I think 4E needed designers and developers who actually used it for their home games. And that was not always the case. There's an adventure design seminar on YouTube hosted by Chris Perkins and Mike Mearls at some Con where the audience asks the two WotCites to tell them about their campaigns. Chris, of course, mentions Io'mandra or whatever whereas Mike has to say, "I'm not running a campaign." It was like the 2E days where designers didn't actually play the game they were working on....
That... that explains a lot actually. Wow, now another thing to be sad about...
I only got around to using Masterplan about a week ago and the version I have is brilliant. Even the monster builder is really, really good. I've also now got offline versions of the Character Builder and Compendium: I'm ready for WotC to turn off their servers and/or Silverlight to go to its death.
Masterplan is excellent, don't get me wrong on that - but you missed out on the pre-C&D phase where you could import everything you needed with a single click, share everything you created easily, share your "templated"/"campaigned" settings and content in a single click (ok, two or three, but still!) A whole market/community could have been born from this!
I understand
why all this had to be killed. But man... It was just so awesome! I guess I'm seeing it in a dimmer light for having been blinded by hope (wow... that was maudlin!)
And, can you imagine what that software could be with a decent UI designer? An API?

! So many things lost before they were even created...
I should probably play some Vampire: The Masquerade... I have so much angst right now, I'd be "killin' it"!
Hmmm, I wonder if someone could get CBLoader to export a character sheet in that format?
Perhaps, but I don't think so. The CBLoader "mearly" allows to use more xml files for content and settings - that we can use themes at all was one of the more explosive discoveries back in the "slow strangulation" of the offline 4e tools (no updates, poison-pill updates, no Dark Sun, lies about the possibilities of it - and then finding out it's already in the software) - goodwill was not won on that day...
Interesting. I must admit, I really don't tinker with the PC side of 4E at all as I decided that it was going to be all Character Builder, all of the time. Depending on how much tinkering I can do with the offline version, I may take a fresh look at some character options much in the vein you are suggesting but I will wait until after my next campaign. My next campaign features a knight and a slayer and this will be my first time seeing the Essentials classes in action. If simpler works, then maybe I will look at E-versions of some of the other complicated classes.
It is probably too much work to bother with - it's just a form of compulsion on my part :
must tinker!
One reason I slimmed down Trifold 4e as much as I did. (Another reason was to save paper). [space] It's easier when you roll your own classes
That is, indeed, probably the sane way to go about it.
There were also vague plans I had to make character sheets work off mobile apps that created monster-style statblocks.
If you ever get that working, I would be greatly indebted to you should you choose to share it.
On a side note this is something I absolutely despise in 13A - from the player side. "Roll to attack before you worked out what you were trying to do at a closer level than stick the pointy end in people". And yes, I've occasionally used the trick with NPCs. (Odds and evens I found works - but more than one type of trigger that way is too much).
On the PC side of things, it does clash with the very tactical play available in 4e and it certainly changes how "action declaration" is approached - in these situations, preferences can't really be argued, they simply are. And, on this point, I'm not sure I disagree with you - aside from certain "chaos/wild" based classes where a random element of effect is the whole point of the thing. But those are for a very specific clientèle.
But for monsters, man, do I love it!
Ex: A dragon's "claw/claw/bite" non-sense* becomes a single attack where if you target everything in range, on an even roll (or 16+, or whatever) you add ongoing elemental damage (i.e. that was a bite), on another you push/slide (that was a tail), etc.
For those kinds of foes, you can significantly reduce the number of "specific attacks" and those : "you use 1 of these and 2 these with a standard action" kind of powers that just take-up space on the stat-block (is it "block" or "bloc"?)
It also works great for those situations where "a telling blow" should have an added effect : rogu-ish types add a "debuff" on 16+, this demon poisons, etc. It's especially nice for abilities that used to be reserved for "on a crit" but really should happen more often.
On the player side - it can be an excellent vehicle for magic item abilities : things that aren't quite in their control, but should happen more often than [0,1] times before they upgrade the weapon/item (as I've seen happen so often in the heroic tier.)
*I says "non-sense" in the sense (sorry) that it reinforces very strongly the "this
game action" is "this
in-game action" - which I dislike since, in other parts, one attack isn't "one sword swing". I'm not a fan of "middle-ground" solutions in these cases. I prefer one or the other : either an attack is a fairly abstract game construct to which general descriptors are attached, or it's an actual in-game event described in precise detail. I understand these things are always on a scale, but I prefer my systems to be more firmly on one side of the pivot point. It's a preference thing - so I get that others prefer the opposite.
