| #1Son_Of_StewalkerJan 20, 2010 4:40:24 | I'd like to say, first of all, that I love this tool. This makes my life so much easier as a DM, not to mention sometimes I open it up just for fun. That said, there are a few things I would like to see done with the product to make it more friendly. I'm not asking for any wacky modifications for houserule games -- rather, I think that these suggestions would be useful for players of all games.
In no particular order:
- Ability to toggle whether certain racial/class features and feats show up on the sheet.
- Right now it's all or nothing. I'd like to turn some of them off, like skill bonuses (which are shown elsewhere), and turn off sub-choices that make things take up a ton of extra lines (like 3 lines for Dragon Breath, which could easily be handled by a note on one line). This is especially important once you get to Epic tier, since class/paragon/destiny features all get crammed into one box, and being able to hide useless entries would make it easier to navigate.
- Ability to get rid of multi-level information on power cards.
- I understand why this is on the pre-printed cards, but since the character builder automaticaly calculates relevant attack and damge for the power based on my level, these other lines are useless. Besides, how many people use their character sheet for more than 1 or 2 levels before printing a new one?
- Short descriptions (like feats have) or an auto-generated page for rituals.
- Right now having the list on the sheet with no indication of what the ritual does is not particularly useful, and it doesn't even tell you what book or magazine to look it up in if you want to know.
- It would be nice to expand the Companion tab to allow for hirelings and other non-Ranger/Shaman companions, as described in Dungeon Master's Guide 2.
- I understand that this might be a bit much for the scope of the character builder, but since all the data is already available in Adventure Tools, I'd think it would certainly be doable. Obviously this isn't a feature for everyone, but it would be very cool for those people that want to use it.
- I'd think that many people would like the ability to customize the Additional Effects section on their power cards to either combine bonuses or hide irrelevant ones.
- Example: The Rushing Cleats put their bonus on all of a character's powers, including ones that cannot be used with a charge attack and have no push/side componnent. Also, I'd love to combine multiple bonuses to damage against bloodied enemies on one line to save space.
- Remove specialization bonuses that require a certain class feature to be selected from a power card when that character does not have that class feature. The extra text makes the power cards harded to read.
- On a related note, it would be nice to have those specialization bonuses "folded" directly into the card text for characters that gain those bonuses. Again, this would make the card much easier to read.
- The new Item Notes section is very nice. I'd love to have the option to make passive items (those with no "on use" effect and aren't weapons/armor) list their bonuses here automatically instead of generating power cards.
- Note, this is accomplishable manually, by hitting "customize" on the item, typing in the bonus into the notes, and then hiding the card, but having an option in the preferences to do this automatically would save a lot of time to users who would prefer this display style.
And now some minor bug-type changes:
- Stop putting unarmed attack on class feature healing powers. Since there's technically no attack made, I don't care what my attack bonus would be.
- MAJOR BUG: Removing the "Unarmed" attack from many of these powers triggers a crash of the character builder.
- The word "POWER" above an item's activated power is really redundant, since it always says "Power" on the first line of any text that goes in that box.
- Flavor Text, when listed "below power" repaces the Additional Effects text. It should be listed in the power section of the card, below the power, so that you can actually use both of these features.
- Several feats, especially feats that have different effects for different classes (martial combat styles, divinity feats, etc.) print no default text in the feats box.
- The software sould intelligently detemine the class of the character and just pull out that portion of the bonus to print here. The text for these feats should also be repicated under the appropriate powers in their additional effects box.
- The Current Condition box (under the hit points box) needs to allow input.
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Brandon Stewart
DM in Fremont, CA |