Tools you wish existed

[Verbannon]

This thread is a wishing thread wher eyou state what kind of digital tool you wish existed. For me I would wish for two tools.

1. A concise campaign builder for the lazy DM. I'm a huge fan of tables, formats and check lists. And it would be nice if there existed an adventure building tool that didn't expect me to actually have ideas already in my head. I would like a tool that went like

"Okay step 1. Choose A campaign theme. Step 2, choose a secondary theme. Step 3 list additional themes (optional) Next step begin adventure creation, choose adventure villian (then a list of possible villian archetypes from monster, to schemer to natural disaster, banditry ect.) with a "pick for me" option. Then well from that point on adventure design tends to confuse me. And I end up just winging it because I don't have a format or checklist to go by anywhere. Instead every single bit of advice on it assumes I'm just brimming with ideas and my only problem is going to be narrowing it down. I have over 300 random tables located in a campaign on roll20 just for tables I regularly use to help me decide things and I still find myself wanting and undecided.

2. Same ting as number 1 but mobile. Seriously, my life would be so much better if I didn't have to glue myself to my computer for all my adventure planning and prep.

[Marcloure]

Specifically for D&D 4e, a better Roll20 sheet. The one we have is very very unfriendly. It has a very poor UI and to fill the power cards, one need to do macros (sometimes, pretty advanced macros).
Many times I have thought of doing a new sheet myself, but I have neither Pro account or a deep grasp of HTML/CSS. What I'm thinking in doing now is an app that autowrites macros as you fill the fields, and then you just copy and paste it on Roll20. Yeah, I know there is one out there, but it's on a spreadsheet that isn't exactly intuitive.

[Verbannon]

I dont bother with the power card macros so I wouldnt know. I copy paste the power info into the built in cards, organizing them by color (setting aside the first 3 rows,fot at wills, next 3 for encounters ect.) for reference. And use the attributes page to create simple nested macros.

[stk3702]

A CB for Android.

[ScrivenerofDoom]

I wish I could use my offline Character Builder, offline Compendium, and Masterplan (adventure, campaign, and monster builder) on my tablet.

And I wish I could edit the offline Compendium because I've got 1000+ stat blocks I have built myself and they're the only ones I use.

[MoutonRustique]

Offline CB - that allows for easy homebrew
Monster Creator tied with the pictures of the MM or MV
Encounter Creator (tied in with above)
Compendium
Trap and environment Creator

(all the above - OFFLINE, and LEGAL)

+ a monster creator that allows for mass modifications of monsters and saving those as "profiles" or some-such (such as applying 75% hp, etc.)

[Verbannon]

Alas none of the good 4e tools are even open source. Which is unfortunate. Imagine Masterplan Opensource.

[ScrivenerofDoom]

Offline CB - that allows for easy homebrew
Monster Creator tied with the pictures of the MM or MV
Encounter Creator (tied in with above)
Compendium
Trap and environment Creator

(all the above - OFFLINE, and LEGAL)

+ a monster creator that allows for mass modifications of monsters and saving those as "profiles" or some-such (such as applying 75% hp, etc.)

Masterplan: I add the pictures to all my monsters. I create encounters using it. I use it to build traps and add those and terrain (I also now build terrain in there) to encounters. And I can also mass modify monsters for individual adventures/campaigns by doing a global adjustment of the following numbers in campaign settings: hit points, XP awarded, attack bonus, AC, and NADs.

It's offline and legal. :)

[Verbannon]

Offline, legal, steadily falling apart without support. Cant be downloaded anymore. Templates and themes dont work at all. And loading level 3 soldiers sometimes causes it to crash.

[ScrivenerofDoom]

Offline, legal, steadily falling apart without support. Cant be downloaded anymore. Templates and themes dont work at all. And loading level 3 soldiers sometimes causes it to crash.

I can download it. And all the published stat blocks.

You have that trouble with level 3 soldiers, eh? I have a similar problem with level 3 brutes. As for templates and themes, it's easy enough to create them as monsters and then simply copy the powers from them.

It's not perfect but it's legal, it's free, it works for 99.9% of the things I want a monster builder to do, and I use it to plan and run my adventures and campaigns.

[MoutonRustique]

I can download it. And all the published stat blocks.

You have that trouble with level 3 soldiers, eh? I have a similar problem with level 3 brutes. As for templates and themes, it's easy enough to create them as monsters and then simply copy the powers from them.

It's not perfect but it's legal, it's free, it works for 99.9% of the things I want a monster builder to do, and I use it to plan and run my adventures and campaigns.

Everything you said is true, and I do use Masterplan as well - but I want it done for me ;)

I love Masterplan - I just loved it a lot more before they got the C&D...

[Zombimode]

This thread is a wishing thread wher eyou state what kind of digital tool you wish existed. For me I would wish for two tools.

1. A concise campaign builder for the lazy DM. I'm a huge fan of tables, formats and check lists. And it would be nice if there existed an adventure building tool that didn't expect me to actually have ideas already in my head. I would like a tool that went like

"Okay step 1. Choose A campaign theme. Step 2, choose a secondary theme. Step 3 list additional themes (optional) Next step begin adventure creation, choose adventure villian (then a list of possible villian archetypes from monster, to schemer to natural disaster, banditry ect.) with a "pick for me" option. Then well from that point on adventure design tends to confuse me. And I end up just winging it because I don't have a format or checklist to go by anywhere. Instead every single bit of advice on it assumes I'm just brimming with ideas and my only problem is going to be narrowing it down. I have over 300 random tables located in a campaign on roll20 just for tables I regularly use to help me decide things and I still find myself wanting and undecided.

2. Same ting as number 1 but mobile. Seriously, my life would be so much better if I didn't have to glue myself to my computer for all my adventure planning and prep.

Hm, are you sure DMing is for you?

Or rather the "implementing my Vision" part of DMing.


If you enjoy the thrill of being the DM at the table, but feel that you are drawing blank when it Comes to Adventure and campaign desiging, maybe you are better served with published adventures?

[Verbannon]

Hm, are you sure DMing is for you?

Or rather the "implementing my Vision" part of DMing.


If you enjoy the thrill of being the DM at the table, but feel that you are drawing blank when it Comes to Adventure and campaign desiging, maybe you are better served with published adventures?

Well my players think Im the best DM they've ever had. And the fun part of DMing for me is seeing my players react and proact. Seeing what they do. I like not knowing whats coming next. So my campaigns are all player driven.

But on the other hand the quality of my sedsions are noticably better when I do preperation so I generally prepare exactly one session ahead.

I compare my storytelling style to connect the dots. I take a bunch of datapoints and generate a story from it.

Right now I create adventures and stuff by randomly choosing a monster from the compendium, then using the GM Apprentice cards to get my ideas to create a delve style adventure.

It works.

I tried published adventures once. It went off the rails within the first few sessions and was much better. It was the scale of war adventure path. I thought the gnomes and fey spider things were wierd so I decided they were working with the goblins because they were actually targetting one of the characters. And that they were connected to the portal the ooze came through. So the party reversed the direction of the portal. And scales of war was left behind.

[Beoric]

I can download it. And all the published stat blocks.

You have that trouble with level 3 soldiers, eh? I have a similar problem with level 3 brutes. As for templates and themes, it's easy enough to create them as monsters and then simply copy the powers from them.

It's not perfect but it's legal, it's free, it works for 99.9% of the things I want a monster builder to do, and I use it to plan and run my adventures and campaigns.

I find that some of the function work better in version 11.10. IIRC NPCs and templates are among them. I often use v11.10 for building game elements, and v. 11.11 for building scenarios.

BTW, after Rescue at Rivenroar, Scales of War can only be enjoyed if it goes of the rails. The rails lead nowhere good.

[Verbannon]

Well I would try that if I knew how to download the older versions. I only use masterplan as a kind of compendium. I like its html statblocks. If I had its source code I would try expanding that feature myself.

[Wasteomana]

I still have a functioning online character builder. It would be nice if that was offline and editable to fix some of the misc errors.

The portable compendium really does all the other muscle work for things that I want as far as a tool is concerned. All the books, all the monsters, all the rules in an updated, editable tool that is still supported. Built in search engine and bookmarks are really just the icing on the cake.

I would like to make a project out of updating the monsters in the portable compendium with post MM3 math to give them teeth, but I already default do that with the DM cheat sheet, so it would be a lot of work to put in that I would never use.

[natiels]

I still have a functioning online character builder. It would be nice if that was offline and editable to fix some of the misc errors.

Why not use the editable offline version?

[Wasteomana]

Why not use the editable offline version?

I have in the past. Now, for me, its faster and easier to just use a blank character sheet and the portable compendium.

The offline tool was cool, but it wasn't as pretty and user friendly. Don't get me wrong, great tool and what they did over at... Enemy of Fun I want to say was the place that did the first major edits and extras for the offline builder, was even better.

I introduced a ton of people to 4e and to dnd in general using 4e and it was really hard for the players to get to the end and be missing something that made them non-functional as it was so easy to use that anyone could just click things and get a character out of it.

[natiels]

Well I would try that if I knew how to download the older versions. I only use masterplan as a kind of compendium. I like its html statblocks. If I had its source code I would try expanding that feature myself.

The offline compendium is open source. You could try your hand at modding that to do what you want instead of masterplan.