Long post warning....
I've had ETools now for a bit....worked with it....slept...and thought again.
There are alot of good 3e Computer Aids out there. PCGen and Jamis Buck's Generators have helped me many times when I was stuck for ideas or needed a quick (or detailed) NPC in my campaign world.
When WotC first spoke about "Master Tools", my first thought was that we would finally have some software that would use all the rules, be customizable, and extendable. When I got my hands on "ETools" and started working with it, I felt a sense of complete disappointment.
Once of the first areas that hit me as wrong was in the "shell". If you move your mouse over the icons at the top, most Windows based programs would pop up a small Tool Tip and tell you that the guy with the Horned Helmet was the "Character Creator"...but Etools doesn't do that. Now, I'll be the first to say that this is a small point, but having that ability helps those who are starting out using the program to find their way alot easier than having to load up help or browse thru the online manual to find out which icon does what. It's a small area in the program and most programs these days allow you to turn off tool tips once you get use to the interface. It stands out as a lack of planning in the user interface.
A major problem to me was the lack of Templates. I wanted to create a special character for my party to face, but without the templates from the Monster Manual present I can't do that. That leaves out alot of variations from Dire Animals to Were-Creatures to Half Fiends to Vampires. I later found out that I would have to create this as a "race" for now by hand, til either they were added in by Fluid or someone else sat down and did this manually. Even the Dragons get hit on this, as the program only includes one Age catagory for each Dragon.....all the others you have to do yourself. Luckly, Eric Noah has done some of this, and I only found this out by browsing the Fluid Message Boards. What about those who don't have that much Internet Access or miss that one all together.....
Another issue that I've seen basically makes just about every Caster based Prestige Class useless....you can't do "+1 Spellcasting Level" to your Caster Class. The program just doesn't do it. You could add a level of your old class, but then you'd be one level higher. Most of the Caster based Prestige Classes use this to grant additional spellcasting ability without anything extra from the class. As far as I'm concerned, this is a major blunder and I can only hope that Fluid will spend the time necessary to fix this. Otherwise it makes a good portion of the splatbooks and other addons useless.
On the positive side, the databases can be modified directly using Access 2000 or a third party program that is being created on the Fluid Messageboards. Also, there is some room to add your own homebrewed material inside Etools. If this can be expanded upon and made easier to do this will help keep the program from disappearing off of hard drives. In time, it would be good if Fluid was given permission to add the splatbooks as well as material from Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and Oriental Adventures.
Also, in the time I've used it Etools has not crashed to the desktop once. There are some reports of people having crashes, but they seem to be few and far between. The base program is very stable and the bugs that are listed seem to be minor database ones. I honestly expected to see bugs like that and know that in time they will be stamped out. When dealing with this much information it only makes sense to know that small errors will accidentally creep into the database.
It has taken a long time to create this program. In that time I have seen and used PCGen and it has much more functionality and costs alot less. Even taking away all the extra rule book sets that have been added to PCGen since it's release and you still have alot more that you can do with it than you can for a product that costs more.
To be honest, if I was an exectutive at Wizards or at Hasbro and someone showed me PCGen and Jamis Buck's Generators I would be embarrassed that this product went out the door.
There is a good community both here and at the Fluid Messageboards, and I feel that in time Etools will at least have some of the functionallity that I am used to in PCGen. I don't expect that this will be overnight, but eventually I may have to make a choice as to using Etools or PCGen.
For now however, Etools will be going back into its box and waiting for a few patches and some expansions before it will be back on my hard drive. It is my hope that this will be alot sooner than later.
T
=====
The World of Lyrlusa
A Dungeons and Dragons Campaign World
--no web site, yet--
=====
I've had ETools now for a bit....worked with it....slept...and thought again.
There are alot of good 3e Computer Aids out there. PCGen and Jamis Buck's Generators have helped me many times when I was stuck for ideas or needed a quick (or detailed) NPC in my campaign world.
When WotC first spoke about "Master Tools", my first thought was that we would finally have some software that would use all the rules, be customizable, and extendable. When I got my hands on "ETools" and started working with it, I felt a sense of complete disappointment.
Once of the first areas that hit me as wrong was in the "shell". If you move your mouse over the icons at the top, most Windows based programs would pop up a small Tool Tip and tell you that the guy with the Horned Helmet was the "Character Creator"...but Etools doesn't do that. Now, I'll be the first to say that this is a small point, but having that ability helps those who are starting out using the program to find their way alot easier than having to load up help or browse thru the online manual to find out which icon does what. It's a small area in the program and most programs these days allow you to turn off tool tips once you get use to the interface. It stands out as a lack of planning in the user interface.
A major problem to me was the lack of Templates. I wanted to create a special character for my party to face, but without the templates from the Monster Manual present I can't do that. That leaves out alot of variations from Dire Animals to Were-Creatures to Half Fiends to Vampires. I later found out that I would have to create this as a "race" for now by hand, til either they were added in by Fluid or someone else sat down and did this manually. Even the Dragons get hit on this, as the program only includes one Age catagory for each Dragon.....all the others you have to do yourself. Luckly, Eric Noah has done some of this, and I only found this out by browsing the Fluid Message Boards. What about those who don't have that much Internet Access or miss that one all together.....
Another issue that I've seen basically makes just about every Caster based Prestige Class useless....you can't do "+1 Spellcasting Level" to your Caster Class. The program just doesn't do it. You could add a level of your old class, but then you'd be one level higher. Most of the Caster based Prestige Classes use this to grant additional spellcasting ability without anything extra from the class. As far as I'm concerned, this is a major blunder and I can only hope that Fluid will spend the time necessary to fix this. Otherwise it makes a good portion of the splatbooks and other addons useless.
On the positive side, the databases can be modified directly using Access 2000 or a third party program that is being created on the Fluid Messageboards. Also, there is some room to add your own homebrewed material inside Etools. If this can be expanded upon and made easier to do this will help keep the program from disappearing off of hard drives. In time, it would be good if Fluid was given permission to add the splatbooks as well as material from Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and Oriental Adventures.
Also, in the time I've used it Etools has not crashed to the desktop once. There are some reports of people having crashes, but they seem to be few and far between. The base program is very stable and the bugs that are listed seem to be minor database ones. I honestly expected to see bugs like that and know that in time they will be stamped out. When dealing with this much information it only makes sense to know that small errors will accidentally creep into the database.
It has taken a long time to create this program. In that time I have seen and used PCGen and it has much more functionality and costs alot less. Even taking away all the extra rule book sets that have been added to PCGen since it's release and you still have alot more that you can do with it than you can for a product that costs more.
To be honest, if I was an exectutive at Wizards or at Hasbro and someone showed me PCGen and Jamis Buck's Generators I would be embarrassed that this product went out the door.
There is a good community both here and at the Fluid Messageboards, and I feel that in time Etools will at least have some of the functionallity that I am used to in PCGen. I don't expect that this will be overnight, but eventually I may have to make a choice as to using Etools or PCGen.
For now however, Etools will be going back into its box and waiting for a few patches and some expansions before it will be back on my hard drive. It is my hope that this will be alot sooner than later.
T
=====
The World of Lyrlusa
A Dungeons and Dragons Campaign World
--no web site, yet--
=====
