D&D 3E/3.5 Random Encounter Generator 3.5 & Monster Advancer 3.5 Getting Ready to Level up again

[TheOverlord]

In the interest of keeping people in the loop I figured I would provide some information about what is upcoming in the Monster Advancer. I recently finished a list of my top-level features, fixes and ambitions and have prioritized them. I hoped providing these to the community might spark some additional discussion and enthusiasm about what I might do. In general, I have a nice backlog of features that I will get into the application but I am always looking for new ideas or just discussion about why I am going in the direction I am going or how I might go about accomplishing my aims.

As such the next 3 features that I plan on finishing are as follows:

1. New Interface that is meant to replace the main Monster Advancer. It will be easier to use have a few fun new features along with it that you will get as part of this priority as it is obviously a large undertaking. (These will list below as well)​

A. Creature creation via URL. This may not seem like much but this allows you to save, link and otherwise share creatures with others. This will lead into the ability of users to save creatures as well.​

B. On-the-fly monster preview. No longer will you need to go to a separate page to view your creature it will regularly be updated and visible in a panel on the page where you are building the creature.​

C. Full control over stats. This will include setting base stats, seeing how racial bonuses or size increases affect them, rolling for them via common strategies, etc.​

D. Buffs to a creature. Want to have a creature that is affected by an enlarge spell, owl's wisdom, or any other OGL spell. With the results showing up right in the stat block. (There is a possibility that this may be delayed until just after the initial release of the new interface if the development time starts to stretch out more than I would like)​

2. Random Encounter Generator Upgrades​

1. Generate encounters by alignment.​

2. Allow greater user control such as forcing templates to follow rules (or not), specifying which classes might be applied, etc.​

3. Full creature audits - This entails painstakingly going through all the entries from the SRD and cleaning them up, adding some extras that might make creatures easier to use and generally just finessing the creatures I have...this of course will affect all the Monster Advancer's tools.​

In closing, if there are smaller things that just seem like fun to implement I am never above spending a few minutes to get a big bang for your(the users) buck. I am also always listening and adapting to feedback so keep it coming. The list above is just to assure everyone that there is a plan--but just like the Cylons it is not going to always be apparent to observers and sometimes it evolves just a bit.

 

[BENINHB]

keep it up

You have developed a great tool that saves me lots of tedious work and lets me concentrate on the more fun aspects of campaign planing.

 

[angramainyu]

Awesome planned changes, I look forward to them adding much to your already excellent tool!

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I'd love it if you could add Lizardfolk!

 

[Uder]

I'd love it if you could add Lizardfolk!

Seconded!

 

[TheOverlord]

Lizardfolk on the way

I believe I had already promised Ogrork the Lizardfolk. I will get right on that. Lizardfolk should never had been overlooked in the first place.

 

[blargney the second]

Fantastic app!

Any plans to enable building monsters from the ground up?

 

[TheOverlord]

Ultimate Monster Creation

Fantastic app!

Any plans to enable building monsters from the ground up?

That is a brilliant question. In fact, one of my original ideas was to create an application that could build and design monsters that are even more dynamic than the print medium could really allow. This means building them from the ground up, but it also means that you could have more properties and abilities that scale upward as a creature grows in power. In the print medium you have to keep those rules fairly simple...and as we all know, even the "simple" rules we ended up with are not so easy to apply to a given creature. If they were people wouldn't need/appreciate my application as it stands now.

In the long run, I envision creatures from the ground up who can grow in size, and abilities. For example I have always found it sad that a hag whose ability and lore is steeped in magic has a static set of spell-like abilities. What if you can specify a set of spell-like abilities that the hag gains per level or just provide a pool of powers that the user can choose every so many hit-dice based on the level of hag he/she wants. Or if you could just build a free form monster and each piece/ability/power just figured into the final CR.

Obviously, even a simple version of what I describe will take some time/play-testing and just plain experiementation. Which is why I continue to try to improve the basics of what I have now....but eventually, and hopefully before too long, I hope to actually be able to innovate monster creation/generation.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Lizardfolk added! Beautiful! Thanks!!!

 

[TheOverlord]

Lizardfolk and more

Lizardfolk added! Beautiful! Thanks!!!

My pleasure as always. Got a few good templates added as well (Dire and Flame-spawned). I am going to have to add some way to view descriptions of templates in advance as well as descriptions of creatures as I continue to add creatures/templates from other sources that people don't recognize.