D&D 4E Who's still playing 4E

[D'karr]

The gods have a backup for you if the fates are not kind.

Offline Character Builder with CBLoader. Really fun, especially if you understand code.

Yes, there are options besides the online tools. I moved completely to offline because the online tools are not as flexible. Even with some of the bugs these work fine.

 

[hugodlr]

Yes, there are options besides the online tools. I moved completely to offline because the online tools are not as flexible. Even with some of the bugs these work fine.

I've heard of both - tried once . . . about a year ago I think? to download them and work with them, but ministry & work take up a big chunk of my time. Maybe I'll try again over Spring Break - my group still does 4E and I run two 4E games @ my school, so if it does get taken down having a backup would be nice. Thanks!

 

[Tony Vargas]

Two of my regular 4e players have switched to Hero Builder, I think it is. The sheets look OK and are only giving them a little trouble.

 

[D'karr]

Two of my regular 4e players have switched to Hero Builder, I think it is. The sheets look OK and are only giving them a little trouble.

Glad to hear of other options.

 

[thanson02]

Two of my regular 4e players have switched to Hero Builder, I think it is. The sheets look OK and are only giving them a little trouble.

Is that a paid service?

 

[Tony Vargas]

No idea if it's paid, subscription, or pirated. Just 'Hero something' and they seem to have all the 4e info (one of them's a pixie for instance).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

No idea if it's paid, subscription, or pirated. Just 'Hero something' and they seem to have all the 4e info (one of them's a pixie for instance).

http://www.wolflair.com/index.php?context=hero_lab&page=4th_edition

Commercial software. Pretty well regarded, though I've never used it. I'd note its a full Windows application, for all the good and bad of that, though there's also a Mac version (which I doubt runs on iOS). Apparently it also integrates with 'd20pro', which is a commercial VTT product (one I've never actually seen in use, no idea how good it is).

Hero Lab is pretty much the standard these days for CBs, it has modules that support all the different flavors of D&D-like games.

 

[RedSiegfried]

[D][/D]Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but the last time I used HeroLab for 4e, it required that you have a DDI account so that you can download and install the actual data from WoTC. Also IIRC, you only needed to use the account one time or whenever you needed to refresh/update the data. But since WoTC isn't updating DDI anymore, you probably just have to sign in once or if you ever reinstall HeroLab. It worked well enough for me, though personally I prefer WoTC's online or offline builder. If the online builder goes away, I'll probably give HeroLab 4e another try. I also have the offline builder from WoTC fully updated and installed and that is a great option too.

Keep in mind too that if you use HeroLab for other games, you pay a license for each game - you don't get to make any character for any game unless you've paid the license for that game. In the case of Pathfinder, you basically pay to add each expansion/splatbook. But it's all a one-time fee, no subscription required. (One again, correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't used HL in a while.)

 

[Jessica]

I DMed some of The Slaying Stone this weekend for a group of three people(two weren't able to show up this weekend so I made some companion NPCs in advance) with one of them being an experienced 4e player and the other two being new to 4e(with one of them being my roommate who is still new-ish to D&D in general) and everyone seemed to have a really good time. After my roommate had numerous bad experiences with 5e*, she absolutely loved 4e. She felt her Ranger had so much more to do every round. She always plays archery-based characters and will almost always play the ranger/hunter type class whenever it's available but she thought the 5e Ranger was pretty boring.



*A massive portion of those bad experiences were really mediocre DMs(either boring DMs or ones who seemed to have it out for her or ones who didn't bother to read the module they were running or who didn't even bother to learn how to play 5e before running 5e) and the second biggest factor was how boring mechanically Rangers were to her at low levels.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I DMed some of The Slaying Stone this weekend for a group of three people(two weren't able to show up this weekend so I made some companion NPCs in advance) with one of them being an experienced 4e player and the other two being new to 4e(with one of them being my roommate who is still new-ish to D&D in general) and everyone seemed to have a really good time. After my roommate had numerous bad experiences with 5e*, she absolutely loved 4e. She felt her Ranger had so much more to do every round. She always plays archery-based characters and will almost always play the ranger/hunter type class whenever it's available but she thought the 5e Ranger was pretty boring.



*A massive portion of those bad experiences were really mediocre DMs(either boring DMs or ones who seemed to have it out for her or ones who didn't bother to read the module they were running or who didn't even bother to learn how to play 5e before running 5e) and the second biggest factor was how boring mechanically Rangers were to her at low levels.

In all fairness to 5e, the Ranger is reputed to be pretty much the worst class in the game. IN GENERAL I think the 5e classes are really quite good, within the constraints of 5e's flavor of D&D. They cover a lot of character concepts in a pretty compact fashion. If the game had a 4e feel and more of a 4e-based design to it, I think it might have been just what we were looking for.