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[DnD 4E Discussion] Heroes of Shadow. Dhampyr Vryloka Vampire now possible.
Aegeri
Tiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered User regular
Tiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered User regular
ITT people try to tell you the way you like to pretend playing as a fantasy elf or dwarf is wrong. Plus you're probably a jerk. Why are you such a jerk? Also that you are not playing DnD the one true way
and that you're a horrible monster. Why do you hate fun?
For a previous OP with all the regular information you should go here. This is a special edition thread for the new online Character Builder! It's going to be a popular topic.
But first as tradition mandates:
Here is a Dungeon
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v305/Aegeri/?action=view¤t=Dungeon-1.jpg
Here is a Dragon:
Hence the name. Also, as a bonus picture here is Bane.
He's so dreamy
.
And no, he's not going anywhere from the OP. He wants you to love his manly pectoral muscles, his huge thigh muscles and bulging tip of the long hard shaft of his spear. The artist who drew this spectacular
visage of our general thread mascot and local god even has a wallpaper of him. All hail Bane!!!!
Speaking of before we go any further here, want to get the perfect way of starting 4E? Don't know where to go though? Try Wizards generously offering both a revised and improved version of Keep on the Shadowfell and the Quickstart rules? What will this cost you?
Absolutely nothing as it's completely free. Download them here.
Now to the super special edition of the thread, the online CB!
Today we've seen the launch of the new Character Builder, which is completely online and this means you will need to be on the internet to use it. This is widely considered to be an entirely odd thing and a lot of people aren't happy, especially as the online CB has a few restrictions the original one didn't.
1) You can't make mans while offline, obviously.
2) It has a limited set of exporting options, at the moment although they are "looking into it"
3) It apparently uses tons of bandwidth, which means I will never be able to use it pretty much (due to how much my internet sucks)
Oops Wizards.
4) You're limited to 20 characters in total at the moment. This actually makes sense given the above when you think about it.
5) You need silverlight to run it, which means if you initially got excited about using it on your mobile phone (like your iphone) or whatever easily then that unfortunately isn't as easy. I will presume though this does mean that mac users who can use silverlight can now get the CB, that's a good thing right?
6) It comes with all new bugs! Just when they had almost sorted most of the ones in the original.
7) It does support Dark Sun themes though, which is good and making characters in it seems really intuitive at first glance.
In any event, the rest of this thread is dedicated to dueling to the death over this most essential issue. Also I can't find a slot for holy symbols in it *grumbles*
A couple of new users have commented on the general level of bitching going on in the thread at the moment, I just want to point out some things for those new to all this.
1) We are in this thread (In general) because we love DnD and like playing it. I am sure if people didn't want to play DnD they wouldn't be bitching, they would be just extremely apathetic and not posting at all.
2) Most of it has to do with the fact Wizards have entirely lost their brains with everything to do with DDI. A lot of us like (or did like, past tense is most appropriate here) these tools as they made life easier. You do NOT need online tools to enjoy Dungeons and Dragon 4th Edition. A lot of us - including me right now - get by with nothing more than good old fashioned books and paper.
3) The books are still of good quality and while people may disagree about various interpretations of essentials, 4E DnD is still fun and a great way to get into PnP roleplaying games.
So don't take the negativity as everyone hating Dungeons and Dragons in general. Take the negativity as people just venting about the fact Wizards has really screwed the pooch on their online tools: But not DnD in general.
Dungeons and Dragons VT beta (1/2)
Dungeons and Dragons VT beta (2/2)
and that you're a horrible monster. Why do you hate fun?
For a previous OP with all the regular information you should go here. This is a special edition thread for the new online Character Builder! It's going to be a popular topic.
But first as tradition mandates:
Here is a Dungeon
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v305/Aegeri/?action=view¤t=Dungeon-1.jpg
Here is a Dragon:
Hence the name. Also, as a bonus picture here is Bane.
He's so dreamy
.And no, he's not going anywhere from the OP. He wants you to love his manly pectoral muscles, his huge thigh muscles and bulging tip of the long hard shaft of his spear. The artist who drew this spectacular
visage of our general thread mascot and local god even has a wallpaper of him. All hail Bane!!!!
Speaking of before we go any further here, want to get the perfect way of starting 4E? Don't know where to go though? Try Wizards generously offering both a revised and improved version of Keep on the Shadowfell and the Quickstart rules? What will this cost you?
Absolutely nothing as it's completely free. Download them here.
Now to the super special edition of the thread, the online CB!
Big Changes to Online CB
Today we've seen the launch of the new Character Builder, which is completely online and this means you will need to be on the internet to use it. This is widely considered to be an entirely odd thing and a lot of people aren't happy, especially as the online CB has a few restrictions the original one didn't.
1) You can't make mans while offline, obviously.
2) It has a limited set of exporting options, at the moment although they are "looking into it"
3) It apparently uses tons of bandwidth, which means I will never be able to use it pretty much (due to how much my internet sucks)
Well, it's expected from this team that we know to be amateur at best, but I found the reason for the sluggish performance and server meltdowns.
You make a change? Cool. The server updates the character and then sends the entire character data in bloated text form back to you. That is 73kb for my freshly created ranger already.
When I click the plus arrow next to Strength, it has to send and reload 73kb of data before I can click again.
What fucking horrible coding.
Oops Wizards.
4) You're limited to 20 characters in total at the moment. This actually makes sense given the above when you think about it.
5) You need silverlight to run it, which means if you initially got excited about using it on your mobile phone (like your iphone) or whatever easily then that unfortunately isn't as easy. I will presume though this does mean that mac users who can use silverlight can now get the CB, that's a good thing right?
6) It comes with all new bugs! Just when they had almost sorted most of the ones in the original.
7) It does support Dark Sun themes though, which is good and making characters in it seems really intuitive at first glance.
In any event, the rest of this thread is dedicated to dueling to the death over this most essential issue. Also I can't find a slot for holy symbols in it *grumbles*
On the delicious bitching in the thread.
A couple of new users have commented on the general level of bitching going on in the thread at the moment, I just want to point out some things for those new to all this.
1) We are in this thread (In general) because we love DnD and like playing it. I am sure if people didn't want to play DnD they wouldn't be bitching, they would be just extremely apathetic and not posting at all.
2) Most of it has to do with the fact Wizards have entirely lost their brains with everything to do with DDI. A lot of us like (or did like, past tense is most appropriate here) these tools as they made life easier. You do NOT need online tools to enjoy Dungeons and Dragon 4th Edition. A lot of us - including me right now - get by with nothing more than good old fashioned books and paper.
3) The books are still of good quality and while people may disagree about various interpretations of essentials, 4E DnD is still fun and a great way to get into PnP roleplaying games.
So don't take the negativity as everyone hating Dungeons and Dragons in general. Take the negativity as people just venting about the fact Wizards has really screwed the pooch on their online tools: But not DnD in general.
VTT beta footage and video walkthroughs.
Dungeons and Dragons VT beta (1/2)
Dungeons and Dragons VT beta (2/2)
The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
Aegeri on
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oh.
That does not contradict the statement at all. That the CB cannot make dudes offline.
I know I cannot touch it with a 10 foot pole being in NZ. It just sucks up so much bandwidth and even being uncapped right now it's amazingly slow. I don't know how much that is everyone hammering it to pieces at the moment, but it isn't looking promising from my point of view. When I am capped it will be unusable.
Whoops.
Right, the speed you are experiencing will not change that much without a rewrite of the netcode.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
It is sluggish and overall really badly laid out. Horrible amount of wasted space. Fuck off, I don't need a little random picture next to each class to somehow demonstrate what that class is.
No mouse wheel or keyboard controls.
Things that are not in the new CB that used to be in the old version
You can only have 1 weapon assigned to a power card at any one time. Even powers that are dual weild powers don't properly list the attack and damage for both attacks. Powers that can be used for melee and ranged (like twin strike for instance) can only have one of the versions listed at any one time.
No holy symbol slot. You have to put it in your hand.
No summary of feats - you have to click on each one individually to read the text.
Rituals are just listed in the equipment section with all your other stuff. They ised to be in their own separate list and you could make item cars for them with the details all printed out.
Non magic items can't be shown as item cards (I had ritual components as cards so I had more space for keeping track of what was mine, the parties etc)
Can't make a blank item card - useful for so many things.
Can't rename items - yes, thats about as far as item customisation went in the old version but it was really useful.
No custom portait - wtf! You can't even have no portrait.
No customisation on the character sheets. Both of the character sheets are really ugly and have so much wasted space. Whats with the massive amount of white space down the right hand side?
None of the character sheets show the calculations for what they are doing liek it did on the old sheet.
Can't remove flavour text from power cards.
The item selection screen is awful. You have to choose a weapon category, then a weapon both from drop down lists, then you can look at the stats on that one weapon.
For comedy - made a quick 2 weapon human ranger. Made it auto pick feats at first level. Sheild finesse and power attack
That said there are some bits I like.
I like the new second page for feat, racial and class features. The old sheets didn't show enough.
Apart from the shitty no customisation etc I said above I like the new style power cards. They are much cleaner.
I ummmm like the skill select when creating a new character. Before you had to click skill, click choose skill. Now you just tick tick tick. Well you would if it didn't pause for 10 seconds after each click. Really I am clutching at straws of things to like here.
Edit:
Ahahaha I just noticed on the main character sheet pages, all the details look like they are floating. It's like the character sheet is a jpg and someone has typed all the details in photoshop. Loads of them are all misaligned and shit. All of the boxes have like a watermark in the background saying what should be in them. Terrible.
Edit 2:
Godammit. If you want to raise an already created character to a specific level you have to do it one level at a time!
Possible Solution: Change Windows Region to USA
Please just farm out your coding to someone else
Possible Solution : Stop importing hybrid characters
Loosest possible definition of "solution" ever.
Missing Feature: Missing various types of Chain armor.
Possible Solution: Masterwork bonuses may already be built in.
It may already be there, how the hell would we know?
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
Infy, are you going to create a way for us to enter character sheet information by hand on Orokos instead of using imported files?
Nope. It's been quite kind to me the last few weeks. Even that last bastion of online sanity is gone!
They're screwing the pooch so badly, though. Why do they make it so hard for me to justify giving them my money?
Holy shit indeed.
See all ye of little faith?
Character Export, Day 1.
Every time you change anything.
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
Mine (eventually) went through okay too. But apparently inherent bonuses aren't on and can't be turned on (yet), so as long as we don't have to level up we'll be fine. And since there's no divine power source, we don't have to worry about the missing holy symbol slot.
On a related note, I'm curious to see if all this wonderful "no more patches we can just fix things whenever we want" thing is going to manifest itself to fix all these glaring issues in the next couple of days.
I honestly can't imagine how this CB could have passed QC to be released in its current state, except to imagine that there was no QC.
They don't have the 2nd batch of Essentials classes in there. Fucking stupid.
They don't have last months Essential Assassin in there either.
Bah.
Listen, this is a classic D&D trope, subversion of Wishes. Been with us for ages.
"After lying about stuff for two months we promised it'd be ready by this date so we're going to put up whatever we have regardless of how horrible it is." isn't QC?
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
At least in my experience, it's not so hard to write up a character sheet in mythweavers + the DnD compendium. I spend enough time staring at that; it's worth my subscription. I think it'd be much more obnoxious to roll up paragon and epic characters with the new CB though, and that was actually a big perk of the old one.
Edit: We house rule in an expertise feat and improved defense feats to everyone's character in our campaigns. No houserule option. We use inherent bonuses. No inherent bonuses option. Why is this thing worse than the offline builder in speed & functionality? Why would someone do this?
We've been making all our essential characters by doing houserule hack jobs on the offline character builder. Looks like we will continue to do that. I am so sick and tired of having piss poor expectations, hoping they will be exceeded, even slightly, but instead they are met.
Pity, I really liked the idea of the Hexblade. Even if it was basically Elric of Pointsoflight 4E.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
I can handle all of the above mention bugs and lack of certain features.
Except
I'm actually with you on this; despite fucking Silverlight, I wanted them to have just decided not to be idiots again, but nooo, they simply had to live down to their reputation.
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
seriously, this thing