Which character generator is best-E-tools or PCgen?

[Henry]

One question to 3catcircus: Are you clear on the division between Codemonkey Publishing, and the PCGen LGPL all-volunteer design team? Not to say you aren't, but some of your responses seem to imply that you aren't.

 

[3catcircus]

One question to 3catcircus: Are you clear on the division between Codemonkey Publishing, and the PCGen LGPL all-volunteer design team? Not to say you aren't, but some of your responses seem to imply that you aren't.

No - I'm perfectly clear on that fact and have been since the beginning of this discussion. For example:

I wouldn't complain about the PCGen datasets if they were complete, worked 100% correctly (and this is really a function of PCGen rather than the datasets themselves, so maybe I'm being overly harsh)...

Notice, I made the distinction of PCGen functionality vs. dataset functionality in the statement I quoted? I thought I was being clear enough in stating up front that I understood perfectly the distinction between PCGen and CMP.

What I'm *not* clear about is whether there is an incestuous relationship between CMP employees and PCGen developers (i.e. working on both at the same time.)

In any case, the relationship between CMP and PCgen is not, or shouldn't be that important to the end-user if the software works as advertised. It makes no sense to worry about buying datasets if PCGen can't do what it needs to do properly with the data.

 

[3catcircus]

That could very well be. There have been massive changes in the code and data structure since those days. Are these errors your speak of when you use only the datasets that ship with the program, or when working with your personal datasets?

As I said earlier, I'm not an agent of CMP. However, I know they are expecting to finish up the backlog by year's end and be completely caught up with existing product. From that point, I have no idea what the lag time (if any) will be between new product and dataset.

From what I gathered from the Q&A, the db will just hold the data. Its the 'script' that will tell RPGT how to manipulate it.

They alluded to it being similar to the Core Rules 2.0 setup

Forgive my bluntness, but have you ever had a software product that was perfect out the door?

PCGen is an open source product manned by volunteers. We take the feature requests and bug reports from our user base and place them in a tracking system on Source Forge.

As for eTools, CMP (remember, I'm not a CMP agent) inherited the codebase from Fluid and have been trying to fix it up ever since. WotC contracted them to fix, IIRC, 40 some bugs. They've fixed far more than that in the 1st patch, and have added functionality (templates for starters) and datasets that eTools as well.

No - but I would expect that a product properly do the basics of what it is intended to do. What I mean by that statement is that, at its core, *any* chargen is nothing more than a calculator. If it can't calculate a bunch of numbers and give the correct answer, then I would consider the bug to be a show-stopper.

I realize that PCGen is free, open source and volunteer, which is why I stated that I've no problem with tinkering with it myself.

What I stated was that I had a problem with the notion of buying something that isn't complete and/or doesn't work properly, but I did acknowledge that CMP's datasets can't be blamed for errors in PCGen itself.

As far as eTools - I've no experience with it so I can't comment on it.

 

[Abraxas]

Since Kingpaul is here and he asked about bugs in PCGen I thought I'd bring these two up.

1) In version 5.7.1 the ranger doesn't get to select his first favored enemy until 2nd level.

2) Also, I may just be dense, but I can't find a way to increment an existing favored enemy bonus at ranger levels 5, 10, 15, etc.

Oh and a question, is there a comprehesive help document with examples of the various tags, more extensive than the one that comes with the program download?

 

[kingpaul]

1) In version 5.7.1 the ranger doesn't get to select his first favored enemy until 2nd level.

Unfortunately, this is a known issue that folks are looking into. I'll prod them along to see what's going on.

2) Also, I may just be dense, but I can't find a way to increment an existing favored enemy bonus at ranger levels 5, 10, 15, etc.

If you look, in the RSRD dataset, in file rsrd_feats_hidden.lst, and go down to the "#Favored Enemy Bonuses" section, that shows how the bonuses are granted. Now, you may not understand lst-ese. If looking at the file doesn't help you (or confuses you even more), I'll try to help you out more.

Oh and a question, is there a comprehesive help document with examples of the various tags, more extensive than the one that comes with the program download?

This is being looked into. Most of the Board was at GenCon, and we discussed putting together a a primer on the common VARs and EQMODs.

 

[Henry]

Notice, I made the distinction of PCGen functionality vs. dataset functionality in the statement I quoted? I thought I was being clear enough in stating up front that I understood perfectly the distinction between PCGen and CMP.

OK, all clear - it's just the exchange between you and Kingpaul:

3CC: I wouldn't complain about the PCGen datasets if they were complete, worked 100% correctly (and this is really a function of PCGen rather than the datasets themselves, so maybe I'm being overly harsh) and were published in a timely manner - how long has it been since Underdark, Complete Divine, Player's Guide to Faerun, Serpent Kingdoms and Planar Handbook were published?

KP: The data: once again, the sources you are citing are closed-content and PCGen does not have permission to distribute datasets based on those books.

3CC: So - CMP doesn't have a licensing agreement with WoTC that allows them to provide datasets as new books are published? Pardon my french, but if that is the case, it seems like a crappy licensing agreement. It would also lead me to speculate about the licensing agreement in whole - what kind of support will the end-user expect for older datasets?

which was what made me think that you expected the PCGen team to have control over closed gaming content. While Underdark, Serpent Kingdoms, etc. Will probably NEVER be released as Open Game Content, CMP as I understand it has license to make PCGEN-compatible datasets of ALL of this stuff. However, as Mynex has said in the past, all datasets they make (both for E-tools and the PCGEN-compatible sets) has to pass by a quality assurance team from WotC, sometimes MULTIPLE times before its released. It's part of the license agreement.


In regards to the backwards compatiblity of the programs, there is a HUGE compatibility gap between 4.0 and 5.0/5.1, a period when major TAG revisions were taking place as I remember. It hasn't been a situation where datasets were systematically left behind, but more like one huge dump between those two major releases.

OTOH, I'm wondering if we're going to see a similar major change now that java 1.3.1 is no longer supported?

 

[kingpaul]

OTOH, I'm wondering if we're going to see a similar major change now that java 1.3.1 is no longer supported?

Not that I'm aware of. I'm not a coder, but the way it was explained to me was that a) GMGen wouldn't work on pre-1.4.x and b) 1.4.x took care of numerous java issues that existed in 1.3.x.

 

[Abraxas]

posted by kingpaul
If you look, in the RSRD dataset, in file rsrd_feats_hidden.lst, and go down to the "#Favored Enemy Bonuses" section, that shows how the bonuses are granted. Now, you may not understand lst-ese. If looking at the file doesn't help you (or confuses you even more), I'll try to help you out more.

OK, I had a look and you are correct - I don't really understand lst-ese.
I'm not more confused just still confused. When I create a ranger character, at levels 5, 10 etc I get the option to select a new favored enemy. In the feats window I see these favored enemy feats and favored enemy bonus feats - but can't select them (and if I disable the prereqs the cost feat slots that the character gets at 1st and every 3rd level). On the output sheet, all favored enemies are shown with a +2.

So what am I missing?

 

[vic20]

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