The Character Builder and House Rules

[Kzach]

I'm a big tweaker.

And no, I'm not a crackhead.

By tweaking I mean that I constantly try to tweak the game to fit my personal preferences and that usually results in a lot of little houserules.

I'm at the stage now where a lot of the houserules I've been playing with are starting to mature into rules that I'm confident are balanced, reasonable and improve the game (to my preferences) and so I much prefer them to the standard rules.

The problem with this is that the more I want to include my house rules, the less useful the Character Builder becomes.

For instance, currently I have a house rule that replaces all racial ability bonuses with two floating +2 bonuses. Now I'm not arguing the merit of this house rule here, just stating that it is now quite awkward for me to make characters in the CB because it automatically assumes it's own rules and there is no option to get around that.

Now that's just a minor annoyance. I can still make characters with 'houseruled' bonuses and stats, but there are other rules that I'm starting to prefer and want to include in my games that the generator absolutely will not tolerate.

A good for instance is the mage class I've built to replace the weaksauce wizard build. Because my class adds a daily class feature as well as a class feature that mimics the cleric's channel divinity power, I now can't make up a mage at all. There is simply no way to include these powers other than as side notes somewhere on the character sheet.

My point is that as 4e begins to mature, whether there will be a lot of third party content or not (and it seems there won't ever be much), people WILL tweak their games. In fact, I'd wager that the majority of groups use bucketloads of houserules to tweak the system to their personal preferences.

And with this tweaking, the character builder becomes less and less of a useful tool. For now, it is a great tool that a lot of people use, but how long is that realistically going to last?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I fear what will be happening is that a lot of people will avoid tweaking or add 3rd party material, instead of stop using the Character Builder.

My preference would be that the CB should be more customizable. They might really need a Race, a Power, Magic Item and possibly even Class generator. 3rd Parties should be able to create their own rules in a format readable by the Character Builder.

I think a lot of that would be technically possible - not necessarily for all possible ideas, but for a lot. The question is if it's worth WotC effort and money to do expand the CB to that aspect.

I wonder if the Campaign Tools will support this already a lot better - the monster generator for example could be a wonderful tool to allow third parties to publish their own monsters in a format useable in that tool. Of course, the question then is if there is a way to distribute their monster stats or character builder rules without giving their books away for free.

 

[wedgeski]

You're right, the CB has less utility for heavily house-ruled games, although I would question your assertion that "the majority of groups use bucketloads of houserules to tweak the system".

Ultimately I think the software needs to be expanded into a full suite of class design tools, and I can see it going there later in the 4E life-cycle. This will solve all of your problems in one fell swoop.

 

[Rel]

Even though I have a sizable list of house rules this hasn't been much of an issue for me thus far. Most of my house rules tend to be rather "global" such that they wouldn't be reflected in the CB anyway.

For example I did away with Milestones as written in favor of a more cinematic/quest driven method of handing out Action Points. But that has no bearing on the CB. Same thing with my ditching the normal skill system. In fact I usually delete the skills section on the character sheet and the players just (literally) cut and paste on the one that I did as a spreadsheet.

 

[catsclaw227]

I would love to see 3PP support with add-ins to the CB. If WOTC gets a small cut from each purchased add-in, forcing you to register the add-in (or something to help avoid piracy), then there may be a financial reason to design for and allow 3PP packs.

 

[Asmor]

A good for instance is the mage class I've built to replace the weaksauce wizard build. Because my class adds a daily class feature as well as a class feature that mimics the cleric's channel divinity power, I now can't make up a mage at all. There is simply no way to include these powers other than as side notes somewhere on the character sheet.

At the top of the list of your character's powers (not the list of available powers), there's a house rule icon. Click that to add a power slot.

Select that new power slot. At the top of the list of available powers, there's another house rule icon. Right click that and choose create custom element.

Not perfect, but gets the job done.

 

[Kzach]

At the top of the list of your character's powers (not the list of available powers), there's a house rule icon. Click that to add a power slot.

Select that new power slot. At the top of the list of available powers, there's another house rule icon. Right click that and choose create custom element.

Not perfect, but gets the job done.

Does it add a power card with all the abilities and weapons added in as well as the effect text?

Seriously man, did you think I wasn't aware of that button? It's friggin useless and there is little point in pointing it out so I'm at a loss as to understand why you did.

EDIT: we've addressed this post privately with the OP. Carry on. ~ PCat

I would love to see 3PP support with add-ins to the CB. If WOTC gets a small cut from each purchased add-in, forcing you to register the add-in (or something to help avoid piracy), then there may be a financial reason to design for and allow 3PP packs.

That would be awesome if they did that but I highly doubt they will.

 

[Fifth Element]

Does it add a power card with all the abilities and weapons added in as well as the effect text?

Seriously man, did you think I wasn't aware of that button? It's friggin useless and there is little point in pointing it out so I'm at a loss as to understand why you did.

So this is a complaining thread, not a discussing thread? Lighten up. Seems to me Asmor was trying to help. No reason to snap like that.

 

[Asmor]

Does it add a power card with all the abilities and weapons added in as well as the effect text?

No, it does not. As I said, it's not perfect, but it gets the job done. Having an actual power card is quite useful, even if it's just the name; it gives the power the same tangible representation as all the other powers. And it's got enough white space that it shouldn't be too hard to write in what you need by hand.

Seriously man, did you think I wasn't aware of that button?

Yes, frankly, I did. It's a common thing to miss (I myself never noticed that you could add power slots until someone pointed that out in a thread much like this one) and your reference to only being able to make notes about the power specifically made it seem as if you were unaware that you could do this.

 

[timbannock]

Even though I have a sizable list of house rules this hasn't been much of an issue for me thus far. Most of my house rules tend to be rather "global" such that they wouldn't be reflected in the CB anyway.

For example I did away with Milestones as written in favor of a more cinematic/quest driven method of handing out Action Points. But that has no bearing on the CB. Same thing with my ditching the normal skill system. In fact I usually delete the skills section on the character sheet and the players just (literally) cut and paste on the one that I did as a spreadsheet.

I think this is an excellent critical-thinking exercise: can you look at a house-rule and find a way to make it "global," and thus not fear it being misrepresented in the CB?

Obviously everyone's different, but after years of being really nit-picky with my houserules, I finally realized that I could make so many of these changes "behind the screen," and thus the players and the tools like DDI don't have to see them. Axing a few feats is easy (just tell the players not to select those feats), but it's tough to do this across the board. If you can, though, that's often a much better way to do things so you don't invalidate people's rulebooks (i.e, their hard-earned money) and other resources.