Gamers Opinion of PCGen (No Rants)

[WizarDru]

I am baffled by these interminable wait states people speak of.

One other thing: Dru, I am curious as to how you added that +2 halberd. I've never had the experience of restarting the program after creating a custom item.

Your machine is actually fairly slow by comparison to the ones I run it on, which shows that it doesn't scale that well, and that you probably have more patience than I do. I don't wait several seconds for the result of a button press, to be sure. Any interaction with the file system is very slow on my 1.2Ghz machine, as are several functions. Compared to how it used to run, it IS faster. It's just not as fast as I'd like.


As for the Halberd, we eventually found the option under the Settings Menu, Equipment, AutoCreation for +1 to +5 weapons, where it created a +1 through +5 version of every weapon. But to have them actually appear in the list, you needed to stop PCgen and restart it.

 

[WizarDru]

Macintosh 7300 200mhz upgraded to a G3 500mhz.

Running Virtual PC 3.

Under Windows 98 (emulated).

Was this before they went to Java? Have you used it on a Mac since they did?

 

[Henry]

As for the Halberd, we eventually found the option under the Settings Menu, Equipment, AutoCreation for +1 to +5 weapons, where it created a +1 through +5 version of every weapon. But to have them actually appear in the list, you needed to stop PCgen and restart it.

snaps fingers A ha! Gotcha. Just for any future reference, going back to the first screen and unloading and reloading the data files will also do it. For that matter, you can even go in, change a LST file, and unload and reload that product, and the change will be reflected. I've played with the thing a lot. Now if you'll excuse me, Gollum will go put down his precious and get some sun now.

 

[WizarDru]

snaps fingers A ha! Gotcha. Just for any future reference, going back to the first screen and unloading and reloading the data files will also do it. For that matter, you can even go in, change a LST file, and unload and reload that product, and the change will be reflected. I've played with the thing a lot. Now if you'll excuse me, Gollum will go put down his precious and get some sun now.

Ah! Good to know. My group is slowly converting to PCgen...with the exception of my Excel programming players, who would rather make a custom sheet for their primary characters. The breadth of coverage PCgen offers, coupled with it's continual update schedule and level of detail are winning friends. And I will vouch for how dramatically the program has improved in just the last three months alone.

 

[Leopold]

Ah! Good to know. My group is slowly converting to PCgen...with the exception of my Excel programming players, who would rather make a custom sheet for their primary characters. The breadth of coverage PCgen offers, coupled with it's continual update schedule and level of detail are winning friends. And I will vouch for how dramatically the program has improved in just the last three months alone.

or if you want an even easier way to do this just simply highlight the item, right click on the item and select CUSTOMIZE, then select Masterwork, then select the bonus for it. this allows you to add all those extra nice features and equipment modifiers to the items in question.

Didn't know if you knew this or not, just posting just in case!

 

[WizarDru]

or if you want an even easier way to do this just simply highlight the item, right click on the item and select CUSTOMIZE, then select Masterwork, then select the bonus for it. this allows you to add all those extra nice features and equipment modifiers to the items in question.

Didn't know if you knew this or not, just posting just in case!

Hmm. I tried that originally, but I couldn't seem to make it work quite right. That was my problem, originally...I could customize the halberd, but I couldn't find a way to give it the initial enhancement bonus, and it was driving me nuts. I may have neglected to click 'masterwork' since I assumed I wanted a +2 item, not necessarily a masterwork. I realize all enchanted weapons are masterwork at their base, but I don't think I thought to create it that way.

I should point out I'm currently using 3.0. I'm hesitant to go to 3.1, without finding out if my LST files will continue to function. (i.e. no OGL-compliance enforcement function has been added).

Thanks,

Dru.

 

[Leopold]

Hmm. I tried that originally, but I couldn't seem to make it work quite right. That was my problem, originally...I could customize the halberd, but I couldn't find a way to give it the initial enhancement bonus, and it was driving me nuts. I may have neglected to click 'masterwork' since I assumed I wanted a +2 item, not necessarily a masterwork. I realize all enchanted weapons are masterwork at their base, but I don't think I thought to create it that way.

I should point out I'm currently using 3.0. I'm hesitant to go to 3.1, without finding out if my LST files will continue to function. (i.e. no OGL-compliance enforcement function has been added).

Thanks,

Dru.

Dru,
Everytime you build a custom item you must get it either the masterwork, admantium, mithral, darkwood, etc properties first for the base. Once that is given you must give it a +X and then you can tack on all the special abilities.

As for 3.1.0, the files will work with the new lst converter, just copy your sources over to the new directory, under tools use the LST CONVERTER utility and select the names of the sources you wish to convert. You can use the ALL button to automatically do this and convert the files over but some may remain unchanged with the UNKNOWN coming up on the left hand side of the menus. Just change the properties of the lst to file to correspond to the type of file (SPELL, SKILL, etc.)

 

[wheeljack]

I want to like PCGen....

PCGen is the most competent character generator I have used
to date (Others I have tried included Campaign Suite, RPM, and DM Familiar... still waiting on my copy of E-tools)
First the positives
1)Its FREE... this is just great and I appreciate all the volunteer time people put into it
2)Alot of content already available (not as mcuh in newer editions) but its still alot more than I get with other programs... and I don't have to pay for it
3)I love the ton of export options (especially pdf) , just makes it super easy to get the characters out to other players and the GM

However I have some real issues with it
1)Speed=> I am running on p3-900, 256mb of ram and win2k
using SRE1.4 and it is still just plain old slow, I am only loading SRD stuff (PHB&DMG) and not a bunch of suppliments, I am at a loss of what to do

2)Some stuff is just blatantly wrong as far as I can tell, I rolled up a halfling from a group I GM and his skills where just way off, unless I am missing something (ex. his misc. modifier for Balance was at -3... -1 from his armor where the other -2 was coming from I have no idea)... Its a possiblity I am just dumb, but I doubt it

3)Difficult to add your own custom stuff/lst files, I know the development team is working on this, but I don't want to have to spend hours learning how to create a lst file for 'Arms & Armor' along with taking the time to enter things in

So once these issues can be addressed it would probably become a mainstay on my laptop as a tool to use for playing and GMing, until then I will keep my fingers crossed

As an afterthought the interface is a mixed bag, I find some of the stuff really easy to use, but the layout needs some work however IMO.

 

[merton_monk]

Dru,
Everytime you build a custom item you must get it either the masterwork, admantium, mithral, darkwood, etc properties first for the base. Once that is given you must give it a +X and then you can tack on all the special abilities.

As for 3.1.0, the files will work with the new lst converter, just copy your sources over to the new directory, under tools use the LST CONVERTER utility and select the names of the sources you wish to convert. You can use the ALL button to automatically do this and convert the files over but some may remain unchanged with the UNKNOWN coming up on the left hand side of the menus. Just change the properties of the lst to file to correspond to the type of file (SPELL, SKILL, etc.)

There's a bug with the Lst Converter in 3.1.0, so don't use it. It's been corrected for our next release. Weve thought about making it so if you add +2 to an item, it automatically adds Masterwork in... we've just been a bit pre-occupied lately.

 

[merton_monk]

Re: I want to like PCGen....

PCGen is the most competent character generator I have used
to date (Others I have tried included Campaign Suite, RPM, and DM Familiar... still waiting on my copy of E-tools)
First the positives
1)Its FREE... this is just great and I appreciate all the volunteer time people put into it
2)Alot of content already available (not as mcuh in newer editions) but its still alot more than I get with other programs... and I don't have to pay for it
3)I love the ton of export options (especially pdf) , just makes it super easy to get the characters out to other players and the GM

However I have some real issues with it
1)Speed=> I am running on p3-900, 256mb of ram and win2k
using SRE1.4 and it is still just plain old slow, I am only loading SRD stuff (PHB&DMG) and not a bunch of suppliments, I am at a loss of what to do

Wow - you have a much better machine than I do! What exactly is slow? Are there specific things, or do you just mean in general? We keep optimizing the code, but looking at specific places where you notice slowness is also helpful.

2)Some stuff is just blatantly wrong as far as I can tell, I rolled up a halfling from a group I GM and his skills where just way off, unless I am missing something (ex. his misc. modifier for Balance was at -3... -1 from his armor where the other -2 was coming from I have no idea)... Its a possiblity I am just dumb, but I doubt it

Hm - I have a bachelor's in math, so the math bit is important to me. Are you sure you weren't encumbered? Upload your pcg file to our yahoo board (if you go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pcgen there's a File page and then you can go to "Needs Help With" and upload your pcg file there. Let us know and we can look at it and determine what's going on)

3)Difficult to add your own custom stuff/lst files, I know the development team is working on this, but I don't want to have to spend hours learning how to create a lst file for 'Arms & Armor' along with taking the time to enter things in

We're moving to xml in the near future which will facilitate our creating a nice editor which will completely hide the syntax of the data files. It'll simply present you with a form where you can edit or add things. This is finally getting to the top of our priority list.

So once these issues can be addressed it would probably become a mainstay on my laptop as a tool to use for playing and GMing, until then I will keep my fingers crossed

As an afterthought the interface is a mixed bag, I find some of the stuff really easy to use, but the layout needs some work however IMO.

Thanks for your comments! The interface has some more change to go through, but it seems that most people agree it's improved a great deal in the last few months. We're always open to suggestions!