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Mr Beens
Dec 2, 2006

Koranak posted:

Please note I am quoting the old thread here:

I for one would greatly prefer the ability to choose whether to check for updates as a totally separate process from starting the character builder. I check this thread frequently, and when I see something major has been added, or something that I use has been updated/fixed, I'd like to press the magic red button and have the shiny new stuff.

I'd like this too.

One thing I am confused about though with the person that got yelled at for posting links to stuff at the end of the last thread - once it gets converted to the character builder isn't that the same, as you don't need a subscription?

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Mr Beens
Dec 2, 2006

Greyhawk Fan posted:

Concerning wizards it just occurred to me that WotC has given free Magic Missiles to the Mage sub-class (which has serious hook-ups) and also free Magic Missiles to the Bladesinger sub-class (which also has tons of special stuff).

I wonder why they decided to not give free Magic Missiles to the default wizard or Arcanist sub-class too? Seems like a pretty lovely thing considering the Mage has all the spells and more than the Arcanist and hook-ups to boot.

Wonder if folks are submitting feedback to that effect. If they don't fix it in the final version I might modify my Deluxe Missiles part to give the Arcanist Magic Missile Feature too. Seems odd that 2/3 of wizards would get this for free but they would leave the Player's Handbook crowd in the dust.

That was one of a bunch of things I included in my feedback email to WoTC about the arcanist playtest :)

Mr Beens
Dec 2, 2006
Enlarge spell info is appearing on all arcane at will and encounter power cards, not just burst and blasts.

To be honest I think that something like this that is a personal preference shouldn't be included in the default setup. Would you be able to do it in a way that it only appears as like a house rule or something?

Not sure I'm a big fan of the new "short" feat descriptions - in a lot of cases the whole feat text is now in the feat description :(

Mr Beens fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Sep 3, 2011

Mr Beens
Dec 2, 2006

Greyhawk Fan posted:

I think it would probably be best for any feat to show up on the sheet only once. Having it appear twice actually takes up considerable more room on the character sheet as your loosing an entire extra line (or two).

While some of the short feat descriptions were really poor I don't understand the need to rewrite them all and making them huge. The long feat description is actually the one we should be concerned about for selecting feats. When you highlight a feat when you are choosing them it shows the full long description. As long as this is fully accurate to me that is good. You are supposed to have your books with you when you are playing. If you really have a complicated feat description then you can print the sucker out in the Compendium and throw it into your character folder. Plus if it is that complicated your Dungeon Master has probably already investigated it. Fourth edition feats were designed to be limited and concise. We are seeing some serious feat bloat and counter-design by the current staff of WotC. The days of having a two or three paragraph feat description were supposed to be over with Third Edition. I haven't been real happy with the new articles since the new post-layoff team started trying to write them instead of cannibalizing stuff like the Class Compendium book (that was already written).

Maybe all this effort being put into rewriting feat descriptions could be made into a home-brew optional part file that adds "feat cards" to the builder. These feat cards could have the full text of these feats on its own card with all of the latest errata and be very readable without crushing the limited space of page 1 of the character sheet. Some level 30 characters are seeing some extreme damage to the "short descriptions" because they are running right off the page and make even less sense than before. And no most of us don't want to add an extra page to our character sheet. Three page character sheets are horrible. Unless you really want to go gonzo and expand all the short descriptions for all race features and all class features and stop suppressing them and turn the single character sheet into a four-page character booklet I personally would rather print them as a single double-sided page.

Agreed - you said what I was trying to say in a much more concise way :)
It's not that all the effort is un appreciated, it just seems to me that because we CAN do stuff with the character builder, doesn't mean we HAVE to.

Mr Beens
Dec 2, 2006

Sakri posted:

I don't want to click through all the feats when making a character and reviewing feat options. I like it that the immediately visible short descriptions give me enough information about whether the feat is worth considering.



You know you can page through the feats with the up and down arrow keys? Then the full description is displayed on the right.

Drewjitsu posted:


EDIT: is there anyway to get a feat/power/etc to apply to a power that is ranged? I know the builder can parse "ranged basic" but is there way to tell it what is a ranged power or not? Because if there was, enlarge spell could work as all wizard powers are either ranged x, burst y, or blast z. If we said "throw that text string on to all powers !ranged" it would work better. As it stands right now, it's very close to being perfect, it just shows up on the Ranged powers, when it shouldn't.


There are a couple of wizard powers that are melee too (don't know the exact ones, but I know they exist :( )

Mr Beens fucked around with this message at 09:53 on Sep 5, 2011

Mr Beens
Dec 2, 2006
There is a bug in a paragon path from the Dragonborn Races book (which is in the main dnd40 file).

It reads :

<RulesElement name="Storm Spirit" type="Class Feature" internal-id="ID_FMP_CLASS_FEATURE_2155" source="Player's Handbook Races: Dragonborn" revision-date="10/5/2010 1:47:05 PM" >
<Category> 11 </Category>
<specific name="Short Description" />
<specific name="Level"> 11 </specific>
<rules>
<statadd name="resist:lightning" value="+10" type="resist" />
<statadd name="thunder:lightning" value="+10" type="resist" />
</rules>

The error is in the resist section - it should read:

<statadd name="resist:lightning" value="+10" type="resist" />
<statadd name="resist:thunder" value="+10" type="resist" />

Mr Beens
Dec 2, 2006

Nuns with Guns posted:

I got a strange error while I was trying to start up the CBLoader for the first time. My friend installed it and said it'd be a lot less hassle than the online one, but now he's not around and I was wondering if anyone here could make heads or tails of this:

Is it possible to run this character builder or did he give me a bad copy?

Looks like a bad version of that file - you get the same error if you try to merge in a part file that has an invalid character in the XML (like a ' )

Mr Beens
Dec 2, 2006
I'm trying to make a custom theme for my game.

I've copied an existing theme that has a similar structure (alchemist from Dragon Magazine), changed all the flavour text IDs etc and it works fine in the CB (I can select it, read all my changes, features get added at 1st, 5th and 10th etc.)

The problem I am having is with the utility powers that you can swap out for class powers - with the original themes they show up in the character builder when choosing a theme at the bottom (via the ShowPower line I assume).
In my modified theme they are not there.

They do show up in the power selection menu as valid choices at level 2, 6 and 10.

Woss-goin-on? :confused:

Mr Beens
Dec 2, 2006

Drewjitsu posted:

This is badass. Now we can actually put all those feats that change the second wind power to work!

EDIT:
Here is a compendium check list of feats that include "Second Wind" in them:


There are loads of items also (off the top of my head, a poo poo load of tattoos, various armours etc).

Mr Beens
Dec 2, 2006

Greyhawk Fan posted:

I generally recommend that for alignment based prerequisite that they be spelled out fully under <print-prereqs> but be totally omitted from the actual <Prereqs> tags. We have to make DMs check something. :) It also makes the builder work a whole lot better. :)

Surely though it is better for people who do not understand the rules to get blocked by the CB than them thinking they have made a valid character, turn up to a session then have to remake it as it is not following the rules?
The whole point of the character builder is that it is meant to enable you to make rules consistent characters so that the DM doesn't have to check every item on every character sheet to make sure it is not broken?

Mr Beens
Dec 2, 2006

Greyhawk Fan posted:

Hey folks

Homebrew Fixes
It was reported to me that some (not all) of the homebrew stuff was producing processing errors. I just checked and fixed 26 of these errors and the next time you update it should correct itself (if you use these files). Largely they were encoding issues. I also corrected the Unearth Arcana index and "StrangeGods" part file that had an incorrect filename internally. I don't use the UA mods so if someone that does would check and make sure your PC still works that would be great.

404 Errors
I was also told about a bunch of 404 file not found errors. The files are still there. The DNS or IP for cbloader.com is changing or has had some minor adjustments. I hadn't noticed any problems until today. I will let MSR know. Seems to only affect some of the "Homebrew" files. Ignore the problem for now and hopefully it will be fixed.

Just got 505 errors getting updates for part files 0 through 10. part 11 fighter and a few others seemed to update OK.

Mr Beens
Dec 2, 2006

rantmo posted:

That is indeed the character and I suspect it will be awesome to play (thanks to Improved Monk Unarmed Strike and Shock Trooper his unarmed attacks are d12s). So I guess the bug is that the enhancement bonuses aren't cancelling each other out.

EDIT: No, the bug is that I've come down with a case of illiteracy. Everything is working properly.

No you get +2 per tier, which means that as you are in paragon your enhancement bonus is +4.

Mr Beens
Dec 2, 2006
Lots of errata today - http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/updates
Although it looks like the pdfs haven't actually been updated with stuff referenced in the summary table.

e: Sounds like the pages went live before the updates were uploaded. Should be sorted out later in the day.

Mr Beens fucked around with this message at 14:47 on Jan 12, 2012

Mr Beens
Dec 2, 2006
Can't seem to find the "Alchemists Essence" from Mordenkinans Emporium. All the other new alchemy stuff is in there apart from this one.
It's similar to the potions of resistance in that you choose the element type at creation.

http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/compendium/item.aspx?id=3281

Mr Beens
Dec 2, 2006

urzafrank posted:

I just wanted to point out that the assassin power called poisonous shuriken is coded as a melee weapon power when it is a ranged weapon power. could somebody please fix this? or show me how?

7 posts before yours :D

Mr Beens
Dec 2, 2006
So something has gone screwey with channel divinity.
Whenever you create a new character that gets it as a class feature the class summary in the right hand window displays 12 different channel divinty powers from cleric, avenger, invoker, warpriest, paladin and one gained from a feat.

The correct powers are assigned to the character, it's just the display that is wrong.

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Mr Beens
Dec 2, 2006

Greyhawk Fan posted:

Finally got my hands on the Dungeon Survival Handbook. Wow am I underwhelmed. For the final fourth edition "rules and option book" it contains very little compared to any other 4E book. It wastes several pages talking about how awesome old modules where, and since WotC doesn't sell those PDFs anymore, it is basically a complete waste and page filler. Looks like a student project more than a book where the pupil had to use so many words and just didn't know what to discuss.

There are 7 new themes and 3 new races and a few pages of Dungeon themed powers for different almost random seeming classes (they are all mixed together). That is the first 71 pages. The next 90 pages are the ones that are total filler grade material. Including a bit on Castle Ravenloft. Sure, Castle Ravenloft had a dungeon but it was hardly the typical Dungeon. It was far from it. I would never expect to read about Castle Ravenloft in the Dungeon Survival Guide. I would totally expect to see it in Heroes of Horror instead. Unless you are a kobold junkie I would say stay away from this book. I was expecting a lot more for the final option book.

Yeah, was expecting more player options such as rituals, equipment, magic items etc, and MD options such as terrain features, traps, dungeon building guidelines etc.

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