Twin Rose's Campaign Suite...Thoughts?

[mikey6990]

I'll try to give answers to the best of my experience. Maybe I can get Chris to sanity check my responses.

Yes, it is easy to add new classes, PrCs, feats, skills, etc and to modify the ones in the core. CS provides a gui for it all! The easiest way to add them is to use the core rules stuff in CS as an example. The very same way the CS folks built the classes, races, feats, skills etc. is using the same easy gui they give you to do it. No mucking around under the hood. I put in Monte's ranger too. I just went down the original ranger inputs and changed them to match Monte's.

This entire "builder system" also makes it easy to add house rules wholesale or as just mods to existing core rules.

Searching NPC lists I am not sure about. I think you can search on the NPCs but I have added so few so far that I have not needed that. Maybe Chris can answer.

It seems like what you are looking for is a utility to build/modify your rules system. CS is the best I have seen so far for that. As a reference I have used Hero Forge (great excel sheet for core rules characters) PCGen (best COMPREHENSIVE character generator I've found), etools (found it lacking), RPM (neat, but I don't use the at-the-table features so it was overkill), and a few others that I can't remember.

CS gives me a good character builder integrated with the rest of the campaign tools and it is all customizable!

Mike

 

[drnuncheon]

It seems like what you are looking for is a utility to build/modify your rules system. CS is the best I have seen so far for that. As a reference I have used Hero Forge (great excel sheet for core rules characters) PCGen (best COMPREHENSIVE character generator I've found)

Aha, you've used both? What does PCGen have that TwinRose is lacking? I've been trying PCGen out for a while, but it sounds like the additional tools that TRCS has might help me more. I will probably at least try out the demo.

J

 

[mikey6990]

This is all in my experience using the tools for my purposes but here goes.

If I was a player and need a character created, I would probably use PCGen (with the old data files). I mean, when you need to create a character in Kalamar, using Monte's great additions, and AEG's rules suplements, it already has it all. That is why I still use PCGen, the plethora of data files. I never added much to PCGen except new magic items and such.

As a DM, my favorite is CS. It can create all of those characters, I just may need to add the data. There are some folks out there adding it and exporting so we can all take advantage but not nearly as many has PCGen had.

But for adding and modifying data, CS is by far easier. It is really great that the developers included within it the same tools they used to enter all of the data. You can just follow their lead to get started. In other words, you got the whole car, not just the keys and steering wheel.


Mike

 

[Ranger REG]

Thought you guys might want to check out this thread from a game publisher's POV:

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21599

There is a few comment regarding the Twin Rose software.

 

[Ds Da Man]

Well, I think if TRCS wasn't complient, AV would have already put a stop to it. They did it to all the others. I like TR because they post here a lot, and aren't really pushy. For that fact alone, I will pay for their software. I thought PCGen was good also, and I truly appreciate all the great, time-consuming work they did for us, for free. E-tools, I'm really dissappointed, but they are also trying to make it better, and also have been good about helping and supporting, and allowing people to "add" stuff to it.

Just a big thanks to all the people working hard, so DM's like me don't.

 

[JoeGKushner]

One of the things I like about Twin Rose is the template factor. I also enjoy the fact that its supported with Librum Equitis, one of my favorite PrC books. On the downside, I am not super with programs like this and it seems strange at times the way it works. Lack of creating characters through a point based system is also a little bit of a downside since that's the default my group currently uses.

 

[HellHound]

I love this program.

Chris went in and added all the material from my own " Equitis volume 1" in a very short time, and they work great.

At GenCon, I grabbed one of my (incredibly overpriced) printed copies of "Portable Hole Full of Beer (this product contains no alcohol)" and coded in a few of the prestige classes and feats from the book.

All without ever having used the proggy before, and with Chris nursing a hangover somewhere else (I wasn't nursing a hangover, I was still drunk from the celebrations the night before, you see... this all happened on Saturday, and on Friday night we had just won the ENnie... and people - mostly Chris - honestly tried to feed me an entire portable hole full of beer). Just right click ont he campaign information screen at the Prestige Class section and a menu pops up for creating your own class. Ditto for feats, equipment... We inputted the entire Culinary Arsenal section to the weapons list in about a minute, and a few feats that you need to take the Jester PrC. Half an hour later, we are creating the world's first half-fiendish Beholder Bard / Jester.

We love this software.

 

[Ds Da Man]

Oh yea.....and what about grokster, Imesh, Limewire, etc. Everybodys so stinking worried about SRD, OGL, OGC, but what are they doing about the true thieves out there? Leave TRCS alone. They are trying to make a program that people can use to make set-up time for a game quicker. And for people like me who DM and work 60+ hours a week, I truly appreciate the help. Now if I had that truly interactive atlas (Note to self: Begin creating)!

 

[Old One]

Thanks Everyone...

I appreciate all the comments...

I think I will give it a try!

~ Old One

 

[Plane Sailing]

Hi Old One,

I hope you will give us all a review once you've tried it out!

Cheers