Master To... er... D&D E-Tools. Is anyone actually going to buy it?

[Bass Puppet]

E-Tools....

Well, I don't know if I am going to buy it or not. I was really looking forward to the Master Tools program, then they abandoned the whole idea. Now what they are trying to push, is a product that is left over from the mess, and slap a low price tag on it just so they can attempt to makes some money from their misfortune. I don’t know that many players who don’t use prestige classes from any of the add-on books. So with that in mind, why spend $30 just to create a character at first level?

Unless they announce that there will future download upgrades that will change this….I will use the $30 on more productive products.

This wouldn’t have been so much of a tragedy if they didn’t set ourselves up for disappointment

 

[Ranger REG]

I don't know about you, but some of us are not only going to create characters at first level. After all, how am I going to generate a mid-level kobold rogue/assassin as one of the major villains in my campaign? Or a paladin/blackguard who was a former mentor to the paladin in the PC's party?

 

[MonkeyBoy]

... by using PCGen, then spending your money on snacks for the game?

 

[EricNoah]

Re: E-Tools....

why spend $30 just to create a character at first level?

If someone led you to believe you could only create first level characters initially, they were incorrect. I routinely use it to make mid-level NPCs for my games.

 

[EricNoah]

If you want, you can input spells, feats, skills, and races from other sourcebooks, or let someone else do it and you can download it from the internet (assuming there is a fan community for E-Tool).

Unfortunately E-Tools does not ship with an import/export utility. The character files and the race files are all discrete files that you can pack up and ship off to others; however there's a snag there, as any custom item you make (a new feat or a new spell) does not "travel" with the character file or race file. I'm hoping someone out there who is good with Access will be able to develop a stand-alone import/export utility for the custom items that get added to the database (something that can look through all of the tables and pull out anything that's not "core").

 

[bushfire]

Unfortunately E-Tools does not ship with an import/export utility. The character files and the race files are all discrete files that you can pack up and ship off to others; however there's a snag there, as any custom item you make (a new feat or a new spell) does not "travel" with the character file or race file. I'm hoping someone out there who is good with Access will be able to develop a stand-alone import/export utility for the custom items that get added to the database (something that can look through all of the tables and pull out anything that's not "core").

There's at least one guy over on the Wiz Boards who already has a mockup of just that, along with entry screens for adding classes to the Access DB. All he is missing is the file structure

I would figure about two weeks after E-Tools gets released you will get what you wish for.

 

[EricNoah]

Well that's good to hear. What's comforting is that many if not all of the tables have a field where all core stuff is labeled "Core" and all user-inputted items are labeled "User." So that should help with queries I would think.

 

[Bass Puppet]

I don't know about you, but some of us are not only going to create characters at first level. After all, how am I going to generate a mid-level kobold rogue/assassin as one of the major villains in my campaign? Or a paladin/blackguard who was a former mentor to the paladin in the PC's party?

Again....only if you create a mid level NPC, Monster, or Character without a prestige class other than from the DMG.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Unfortunately E-Tools does not ship with an import/export utility.

Ah! Even PCProfiler and RPM can import/export...

Honestly, I know what'll happen: I'll read the reviews, decide it's not worth $10, let alone $30, and use MS Word instead. It's the only character generation utility I know of that comes with a spell-checker!

 

[Ranger REG]

And if for some reason, you do decide to pick it up, what will you do? Eat your own words, or in this case, the monitor?

If MSWord still work for you, then fine. Move on.