Community

First I will tell a bit about where I am coming from. I have been playing since I turned 15 I am now 39 so I have been playing D&D for about 25 years, I have seen many things in D&D come and go. I have run my own campaign world for around 22 of those years. My game world is almost complete with god's, creation myths, unique monsters. I witnessed the release and know the origin of iconic creatures such as Death Knights, Ettercap, Githyanki & Githzerai, Hook Horror, Kuo-Toa, Ravenant, Slaad’s and many others. And to me Vecna is only an uppity Wizard/Lich that was beat down a couple times.

When it comes to the inventiveness of a small group of people (people at WotC) there inventiveness pales compared to the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of players and DM’s that are playing the game. For my game and I would guess many of the games out there there’s a LOT of house rules that never get applied as they should be.

The inability to change the character generator to reflect my house rules means that I am hard presses to endorse the character generator to my players. Similarly the reduced capacity to change monsters on the monster creator means that I need to use both the beta downloadable one and the on line one though it’s the downloadable one that gives me more use.


Character generator

The Character generator should let me set up a set of house rules that I can have all my players can join with either a code from me either the name or number of the campaign I registered the group under. Then place some of their characters in my campaign setting and make characters that reflect my game rules so if I restrict classes or races points buy value or other things that will have the restrictions show up when they are making their characters up.

Lastly so I don’t need to get them to export their character and then send it to me or log into their account on my PC on game day then to export it onto my PC and have me log into my PC to import it with is such a bother on game day, make any character that is registered into my game world show up on my PC as a character I can see and not change but copy and then change. And make characters that break the rules of my game world show up with an orange tag or something similar so I know when a character is broken or not enough points spent or missing some choices.


Monster Generator

The monster generator needs to have a way to change the monsters to be more of what I want them to be 10-20% or the monsters I use are created or adjusted creatures and not monsters with different levels as the current monster generator does. Changing gear is a basic thing and I cannot even do that I can I mean I change the “Drow Assassin “ to use a bastard sword +4 and even change the name of its attack to Magic bastard sword +4 but the damage on the attack and the gear he has on him does not change. So I need to change it then figure it out in my head then go back and change a bunch of crap by hand, that’s is why I am PAYING a monthly fee for to not have to do basic things so it will take less of my time with annoying tasks. For weapon attacks I would be able to just select a weapon in a drop down list to give an attack its damage or if I want to change things more I could be able change damage free form.

 

Sep 15, 2011 -- 9:35AM, The_sleeper1 wrote:

Monster Generator

The monster generator needs to have a way to change the monsters to be more of what I want them to be 10-20% or the monsters I use are created or adjusted creatures and not monsters with different levels as the current monster generator does. Changing gear is a basic thing and I cannot even do that I can I mean I change the “Drow Assassin “ to use a bastard sword +4 and even change the name of its attack to Magic bastard sword +4 but the damage on the attack and the gear he has on him does not change. So I need to change it then figure it out in my head then go back and change a bunch of crap by hand, that’s is why I am PAYING a monthly fee for to not have to do basic things so it will take less of my time with annoying tasks. For weapon attacks I would be able to just select a weapon in a drop down list to give an attack its damage or if I want to change things more I could be able change damage free form.

Perhaps you don't know the basics of 4E monster building.  Monsters != PCs.  They are not built the same.  They do not have the same assumptions.  They do NOT use the same rules.  Monster damage in 4E is intentionally abstract and has nothing to do with the weapons they use.  Your comments here lead me to believe you are coming from a 3.5 mindset where monsters are built just like PCs and have equipment and such.  This is no longer true in 4E.  The builder works exactly as intended.  Until Tuesday (when we are getting a massive upgrade of the online builder) you should be using the downloadable offline tool anyway.  It has the customizations you are looking for (control of damage die types for monster powers and even the damage amount).  Even after the update you'll want the offline tool to convert the XML export of the online tool into RTF or plain text for putting multiple stat blocks on the same printed page until they add that feature into the online.

About the rest:  I know this may seem obvious, but you're not required to have DDI to play D&D.  You're not required to endorse it to your friends.  As a consumer you have a voice.  The loudest voice is the one that says quietly: "I'm not buying your product".

Sep 17, 2011 -- 7:36PM, Drakimor wrote:

Sep 15, 2011 -- 9:35AM, The_sleeper1 wrote:

About the rest:  I know this may seem obvious, but you're not required to have DDI to play D&D.  You're not required to endorse it to your friends.  As a consumer you have a voice.  The loudest voice is the one that says quietly: "I'm not buying your product".

To play it full force you do. They have put out so much material it's virtually impossible to play "well" and keep up if you do not pay. I won't even get started on keeping up with all the errata. Do you know the piles of paper you would have to have with you at any time to equal the builder?

No. No. No. No.  DDI is a convenience.  It is NOT required no matter what you or anyone else says.  Characters can be made just fine without it, it just takes longer.

Now, having said that - I personally have used DDI as a book purchace replacement.  I have PHB1, MM1, DMG1, MM3, and RC.  All other content I access via DDI instead of via purchase.

Sep 18, 2011 -- 1:21PM, The_sleeper1 wrote:

Nope your mistaken I am not comming from 3.5 I am comming from Basic, Advanced, Second Ed, a bit of 3.5 and yes 4.0. In all itterations you can make up a totaly new creature with totaly new abilitys or a new creature with slightly different abilitys than a listed creature. That is a thing that ALL rules itterations from basic to 4.0 permit and encourage. You see I am refering to the kinds of things listed in DMG 2 chapter 4, it was important enough to devote 31 pages to it in DMG 2 alone and of the 4000 creatures in the CB at least 5% (1/20) seem to be a named and mabey as much as 10-20% seem to be disgned towards a special adventure or adventure group.

 DDI is NOT a convenience, its a service I am paying for that does not cover the basics of the game. They want my money to continue I want a reason to keep on paying.

PS: Your wrong about magic items not effecting creatures acording to the Monster Magic Treshold, DMG pg 174 a monster of level 11-15 gets no benefit from a magic item of +1 to +2 but a weapon of +3 has the effects as a +1 weapon on the given monsters stats and a weapon of +4 has the same effects as a weapon of +2 on the given creatures stats. Also there are rules for increaseing a monsters AC with better non magic armor like for example a war troll wearing plate mail.

And did you read the paragraphs that come right after that chart on p174?  You're not supposed to do what you're talking about in 4E.  Changing equipment and having those changes reflected in a critter stat block is something that 4E threw out the window.  If you want a critter to be tougher, you change it's level 99% of the time.

As for "convenience" we may just be passing each other on our use of terms.  DDI is a service yes.  It is a service that should be saving you time as a player and/or DM.  How it saves you time is kind of abstract and not so important (pre-written adventures, CB, MB, etc), just that it does indeed save you time.  This time savings is how I describe DDI as a "convenince".  If by this definition DDI is NOT a convenience, then you should be cancelling your sub right now and getting your money back because what you're saying is you get no value from DDI.

As for custom monsters, what I said originally still stands.  Get the offline MB.  You'll need it until the online one has export to RTF, image, and plain text since the Tuesday update will only have the XML export format. 

This is a false assertion based on the monster building rules for 4e.  Just because you CAN change gear does not imply the kind of connection between the gear and the monsters powers.  You seem to be implying that there is a cause and effect between giving a monster a bastard sword and the damage it does with it's attacks.  What I have been telling you is that 4E doesn't care what equipment the monster uses.  It's entirely abstract.  I can have a monster using a bastard sword and have his attacks do 3d6 (note it's not some quantity of d10's like a PC would be).  I can have a monster using a dagger and have his attacks do 4d10 (note it's not some quantity of d4's).  I can equip a monster with plate mail and a heavy sheild and give it a 15 AC (note it's not 20 which a PC would get).  My point (as you repeated below) is 100% correct and just because you can create a relationship (by designing a monster with a bastard sword that does 1d10 damage) does not disprove this fact.  Just because the rules allow you to put a magic item on a critter, does not mean you need to do anything but give it +1 to hit and damage and call it done.  In fact, the text below that chart is telling you that "you can use these rules, but generally you shouldn't".

Sep 18, 2011 -- 6:05PM, The_sleeper1 wrote:

I am only mentioning equipment in such depth because you said "Monster damage in 4E is intentionally abstract and has nothing to do with the weapons they use" I will agree that it is generaly easyer and faster to just change a monsters level then gear it up special but gearing is still permitted showing your statement to be false.

Monster damage is 99% determined by it's level and various other factors (role, type - artillery/brute, standard/solo) that have nothing to do with what equipment it is using.

The most you should ever do to a creature is +1 hit/damage from a magic item OR +1 AC (note the OR).  If you're doing more than this you should be adjusting it's level.  Level is tied into a creatures XP value and how tough it is to defeat.  As soon as you start "gearing up" a critter you break that relationship between XP, level, and toughness.  The rules provided are intended for 1 creature in an encounter (typically a standard or an elite - and not a solo - as bumps to a solo is like a bump to 5 creatures).

As for abilities, adding and removing powers should not have any impact on creature toughness as those powers should have a to hit bonus and damage numbers based on it's level.  For example you don't take Orcus's necrotic aura and give it to a level 1 mob without lowering the damage to something approriate to a level 1 critter (~2-3 maybe).