Since our gaming group made the switch to the current revision of Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), I’ve been a subscriber to their “D&D Insider” service.  The main draw for me was access to the Character Builder software (and its associated content revisions) that dramatically simplifies the character creation and management process.  The Character Builder  program is the latest incarnation of what used to be called eTools.  Recently, with the release of the Dark Sun setting, the PC-based Builder software was replaced with a Silverlight-enabled online tool. Needless to say, the new tool doesn’t live up to expectations set by the previous versions…

Trouble in Paradise

Admittedly, there were a few shortcomings of the PC-based version.  Mainly, it was built on the .NET framework, and therefore was only supported on Windows PCs, limiting the potential adoption.  Silverlight, a Microsoft web-based framework, is a bit more open, in that it is supported by Macs, and has limited support in Linux (though I’ve never tested either… This is my first Silverlight experience).

It also lacked eTools’ (the 3rd edition analog) support for XSL-based character sheet templating, though it’s features for customizing your printed sheets was quite excellent.  I only mention this because I’m a huge XML nerd.  This point barely deserves mention, given what you’ll read below about the character sheet options in the new version…

Charges against Character Builder Online

The online Character Builder is lacking in several ways, many related directly to core features used by most people in the PC-based version.  First, it’s obvious that they (Wizards of the Coast, creators of the software) intend it to totally supplant the older version in that it has an import feature but no export feature.  That is, Characters go in, and never come out (sort of like cohorts in one of Dave’s dungeons).

The other main complaint I have is the lack of character sheet options.  The PC-based version had lots of options for rearranging character sheets, including “standard” landscape layouts (which I was a huge fan of).  It further allowed you to move sections between pages or even omit sections entirely.  The Silverlight version, on the other hand, has two character sheet formats: Standard and Essentials.

Less seriously, the newer Character Builder has really gutted the inventory management functions.  They’ve separated the system into “manage” and “marketplace”, and really made it quite difficult to find a specific thing to purchase.  Admittedly, some of this is a result of the 4e way of dealing with “item level”, which is still something of a mystery to me.

A New Hope?

In summary, there’s really nothing wrong with the form of the new Character Builder, but it’s the function (or lack thereof) that’s left wanting.  Hopefully, in future updates, they’ll be able to start adding back some of the omitted functionality, possibly through an “expert mode” of some kind.   It would be nice to bypass the wizard stuff and have a more paper-like building experience.

In the meantime, we’ll just have to suffer with what we’re given, or go back to pencil and paper… *shudder*

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Games, Products by Kevin