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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zulithe" data-source="post: 2717707" data-attributes="member: 4708">I go with DM Genie. It's not free BUT it is worth the cash. It is the best all-around solution thus far. Character/monster/treasure generator, combat management, campaign notes, maps, I love it. Since extensive datasets seem what you need, Janik, the DM Genie developer, seems to be working to improve DM Genie's capability in that area before official datasets come out for it (if they ever do).It may seem like a lot of data is missing that other programs, like eTools, already have. But for my campaign, I've only needed to manually add maybe 5 or 6 races, and you'd be surprised just how easy it is thanks to DM Genie's intuitive race editor. It also has some tutorials that walk you through processes like this. Other things, like adding magic items, are such easy tasks you don't even need to put much thought into it, the GUI makes it so simple.Some specialized utilities are better at certain tasks though, like Vascant's NPC Designer which can create NPCs in just a few clicks, and in the new official layout too! It's weakness is the lack of races to select from... but most of the major ones (including all the core PC races) are there, and it is expanding all the time. Also the race selection menu is getting a bit unwieldly due to the length of the list, some redesign in that area may soon be needed to ensure swift access to every race. I'm sure Vascant has thought about this though.Since you're on a tight budget, there are still great tools available. Obviously PCGen for one. My main complaint with it is the insane memory requirements. It can easily eat up more than 100mb of memory with just one PC open. It also used a lot of CPU sometimes. I'll be running winamp and the sound will cut out while it loads sometimes, and I'm not on a slow computer (3200+ AMD athlon xp)For maps, you're going to get a lot of suggestions. Personally, since we run all of our games on eraseable battlemats It would be a waste of time for me to design battle terrains in a program like Dundjinni. I draw everything by hand on gridpaper, including overworld maps (but I'm currently redesigning the "world map" digitally in Photoshop and am pleased with the results)No one tool is perfect, and you have to learn to live with the shortcomings of even the best products. Most of them, with a little creativity, are easy to work around.PS... farscapesg1, check your email. Later.</blockquote>

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