4th & Dragon : Dungeons and Dragons...and stuff

Wizards is good at making games (yeah yeah I know I said it), not software.  I have never used official character sheets nor would I expect to use this.  There are better and more customizable options already out there.  But! we all start at level 1 so if I have to endure this (and even worse, pay for it) before they are epic software engineers so be it.

Where’d you find that screen shot Jim?

If that’s the look of things to come, then the Character Builder won’t be worth much.  Of course, since I already use cards to represent my character, I was expecting that anyways.

I also really don’t like this lack of notice on the when subscriptions will start.  We keep getting told “soon” but not actual dates and they even had the nerve in today’s Digital Insider to say:

...that at some point soon you will attempt to access a Compendium entry, or a Bonus Tool, or a magazine article and you’ll be asked to purchase a subscription in order to continue.

Not very encouraging that they can’t even set a date for subscriptions to start.

While I would love to get all of the wonderful articles, I just don’t know if I can hold my breath and jump in all at once.

This sucks.  Hard.  Not a promising start.

I really like what I have seen of the character builder interface. The PHB-like screens to pick powers, feats, etc are very appealing. However, if it results in a hideous character sheet with gobs of needlessly wasted space, I don’t think I would ever bother using it. If that’s the best character sheet you get from it, I would probably stick to the form-fillable version of Shado’s excellent sheet, even for pre-gen characters to use at my once a month, non-linear games.

I wonder if the people at Wizards actually use their own character sheets and materials, either due to personal preference or corporate obligation, or if they ever bother to try some of the clearly superior fan-created content?

Hopefully they do a better job with its ability to print power cards/sheets, because I would definitely pay for the ability to get a “select and print” power sheet in a heartbeat. I have cards printed, but they tend to get lost or damaged when I use them outside my home game, so I would love to be able to quickly generate a sheet of powers for a one-time use character.

I was at PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) at the end of August and they had the character builder available to play with in a limited fashion (1-3 level PHB stuff only).

It seems a good solid resource, alongside being able to quickly throw a sheet together using it, it also compiles power cards with all the information present and numbers calculated.  This makes it especially useful if you need to throw a character together for play at short notice.

Jim, hasn’t that screen shot of the character sheet been around for at least several months?  Perhaps they have changed that aspect of the design, though we can’t for sure know until we can play with the thing.

KalAgrim, since you have seen the character builder fairly recently, does that klunky character sheet interface still exist, and if it does how was your experience using it.  Does it work better than it looks?

Not very encouraging that they can’t even set a date for subscriptions to start.

I think it is more sinister than stupid.  I bet the start date is already well known inside WotC.  But if they gave us a hard date, everyone would wait for the day before, then download all the free content.  With an unknown date, we are forced to continually go in and get the free content as soon as its available, knowing that it could disappear tomorrow.  They are attempting to drive page views and site visits.

If I remember rightly when you are picking powers and such you dont actually use a sheet, its got it’s own UI and things, then a sheet is generated at the end with all the info in place.

The only time you can use the sheet and edit it yourself is if you are wanting to add Homebrew content where you have to manually type in all the info, not an option I used, so I cant comment on the friendliness of the interface for doing so.

Thanks.  I think that clears things up a little.  I would guess that the ugly screen shot we are seeing is exactly the Homebrew self-entered data you are talking about, since the caption on the web page next to it is about Homebrew characters.

Yeah,

To answer someone’s earlier comment though, it does use the WotC offical sheet format when it prints out, so you get the standard black and white blocks affair, Im sure they could have come up with something better, but then again for a release product, it makes sense to use a sheet people will (or at least should) be familiar with, ie the one from the back of the PHB

Not to take away from this topic at all, but I’d like to see something like a DM’s folder.  Maybe charge the DM a little more to have this service, but he could allow people to sign in and create their character (nothing more unless they subscribe to more) and add it to the DM’s game. 

This would allow the DM to add items to a sheet, check on whatever, or hell just print it out.  Not like we’ve ever forgotten a character sheet at home. 

I would like to see an XML print out though too so I could email it out to people who didn’t subscribe.

Two clarifications:

1. Once the Beta goes open, it will stay open until the commercial version of the app is available.  At that time the Beta version will be replaced by the Demo version and subscribers will be able to get the full version.  Functionally they will be the same, just the full version will have all thirty levels.

2. The Character data is saved as a .dnd4e file.  This is actually an XML file that can be opened with any text/XML editor.  Below is a snippet of the ability scores for the sample basic fighter character included with the builder.  I don’t plan on us publishing a schema for this anytime soon, but the schema can be derived from the file.  Sorry, can’t publish a complete sheet now, as it will probably change before Beta as we continue to test and fix bugs.  It will probably see some changes during the Beta phase as well.

The sum of this is that if the community would like to take this data and make custom character sheets/viewers: fair game.  We are focused on providing an excellent tool for character creation and printing out the character sheet for use at the game table.

BTW, there are some cool features of the character sheet viewer we’ve built that will address many of people’s concerns, but you’ll have to wait till the Beta to see them.

Don Frazier
Sr. Manager of Software Development - D&D Insider
Wizards of the Coast

<Stat value="20">
<alias name="Strength" >
<alias name="str" >
<statadd value="18" >
<statadd Level="1" value="2" charelem="7513d98" >
</Stat>
<Stat value="10">
<alias name="Constitution" >
<alias name="con" >
<statadd value="10" >
</Stat>
<Stat value="14">
<alias name="Dexterity" >
<alias name="dex" >
<statadd value="14" >
</Stat>
<Stat value="10">
<alias name="Intelligence" >
<alias name="int" >
<statadd value="10" >
</Stat>
<Stat value="11">
<alias name="Wisdom" >
<alias name="wis" >
<statadd value="11" >
</Stat>
<Stat value="8">
<alias name="Charisma" >
<alias name="cha" >
<statadd value="8" >
</Stat>

Not being really familiar with XML, I’m not sure of exactly what to make of that format.

However, I can tell that I could fairly easily write python routines designed to extract the right information so I assume that anyone who is decently competent at programing or XML could design an interface that displayed the character information in a more ascetically pleasing manner than the sheet in the back of the PHB.

Oh, and it’s nice to know we’re important enough for people at Wizards to actually be reading our site!

XML output is cool.  I don’t know how to use it, but I’ve seen it used well with DungeonRunners and various methods to view characters outside the game.  That’s promising.

My biggest beef with this whole thing?  No dates for when the charging will start.  Nebulous “in October” and “soon” doesn’t work for me.

Well, if you’re a subscriber, you’re supposed to have a character vault capable of storing characters for you.  Presumably this will still be stored in the same format as the builder saves to your hard drive, so it should be a fairly easy process to point some web app at your character vault.

Of course, said web app may need to know your login information and how to handle the login prompt should you not be logged in and Wizards would have to make the data structure of their server clean enough that you could figure out where the XML file is being stored.

Very glad they are going with xml output. It should be a snap to link it to a web service as well as format it all purty like! =)
Very glad to hear that they are going in this direction.

WotC has officially announced a start date: tomorrow Tuesday October 14th. 

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/insidernews/20081013

The big news I see is that all Dungeon and Dragon content up to October will remain free and accessible, and of October’s info, the barbarian will remain free.  Compendium information for levels 1-3 from the Core books will also be free.  Pretty nice of them.

Prices are about what I remember being talked about before:
12 Months $4.95 per month
3 Months $6.65 per month
1 Month $7.95 per month

Gah!  Couldn’t wait ‘til the 15th when I’d get paid.

Oh and since the prices are subject to change it would be a good idea to buy in bulk know so when they up the price to 15/mo you can at least finish out your year at the 5/mo price.

I’m still really torn though, I want the mags.  5/mo isn’t a bad price for just them.

I reckon I’ll fork for it too, just depends on what payment methods they are accepting, because I dont have a credit card.

5/mo isnt bad for the mags, but remember we get the other tools in there too when they are done, which could be quite good.  The ideas they have are interesting..... how they will pan out is another matter, but the ideas are good.

Oh and since the prices are subject to change it would be a good idea to buy in bulk know so when they up the price to 15/mo you can at least finish out your year at the 5/mo price.

I’m certainly subscribing, but when I have a wife and player as a lawyer, there’s something to keep in mind.  When you check that box that asks if you agree to their terms, make sure you’ve read it.