1. Better houserule tools.
Example(s) 1: Customizable races and classes.
I would like to be able to give Eladrin +2 to CHA instead of INT (because fey should be wild and willful, not staid and studious!) by simply adjusting that modifier and saving it as a houseruled race. And assigning a custom race should properly adjust ability scores and such according to the race's ability score modifiers.
Or changing an important ability score for a class (CHA instead of INT for swordmages) and having it apply to all of that class' powers as appropriate (1[W] + CHA mod damage for Booming Blade).
I would like to be able to build a whole new race that has the Elven Accuracy racial power, and Dragonborn Fury, and a half-orc's Swift Charge, by draging-and-droping those abilities like powers in the Monster Builder.
I would really like the power cards to be a smarter. For instance, If I have a level 16 cleric, I don't want "Healing Word" to tell me that at level 1 the target receives an extra d6 hit points, and at level 6 it increases to 2d6, etc., and that it's a close burst 5 when by this level it has increased to a close burst 10. The character builder knows what level the character is, why can't it just tell me how many d6s and what range my healing word is NOW? Furthermore, even once you've found those figures on the power card, they're still wrong because they don't take into account the gloves of the healer/healer's brooch/pacifist healer etc. Attack powers update based on the items and feats you're using, why don't the healing ones?
I have a very limited set of wishes, actually. This means the tool is amazing in my humble opinion. A hearty, "Well done!" to Wizards and your hirelings, wherever those hireling coders are!
On to my wishes, in priority order...
- I would like customizable house rules that will "stick" through the monthly updates. I want to be able to edit or add anything. Any race, class, power, feat, item, etc. Even better, let me tie those edits to my own campaign name, create multiple campaigns, turn campaigns on or off, and provide an export/import to share them with others.
- I would like to eliminate black backgrounds on the character sheet. Use a light-ish gray background and black foreground. This is for ink conservation as well as clarity for reading. White on black doesn't always appear too well on inkjet printers. Heck, it would be ultra-cool to be able to "plug in" character sheets of my own design too!
- I would like "flavor text" on the power cards. I imagine it would be nice to be able to turn this on or off.
- I would like a DM tool that enabled me to select multiple characters then output the stats I deem as "vital" to a one page summary printout.
- I would like the print dialog to remember my print settings, just like other applications (MS Office, Open Office, PDF Viewer) do. For example, the first time I print, I use the dialog to set my printer into "Fast Normal" or "Fast Draft" mode. The second time I print (without ever closing the application), I have to do that again. The other programs I mentioned remember that setting.
Having just been through a chargen session for a new campaign last night (and working on trying to create a campaign settings file while things were being explained to a total rookie), I came up with the following wish item:
- In the Campaign Settings menu, have an option to organize by type of item rather than by sourcebook. In other words, rather than have to eliminate classes by going to PHB2, PHB3, and various issues of Dragon, be able to set the menu so that all the races are grouped, all the classes are grouped, etc.
- I've expressed before a desire that the deities listing include the various mini-pantheons that have been mentioned: the Temple of the Fates, the Seldarine, the Temple of the Bright City, and the Temple of the Celestial Mountain. (There might be others that have escaped my attention, but those are the ones that come quickly to mind.)
Can the Char Builder print the powers fluff? If it can't - that's what I want.
Building on my original request for better custom content...
I would like to be able to create equipment and powers that translate to a properly-formatted and printable power card.
Similar to requests above, I would like more control over editing things in the Character Builder. Tonight I tried to throw together a Revenant Assassin for a delve night at the local game store. Since the assassin isn't in CB yet, I tried houseruling it with very limited success.
I have a few (hopefully) easier tweaks which would make a custom class easier to deal with in CB.
1. Note field in custom class gets entered into Class Features box on character sheet. Then at least you could type up some relevant things and have it on the sheet.
2. Custom powers get listed in the various At-Will, Encounter, etc. boxes on the sheet. I got blank cards for my assassin powers but they weren't listed on the sheet.
3. Note field on custom powers gets listed in the big blank block on the power cards. Again, you'd be able to type in some useful data yourself.
4. Custom classes are proficient in all equipment by default. My attempt at the assassin showed me as not proficient in any armor or weapons. I was getting penalties all over the place. I was able to override the penalty to Reflex defense by typing in the correct number. But I couldn't do that with the attack workspace or the melee basic attacks section.
In a perfect world we could go in and edit anything we wanted. However, these few changes, which I hope wouldn't be as hard to implement would at least be a step in the right direction.
Thanks.
Jon
The ability to add custom deities with custom domains...or to change the domains of the existing deities.
Another vote for flavor text on the power cards. This would be a huge benefit to my group.
And on a related note, being able to increase the size of the power cards would be nice too. At least one of my players has trouble with the small text, but he'd be fine with only four or so power cards on a page.
I'd also like to see page numbers listed on the power cards. It already tells what book it's from, so adding a page number should be easy.
I'd also like to be able to associate any weapon or implement with a power, not just the one I have equipped, as what weapons I have equipped can change round to round.
I'd like to be able to add a slot type to custom equipment. I have custom boots, i'd like to equip them in my Feet Slot instead of just having them listed on my sheet.
My main suggestion is yet another vote for flavor text on the power cards. This is important for many groups, especially ones with newer players.
Thanks!
My group would love to have a Crit: entry for each selected item/power combo. The game tends to come to a halt while players reference power cards, item cards, and feats to calculate the static damage and what bonus dice to add.
Another vote for making customization easier, I would love to make a Draconic Shifter, and then make a class which has twin-weapon power of a ranger, but as defenders that has a wide range of both martial and primal attacks.
Make second one wish… well, I want a storm based class.
If possible, faster response from the software.
I'm running a fairly good laptop (but with Vista so there's that...) and the "slowness" of the BC and the Monster Builder is very bad.
I don't have this kind of "lag" when running powerful CAD software, I'm not sure why I'm getting it on these.
I'm also wishing for customization of races and etc tied with a specific campaign that will survive an update.
I'm compromising at the moment by including the Basic Attack power cards and customising them after printing, but it'd be much nicer to have the program do it for me.
On a similar subject, there are a number of feats which add effects when a fighter makes a Combat Challenge attack. It'd be handy if that information were incorporated into the Combat Challenge power card as well as being listed under Feats.
I really like Houserulled items and it would be really nice if i could edit the items and magic items.
To be able to do better custom iteams with being able to tie them to the stats they affect and reflect this on the PC Sheet it self
In my humble opinion, a day spent going through and grabbing thirty to fifty good portraits from the books and magazines would be time well spent.
In fact, this would be easy enough for a community volunteer to do with the magazines at least. If someone (i.e., me) was willing to grab a bunch of properly sized and formatted portraits from the magazine PDFs, would Wizards accept them and package them into a CB update? I'd love to help. If anyone from Wizards would be interested in my doing this (or something like it), PM me.
That's the old PC-modding background coming to the fore, I reckon
I would love to see more portraits. The Wizards books and magazines are packed with fantastic art, but only a tiny fraction of it has made it into the CB. Most of it is also very old, and variety with PH2 races (or worse yet, other races) is extremely limited.
In my humble opinion, a day spent going through and grabbing thirty to fifty good portraits from the books and magazines would be time well spent.
In fact, this would be easy enough for a community volunteer to do with the magazines at least. If someone (i.e., me) was willing to grab a bunch of properly sized and formatted portraits from the magazine PDFs, would Wizards accept them and package them into a CB update? I'd love to help. If anyone from Wizards would be interested in my doing this (or something like it), PM me.
That's the old PC-modding background coming to the fore, I reckon
I can't remember how to do it off the top of my head, but you can make *any* picture you have stored on your computer as a CB portrait, and you can re-size it on the character sheet itself.
I'd also like to get the Journal Pages fixed. Right now every entry is cut off after a couple of paragraphs. It's also not possible to customize the layout of journal pages. It would be very nice to be able to
1) See every entry in its entirety
2) Remove all the treasure/xp boxes. Those elements aren't needed for the purposes of tracking notes about NPCs etc.
How about this for an off-the-wall suggestion:
Integrate character optimization guides with the CB. You could see all your golds, cyans, and blues right up front. More importantly, you could see your reds and your purples to see what's garbage before you take it by accident.
I can't remember how to do it off the top of my head, but you can make *any* picture you have stored on your computer as a CB portrait, and you can re-size it on the character sheet itself.
I know ... that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Wizards (or a volunteer) creating portrait images from their vast collection of art so that we could use those in CB.
+1 for custom equipment, classes, races, etc. It'd be nice, as a DM, to hand out some file with all the campaign specific stuff in it for players. I also think allowing third party data modules would greatly strengthen third party support.
How about this for an off-the-wall suggestion:
Integrate character optimization guides with the CB. You could see all your golds, cyans, and blues right up front. More importantly, you could see your reds and your purples to see what's garbage before you take it by accident.
Different guides rate different powers different levels, plus players should be encouraged to take the powers they want without influence.
For instance, I would like to be able to eliminate some of the feat groups that I do not use (tribal feats, dragonmarks, and heritages) in my game, so that players could continue to use the materials those feats come from for other things, but not be forced to scroll past those, or accidentally think they're okay to use.
I would like to see a feature similar to the one that exists where you can decide which content you want to include, but instead of breaking it down by the source, break it down by the type.
For instance, I would like to be able to eliminate some of the feat groups that I do not use (tribal feats, dragonmarks, and heritages) in my game, so that players could continue to use the materials those feats come from for other things, but not be forced to scroll past those, or accidentally think they're okay to use.
Agreed. As more sources become available, breaking things down by source rather than category makes campaign customization very tedious.
+1 for custom equipment, classes, races, etc. It'd be nice, as a DM, to hand out some file with all the campaign specific stuff in it for players. I also think allowing third party data modules would greatly strengthen third party support.
How about this for an off-the-wall suggestion:
Integrate character optimization guides with the CB. You could see all your golds, cyans, and blues right up front. More importantly, you could see your reds and your purples to see what's garbage before you take it by accident.
Different guides rate different powers different levels, plus players should be encouraged to take the powers they want without influence.
Let me clarify: I would like to be able to load a guide of my choosing. I just don't like flipping back and forth between the guide and the CB. I'd like to see outside commentary in-line with the character creation process. I'm not advocating that the CB ship with guides pre-loaded.
2) I would like to customize the Names on the Powers, like you can customize the names on Equipment.
3) The Flavor text on powers is also cool...but can we choose to customize it as well?
I like to create my own names and descriptions for the spells I use to create a more personal feel.
I would really like the power cards to be a smarter. For instance, If I have a level 16 cleric, I don't want "Healing Word" to tell me that at level 1 the target receives an extra d6 hit points, and at level 6 it increases to 2d6, etc., and that it's a close burst 5 when by this level it has increased to a close burst 10. The character builder knows what level the character is, why can't it just tell me how many d6s and what range my healing word is NOW? Furthermore, even once you've found those figures on the power card, they're still wrong because they don't take into account the gloves of the healer/healer's brooch/pacifist healer etc. Attack powers update based on the items and feats you're using, why don't the healing ones?
This.
Please please please update the healers stuff. It's really tedious to have to add it all up/make modifications to a character sheet I printed out.
Ditto, to allow to change the names of class powers and to rewrite their flavor texts.
The option to reflavor the powers is IMPORTANT because it determines the feel of my character during gameplay.
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By the way, I noticed some quirks in the Char Builder that turn out kinda cool.
The CB gives the option to grant inherent enhancement bonuses automatically according to level. (See MANAGE/Details/'Inherent Bonuses' checkbox.) This is a nice feature. Not needing to worry about the highest plus number, makes the other more-interesting magic items more appealing choices. I asked the DM to implement this auto enhancement. Surprisingly, he decided not to use this feature for the campaign, but allowed my character individually to use it. ... So, now this CB mechanical feature turns out to be an awesome way to express the flavor of a characters innate magic.
Curiously, the Char Sheet lists the option of 'Unarmed (Ranged)' Basic Attacks. Whats a ranged unarmed attack?? I interpret this to mean an innate magical energy attack - essencially an untrained form of Eldritch Blast. Its the foundation of personal magic that mage classes learn to master. I love this! Ideally, Id love to see future feats grant 'Implement Expertise' that can be used with 'unarmed' attacks. In the meantime, I use dagger implements and reflavor the weapon names as 'Open Hand (2)'.
The Character Builder is a complex system and can occasionally get quirky. But sometimes, the accidental features rock!
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a sort of developers kit if you will. ive been running my homebrew campaign for fifteen years and its been alot of homework translating it into the 4e format so now when my players want to write up a character i have to repeat the same process 4 or 5 times.