Quote from: jgants;413507Well, I just sent out my email to my group saying that I will not allow any use of the new character builder to create or maintain characters for my campaign.

For most practical purposes, the old 4E DDI character builder is "complete" (short of Dark Sun).

With that being said, watch the web based DDI character builder being used as the basis for 5E D&D, where all the old Heinsoo 4E D&D stuff (ie. June 2008 -> August 2010 Psionic Power) is deleted on the day 5E is released.

Quote from: jgants;413507Well, I just sent out my email to my group saying that I will not allow any use of the new character builder to create or maintain characters for my campaign.

Do they normally send you the Character Builder files for their characters? I'm struggling to understand why it would matter how they build their characters as long as they're complete, appropriate for the game, and legal...

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;413509Do they normally send you the Character Builder files for their characters? I'm struggling to understand why it would matter how they build their characters as long as they're complete, appropriate for the game, and legal...

Back when I was DM'ing 4E, I didn't use the DDI character builder myself.

Though I allowed just about anything that was "legally" created by the DDI character builder, for the most part.

Doesnt bother me as I only like Essentials and if you cant make an Essentials character in under 20 minutes you shouldn't be playing ANY RPG period, especially not a detailed Braunstein game like this.

The only use of the chargen for Essentials is for having all your powers and shit typed out for you in case you cant fucking be bothered to carry a trade paperback sized book with you to the game.

Quote from: Captain Rufus;413515Doesnt bother me as I only like Essentials and if you cant make an Essentials character in under 20 minutes you shouldn't be playing ANY RPG period, especially not a detailed Braunstein game like this.

The only use of the chargen for Essentials is for having all your powers and shit typed out for you in case you cant fucking be bothered to carry a trade paperback sized book with you to the game.

This would be fine for a game using only the "Heroes of the Fallen Lands" book.

It may be a different story when players want to use subsequent 2011 4E books, such as "Heroes of Shadow", "Heroes of Sword and Spell", "Champions of Heroic Tier", etc ...  I wouldn't be surprised by the time it is late 2012, the Mearls version of 4E D&D (ie. after 4E PHB3) becomes a huge bloated mess of feats, classes, powers, etc ...

Quote from: ggroy;413516It may be a different story when players want to use subsequent 2011 4E books, such as "Heroes of Shadow", "Heroes of Sword and Spell", "Champions of Heroic Tier", etc ...  I wouldn't be surprised by the time it is late 2012, the Mearls version of 4E D&D (ie. after 4E PHB3) becomes a huge bloated mess of feats, classes, powers, etc ...

This is where, at some point, as a DM, you need to grow a pair, put on your Viking Hat and just say: "No. Fuck that. We are using this, this, and that book. Not anything after that. Got a problem with that? Run the game yourself."

Quote from: Benoist;413517This is where, at some point, as a DM, you need to grow a pair, put on your Viking Hat and just say: "No. Fuck that. We are using this, this, and that book. Not anything after that. Got a problem with that? Run the game yourself."

Yup.

At least this time around, there is one book with mainly the classic D&D classes and races.

Quote from: ggroy;413518Yup.

At least this time around, there is one book with mainly the classic D&D classes and races.

I agree. That's the positive aspect of the compartmentalization of the material in the Heroes books.

Quote from: Seanchai;413509Do they normally send you the Character Builder files for their characters? I'm struggling to understand why it would matter how they build their characters as long as they're complete, appropriate for the game, and legal...

In my case, yes, most of them do.  At least half the group has me more or less manage their characters for them.

My reasoning for not allowing the new character builder is simple - I refuse to use and pay for it, and nothing I don't own is allowed in my campaign.  I will not have some people using new rules and some people using old rules - either we're all using the same version of the rules or I'm not running the game.

So, my campaign will now run under whatever version of the rules I had the last time I updated.  No more WotC rule updates will be honored.  No more new book or DDI content will be allowed.  Simple as that.

Quote from: Benoist;413517This is where, at some point, as a DM, you need to grow a pair, put on your Viking Hat and just say: "No. Fuck that. We are using this, this, and that book. Not anything after that. Got a problem with that? Run the game yourself."

This is exactly what I'm doing.  I'm not running a game like this without a program to verify all of the math is correct.  It's just not something I'm going to do.

Quote from: jgants;413529So, my campaign will now run under whatever version of the rules I had the last time I updated.  

Can't you get the list of updates off the website?

Seanchai

WotC to non-web older DDI character builder users:  drop dead.

Quote from: ggroy;413647WotC to non-web older DDI character builder users:  drop dead.

I know! How dare they change their product to something that better suits them!

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;413678I know! How dare they change their product to something that better suits them!

Seanchai

How dare the consumer complain when the product does not better suit their interest?!