New Character Builder from WotC!

[sigfile]

Yet many of those same people are complaining because of the 20 character limit, etc. which is likely being implemented in part because of people sharing accounts.

Nah, it's because the character data is getting housed on WotC servers, and giving every user the ability to consume infinite space on those servers is a bad plan. Paolo goes in to it a bit here.

I wouldn't be overly shocked to see the character limit bump up a bit after the initial release.

 

[Alan Shutko]

Others have pointed out on that thread the disk space requirements are pretty minimal, and that's probably not the biggest reason. True, it would be possible to script a denial of service and try to take up lots of space, but there are many ways around that. There are enough free sites out there that offer GBs of space that I think the space argument is a red herring.

 

[garyh]

Nah, it's because the character data is getting housed on WotC servers, and giving every user the ability to consume infinite space on those servers is a bad plan. Paolo goes in to it a bit here.

I wouldn't be overly shocked to see the character limit bump up a bit after the initial release.

There are a lot of numbers between 20 and infinity. I'd be much happier with 100, which is a lot closer to 20 than it is to infinity, and I have over 300 characters on my hard drive currently.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I have over 150 typed into my Palm PDA.

 

[Votan]

There are a lot of numbers between 20 and infinity. I'd be much happier with 100, which is a lot closer to 20 than it is to infinity, and I have over 300 characters on my hard drive currently.

Agreed. I really think the realization that you can't stat a character from level 1 to 30 was a bit of a tipping point in my thinking. Now, an export/import function would help (a lot) but isn't available at start-up.

Now I like the online app. I compute from a lot of places and many of these places have clunky computers. A central online repository would be of greast value to me (and, by the way, I currently subscribe and do so yearly).

But the limit seems odd. Imagine 100 slots. In one campaign I havbe six saved characters (@different levels and so forth). I can easily imagine hitting 20. I can't imagine hitting 100 and an export function would remove any residual concern.

Sure, people might share accounts. But the goal of good digital rights management is to balance protecting the IP with making the content user friendly. What was painful here is that they are so close to a good equilibrium . . .

 

[Ahrimon]

I've spent a significant percentage of my my 4E D&D time making and polishing an excel spreadsheet/visual basic DM tool.
<snip lots of neat stuff>

It sounds like you know your way around VB. So, may I suggest that you use this situation to take your tool to the next level? VB has a web access object. Add it into your program. Make your program pull the relivant information from the compendium.

Not everything will work right away. And it does put a large development hurdle in front you. But who knows, you might have a lot of fun doing it. Monster information will definately be available. Character information won't be right away. Once they add export capability then you'll have the character files available from your players. And if they add character sharing, then you'll even have access to the characters from the cloud.

Hopefully it will be a viable solution to the situation you find yourself in.

 

[Ahrimon]

For those upset about not being able to take a character from lvl 1 to lvl 30 I have to point out that (I assume) wotc is assuming everyone knows about the "view at level" function in the CB.

I myself only discovered it a few months ago. If you level a character organically, makeing all necissary choices at each level, the CB file saves that. Then you can always go back and select a specific level to view. I've never played outside of heroic so I normally make my characters at 10th level then say I need the 6th lvl version, I just go to view at level, select 6th and I get the 6th lvl character sheet. Items are the only place where things can get tricky. The builder actually tracks what level you add items. So if you level a 1st lvl character straight to 10th, add an item that they should have gotten at 3rd and then view the character at 4th, the item won't be there.

It doesn't take long to get the hang of though.

I put my money on them assuming we all know about and use this.

 

[Hussar]

There are a lot of numbers between 20 and infinity. I'd be much happier with 100, which is a lot closer to 20 than it is to infinity, and I have over 300 characters on my hard drive currently.

I have over 150 typed into my Palm PDA.

Totally, totally not flinging poo here, honest question.

Why? What do you use this for?

As a DM, building characters is pointless, since NPC's don't work that way, and how many characters do you actually need?

 

[garyh]

Totally, totally not flinging poo here, honest question.

Why? What do you use this for?

As a DM, building characters is pointless, since NPC's don't work that way, and how many characters do you actually need?

A few reasons. Characters I'm currently playing of course. Also, characters I might play, characters I know I'll never play but want to see how they could work, multiple versions of what the characters I'm playing might look like at various levels with different options chosen, 4e-ified versions of characters I've played in previous editions, attempts to model characters from fiction.

I've enjoying making characters I knew I'd never play since I got into D&D with 2e. The CB just makes that a lot easier. For some of us, it's FUN to just create characters.

 

[Scribble]

For some of us, it's FUN to just create characters.

You people are creepy...

I have a friend like that... For your sakes I hope the "really soon" they indicated for exports pans out.