For the beta, only the rules and options provided in the D&D 5th edition SRD , D&D 5th edition Basic Rules, Elemental Evil Companion are available in Beyond. Once the full platform launches later this summer, the core rule books and others will be available for purchase, and the content within will be available for those that purchase, or have access through a DM's subscription.
Thoroughly enjoying the character generator so far, and am super excited to be able to use it for my current characters once it's out of beta and I have access to PHB material.
I have a few points of feedback for you concerning the character builder at this point:
I'm noticing that on the Attack window you cannot see damage dealing cantrips under Spell Attacks.
In the Manage Spell window you cannot see the tooltips for the spells you are selecting, which I feel would be a useful place to have them so that you can quickly reference what spells do when preparing spells for the day.
It would be nice to be able to add custom artwork for character portraits; one of my fellow players is rather proud of his character art!
I think it would be fantastic to be given a notification on your character sheet in the case that you have pending decisions to make in the editor after a level up to prompt the player to go and complete the choices they have. An alternative to this (which I would personally prefer) would be a level up feature that would take you step by step through options you have on level up like the Neverwinter Nights games had and could include things like spell swapping for bards that happen only on level up. This would become available after you input exp or hit the level up button on a milestone based character. Ideally this would not require you to go into the edit mode to scour each section for everything you need to make a choice for.
My DM has made it possible to lose levels, is there any intention to add the ability to remove levels from characters so that we don't have to rebuild the character from scratch if we need to go back a level? I understand the logistics of this may be troublesome. Answered in the phase 2 release notes!
And finally, it would be helpful when given the option of taking starter equipment during character creation to be prompted to choose your selections immediately rather than expecting you to go to the equipment manager to add them manually. This would certainly help to avoid forgetting anything.
I hope that made sense to read, and didn't have too many points similar to previous feedback!
missing a few backgrounds on the background selection...hermit and outlander for example...
For the beta, only the rules and options provided in the D&D 5th edition SRD , D&D 5th edition Basic Rules, Elemental Evil Companion are available in Beyond. Once the full platform launches later this summer, the core rule books and others will be available for purchase, and the content within will be available for those that purchase, or have access through a DM's subscription.
After making a few characters, here are some more thoughts:
- The background selection should happen before choosing traits, bonds, etc. The reason behind this is that after you get your traits picked out, you then get a list of suggestions.
- On mobile, it's not clear that you have to hit the X to exit out of entering a trait. I thought it was going to delete what I just wrote. I would suggest changing it to a "Done" box similar to the "Choose Race" box or something along those lines.
- When selecting equipment, an "Add" button next to each item to add it to your equipment would be great. For example, a Cleric starts with either a mace or warhammer. A button next to each weapon that allowed you to add it to your inventory would let someone quickly select what they want. Same for armor, other weapons, etc. Rather than lumping these all in one paragraph, perhaps they could broken out into sections.
- Adding my voice to what has been said, auto add starting equipment that isn't a choice to a character's inventory. With the example of the cleric, a holy symbol, five sticks of incense, holy book, etc. can be added to the inventory automatically because it's not an either/or option.
- As others have said, when a pack is selected, auto add all of the items in there.
- Put spells gained as racial bonuses under the normal spell list, maybe with a tag denoting it's a racial feature. For example, I chose Control Flame as an Elf. Rather than being under the Cantrips area, it's in a separate Racial Traits section. This seems like an unnecessary set of extra clicks when it's a cantrip, regardless that it's chosen as a racial bonus.
- I know I said this in a previous post, but it bears repeating: I feel strongly that the option to select character level before classes is confusing for new players and sets up the opportunity for all sorts of weird issues, like having a higher character level than all of the class levels combined. Have the character level set by the level in classes chosen as that is how it's determined.
When choosing a Proficiencies skill no matter if you choose them from the racial traits (half-elfs can select 2 proficiencies of their choice), from background, or from class, there have to be a way marking already selected skills and doesn't allowing to select the same proficiency again. For exmaple in my current character (half-elf folk-hero bard) I could select 5 times that I am proficient in Stealth and nothing can stop me of doing this. Same thing goes for tools and languages. Also in the class section when you have to choose proficiencies with tools and skills, it is not clear which is for which, it is not clear that I choose 3 musical instruments and 3 skills - I am experienced player and I know what I am choosing, but a new one will be puzzele.
The character builder style and automation is amazing. I did in minutes what usually takes hours so thank you! I do have some feedback, though I'm sure these are mentioned already, or are on the team's radar, but in an effort to be helpful, here's what I've found:
Missing: Sorcerous origin - wild magic, Backgrounds - a lot of them, Spell lists - Creating a sorcerer, I found some items missing from my spell list and other things added that didn't belong
General thoughts: Again, I think the way this works so far is awesome. I've been searching for something that is easy, comprehensive, and plays well on desktop and mobile platforms. That being said, one area of opportunity that I found is the equipment selection. Rather than having a ginormous list in which you have to search for the items you want, I suggest breaking it down into drop-down lists. One for weapons that character is proficient, one for armor the character is proficient in, and one for gear.
Also, it would be ideal to have the bonuses or alterations gained by feats (i.e. using dex instead of strength for attacks - Martial Arts) reflected in the appropriate area in the character sheet. I know there are a lot of variables and things for a complex game, so it's not a complaint, just a thought.
The character builder style and automation is amazing. I did in minutes what usually takes hours so thank you! I do have some feedback, though I'm sure these are mentioned already, or are on the team's radar, but in an effort to be helpful, here's what I've found:
Missing: Sorcerous origin - wild magic, Backgrounds - a lot of them, Spell lists - Creating a sorcerer, I found some items missing from my spell list and other things added that didn't belong
General thoughts: Again, I think the way this works so far is awesome. I've been searching for something that is easy, comprehensive, and plays well on desktop and mobile platforms. That being said, one area of opportunity that I found is the equipment selection. Rather than having a ginormous list in which you have to search for the items you want, I suggest breaking it down into drop-down lists. One for weapons that character is proficient, one for armor the character is proficient in, and one for gear.
Also, it would be ideal to have the bonuses or alterations gained by feats (i.e. using dex instead of strength for attacks - Martial Arts) reflected in the appropriate area in the character sheet. I know there are a lot of variables and things for a complex game, so it's not a complaint, just a thought.
For the beta, only the rules and options provided in the D&D 5th edition SRD , D&D 5th edition Basic Rules, Elemental Evil Companion are available in Beyond. Once the full platform launches later this summer, the core rule books and others will be available for purchase, and the content within will be available for those that purchase, or have access through a DM's subscription.
For the beta, only the rules and options provided in the D&D 5th edition SRD , D&D 5th edition Basic Rules, Elemental Evil Companion are available in Beyond. Once the full platform launches later this summer, the core rule books and others will be available for purchase, and the content within will be available for those that purchase, or have access through a DM's subscription.
Things like Wild Magic Sorcerer, certain backgrounds and spells all appear only in the PHB (which is not free), hence why you weren't able to find them in the builder.
I'm having a lot of fun with the new character creation feature! the only thing I've noticed is that I cant add custom character portraits. Are there plans to make this a feature?
As a level 1 fighter I chose the defence fighting style, which applies a +1 to AC while wearing armour, however this effect is not working. When I equip my studded leather armour, the AC total and breakdown shows the armour AC and dex bonus, but misses the additional AC bonus from the fighting style.
So there is a chance other class/racial bonuses around armour are not making it through to the resulting character sheet.
I have several major issue that I saw from a cursory look.
First, there are an absurd number of mini-windows that you have to open and close. Want to look at the Dragonborn race? It opens a mini-window. Decide you do not like what you see, and would rather look at an Elf? You have to close the mini-window, go to Elf, and open another mini-window.
While, in and of itself, this wouldn't really bother me, I can't help but compare to the 4e Insider builder. There, your list of selections was listed in a middle column. The right hand column showed the information for the selection you currently had highlighted. There were no mini-windows to close, and you could quickly bounce between different race/feats/items/powers/etc. This was particularly useful when one wanted to scroll through long lists, such as feats.
Second, the search option is somehow worse than the 4e one. It only allows me to search by name, not by effect. The 4e system searched by name by default, but there was a toggle to allow you to search in the rules text as well. This was quite a nifty little tool.
Third, perhaps this is because I have not looked too in-depth, but I could not find a way to change my class after it was selected (race had a nifty change race button, class did not). I'm sure there is a way, but it was not as intuitive as it might otherwise have been.
That said, it is nice that, unlike the 4e Insider tools, this one seems to actually work as intended, which couldn't always be said about 4e's laggy system which was prone to random crashes.
-A COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS OF THE CHARACTER BUILDER-
Howdy! This is my first post that I’ll be making in the forums here, with my objective to be to help analyze the elements of the beta as they are so far. I’ve done a lot of UI work in the past as a designer, but I’m also an avid D&D player and DM. I’ve done my best to read through most other entries that people have made, so I’ll do my best to either reiterate key points that have been brought up by others without trying to be redundant either. I’m looking at the Character Builder first because it’s honestly my favorite part of D&D- I love to make characters and builds all of the time, exploring new classes, options, and synergies. I’m just going to start off by saying that I LOVE the Character Builder interface so far! I’ve only been playing with it for the past three days and I have to say that it makes so much easy and enjoyable!
First off, it works wonderfully on both mobile and desktop. The interface is great and super organized. As a DM with players who often get confused by the numbers, I think it’s great that the system automates so much and keeps track of all of the numbers for you, all the while the user just picks options with a single drop down menu or check on or off. It looks visually nice and is very easy to understand and edit when necessary. I’m eager to see when all of the pieces come together and integrate with one another, especially seeing how double proficiencies overlap, racial and class features with branching options, and so on.
I’m going to try not to bring up the missing elements such as feats because I know that the focus is on making the core elements work right. I will still aim to be thorough, but I’m going to separate my comments into sections to help for navigation. Hopefully I'll be able to provide some useful insight and outline everything while also suggesting some potential solutions to fix issues. As such, here’s my step-by-step analysis on the Character Builder as it is on this day:
-GENERAL-
-I appreciate how a page notifies you when additional info is required with the little blue exclamation mark and blue highlight. But if there were any way to have subsections to the drop down menus or subsequent pop-ups to fill in additional info as soon as you selected something, I’d recommend it just to condense information. -When viewing the sheet on mobile, you are able to swipe left and right in order to navigate through the sections of the sheet. I think that the same swiping navigation would be worth putting into the actual mobile character builder as well.
-When setting the character level, maybe a counter with a “+” and “-” to either side that allows you to increment up or down would be better than a drop down menu. These types of counters are INVALUABLE and multipurpose!
-HOME PAGE-
-The first page of the Builder is nice, but seems a little sparse. If anything, right now it feels like a “Settings” or “General” page rather than a “Home” page. I like to view this page more as a page for managing the “settings” and “rules” for the campaign, so it might also be useful to have a dropdown menu for users to select the books or editions which they are playing by.
-It might benefit to page by adding a list of navigation tools to the other pages of the Builder as well as a “checklist” to show what elements have not been filled in by the user in order to complete the character. For example, having a subsections area with buttons that read “1. Race,” “2. Class,” and so on, each with a list of steps written to the side such as “2 / 5 complete” to show that only a part of the page has been filled out.
-The Manage XP system is nice for DMs who like to use XP progression. My only recommendation is to have an “Add” and “Subtract” button beneath the value input rather than on a dropdown menu just to streamline things more like a calculator.
-Randomized names are nice, but frankly I don’t allow myself to come up with a name until after I’ve picked a class and race since normally I determine the names off of those. I would suggest moving the names to the Description page of the Builder.
-The portrait selection window and name info is very nice, but seems irrelevant for this page. I’d say just keep it on the description page. I generally don’t meet people who decide the names of their characters before determining what kind of character they are via race and class.
-RACE-
-A very simple but straightforward page, which is good, but I’d recommend a more grid-like arrangement as in a “character selection” menu such as in fighting games, or such as in the portrait selection. Heck, you could even include a portrait selection section there rather than in the Home page so that you can pick from a list of avatars so that they match your race/style.
-Maybe the “Change Race” text under the portrait should be a button; just seems a tad small and unrecognizable to me. Same goes for the Racial Details page link.
-Some racial features are a little strange in their behavior. As an example, Infernal Legacy for Tieflings has you select from a drop down menu of spells, although I’m not really sure why since I believed that those spells were fixed…? Maybe it’s referring to other potential legacies? Point being is that it’s not exactly clear why the selections require additional info at times.
-CLASS-
-As people have said before, the only blatant issue so far is the ability to undo leveling, reduce levels, and edit. Otherwise, it’s a pretty straightforward page with simple descriptions of the class features all easily written out for you.
-There are some class feature sections which are a bit strange in their behavior right now- which I believe has also been addressed. For example, when choosing skills for a Rogue’s Expertise, it lets you select any skill when it should be exclusively for those which the Rogue is proficient in.
-DESCRIPTION-
-Nicely done page- the notes are very easy to access and understand.
-Only real recommendation here is to put the Background section above the description, just because it gives you a better idea of what your character will be like before writing all of the notes and realizing that you could also add a background to better define them and THEN start writing notes.
-I bet this is already in the works, but an upload feature for the portrait selection would be AWESOME. Most of my players are artists/designers and draw a lot of art for our campaigns, so this would be phenomenal for players to customize their visuals further.
-EQUIPMENT-
-This is actually the page I have the most issues with just because there are so many different windows when I feel that most of this could be condensed. It’s also because the items which you carry and equip are probably the most prone to change when playing.
-My main issue with the page is the management system. Having a separate window for all of the functions of moving items from equipped to carried and vice versa is surprisingly confusing for me. It feels like it’d be better to have a button to the side of every (un)equippable item that allows you to (un)equip that item as long as you can view it. The Manage Equipment page is very redundant to the actual inventory, so it only makes sense to just add the add items function, the (un)equipping function, and the attunement options to the existing menus for the carried and equipped menus.
-If the Manage Equipment page was condensed into the existing pages, I’d recommend also condensing the Equipped and Carried pages into just one page and have some sort of checkbox to say which items are currently equipped. It might be better to have all items listed together so that you can easily compare items and equip or unequip them all in the same space.
-If an item is a consumable or ammunition, I’d put a counter next to it similar to the way that charges are counted on items, but with 1 value rather than a max/min value and a button that says “Spend” or “Use” next to it.
-On that note, counting ammunition could get easily complicated with the layout of the Equipment page as it is. I’d recommend adding a “Attack/Use” button option to weapons with the “Ammunition” tag that is linked to the user’s equipped ammunition in their Gear, especially if you have multiple kinds of ammunition that are compatible with a weapon. After selecting the type of ammunition, I imagine it would subtract from the amount of those pieces of ammunition. That’d make for impressive interactivity throughout the app, and developing such a feature could easily segway into additional consumption-interactivity features between items.
-Might also benefit for ammunition weapons to have tags that say what kind of ammunition they take between arrows, bullets, etc. Not sure if that’s even in the Compendium, though.
-On that note, the “More” pages are super awkward right now. The “Currency” and “Possessions” pages could easily be turned into a “Treasure” page which lists all of the currency, found treasure or miscellaneous (personal/other) items w/ spots for written descriptions, and so on. Doing so would really help the app feel more like a character sheet. If not, it might even be viable to just include the currency as smaller counters on the “Carried” page at the top, akin to the currency counters on traditional character sheets.
-When searching for items, the system has a long way to go because of how cluttered the search options are. It’d be great if the searching system could include filters such as “Weapon” or “Requires Attunement,” or even a quick-select menu for finding generic items like gold, health potions, etc.
-Lastly, the Starting Equipment is helpful to read, but otherwise isn’t really useful. It’d be much better off if there were various button options denoting the items that you could just click to quickly add them to your inventory when building the character rather than having to manually search for them, or at least a way to automatically enter their information or tags into the search field(s).
-CHARACTER SHEET-
-As I stated earlier, the Character Sheet view is beautiful and keeps everything nicely organized. I’m quite a fan of it, especially on mobile with the swipe interactivity.
-There is one slight bug on mobile where the sliding bar which denotes the different sections overlaps with the sidebars when they pop up. That’s just a layering issue it seems- quick fix.
-I’m personally more of a fan of bigger numbers for the ability scores and modifiers- akin to their larger representation on traditional character sheets- and also find it important to always have ability scores and modifiers visible for players at all times. I’d suggest placing them up where the elements such as the Proficiency/Initiative/AC are located so that players can reference them back when necessary. I think it’s important to have those on-hand at all times so that they don’t have to go fumbling for them.
-It would also be good to have a section in the “Abilities” section which allows players to add modifiers from buffs or debuffs and have those automatically calculate into the player’s final modifiers.
-There still seems to be some inconsistencies with the Rest mechanics on the “Limited Use” section, but they're nothing that can't be manually fixed by the player I'm sure.
-Like I stated with my gripes on the Equipment page, it’d be WONDERFUL if the Character Sheet could also have interactivity which quickly allows players to (un)equip items and attune them.
-CONCLUSION-
Sorry for the wall of text- didn’t expect it to get this long after all… Regardless, I’m still loving the way DDB is shaping out and I’m super excited to see it progress and release! I’ll continue to analyze other elements as the beta continues. If you’ve read this far or any part of this at all, I hope it provides useful and thorough feedback! Feel free to respond and give me feedback or explanation as well!
I want a way so we can put the chacater we already created on paper into here.
Are you implying that you want to scan in a paper image and have it auto-fill a digital sheet?
Yes
Umm that seems quite advanced... That would require some sort of system that can actually read handwritten text and translate it to a character output, and it might be more trouble than it's worth for the app as a whole.
All things considered, making a Character Sheet has never been easier now that there are automated tools like this, so I'd say that it'd be better to rebuild the sheets from scratch here and make sure they're up to date and built properly.
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Wary the wizard who focuses on homebrew, for he can create nightmares that you wouldn't even dream of
Hi team!
Thoroughly enjoying the character generator so far, and am super excited to be able to use it for my current characters once it's out of beta and I have access to PHB material.
I have a few points of feedback for you concerning the character builder at this point:
I'm noticing that on the Attack window you cannot see damage dealing cantrips under Spell Attacks.
In the Manage Spell window you cannot see the tooltips for the spells you are selecting, which I feel would be a useful place to have them so that you can quickly reference what spells do when preparing spells for the day.
It would be nice to be able to add custom artwork for character portraits; one of my fellow players is rather proud of his character art!
I think it would be fantastic to be given a notification on your character sheet in the case that you have pending decisions to make in the editor after a level up to prompt the player to go and complete the choices they have. An alternative to this (which I would personally prefer) would be a level up feature that would take you step by step through options you have on level up like the Neverwinter Nights games had and could include things like spell swapping for bards that happen only on level up. This would become available after you input exp or hit the level up button on a milestone based character. Ideally this would not require you to go into the edit mode to scour each section for everything you need to make a choice for.
My DM has made it possible to lose levels, is there any intention to add the ability to remove levels from characters so that we don't have to rebuild the character from scratch if we need to go back a level? I understand the logistics of this may be troublesome.Answered in the phase 2 release notes!And finally, it would be helpful when given the option of taking starter equipment during character creation to be prompted to choose your selections immediately rather than expecting you to go to the equipment manager to add them manually. This would certainly help to avoid forgetting anything.
I hope that made sense to read, and didn't have too many points similar to previous feedback!
Thanks everyone for the great experience so far!
missing a few backgrounds on the background selection...hermit and outlander for example...
After making a few characters, here are some more thoughts:
- The background selection should happen before choosing traits, bonds, etc. The reason behind this is that after you get your traits picked out, you then get a list of suggestions.
- On mobile, it's not clear that you have to hit the X to exit out of entering a trait. I thought it was going to delete what I just wrote. I would suggest changing it to a "Done" box similar to the "Choose Race" box or something along those lines.
- When selecting equipment, an "Add" button next to each item to add it to your equipment would be great. For example, a Cleric starts with either a mace or warhammer. A button next to each weapon that allowed you to add it to your inventory would let someone quickly select what they want. Same for armor, other weapons, etc. Rather than lumping these all in one paragraph, perhaps they could broken out into sections.
- Adding my voice to what has been said, auto add starting equipment that isn't a choice to a character's inventory. With the example of the cleric, a holy symbol, five sticks of incense, holy book, etc. can be added to the inventory automatically because it's not an either/or option.
- As others have said, when a pack is selected, auto add all of the items in there.
- Put spells gained as racial bonuses under the normal spell list, maybe with a tag denoting it's a racial feature. For example, I chose Control Flame as an Elf. Rather than being under the Cantrips area, it's in a separate Racial Traits section. This seems like an unnecessary set of extra clicks when it's a cantrip, regardless that it's chosen as a racial bonus.
- I know I said this in a previous post, but it bears repeating: I feel strongly that the option to select character level before classes is confusing for new players and sets up the opportunity for all sorts of weird issues, like having a higher character level than all of the class levels combined. Have the character level set by the level in classes chosen as that is how it's determined.
When choosing a Proficiencies skill no matter if you choose them from the racial traits (half-elfs can select 2 proficiencies of their choice), from background, or from class, there have to be a way marking already selected skills and doesn't allowing to select the same proficiency again. For exmaple in my current character (half-elf folk-hero bard) I could select 5 times that I am proficient in Stealth and nothing can stop me of doing this. Same thing goes for tools and languages. Also in the class section when you have to choose proficiencies with tools and skills, it is not clear which is for which, it is not clear that I choose 3 musical instruments and 3 skills - I am experienced player and I know what I am choosing, but a new one will be puzzele.
Links to images:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_639uJJTv1SQ2lmLVM2Zkstd2M
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_639uJJTv1SMWg0aWpxSy1Wak0
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_639uJJTv1SRmN0M0RJRlppdWc
The character builder style and automation is amazing. I did in minutes what usually takes hours so thank you! I do have some feedback, though I'm sure these are mentioned already, or are on the team's radar, but in an effort to be helpful, here's what I've found:
Missing: Sorcerous origin - wild magic, Backgrounds - a lot of them, Spell lists - Creating a sorcerer, I found some items missing from my spell list and other things added that didn't belong
General thoughts: Again, I think the way this works so far is awesome. I've been searching for something that is easy, comprehensive, and plays well on desktop and mobile platforms. That being said, one area of opportunity that I found is the equipment selection. Rather than having a ginormous list in which you have to search for the items you want, I suggest breaking it down into drop-down lists. One for weapons that character is proficient, one for armor the character is proficient in, and one for gear.
Also, it would be ideal to have the bonuses or alterations gained by feats (i.e. using dex instead of strength for attacks - Martial Arts) reflected in the appropriate area in the character sheet. I know there are a lot of variables and things for a complex game, so it's not a complaint, just a thought.
For the beta, only the rules and options provided in the D&D 5th edition SRD , D&D 5th edition Basic Rules, Elemental Evil Companion are available in Beyond. Once the full platform launches later this summer, the core rule books and others will be available for purchase, and the content within will be available for those that purchase, or have access through a DM's subscription.
Things like Wild Magic Sorcerer, certain backgrounds and spells all appear only in the PHB (which is not free), hence why you weren't able to find them in the builder.
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If you have questions/concerns, please Private Message me or another moderator.
Wary the wizard who focuses on homebrew, for he can create nightmares that you wouldn't even dream of
I'm having a lot of fun with the new character creation feature! the only thing I've noticed is that I cant add custom character portraits. Are there plans to make this a feature?
I want a way so we can put the chacater we already created on paper into here.
Working with a multi-class fighter 1 / rogue 2.
As a level 1 fighter I chose the defence fighting style, which applies a +1 to AC while wearing armour, however this effect is not working. When I equip my studded leather armour, the AC total and breakdown shows the armour AC and dex bonus, but misses the additional AC bonus from the fighting style.
So there is a chance other class/racial bonuses around armour are not making it through to the resulting character sheet.
Thanks!
I have several major issue that I saw from a cursory look.
First, there are an absurd number of mini-windows that you have to open and close. Want to look at the Dragonborn race? It opens a mini-window. Decide you do not like what you see, and would rather look at an Elf? You have to close the mini-window, go to Elf, and open another mini-window.
While, in and of itself, this wouldn't really bother me, I can't help but compare to the 4e Insider builder. There, your list of selections was listed in a middle column. The right hand column showed the information for the selection you currently had highlighted. There were no mini-windows to close, and you could quickly bounce between different race/feats/items/powers/etc. This was particularly useful when one wanted to scroll through long lists, such as feats.
Second, the search option is somehow worse than the 4e one. It only allows me to search by name, not by effect. The 4e system searched by name by default, but there was a toggle to allow you to search in the rules text as well. This was quite a nifty little tool.
Third, perhaps this is because I have not looked too in-depth, but I could not find a way to change my class after it was selected (race had a nifty change race button, class did not). I'm sure there is a way, but it was not as intuitive as it might otherwise have been.
That said, it is nice that, unlike the 4e Insider tools, this one seems to actually work as intended, which couldn't always be said about 4e's laggy system which was prone to random crashes.
-A COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS OF THE CHARACTER BUILDER-
Howdy! This is my first post that I’ll be making in the forums here, with my objective to be to help analyze the elements of the beta as they are so far. I’ve done a lot of UI work in the past as a designer, but I’m also an avid D&D player and DM. I’ve done my best to read through most other entries that people have made, so I’ll do my best to either reiterate key points that have been brought up by others without trying to be redundant either.
I’m looking at the Character Builder first because it’s honestly my favorite part of D&D- I love to make characters and builds all of the time, exploring new classes, options, and synergies. I’m just going to start off by saying that I LOVE the Character Builder interface so far! I’ve only been playing with it for the past three days and I have to say that it makes so much easy and enjoyable!
First off, it works wonderfully on both mobile and desktop. The interface is great and super organized. As a DM with players who often get confused by the numbers, I think it’s great that the system automates so much and keeps track of all of the numbers for you, all the while the user just picks options with a single drop down menu or check on or off. It looks visually nice and is very easy to understand and edit when necessary. I’m eager to see when all of the pieces come together and integrate with one another, especially seeing how double proficiencies overlap, racial and class features with branching options, and so on.
I’m going to try not to bring up the missing elements such as feats because I know that the focus is on making the core elements work right. I will still aim to be thorough, but I’m going to separate my comments into sections to help for navigation. Hopefully I'll be able to provide some useful insight and outline everything while also suggesting some potential solutions to fix issues. As such, here’s my step-by-step analysis on the Character Builder as it is on this day:
-GENERAL-
-I appreciate how a page notifies you when additional info is required with the little blue exclamation mark and blue highlight. But if there were any way to have subsections to the drop down menus or subsequent pop-ups to fill in additional info as soon as you selected something, I’d recommend it just to condense information.
-When viewing the sheet on mobile, you are able to swipe left and right in order to navigate through the sections of the sheet. I think that the same swiping navigation would be worth putting into the actual mobile character builder as well.
-When setting the character level, maybe a counter with a “+” and “-” to either side that allows you to increment up or down would be better than a drop down menu. These types of counters are INVALUABLE and multipurpose!
-HOME PAGE-
-The first page of the Builder is nice, but seems a little sparse. If anything, right now it feels like a “Settings” or “General” page rather than a “Home” page. I like to view this page more as a page for managing the “settings” and “rules” for the campaign, so it might also be useful to have a dropdown menu for users to select the books or editions which they are playing by.
-It might benefit to page by adding a list of navigation tools to the other pages of the Builder as well as a “checklist” to show what elements have not been filled in by the user in order to complete the character. For example, having a subsections area with buttons that read “1. Race,” “2. Class,” and so on, each with a list of steps written to the side such as “2 / 5 complete” to show that only a part of the page has been filled out.
-The Manage XP system is nice for DMs who like to use XP progression. My only recommendation is to have an “Add” and “Subtract” button beneath the value input rather than on a dropdown menu just to streamline things more like a calculator.
-Randomized names are nice, but frankly I don’t allow myself to come up with a name until after I’ve picked a class and race since normally I determine the names off of those. I would suggest moving the names to the Description page of the Builder.
-The portrait selection window and name info is very nice, but seems irrelevant for this page. I’d say just keep it on the description page. I generally don’t meet people who decide the names of their characters before determining what kind of character they are via race and class.
-RACE-
-A very simple but straightforward page, which is good, but I’d recommend a more grid-like arrangement as in a “character selection” menu such as in fighting games, or such as in the portrait selection. Heck, you could even include a portrait selection section there rather than in the Home page so that you can pick from a list of avatars so that they match your race/style.
-Maybe the “Change Race” text under the portrait should be a button; just seems a tad small and unrecognizable to me. Same goes for the Racial Details page link.
-Some racial features are a little strange in their behavior. As an example, Infernal Legacy for Tieflings has you select from a drop down menu of spells, although I’m not really sure why since I believed that those spells were fixed…? Maybe it’s referring to other potential legacies? Point being is that it’s not exactly clear why the selections require additional info at times.
-CLASS-
-As people have said before, the only blatant issue so far is the ability to undo leveling, reduce levels, and edit. Otherwise, it’s a pretty straightforward page with simple descriptions of the class features all easily written out for you.
-There are some class feature sections which are a bit strange in their behavior right now- which I believe has also been addressed. For example, when choosing skills for a Rogue’s Expertise, it lets you select any skill when it should be exclusively for those which the Rogue is proficient in.
-DESCRIPTION-
-Nicely done page- the notes are very easy to access and understand.
-Only real recommendation here is to put the Background section above the description, just because it gives you a better idea of what your character will be like before writing all of the notes and realizing that you could also add a background to better define them and THEN start writing notes.
-I bet this is already in the works, but an upload feature for the portrait selection would be AWESOME. Most of my players are artists/designers and draw a lot of art for our campaigns, so this would be phenomenal for players to customize their visuals further.
-EQUIPMENT-
-This is actually the page I have the most issues with just because there are so many different windows when I feel that most of this could be condensed. It’s also because the items which you carry and equip are probably the most prone to change when playing.
-My main issue with the page is the management system. Having a separate window for all of the functions of moving items from equipped to carried and vice versa is surprisingly confusing for me. It feels like it’d be better to have a button to the side of every (un)equippable item that allows you to (un)equip that item as long as you can view it. The Manage Equipment page is very redundant to the actual inventory, so it only makes sense to just add the add items function, the (un)equipping function, and the attunement options to the existing menus for the carried and equipped menus.
-If the Manage Equipment page was condensed into the existing pages, I’d recommend also condensing the Equipped and Carried pages into just one page and have some sort of checkbox to say which items are currently equipped. It might be better to have all items listed together so that you can easily compare items and equip or unequip them all in the same space.
-If an item is a consumable or ammunition, I’d put a counter next to it similar to the way that charges are counted on items, but with 1 value rather than a max/min value and a button that says “Spend” or “Use” next to it.
-On that note, counting ammunition could get easily complicated with the layout of the Equipment page as it is. I’d recommend adding a “Attack/Use” button option to weapons with the “Ammunition” tag that is linked to the user’s equipped ammunition in their Gear, especially if you have multiple kinds of ammunition that are compatible with a weapon. After selecting the type of ammunition, I imagine it would subtract from the amount of those pieces of ammunition. That’d make for impressive interactivity throughout the app, and developing such a feature could easily segway into additional consumption-interactivity features between items.
-Might also benefit for ammunition weapons to have tags that say what kind of ammunition they take between arrows, bullets, etc. Not sure if that’s even in the Compendium, though.
-On that note, the “More” pages are super awkward right now. The “Currency” and “Possessions” pages could easily be turned into a “Treasure” page which lists all of the currency, found treasure or miscellaneous (personal/other) items w/ spots for written descriptions, and so on. Doing so would really help the app feel more like a character sheet. If not, it might even be viable to just include the currency as smaller counters on the “Carried” page at the top, akin to the currency counters on traditional character sheets.
-When searching for items, the system has a long way to go because of how cluttered the search options are. It’d be great if the searching system could include filters such as “Weapon” or “Requires Attunement,” or even a quick-select menu for finding generic items like gold, health potions, etc.
-Lastly, the Starting Equipment is helpful to read, but otherwise isn’t really useful. It’d be much better off if there were various button options denoting the items that you could just click to quickly add them to your inventory when building the character rather than having to manually search for them, or at least a way to automatically enter their information or tags into the search field(s).
-CHARACTER SHEET-
-As I stated earlier, the Character Sheet view is beautiful and keeps everything nicely organized. I’m quite a fan of it, especially on mobile with the swipe interactivity.
-There is one slight bug on mobile where the sliding bar which denotes the different sections overlaps with the sidebars when they pop up. That’s just a layering issue it seems- quick fix.
-I’m personally more of a fan of bigger numbers for the ability scores and modifiers- akin to their larger representation on traditional character sheets- and also find it important to always have ability scores and modifiers visible for players at all times. I’d suggest placing them up where the elements such as the Proficiency/Initiative/AC are located so that players can reference them back when necessary. I think it’s important to have those on-hand at all times so that they don’t have to go fumbling for them.
-It would also be good to have a section in the “Abilities” section which allows players to add modifiers from buffs or debuffs and have those automatically calculate into the player’s final modifiers.
-There still seems to be some inconsistencies with the Rest mechanics on the “Limited Use” section, but they're nothing that can't be manually fixed by the player I'm sure.
-Like I stated with my gripes on the Equipment page, it’d be WONDERFUL if the Character Sheet could also have interactivity which quickly allows players to (un)equip items and attune them.
-CONCLUSION-
Sorry for the wall of text- didn’t expect it to get this long after all… Regardless, I’m still loving the way DDB is shaping out and I’m super excited to see it progress and release! I’ll continue to analyze other elements as the beta continues. If you’ve read this far or any part of this at all, I hope it provides useful and thorough feedback! Feel free to respond and give me feedback or explanation as well!
Best of luck! :D Can't wait to see more!
-Game, digital, and web designer at large-
-D&D DM/player addict-
-Game, digital, and web designer at large-
-D&D DM/player addict-