Things other than rulebooks

[mattcolville]

I'm not exactly sure from the ecommerce description but this looks like a book of stat blocks for the basic SRD mosters.

I'm talking about a book that has:

Orc
Orc/F1
Orc/F2
Orc/F3
Orc/F4...

Completely "kitted" with appropriate gear, spell lists, domains, etc.

Example: Somewhere in this book would be a complete stat block for a 15th level Pixie Ranger.

For extra credit, you could do common multiclass combos (1 level of Rogue, 1 level of Monk,1 level of Paladin, 1 level of Barbarian, etc.)

You know what would be 1000 times more useful? A computer application that did this for you and let you print the result out on an index card.

 

[mattcolville]

Someone already did - I did. It's called the Artificer's Handbook. Except that it ignores the DMG's creation system (which is greatly flawed) and creates its own.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's not what Ryan's talking about. He's not talking about a book that DOESN'T use the rules for D&D, he's talking about one that doe.

 

[Silveras]

This begs a question. If you could build this tool, and it made it simpler and more streamlined to stat up monsters, why hasn't Wizards of the Coast built their own tool for internal use? They could justify the cost in the greatly reduced staff time. Essentially, they'd be making "monster prep tools"? Is it job security for those who do stat blocks? Are they afraid that if they created such a tool they'd be out of a job?

I considered mailing them mine, actually.

And once they'd built the toolkit, they could sell it to gamers as a value-added project. That way the programming cost is amortized as game development, and the product is just a cash cow?

As another example, one of the guys in my gaming group who's much more facile with Microsoft Excel than me created an "auto-calculating" D&D character sheet. You fill in your attributes, feats, ranks and equipment and it spits out the modifiers. His doesn't consider EVERYTHING but it's pretty darn useful.

Why don't more of the people at game companies come up with stuff like this? I'd sure pay cold hard cash for those tools.

I can take a few guesses as to why.

Actually, they are not guesses. I write software professionally, and I am a database architect/administrator. I am intimately familiar with how the design process goes, and I can say this: you cannot make a working program for rules that are not yet defined.

Any such tool would be useful to WotC only for books *after* their content is finished, and the rules can then be implemeted in code. Trying to do it *while* the content is being finalized means that the coding process would slow down the book creation process, as the authors and stat-block editors need to wait for the program to be revised to cover this morning's changes to the rules. Depending on what was changed, that could be 10 minutes to 10 days to code, and as much again to test to make sure the change was made correctly.

A second problem is when the developers adopt a new method of some kind. An example I have used before is spell advancement. In the 3.0 Core books, all of the classes used a few simple methods... spell advancement 1-6 over 20 levels, spell advancement 0-9 over 20 levels, spell advancement 1-4 starting at level 4, and so on. In general, though, they were a formula... some advancement every level after level X, up to level Y (for Paladins, Rangers, and others with a maximum spellcasting advancement). Then, new supplements added new casters, and new breakdowns, espcially in Prestige Classes ... +1 every other level, +1/+1/+0 repeated every 3 levels, and so on. Then, we started getting +1/+1/+1/+0/+1/+1/+0/+1/+1 and the like -- you could no longer reasonably expect to be able to use a few formulae, you had to pretty much list out the progressions for each class in full.

As for selling it... well, because each new supplement is liable to require code changes to include this or that new feature, it would almost have to be a subscription model... you pay a fee to get all the updates for a year, and renew the fee each year to keep getting the updates.

Additionally, an internally-developed product does not have to support "user customization", but a commercially-available one *does*. In order to support the DM's right to decide which rules s/he wants to use, the software has to become much more complex, and cannot use the most efficient code (it has to allow for deciding on-the-spot which rules apply, instead of having that assumption embodied in its design). The more such a tool is written to do for you, the longer it takes to update, the slower it runs, or less it can allow you to make choices.

Now, before I come across as all negative let me say that I think the 3.x rules are *much* more computer-tool-friendly than any of the previous editions.

 

[der_kluge]

Artificer's Handbook:
This is a great book and I use it for my campaign. So, I have the buy in I need. One or two of my players grumbled because they don't have it and didn't want to buy it. That's fine. Anything from the core rules needs to be reviewed heavily anyway. It is frustrating how many times one of the primary grumblers has tried to make bracers of mage armor because it would be cheaper than bracers of armor. So I have no sympathy when he grumbles about not having the Artificer's Handbook.

Is that by RAW, or by the AH rules? I've never tried to create bracers of mage armor. How do the prices compare to bracers of armor?

 

[der_kluge]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's not what Ryan's talking about. He's not talking about a book that DOESN'T use the rules for D&D, he's talking about one that doe.

The only problem is that the DMG rules for magic item creation were created by illiterate baboons. The same ones that created the rules for the Craft() skill and attacks of opportunity.


Wait, did I say that out loud?

 

[Anabstercorian]

The only problem is that the DMG rules for magic item creation were created by illiterate baboons. The same ones that created the rules for the Craft() skill and attacks of opportunity.


Wait, did I say that out loud?

Wow. You're a jackass and your rules are terrible and I wish I hadn't bought them.

 

[delericho]

I can take a few guesses as to why.

I've deleted the actual 'guesses'. They're all quite correct, of course.

There are also two other factors that I think apply:

Firstly, I think it's unlikely that many of the employees are professional software engineers or database experts. To build a tool to model the monsters would require getting some sort of outside help, which of course costs money. The business case for spending that money is probably not there unless the product is intended for sale - I don't expect that the savings in stat-block generation times is that great, since they can survive a problem with a relative few stat-block errors, especially if they produce timely errata. (Now, if gamers en masse boycotted all products with more than a tiny number of editing mistakes, that might well change. But that's unlikely to ever happen.)

Secondly, the effort involved in writing a program/database for your own use is significantly less than the effort in creating a program suitable for mass consumption. If I put together a program for my own use, I can be reasonably sure I won't make mistakes in data entry through ignorance, and can also be reasonably sure I will be willing to live with the occasional crash due to bad data (provided it doesn't delete my painstakingly entered data set, of course). If the product is being sold commercially, though, higher standards are required.

(An interesting analogy springs to mind: if I'm writing an adventure for my own use, I can cut out a lot of redundant tasks - I know for example that my party are unlikely to use divinations to research the adventure location in advance. If I were to write up the same adventure for submission to Dungeon, however, I would need to consider these things. Not to mention the difference between writing the adventure in my own shorthand for my own use, and writing everything out in comprehensible English. Plus, of course, I only need to tailor my own adventures to my own group, whereas a Dungeon adventure needs to be suitable for a wide range of groups.)

 

[Campbell]

The only problem is that the DMG rules for magic item creation were created by illiterate baboons. The same ones that created the rules for the Craft() skill and attacks of opportunity.


Wait, did I say that out loud?

Der Kluge,

While I appreciate the design work you've done in the past, your comments were out of line. Besides I'd hesitate to call Jonathan Tweet and crew a bunch of illetirate baboons. It is possible to work up faulty designs without beinga first-class idiot. While I do agree with your opinions on all of those issues barring Attacks of Opurtuinity, there are several things that they did get right. Additionally it's not like the previous rules systems for crafting items of any type worked out that well.

Cheers.

 

[SWBaxter]

The only problem is that the DMG rules for magic item creation were created by illiterate baboons.

Hmm, no. The problem with the DMG rules is that they had to grandfather in approximately 8.37 zillion exceptions caused by the legacy list of magic items, and attempt to balance those with the new systematic way of doing things. If the designers could've gotten away with tossing out all the classic old items and creating everything with a new, consistent system, I'm quite sure the DMG's magic item section would be a whole lot easier to understand. Unfortunately, things don't always work out for the best.

 

[jgbrowning]

One of the biggest complaints with 3E is that stat blocks are a pain to create. Why doesn't someone make a great big old "book of stat blocks". Take every monster in the SRD, and stat it up by level to 20th level, in each class, with appropriate equipment. Index that thing right, and it becomes an invaluable reference for a DM.

The main problems here are effort vrs. profit and space. I've several NPC Files (a single NPC statted from 1-20 with almost 3 pages of history/backstory) up for sale for $2 each at rpgnow.com. Each one is at least 14 pages long, and the spell casters can be up to 20 pages. I think the system's too complex and too item dependent at the higher levels to make compactness possible.

And it takes me a full day to a 1.5 days to move an NPC from 1st-20th intelligently with different focuses. So the effort vrs. return isn't that high.

joe b.