I did some poking around the Fluid and D&D sites, and I found out some interesting things. It is possible (though non-trivial) to create custom classes using Microsoft Access; unfortunately, the copy of Access I have is from 1997 or so, and can't open the files. There are a couple of fan projects underway to create a Class Editor. Once one of those is available, that will take care of most of my big complaints.The main interesting thing I have found, however, is the sheer number of odd workarounds that E-Tools is requiring. All of the various types of dragons are only given stats for the "Adult" category, for instance ... if you want to create Hatchling, Young, Mature, Old, or Ancient dragons, you have to create them as a new race.Simple magic weapons (say a +1 longsword or a wand of magic missiles) have to be created on an "as needed" basis and added to the item database. Again, not hard to do by any stretch of the imagination ... but still something that seems awfully non-utilitarian in what is supposed to be a software utility.I don't want to bash the makers of the software too much ... this is a complex project they've taken on, and a lot of precious budget and effort was wasted early on in a misguided attempt to make some sort of Neverwinter Nights-ish product instead of just a good DM tool, which is what people actually wanted. But it must be said, that E-Tools is only half-baked. I paid $30, and at the end of the day, am ending up doing a lot of the same work I'd have to do on paper with the hardcover books I already own.It's fixable; but that it needs to be fixed, is disappointing at best.IN ACTUAL USE...The boss villain in my current D&D adventure, a variant version the "dragonpriest" encounter from Sunless Citadel, encountered again by the heroes two years later, is a cleric/sorcerer who is obsessed with turning himself into a red dragon, and so far has only been partially successful. To create him, I used the Dragonkin creature from _Monsters of Faerun_ as a base and added sorcerer and cleric character levels.[1] This was a fairly complex process on paper, because I had to "reverse engineer" what all his base saving throws were, his base attack bonus, etc., so I'd know what the baseline was after making changes in his stats. (I did all this with notebook paper and a calculator, a month ago.)Last night, I decided as an experiment to recreate him in E-Tools. Since "Dragonkin" aren't in the Monster Manual, I first had to enter the race into the database using the race editor. It took me a few tries because I kept making "first timer" mistakes (wrong size class the first time, wrong number of hit dice the second time, etc., and you can't edit that first step if you make a mistake), but overall was actually quite easy. The hardest part was remembering all the fiddly little bits of monster creation, such as the fact that monsters get bonus weapon proficiencies based on what they're listed as carrying.I am pleased to report that once the dragonkin race was entered correctly, the rest was easy. I had to build his flaming mace as well as all of his various potions and scrolls, but it went fast. The whole process, from start to finish, took about an hour ... which is much faster than it went on paper. The results are almost identical, except that for some reason, E-Tools figured all of his saving throws as 1 point less than I calculated them to be. I don't know if it's my mistake, or the software's (there are a few known bugs that are due to be fixed by a patch in the near future).So, it looks like the software will actually be useful, since I use a lot of monsters with character levels, and 9 times out of 10, I just use the core classes for that anyway.[2] In the rare cases where I want a strange class (such as the orc in an earlier adventure who used the Sovereign Stone "archer" class), I can either tweak the stats and create custom feats within the software to get a close approximation, or just resort to pencil and paper (how quaint!).So, it's cool. Not perfect, but cool. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />-The Gneech[1] Why didn't I just apply the "half dragon" template from the Monster Manual to a human sorcerer/cleric, you ask? Umm ... 'cause I didn't think of it. Although after the fact, I like the dragonkin result better because dragonkin don't have a breath weapon, while half-dragons do. Given the nature of this character, I just like the idea of him roaring in frustration over the fact that he can't breathe fire, and has to use potions to compensate.[2] Is a mind flayer with five levels of "psion" really any scarier than a mind flayer with five levels of sorcerer? Especially when I can create custom spells that simulate psionic abilities...</blockquote>

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