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<blockquote data-quote="Setanta" data-source="post: 158107" data-attributes="member: 2183">I really like the fact that they're making the attempt to include everything from WotC and D20 publishers.However, overall I think it's more trouble than it's worth. I have some newer players who use it as a crutch, and when it's wrong (due to a bug or whatever), they have a hard time accepting that. For example, I had a ninth level Elven ranger send me her character, and she had five feats (in addition to her ranger feats). I told her that a ninth level non-human ranger should only have four feats, and she said PCGen had had her pick that many, so it must be right. I explained the rules by which feats are acquired, and explained how that would leave her with four, and she reiterated that PCGen had given her five feats, so it must be right. I ended up winning that one, but it wouldn't have come up if she'd just followed the rules in the PH (which she owns) instead of relying on PCGen. It also has so many bugs that I find I need to go through and manually add everything up anyway to verify that it's correct, so what's the point of having a program do it for me? Some of it is simple and obvious, like a dual wielding player in my group that PCGen shows as doing 1d6+1 with his off hand quarterstaff attack, despite his strength 18. If he equips two kurkis, the offhand kukri does the expected 1d4+2, so why is it calculating the quarterstaff incorrectly? I've seen it make numerous errors in adding up attack and skill bonuses. I also find it to be very difficult to use customer magic items.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Setanta, post: 158107, member: 2183"] I really like the fact that they're making the attempt to include everything from WotC and D20 publishers. However, overall I think it's more trouble than it's worth. I have some newer players who use it as a crutch, and when it's wrong (due to a bug or whatever), they have a hard time accepting that. For example, I had a ninth level Elven ranger send me her character, and she had five feats (in addition to her ranger feats). I told her that a ninth level non-human ranger should only have four feats, and she said PCGen had had her pick that many, so it must be right. I explained the rules by which feats are acquired, and explained how that would leave her with four, and she reiterated that PCGen had given her five feats, so it must be right. I ended up winning that one, but it wouldn't have come up if she'd just followed the rules in the PH (which she owns) instead of relying on PCGen. It also has so many bugs that I find I need to go through and manually add everything up anyway to verify that it's correct, so what's the point of having a program do it for me? Some of it is simple and obvious, like a dual wielding player in my group that PCGen shows as doing 1d6+1 with his off hand quarterstaff attack, despite his strength 18. If he equips two kurkis, the offhand kukri does the expected 1d4+2, so why is it calculating the quarterstaff incorrectly? I've seen it make numerous errors in adding up attack and skill bonuses. I also find it to be very difficult to use customer magic items. [/QUOTE]

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