How many of you use only the Core Books for your campaign?

[elrichwizard]

The only WotC materials that I use are the core rulebooks. I use some stuff from a few other D20 publishers. I don't use all of the core books or all of anything else. I have a lot of house rules that modify what I do use.

I am an Access developer professionally. I have greatly looked forward to ETools. ETools can create a data standard to unite the user community.

There is already a customization that allows data import/export. As soon as I can get my hands on a copy (local store tells me tomorrow hopefully), I plan on seeing how I can customize it to suit my needs.

I think having a standard database will help to create a unified user community. I would like to add some tables so I can keep other campaign info on important PCs and add an adventure builder. This tool is WHY I got back into DnD in the first place. I am sorry it took so long to get here and is missing some of the functionality that was originally discussed.

Personally, I am not disappointed that it lacks a mapper. I use CC2 for that and am very happy. I am disappointed that some of the campaign management tools were not included, but expect them to be built by the user community over the next few months.

How cool would it be to have a Jamis Buck NPC generator that output in a format that could be uploaded to ETools so you could level the NPC, change his equipment, etc? I thank that will be great! I love DM Familiar. I hope it will also interface with ETools.

I am glad that WotC is going to allow PCGen to continue. I think it is a great tool and know it has many dedicated users and a great community. It just isn't for me; too much info that I just don't use makes it hard to find what I am looking for.

PCGen has a great user community, so can ETools. There is room for more than one community. Why can't we all just get along (LOL).

 

[Nathanael]

Actually, PCGEN can filter the information you use. You only have to select the books you want from the various companies, and if you open up a character that used that set of books, you can start a new one with the exact same selections of materials. I use the Core D&D books, the Class Books, the Monsters of Faerun, Oriental Adventures, the Psionics Book and all the Dragon magazines. And I'm only using a small percentage of all the material available.

ETools, from what I'm hearing, hasn't even implemented all of the rules in the three Core books. You have to manually enter dragons, you can't fully implement all the magic items you could create using the DMG and templates are not implemented and can only be used by creating a new monster and manually adding the info from the MM.

So even if you are the rare DM who uses only the three Core books for designing their adventures (and remember I mean ONLY those three, not those three and a smidgen from here or there) you have to do a lot of work to save yourself some work. And not all of us can afford or are handy with Access. I'm a graphic designer, and with all the programmes I have to know, not to mention HTML and XML coding, I don't have room for a learning a database programme in my busy schedule.

The other problem I have with ETools is that WOTC has forbidden to allow PCGen to use non SRD material, but they have also refused to expand the SRD in almost two years so they have basically limited the use of PCGen to 'encourage' consumers to spend money on ETools as the only 'official' book using generator in town. And they haven't even implemented the non-SRD books yet and don't plan on it unless ETools makes Pokemon amounts in their usual time frame of 90 days.

This gets right up my nose because the PCGen people have at least attempted to make the best product they can, with regular updates and support. WOTC, on the other hand, has a long history of neglecting to support and outright cancelling game lines that don't meet their profit margins, which are inflated due to their absorbtion into the dying Hasbro conglomerate, regardless of the games success.

They created the SRD, in my opinion, under the false pretense of sharing D&D with the community. What we have is a few books from WOTC that we can use, and a bunch they keep to themselves for personal while the community provides a ton of material (like that which will be provided for ETools) that they can just 'yoink!' and legally use at their leisure. It's because of this callous disregard for their customers that I'll be sticking to PCGen until they complete their product and show at least a years support, thank you very much...

 

[Draconis Imperium]

I have never refused to let a PC us any book as long as I can look at it and see if it will work in my world.To stop anything other than the 3 core books would hinder imagination and that is the cornerstone of D&D. WOTC should consider this! Fan based material is as old as the internet.It will always be here and if you have to go underground you will still see fan based material.

To all the people who worship WOTC, stop gloating. You think they will add to E-tools? Think again, it will have to be finacially feasable for them to even consider it. And for all your sanctimonious rhetoric you have thrown at us. Using fan based E-tool add ons is as non-compliant as you can get.

It is as was said above, nothing more than a polite slap to the three who was served the C&D. I have seen this before. They will push harder until the figure E-tools will no longer bring in money, then they will overlooked it all again. Why spend money unless we can make money. I will have a hard time with a company who lowers itself to this level. And if you those who think they are safe because they have been talking to WOTC. Make sure you have every I dotted. If they consider you a threat, a handshake will mean absolutely nothing.

With the above said I will continue to support the non-corporation user freindly software.

 

[Nathanael]

Actually, the fact that they didn't resort to a C&D order and just asked that non-SRD material be taken out irritates me even more. They don't want to look like the bad guys and hurt sales, so they subtley hobbled the competition to make themselves look friendly and force consumers to purchase ETools simultaneously. Seriously, I don't think the community is fooled by these tactics.

And as has been said multiple times, to deny us the right to use said material and not provide an alternative is not only lazy, but will only lead to the community resentment. I swear, monkeys could run a better business...

As for campaigns, I, too, feel that limiting my players to the three core books is a creative straightjacket. I have had some interesting PC's in my game: a Githzerai Monk, a Halfling 'Sherlock Holmes' type investigator and a Shugenja Diplomat from the Far West brought to the East by a Marco Polo type Rogue/Ranger/Royal Explorer. If anyone is interested, I'll start a thread explaining how I introduced the Githzerai as a PC at Level one and maintained play balance...

 

[Fast Learner]

Natanael said:
They created the SRD, in my opinion, under the false pretense of sharing D&D with the community. What we have is a few books from WOTC that we can use, and a bunch they keep to themselves for personal while the community provides a ton of material (like that which will be provided for ETools) that they can just 'yoink!' and legally use at their leisure.

Whine, whine, whine. "Under false pretense," eh? So unlike every other commercial game company, and every iteration of D&D so far, they didn't keep all of their IP sacred. Then you claim that "they canjust 'yoink!' and legally use at their leisure." So, exactly what OGC from other publishers has WOTC used ("'yoink'ed")?

Actually, the fact that they didn't resort to a C&D order and just asked that non-SRD material be taken out irritates me even more. They don't want to look like the bad guys and hurt sales, so they subtley hobbled the competition to make themselves look friendly and force consumers to purchase ETools simultaneously.

Geez you're hard to satisfy. So you would have preferred a rougher approach. I take it if they'd issued C&Ds you wouldn't be whining now, eh?

 

[Breakdaddy]

Nathanael, thanks for the info, are you using PCGen 3? I am going to export, standard and finding only those same templates that I can print to in the standard format (there IS one compact character sheet, but it appears to not be a standard stat block). I might be a moron over here, so help a fella out plz?

 

[Painfully]

The campaign I DM currently only uses the three core books.

Which isn't to say it might not change, but for now it is just the core triumvirate.

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Of course most of my players are new to 3rd edition, so that probably has a lot to do with it.

As a player in a couple other campaigns, I have not gone out of my way to search for outside material to use and have thus played only core PCs. I have bought plenty of supplements, and have read many more, but I think the real trick is to grow the character while you play the game. Mannerisms, likes and dislikes should grow while you play your character, so I see it as being quite flexible and let my character use his experiences in the campaign to determine who or what he eventually becomes.

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I bought etools right away, and was turned off by a bare-bones interface with pathetic documentation.

It's like they trashed master tools a year ago and started from scratch again. It looks and feels like a very shallow piece of software. I won't even get into the bugs--those belong in another thread entirely.

 

[Matthew The Mage]

I am only useing the 3 corebooks in my campaign now.

Other than 2 feats Extended Rage and Energy Subsitution.

 

[Nathanael]

BreakDaddy,

I'm using 2.7 at the moment. I plan to download 3 and move my lst files over, however.

I suspect that if you aren't finding the statblock printouts under File-Export, that they've been removed for some reason, but that they can be replaced by just placing the old character sheet files from 2.7 back in the correct folder. On the other hand, they may now be incompatible with 3.0. I'll check it out, but in the meantime...answers Leo? Mynex?

 

[Nathanael]

Oh, and for those of you that still think ETools users outnumber PCGen users, lay off the pipe. The thing hasn't been out long enough or been released in any large numbers, so I really doubt it replaced PCGen overnight.

Hell, my friend Derek over at Talon ordered 5 of the things and they only sent him 2. And from the sounds of it, this is the case all over and it's leading to price gouging in many stores.

This is clearly a case of WOTC not having any confidence in their own product and only printing more when the first limited release is sold out. They're not even giving the thing the usual 90 days before they start to hobble it. How sad...