Monster Statting tools

[Miles Pilitus]

In my game that I'm running, a major villain in the first arc of the campaign is an army of uplifted simians who have decided to kill their creators. There are several different kinds of simians of various sizes. I've decided to use goblinoids for them, but I want the ability to generate classed ones with some amount of speed. Is Pcgen my best option to do that, or is there a random NPC generator that has as options some of the more common monster races?

 

[frankthedm]

Though you HAVE to print it, the singin' sheet is very good for fast distibution of skill pionts and such.

http://singin.sheet.googlepages.com/sheet

 

[Voadam]

I found NPC designer by rpgattitude (check in my bookshelf for a link to it from the store here) very quick and useful for making warrior classed monsters. Not so good for spellcaster equipment.

I generally picked a standard race, generated the NPC stats then modified it for the 3rd party monster race I was using in my 16th level game. Worked well for making barbarians and fighters, not so well for the sorcerers I did (randomly generated feats, spells, and items were legal but not the best of choices).

 

[Caspian]

I've always found DMgenie to be pretty good with that, with the exception that you have to program in new templates and what not. They've made that easier though.

 

[The_Gneech]

I like E-Tools quite a bit, but it's the same way my brother likes all those clunky old cars in his garage. It works very well, once you've tinkered the hell out of it.

-The Gneech

 

[Glyfair]

I like E-Tools quite a bit, but it's the same way my brother likes all those clunky old cars in his garage. It works very well, once you've tinkered the hell out of it.

I agree. The limitations are starting to annoy me, but the RPG Toolkit should be out in the not too distant future (fingers crossed) and datasets I've purchased for ETools will have the RPG Toolkit versions. It sounds like they will be much more active in adding features to it (because they don't have to keep banging their heads at the design of it).

 

[Miles Pilitus]

Some of these programs are nice, but I was looking for something that might be a little more platform neutral or on the web. I'm not really looking to robustly design a new character, just blend the race and Jamie Buck's NPC generator.

Tried PC gen, didn't do what I wanted it to.

 

[EricNoah]

Myself, I'm another eTools user. But like others, it has taken some years of pain and patience to get it doing essentially what I want it to do.

Edit: Oops, I see you've already tried PC gen. My bad.

 

[Vascant]

I generally picked a standard race, generated the NPC stats then modified it for the 3rd party monster race I was using in my 16th level game. Worked well for making barbarians and fighters, not so well for the sorcerers I did (randomly generated feats, spells, and items were legal but not the best of choices).

Yeah, I have stated with a few others spell casters is an area where really any system would have trouble bring it all together and be of a specific flavor you were looking for. Thats why I created NPC Options, which allows you to mold the results to better suit desired NPCs. Thats why this year rather then attempt to move on to a 2nd version I am going to instead start working on script packages to provide to customers to help them get better use out of NPC Designer. There are alread Monkey, Ape, Dire Ape scripts ready to make use of as well at this time.

 

[wmasters]

Some of these programs are nice, but I was looking for something that might be a little more platform neutral or on the web. I'm not really looking to robustly design a new character, just blend the race and Jamie Buck's NPC generator.

Tried PC gen, didn't do what I wanted it to.

Adding another voice for NPC designer. About 3 clicks and you've got your NPC generated. I use it for casters as well, and see no problem with it.