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9 months ago ::
Sep 14, 2012 - 2:09PM
#1
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Date Joined:
Oct 17, 2007
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I kind of fell off the D&D map a while back around when Essentials came out.
Especially since a lot of the Essentials stuff started getting mixed up with the pre-essentials stuff in things like the character builder.
How are things looking now?
I'm considering signing back up jut to get access to the monster compendium for adventure writing.
Have things improved/worsened much in the past year or so?
Nifty Icon courtesy of Tod.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 16, 2012 - 3:20PM
#2
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Date Joined:
Aug 13, 2009
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I did the same thing. CB is still useful, but a UI/UX disaster. The "New" character button does something that has to do with D&D Essentials, but it's not clear what, but it doesn't create a "New" character in the generic sense. Your other option is "Create Custom Character" which doesn't do that either, it asks you to build a character for a specific campaing setting - ironically the default campaign setting doesn't exist and there isn't a "custom" compaign setting. That may be alright, though, as it's not at all clear that it does anything anyway.
There's no longer a way to specify which rule sets/source books you are using, so everything gets all lumped together, and the listing's don't have filters or even label where a power/feat comes from. You have to click on every one to see it's origin.
There's still no way to add an arbitrary new weapon or power.
The application is still based on Silverlight, which does pose a number of browser compatibility issues and rules out mobile support. Chrome and Safari are no longer officially supported, for example.
The application still won't run in an offline more, and it's still got peculiar printing issues.
Other than being awful from a user interface and user experience point of view, it still has all the character powers and feats and most of them work correctly.
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8 months ago ::
Oct 01, 2012 - 2:28PM
#3
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Date Joined:
Aug 20, 2007
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The online monster builder does not have a built-in way to export monsters into text programs, such as adventures, etc. Many people are printing to pdf or using screen caprtures as a work-around and as a way of ensuring off-line access, but again this isn't editable.
Compendium still is fine, and is generally up-to-date. You can copy-paste monsters directly from there and edit them, but the formatting pretty much goes out the window when you do.
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