I Want More Adventure Tools!

[brainstorm]

Nov builder

An Npc builder is at the top of my wishlist!

 

[Holy Bovine]

The following are the things I want out of the DM toolset:

• Monster builder, of course.
• Encounter builder, allowing the DM to set an XP budget and fill the budget with monsters.
• Treasure manager, allowing the DM to assign treasure parcels to encounters and quickly select suitable loot, as well as review a summary of all loot handed out to date.
• Map maker.
• Skill challenge designer, incorporating all the latest guidelines and errata.
• Campaign encyclopedia, allowing the DM to create new entries for NPCs, locations, artifacts, organizations, and so forth. It should include automatic hyperlinking for ease of use, and each entry should have "public" (visible to players) and "private" (DM-only) sections. The DM should have the ability to publish the encyclopedia on a WotC server, where the players can review the public sections at their leisure.
• All of the above, except possibly the encyclopedia, should be designed to be as print-friendly as possible. Ideally, I should be able to design the whole adventure in DM Tools, hit the "print" button, grab the pages out of the printer, and head off to the game. (Also, please remember that not everybody has a color printer.)

Great list! That hits the high points for me. Add in a power builder/customizer for the the CB and a way to import campaign house rules into both programs and I am set for life.

 

[Holy Bovine]

This. This is probably the most annoying thing I've found about the monster builder. Maybe I'm just missing something, but having to cut&paste to a word processor to print out the monsters for use int he game is less useful.

It is so funny to me that what some look at as a flaw I actually saw as a feature! I c'n'p to word processors all the time and place my encounter & campaign notes right along with them. I am currently converting Ghost Tower of Inverness (C2) and being able to have my 4E notes right next to any stat blocks I need is invaluable to me. Different strokes indeed.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

It´s even better if you use Onenote for your conversions because

a) you screengrab the statblock out of the compendium as a picture
b) paste relevant pictures beside it/above/below (no word processor-esque positioning problems for pics - throw it where you want it)
c) write your text above/below/wherever - unlimited writing space in all directions
d) and if you need the statblock as text, all you have to do is click on the pic and copy the text out of it
e) it´s even better if you have a graphics tablet/tablet PC: just write your notes down beside it with your stylus

But yeah, i´m looking forward to more adventure tools, too. However, i´m with Shemeska on this one: it´ll take time. Times are too unpredictable, staff too small for big projects right now.

 

[avin]

Lack of human resources or not there's no excuse for Monster Building still doesn't have Templates to add.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Hmm, good point.

In that case, what I want them to do is junk all other coding projects and work on setting up a Compendium API.

I was going to say that the Compendium API was described fully on the Gaming in Code blog but that blog seems to have vanished. I wonder if he moved on to a WOTC blog. I know that the last article I read on that blog referenced a post on the new WOTC forums but I never recorded the url.

Does anyone know if this is the case?

As to what i would like next, I would like the encounter builder incorporated into the Adventure Tools and some thing to help on treasure parcels and then perhaps something to help manage campang data.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Never mind my previous post the Compendium API descriptions can be found here. A bit more patience with Google and I found it.

It is plenty good enough to work with. That said I really do not expect to see a lot of third party stuff untill it becomes clearer what the gaps in the WoTC coverage are. At the moment any third party runs the risk that WoTC will produce what he/she has being building but as the line of tools fill out I would expect to see more stuff.

What I would really like to see is a description of the xml in the character builder or a plugin interface. In fact thinking about I would prefer the plugin interface. With a plugin interface one could add plugins that would allow feat and power customisation and other fun stuff.

 

[Scribble]

I was going to say that the Compendium API was described fully on the Gaming in Code blog but that blog seems to have vanished. I wonder if he moved on to a WOTC blog. I know that the last article I read on that blog referenced a post on the new WOTC forums but I never recorded the url.

Does anyone know if this is the case?

Whoops! Browser Settings Incompatible

he never seemed to get around to writing part 3, however.

 

[malraux]

I was going to say that the Compendium API was described fully on the Gaming in Code blog but that blog seems to have vanished. I wonder if he moved on to a WOTC blog. I know that the last article I read on that blog referenced a post on the new WOTC forums but I never recorded the url.

Does anyone know if this is the case?

Well, what little bit I played with those API bits, it wasn't a very useful set of tools for doing much beyond just getting the url for a specific item, monster, class, etc. A more robust interface would return much more useful info, like monster ID 1234 has 26 HP, 3 attack powers, etc (ie, it would give all the monster data in XML format). It is theoretically possible to get that info from the webpage info, but requires writing a text parser, and those tend to be somewhat less reliable.

 

[Saracenus]

Personally, I want the following:

1) Templates added to Monster Builder
2) The ability to level/d-level as per the DMG on a base creature.
3) Trap/Terrain Builder
4) Skill Challenge Builder
5) Encounter Builder using all the above.

My two coppers,