Things other than rulebooks

[Particle_Man]

Hmmm...could one go for continuous "cure light wounds"?

 

[GuardianLurker]

One product could try to do it all, but for the most abbreviated format (the index card), it is likely that almost no one would like the format ... because there would always have to be information abbreviated or left out, and very few would be able to agree on exactly what is most needed vs. could be left out.

This suggests to me that the best software implementation for something like this would be something based on the old principle of "Do one small thing, and do it well." This implies a lot of disjoint utilities that can easily communicate together.

This is a decidely non-trivial task. I.e. it's <string of curse words> hard.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I would just like to give a shout out to DM Genie, which is a fine Windows-based tool for making PCs, NPCs, monsters, and running adventures. No, it's not perfect, but I have been using it for a while and find it does almost everything I want it to.

Now back to the discussion...

To follow up on an earlier point about a tool to show all of a character's buffed stats, I have thought about this off-and-on for a while. It is easy to create an Excel sheet with columns for the various bonus types: armor / shield / natural / dodge / deflection / etc. for AC, morale / luck / etc. for attack bonus, and so forth. It is a little more complex (but still solvable) to apply only the maximum bonus of each type; i.e., stack bonuses appropriately.

Now what would be really cool would be a non-electronic version of this. How? I've thought about overlapping transparent sheets so that when you are done, only the total, appropriately stacked bonus is visible. But this would be hard to do and costly to produce.

I've also though about various wheels or spinners, of the sort found in kids' games, with integers from (say) -9 to +9. Then somehow combine them like gears in a clock so that as you rotate various wheels, the properly stacked bonus shows up. Can't quite get my prototypes to work, and again, there is the productino cost issue. (Although you can offload the production costs to the consumer by providing only the paper parts, requiring the consumer to purchase the "brads" that create the spinners.)

So there! A free idea for any d20 publisher who wants to make it happen.

 

[der_kluge]

Continous effect cost is spell level x caster level x 2000 GP (DMG 3.5 pg. 285). So an item with a continuous mage armor effect costs 2000 GP and gives a +4 armor bonus to AC. This compares favorably to +4 bracers of armor at 16000 GP ...

If you consider that part of the DMG to be rules, which they explicitly aren't, of course.

I remember now.. in the AH, we had a rule that said that "personal" spells couldn't be placed into magic items. That prevents things like "bracers of mage armor" from being created, and actually solves quite a few other problems as well.

 

[Henry]

I remember now.. in the AH, we had a rule that said that "personal" spells couldn't be placed into magic items. That prevents things like "bracers of mage armor" from being created, and actually solves quite a few other problems as well.

Except that Mage Armor is "Touch" not personal, unless I'm misunderstanding you. For my campaigns I just had to revert back to "no new items without my approval" which solves most problems, since the existing items is more than enough to shoot for...

 

[Silveras]

I would just like to give a shout out to DM Genie, which is a fine Windows-based tool for making PCs, NPCs, monsters, and running adventures. No, it's not perfect, but I have been using it for a while and find it does almost everything I want it to.

On the same note, Role-Playing Master is/was also a good tool. It used to be hosted here, but I have not seen it mentioned for a while now.

 

[der_kluge]

Except that Mage Armor is "Touch" not personal, unless I'm misunderstanding you. For my campaigns I just had to revert back to "no new items without my approval" which solves most problems, since the existing items is more than enough to shoot for...

You're right... it did solve things like mirror image items, and a few other things like that. I'd have to cost out a mage armor bracer both ways to see what it looked like. I'm just feeling overly lazy right now though.

 

[Campbell]

You're right... it did solve things like mirror image items, and a few other things like that. I'd have to cost out a mage armor bracer both ways to see what it looked like. I'm just feeling overly lazy right now though.

My policy when using the rules from the Artificer's Handbook has been to always rely on the bonus item rules where they could be used. It has solved all manners of problems in this reguard.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I'd like a good set of monster "flash cards," with top-notch artwork on the front (no pics of minis), and stats on the back, covering all the monsters in the MM, or at least all of them in the SRD, as well as OGC critters from companies other than WotC.

 

[Silveras]

I'd like a good set of monster "flash cards," with top-notch artwork on the front (no pics of minis), and stats on the back, covering all the monsters in the MM, or at least all of them in the SRD, as well as OGC critters from companies other than WotC.

:: chuckle :: They did those. Back in 1st Edition, the Monster Cards came in 4 sets. Some new monsters were added that later appeared in the MMII (1st Ed.), like the Zorbo (Koala-like creature).