It has been a slow month for blog posts, but speaking for myself, it hasn't been because of a lack of D&Ding... when not trying to keep up with the articles from Wizards of the Coast, I've been playing some more with the tools, mainly the Character Builder and the Compendium.
In the past, usually while discussing multiclassing, I've complained that making a "themed" character is much more difficult in 4e, because you don't have the flexibility that the plethora of prestige classes gave in 3.5. With the poor-man's multiclassing that came with 4e, you couldn't accomplish much, but the hybrid rules are another matter...
In 3.5, I was never a multiclasser, just a prestige classer -- some might quibble about the difference, but I think it's significant, especially for the spellcasting classes whose pretige classes often had that familiar line: "+1 level of arcane spellcasting" or what have you. Otherwise, I was a one-class kinda guy, always seeing multiclassing as weakening the original class, because you were sacrificing something for every level you didn't take in your original class. The gestalt rules were a nice solution to this, because they meant you didn't sacrifice anything, and they allowed for a high-powered campaign -- as long as that was something you wanted.
The hybrid rules for 4e, though, do a pretty good job about giving you your two classes without making you any more powerful that a single-class character. Granted, our actual playtest experience with hybrids has been limited to Griff's wizard/fighter dragonborn, but I have now had quite a bit of experience making hybrid characters using the Character Builder, and none seem over-powered.
This is, of course, if you ignore the fact that I am a serious min-maxer when I put my mind to it, thus making a character "over-powered" in certain areas, almost certainly at the expense of something else. Crwth the cleric has, whether in pen-and-paper, Neverwinter Nights or Dungeons & Dragons Online, been a healer before an undead fighter, boosting Wisdom as high as it will go and ignoring Charisma completely. And a DDO Bard that completely maxes out the Haggle skill, just to game the auction house, is sure to sacrifice in other areas -- like melee fighting of any kind.
But to me, that's what a themed character is -- something that focuses on a particular idea (or two), at the expense of everything else. If I'm making a "healer", they're not as good at any of the other roles that this class is known for. If I'm making a "divine warrior" (always choosing powers that deal Radiant damage before any other power), I'm making a character that will be at a large disadvantage to anything that can resist Radiant damage. I go into this willingly, ready to take on that challenge if it arises, for the focused direction of the character's build.
And this brings me to the real point: the Character Builder and the Compendium make this a HELL of a lot easier to do that it was in 3.5. Granted, the idea of a themed character is a bit different now; you would browse a bunch of splat books in 3.5, find an interesting prestige class or two, and build around that as your goal. In 4e, I find myself seeing the occasional power description, class variant or paragon path, and get an idea to focus upon.
The Character Builder ensures that I have, at my fingertips, every power or feat that is available at any given level, instead of having to have a stack of books to check, and the Compendium lets me filter out certain keywords ("radiant", "prone", "necrotic", "heal") to help choose from my selections. This let me quickly try my "healing monk" (really a cleric/avenger hybrid) focusing on healing while at the front line; my "protector" (cleric/shaman hybrid) my attempt at a completely maxed-out healer; my "divine warrior" (revenant cleric) based solely around the Revered One epic destiny's Manifest the Divine feature of using each Channel Divinity power per encounter, instead of just one; and my "beastflanker" (beastmaster ranger) that could solo (with companion) quite effectively.
Unfortunately, my forays into rapidly building character concepts could have gone smoother. Sure, figuring 30 levels of a character in about 20 minutes is pretty good, but there are ways that it could still be improved. The search functionality in the Character Builder is only for actual names of powers, feats, etc., which doesn't seem that useful - no one knows the name of what they're looking for, they just know some of the terms that it contains. I had hoped that I could type in "heal" or "undead" into the power list, or feat list, or even equipment list, and get the Builder to filter things out. I suppose it DOES say "search" and not "filter"...
The Compendium does help here, as it has a single word filter (could use a second, in some cases), and lets you further filter by other criteria, depending on the item. Going back and forth between the Compendium and the Builder is a bit incovenient, though (I say while on my four-monitor setup); I think having the compendium embedded in the builder window would be very handy indeed. Also, being able to leave multiple search results open would be handy -- I'd like the list of powers with "resist" in them as well as the list of feats, available at the same time, if I'm making a this-guy-gives-crazy-resists character. And, I really don't like the obscuring window that the Compendium uses when you look at a specific entry -- are frames so uncool now in web development?
These are minor gripes, though, when I have to admit that these computer-based resources are making 4e a lot more interesting to use. When I got the Player's Handbook, my eyes glazed over seeing the same block format for power after power -- and I LIKE that there's a template for them! It just isn't a good browseable format for getting a feel for a class. I still have no clue what kinds of powers warlords, paladins, fighters, rangers, etc. have, because I just can't imagine reading the powers list right through. Having a means to search through them saves me from that, provided I know what to search for.
And, I hate to admit it, but access to all of the content online might be a bad thing for book sales... while I like having a physical book over an digital one in general, for my purposes the online version is more worth it right now, and a few books have now gone unpurchased because of this. Does this mean that Wizards should require "activation" of online content, using a key that comes with the hardcover book, to unlock the data? I thought they were going to do that, and am obviously glad they haven't. Perhaps the marketing people decided that seeing the content online would drive people to buy books they wouldn't otherwise consider?
Showing posts with label character builder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label character builder. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
Playing your own character
Hot on the heels of Griff's last two posts, I'll mention that I've been playing with the Character Builder a lot lately, getting to know the different classes out there. I find that this is a lot easier than trying to read through thirty levels of powers for a class, where they all blur together...
To test out the Builder, I took all of my various 3.5 characters over the years, and attempted to recreate them in 4e. It should be noted that, while I might complain about the lack of choice in 4e, I very rarely multiclassed in 3.5, not counting prestige classes. I thought that this might have made these recreations a little easier.
I started this experiment after reading the article on the Shadar Kai in Dragon #372, where they also provided some feats specific to the spiked chain. This brought to mind my 3.5 character Placide DeMorgan, and I thought I'd give a spin recreating him.
This was actually a lot of fun, and quite the challenge. The idea of Placide was that he had reach, and that he could Trip and Disarm well. Trip and Disarm are no longer general attack types in 4e, so my goal was to take any power that came along that provided "...and target falls prone" or any mention of disarming. Then I decided that anything that might grab a target would fit in with the concept (wrapping them around with the chain), and, if none of these choices was available, I'd go for the idea of a sweeping attack, such as a close burst smack-everyone-around-you attack. And if all else failed, I'd take a power that provided a slide or pull effect, as Placide tugs his opponents around the battlefield.
But it was tough! There were many choices of powers that fit with this idea. It also "helped" that, with the right choice of feats, the spiked chain was considered a flail, a two-handed weapon, two weapons, an off-hand weapon, a light blade, a double weapon, and reach weapon, which meant that any powers that offered up bonuses to use of such a weapon became appealing.
To level Placide through level 30 probably took two hours, on and off, of flipping back and forth between power descriptions and even feat descriptions. It was probably the most engaging character I've made in 4e.
On the heels of such a success, I tried to make Raven, my Druid/Shifter (and by far my favorite 3.5 character to play). Not having the Shifter prestige class was going to be a blow, but because the beast form was such a large part of the 4e druid, my idea was to focus on powers and feats that would allow 4e Raven to remain in beast form and be at her most powerful, with little regard to her human form. Also, going with the more feral build, I was going to avoid taking any powers that did energy damage, staying instead with claws, teeth and primal savagery.
Well I was successful, I suppose, in that I made a 30th level druid. But it wasn't nearly as fun, or interesting, or engaging, as making the fighter. I kept thinking that I wished I could have a little bit of a Rage effect, to really let the primal nature take over, or some stealthy creeping beast form to then sneak attack with -- but of course, I can't multiclass barbarian or rogue here. While I was able to apply my build "rules" and choose from my options easily, I ended up whipping through the 30 levels without really noticing it, without much thought.
You might be thinking, then, that it's my fault for coming up with this restrictive build, that made this character easy and uninteresting to make. But this is my point. I summarized this feeling to one of our group on Saturday night: that 3.5 allowed you to come up with some completely-custom idea for a character -- a stabby, lightning-casting, gnome who's good at tripping and throwing hammers -- and you could find a combination of classes, feats, spells and equipment to realize you very specific character concept. In 4e, you can try to do this, but in the end, are given only a handful of choices, and you have to try and be creative based on those (or perhaps in spite of those).
I got lucky with building 4e Placide, because there were lots of feats and powers that accentuated the idea behind him. But not so much with Raven. And perhaps the next book or Dragon article will give me the flexibility I need -- even 3.5 didn't have every bit of content available in the beginning -- but generally new content in 4e is for the new race or new class, not something that gets added to an existing class. Feats, sure, are available to most characters, but powers are always tied to a specific class. And if I can't take that power, then let me take that class *at any level I decide to*.
As Griff just mentioned, the Paragon Paths are helping to provide a few extra branches to the thin evergreens of the class progressions, but even those are limited, and the Epic Destinies are, as Griff believes, a bit limited.
Today I just tried another remake, this time recreating the ever-doomed Ish'us'q. Had Ish'us'q seen more years in 3.5, he would have focused on DR, SR and regeneration, likely going down the path of the forsaker. In 4e, I decided to build him similarly to the Dungeons & Dragons Online version of him, with heavy concentration on raging, a falchion, and taking out multiple foes at once. There are various powers that focus on raging, and when there wasn't one available, a close burst power was usually available. The choices were there, and I got my character, but, as with Raven, it just wasn't very satisfying. There's my barbarian, all made up and ready for 30 levels... but apart from the initial "choice" of my theme, it was a no-brainer at all 29 level-ups. The glimmer of hope I had for 4e character creation that I had when making Placide still wasn't recreated.
I'm not done yet -- I've got more classes to try out in the builder, both old and new. But instead of coming up with a theme and then sitting down to realize it on a character sheet, I will be browsing through the powers of my chosen class, and trying to come up something interesting, to stand out from the others.
What colour do you want your Ford Model T in?
To test out the Builder, I took all of my various 3.5 characters over the years, and attempted to recreate them in 4e. It should be noted that, while I might complain about the lack of choice in 4e, I very rarely multiclassed in 3.5, not counting prestige classes. I thought that this might have made these recreations a little easier.
I started this experiment after reading the article on the Shadar Kai in Dragon #372, where they also provided some feats specific to the spiked chain. This brought to mind my 3.5 character Placide DeMorgan, and I thought I'd give a spin recreating him.
This was actually a lot of fun, and quite the challenge. The idea of Placide was that he had reach, and that he could Trip and Disarm well. Trip and Disarm are no longer general attack types in 4e, so my goal was to take any power that came along that provided "...and target falls prone" or any mention of disarming. Then I decided that anything that might grab a target would fit in with the concept (wrapping them around with the chain), and, if none of these choices was available, I'd go for the idea of a sweeping attack, such as a close burst smack-everyone-around-you attack. And if all else failed, I'd take a power that provided a slide or pull effect, as Placide tugs his opponents around the battlefield.
But it was tough! There were many choices of powers that fit with this idea. It also "helped" that, with the right choice of feats, the spiked chain was considered a flail, a two-handed weapon, two weapons, an off-hand weapon, a light blade, a double weapon, and reach weapon, which meant that any powers that offered up bonuses to use of such a weapon became appealing.
To level Placide through level 30 probably took two hours, on and off, of flipping back and forth between power descriptions and even feat descriptions. It was probably the most engaging character I've made in 4e.
On the heels of such a success, I tried to make Raven, my Druid/Shifter (and by far my favorite 3.5 character to play). Not having the Shifter prestige class was going to be a blow, but because the beast form was such a large part of the 4e druid, my idea was to focus on powers and feats that would allow 4e Raven to remain in beast form and be at her most powerful, with little regard to her human form. Also, going with the more feral build, I was going to avoid taking any powers that did energy damage, staying instead with claws, teeth and primal savagery.
Well I was successful, I suppose, in that I made a 30th level druid. But it wasn't nearly as fun, or interesting, or engaging, as making the fighter. I kept thinking that I wished I could have a little bit of a Rage effect, to really let the primal nature take over, or some stealthy creeping beast form to then sneak attack with -- but of course, I can't multiclass barbarian or rogue here. While I was able to apply my build "rules" and choose from my options easily, I ended up whipping through the 30 levels without really noticing it, without much thought.
You might be thinking, then, that it's my fault for coming up with this restrictive build, that made this character easy and uninteresting to make. But this is my point. I summarized this feeling to one of our group on Saturday night: that 3.5 allowed you to come up with some completely-custom idea for a character -- a stabby, lightning-casting, gnome who's good at tripping and throwing hammers -- and you could find a combination of classes, feats, spells and equipment to realize you very specific character concept. In 4e, you can try to do this, but in the end, are given only a handful of choices, and you have to try and be creative based on those (or perhaps in spite of those).
I got lucky with building 4e Placide, because there were lots of feats and powers that accentuated the idea behind him. But not so much with Raven. And perhaps the next book or Dragon article will give me the flexibility I need -- even 3.5 didn't have every bit of content available in the beginning -- but generally new content in 4e is for the new race or new class, not something that gets added to an existing class. Feats, sure, are available to most characters, but powers are always tied to a specific class. And if I can't take that power, then let me take that class *at any level I decide to*.
As Griff just mentioned, the Paragon Paths are helping to provide a few extra branches to the thin evergreens of the class progressions, but even those are limited, and the Epic Destinies are, as Griff believes, a bit limited.
Today I just tried another remake, this time recreating the ever-doomed Ish'us'q. Had Ish'us'q seen more years in 3.5, he would have focused on DR, SR and regeneration, likely going down the path of the forsaker. In 4e, I decided to build him similarly to the Dungeons & Dragons Online version of him, with heavy concentration on raging, a falchion, and taking out multiple foes at once. There are various powers that focus on raging, and when there wasn't one available, a close burst power was usually available. The choices were there, and I got my character, but, as with Raven, it just wasn't very satisfying. There's my barbarian, all made up and ready for 30 levels... but apart from the initial "choice" of my theme, it was a no-brainer at all 29 level-ups. The glimmer of hope I had for 4e character creation that I had when making Placide still wasn't recreated.
I'm not done yet -- I've got more classes to try out in the builder, both old and new. But instead of coming up with a theme and then sitting down to realize it on a character sheet, I will be browsing through the powers of my chosen class, and trying to come up something interesting, to stand out from the others.
What colour do you want your Ford Model T in?
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Character Builder redux
I recently commented on the Character Builder demo. They just released the full version this week.
I still really like this program. I can bitch and complain about WotC's methods about many things, predominantly their website, but this standalone tool is very well done.
It has a few little niggly things, of course; if you're rapidly levelling up a character (say, to make a 30th level character), then after each level up, the save step always prompts for overwriting the old file. It's something you should want it to do, of course, so as not to overwrite the wrong thing, but perhaps this should be a Save versus a Save As... feature, so by default you do reuse the same file.
This is emphasized by the fact that the save file keeps track of all of your decisions at each level-up, which I think it great. It lets you go back and see what you did, and when; it lets you go back and retroactively change something if you so choose; and it lets you make a 30th level character and still get access to what he or she looks like at the lower levels - something that can be handy for a recurring NPC.
There are a few Feats, specifically from Dragon #368, with a bunch of "styles" that affect some of the powers (exploits) you might have; these feats just display as "Augment at-will exploits" on the character sheet, but these augmentations don't appear on the power cards that are generated, which means you need to keep that issue of Dragon handy -- oh wait! It's digital, so I can't have that issue just sitting on the game table.
When you get to the point where you don't get MORE powers, but just the opportunity to swap out old ones, the interface requires that you lose a power before even getting to see what your list of choices is. This is a problem if you're hoping to swap out a low-level power for a higher-level equivalent. It slows down what is otherwise a very efficient, fluid action.
The Builder also has a link to the Compendium for everything, but the horrid authentication system makes this ineffective; unless you've just authenticated to your Insider account in the last few minutes, the window that the Builder pops up will not be logged in. It kindly offers to let you log in, but doesn't honour the attempt, and in the end you're forced to just pop up your browser and view the Compendium the old-fashioned way, breaking the usefulness of the link in the Builder. This isn't a fault with the Builder, it's the fault of the Insider site which keeps your login for, what, two minutes before expiring it?
But except for these little things, it works very well. I meant to time how long it took to create a character from 1st level to 30th, but I ended up doing it over a long span of a day, so I really couldn't say how long it took. Because the decisions at each level are so few, however, I'm sure it doesn't amount to much - reading the power descriptions is the most lengthy part. I don't mean this as a criticism of how simplistic the levelling-up is (that was in previous posts), but on how the Builder takes care of the "uhh, what else increases at this level?" stuff that you find yourself doing by-hand. Many of the incorrect totals we had before we tried the demo were because we forgot to add 1/2-level here and there, or recalculate this here... the software does all that for you, which is nice.
Doing this levelling-up exercise also gave me a pass through the paragon and epic feats, which I only glossed over when I first read the Player's Handbook, and it let me see the high-end powers for the Ranger class, which I hadn't read at all. In fact, I can see myself making a 30th-level character of each class as a way of learning the powers for them, because as odd as it seems, I'm finding it easier to read them in the software than browsing through the book -- reading page after page is what gave the glassy-eyed "these all look the same to me" feeling about the powers. As I build this Ranger, and formulate a "style" to her, I'm starting to realize that you CAN customize your class to be different from every other member of the class. Or perhaps that's just the ranger, because it has it's two very separate paths built-in -- the melee and ranged versions.
One thing that seems almost backwards, though, is that I have access to all of the material out there. Our group has a copy of Martial Power, but I've not looked at it yet; however, I've just read through most of the powers from that book that are available to a Ranger. Is this going to affect sales of books for Wizards? The old E-Tools required that you bought each of the books' data separately (or in packs), where the single Insider fee for access to the Builder gives me access to books I might never buy. I'm not complaining, mind you! I just hope it works out for Wizards. It's a great gesture, and anyone who has played 3.5, and had access to all of the extra source material (I think our group is missing half-a-dozen, tops?) will know how time-consuming it can be to go through them all, making sure that you've got in mind all of the options available to you (I'm not saying options are BAD!). Having all of the feats and powers available in one place, and also filtered for what you are able to take, is definitely a boon for any player.
I haven't been paying attention to how much the various parts of the Insider subscription cost, or the bundles, or whatever, but I definitely recommend this tool if you've got room in your budget, or if not, the group should pitch in and buy a subscription for the DM, and get him to punch in the character data for the party.
I still really like this program. I can bitch and complain about WotC's methods about many things, predominantly their website, but this standalone tool is very well done.
It has a few little niggly things, of course; if you're rapidly levelling up a character (say, to make a 30th level character), then after each level up, the save step always prompts for overwriting the old file. It's something you should want it to do, of course, so as not to overwrite the wrong thing, but perhaps this should be a Save versus a Save As... feature, so by default you do reuse the same file.
This is emphasized by the fact that the save file keeps track of all of your decisions at each level-up, which I think it great. It lets you go back and see what you did, and when; it lets you go back and retroactively change something if you so choose; and it lets you make a 30th level character and still get access to what he or she looks like at the lower levels - something that can be handy for a recurring NPC.
There are a few Feats, specifically from Dragon #368, with a bunch of "styles" that affect some of the powers (exploits) you might have; these feats just display as "Augment at-will exploits" on the character sheet, but these augmentations don't appear on the power cards that are generated, which means you need to keep that issue of Dragon handy -- oh wait! It's digital, so I can't have that issue just sitting on the game table.
When you get to the point where you don't get MORE powers, but just the opportunity to swap out old ones, the interface requires that you lose a power before even getting to see what your list of choices is. This is a problem if you're hoping to swap out a low-level power for a higher-level equivalent. It slows down what is otherwise a very efficient, fluid action.
The Builder also has a link to the Compendium for everything, but the horrid authentication system makes this ineffective; unless you've just authenticated to your Insider account in the last few minutes, the window that the Builder pops up will not be logged in. It kindly offers to let you log in, but doesn't honour the attempt, and in the end you're forced to just pop up your browser and view the Compendium the old-fashioned way, breaking the usefulness of the link in the Builder. This isn't a fault with the Builder, it's the fault of the Insider site which keeps your login for, what, two minutes before expiring it?
But except for these little things, it works very well. I meant to time how long it took to create a character from 1st level to 30th, but I ended up doing it over a long span of a day, so I really couldn't say how long it took. Because the decisions at each level are so few, however, I'm sure it doesn't amount to much - reading the power descriptions is the most lengthy part. I don't mean this as a criticism of how simplistic the levelling-up is (that was in previous posts), but on how the Builder takes care of the "uhh, what else increases at this level?" stuff that you find yourself doing by-hand. Many of the incorrect totals we had before we tried the demo were because we forgot to add 1/2-level here and there, or recalculate this here... the software does all that for you, which is nice.
Doing this levelling-up exercise also gave me a pass through the paragon and epic feats, which I only glossed over when I first read the Player's Handbook, and it let me see the high-end powers for the Ranger class, which I hadn't read at all. In fact, I can see myself making a 30th-level character of each class as a way of learning the powers for them, because as odd as it seems, I'm finding it easier to read them in the software than browsing through the book -- reading page after page is what gave the glassy-eyed "these all look the same to me" feeling about the powers. As I build this Ranger, and formulate a "style" to her, I'm starting to realize that you CAN customize your class to be different from every other member of the class. Or perhaps that's just the ranger, because it has it's two very separate paths built-in -- the melee and ranged versions.
One thing that seems almost backwards, though, is that I have access to all of the material out there. Our group has a copy of Martial Power, but I've not looked at it yet; however, I've just read through most of the powers from that book that are available to a Ranger. Is this going to affect sales of books for Wizards? The old E-Tools required that you bought each of the books' data separately (or in packs), where the single Insider fee for access to the Builder gives me access to books I might never buy. I'm not complaining, mind you! I just hope it works out for Wizards. It's a great gesture, and anyone who has played 3.5, and had access to all of the extra source material (I think our group is missing half-a-dozen, tops?) will know how time-consuming it can be to go through them all, making sure that you've got in mind all of the options available to you (I'm not saying options are BAD!). Having all of the feats and powers available in one place, and also filtered for what you are able to take, is definitely a boon for any player.
I haven't been paying attention to how much the various parts of the Insider subscription cost, or the bundles, or whatever, but I definitely recommend this tool if you've got room in your budget, or if not, the group should pitch in and buy a subscription for the DM, and get him to punch in the character data for the party.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Character Builder
I downloaded the Character Builder Beta program when it was first released. I was excited to see how well it managed things, because I've taken a stab at the problem before.
The easy part of a character program is representation -- storing the numbers and the text and laying it out in a manner that's esthetically pleasing and well-organized for play. This is why there are myriad spreadsheets and programs that exist that let you keep track of your character, many of them decent.
It's another thing entirely to get a system that knows the rules, so it can ensure that your character is legal (read: that you're not cheating) by ensuring that you've got the right number of feats, right number of powers, and that your numbers add up.
For 3.5, the best commercial program was probably E-Tools, which did a reasonably good job at calculating your character sheet for you, but of course required you to purchase all of the source material in add-on modules, to get the classes and races and magic items that your hardcover books gave you. E-Tools could possibly be considered the grandfather of the Character Builder.
On the free front, Heroforge was amazing for what it was. Probably the most complicated Excel spreadsheet in existence, it had quite the following and was a remarkable accomplishment for what it was. Last I looked, the Heroforge team were doing a complete rewrite and were going to support 4e.
But what about this Character Builder? Could it really be useful, and free (with subscription)? So far: yes.
The beta only lets you play with the first three levels of character development, which works out great for our group, because they only JUST hit fourth level last play session. A few sessions before that, however, I had grabbed everyone's character sheets and punched them into the Builder, to see how well it handled a real-world sample of characters.
I'd say that every character had something wrong. Wrong on OUR end, that is, whether it was a missed bonus here or a forgotten feat there. Right away, the benefit of getting a computer to do your math for you, especially when it has access to every formula in the game, is evident.
If we were sticklers for this sort of thing, the Builder also keeps track of whether the character is "house-ruled" or not, marking it so based on whether you've got extra feats, too much loot, or ability scores out of whack. In our campaigns, we tend to allow point-buy or 4d6 rolling, and thus the two 4d6ers ended up as "house-ruled", since that's not a verifiable way of getting your abilities (for purposes of the RPGA, for instance).
Your powers (see below) are all presented with the math all done for them, adding in proficiency bonuses, ability bonuses, feats and implements. Very handy, especially as you level up and increase the chance of forgetting to advance some number or another.
It's unfortunate that you cannot set up different equipment configurations, to get stats for shield-and-sword, as well as two-handed-spear, etc. I believe E-Tools supported this.
The level-up feature in the software is nice, because if you enter each level separately, then you can, at any time, go back through and see the character in previous levels. Once you level up, it gives you a checklist of things that you need to decide -- new power, new feat, ability scores, etc. Very easy to use. Granted, levelling up in 4e is so easy that even *I* can do it.
The best part of the Builder, though, might very well be the cards at the end of the sheet. These 2.5"x3.5" sheets give you your powers and other effects in a nice succinct layout, providing the math for the power and giving you the to-hit and damage numbers you need. They have the rules for the power summarized right on the card. And they even provide a cheatsheet to give the DM so he or she has all of that character's useful information printed out instead of on a ratty piece of paper. Assuming the players play along, these sheets allow you to keep track of your dailies and encounter powers that are used (flip them upside down or "tap" them), and I use the cheatsheets as the characters' initiative order during combat.
The programmer in me wonders how they encode all of the rules, of course, and wish that that data was available for use, but I guess we have the Compendium for that. All told, though, I've quite impressed with this tool (more than I thought I'd be), and am looking forward to the full version to be released, not only so we can update our party to fourth level, but to also play with it a bit to make some 20th and 30th level characters, just to see how well it does (and to see what a 20th/30th level 4e character looks like!)
The easy part of a character program is representation -- storing the numbers and the text and laying it out in a manner that's esthetically pleasing and well-organized for play. This is why there are myriad spreadsheets and programs that exist that let you keep track of your character, many of them decent.
It's another thing entirely to get a system that knows the rules, so it can ensure that your character is legal (read: that you're not cheating) by ensuring that you've got the right number of feats, right number of powers, and that your numbers add up.
For 3.5, the best commercial program was probably E-Tools, which did a reasonably good job at calculating your character sheet for you, but of course required you to purchase all of the source material in add-on modules, to get the classes and races and magic items that your hardcover books gave you. E-Tools could possibly be considered the grandfather of the Character Builder.
On the free front, Heroforge was amazing for what it was. Probably the most complicated Excel spreadsheet in existence, it had quite the following and was a remarkable accomplishment for what it was. Last I looked, the Heroforge team were doing a complete rewrite and were going to support 4e.
But what about this Character Builder? Could it really be useful, and free (with subscription)? So far: yes.
The beta only lets you play with the first three levels of character development, which works out great for our group, because they only JUST hit fourth level last play session. A few sessions before that, however, I had grabbed everyone's character sheets and punched them into the Builder, to see how well it handled a real-world sample of characters.
I'd say that every character had something wrong. Wrong on OUR end, that is, whether it was a missed bonus here or a forgotten feat there. Right away, the benefit of getting a computer to do your math for you, especially when it has access to every formula in the game, is evident.
If we were sticklers for this sort of thing, the Builder also keeps track of whether the character is "house-ruled" or not, marking it so based on whether you've got extra feats, too much loot, or ability scores out of whack. In our campaigns, we tend to allow point-buy or 4d6 rolling, and thus the two 4d6ers ended up as "house-ruled", since that's not a verifiable way of getting your abilities (for purposes of the RPGA, for instance).
Your powers (see below) are all presented with the math all done for them, adding in proficiency bonuses, ability bonuses, feats and implements. Very handy, especially as you level up and increase the chance of forgetting to advance some number or another.
It's unfortunate that you cannot set up different equipment configurations, to get stats for shield-and-sword, as well as two-handed-spear, etc. I believe E-Tools supported this.
The level-up feature in the software is nice, because if you enter each level separately, then you can, at any time, go back through and see the character in previous levels. Once you level up, it gives you a checklist of things that you need to decide -- new power, new feat, ability scores, etc. Very easy to use. Granted, levelling up in 4e is so easy that even *I* can do it.
The best part of the Builder, though, might very well be the cards at the end of the sheet. These 2.5"x3.5" sheets give you your powers and other effects in a nice succinct layout, providing the math for the power and giving you the to-hit and damage numbers you need. They have the rules for the power summarized right on the card. And they even provide a cheatsheet to give the DM so he or she has all of that character's useful information printed out instead of on a ratty piece of paper. Assuming the players play along, these sheets allow you to keep track of your dailies and encounter powers that are used (flip them upside down or "tap" them), and I use the cheatsheets as the characters' initiative order during combat.
The programmer in me wonders how they encode all of the rules, of course, and wish that that data was available for use, but I guess we have the Compendium for that. All told, though, I've quite impressed with this tool (more than I thought I'd be), and am looking forward to the full version to be released, not only so we can update our party to fourth level, but to also play with it a bit to make some 20th and 30th level characters, just to see how well it does (and to see what a 20th/30th level 4e character looks like!)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
