Character Builder Lite

[mna]

Deity Feats
You just HAD to let clerics and paladins take these as regular feats, didn't ya? Grrrr. I currently do not support that. (I don't even know what happens to deity feats if you multiclass 6/6/6 paladin/cleric/favored soul as, say, a warforged. I guess you just stop getting offered deity feat slots, since warforged only qualify for a single deity line? And what if you're human? Can you take both silver flame and sovereign host? No need to reply, I can test it in-game with iconics.)

It's not done as regular feats and the feat slot doesn't even exist in some cases where I'd think it should.

Cleric 6 already, take paladin 1, you don't get a class feat slot at all. I mean, it would've made more sense to me to be able to take a "child of" feat in the class slot in that case, since you're supposed to be qualified for it after cleric 3.

(Yes, I was testing with iconics. They also qualify only for a single deity line... which I do find a bit funny, especially with Shadar-Kai. I mean, we're already getting Eberron drow clerics of Vulkoor, and Vulkoor is an antagonist deity in a lot of the content...)

[Failedlegend]

I very much like your output its very easy to read and I especially like the option to show your build with everyone point buy amount without affecting your builds actual point buy but I would like to see a way for the output to show which point buy the build actually uses (if you can't do this no biggie I'll like just edit it in the forum manually)

I also noticed that you have an "Auto-max" and "Auto-max alternative" for skills...I assume the first just puts max every level...what does the alternative do...the most efficient (aka least spent points) max? (if not is that possible, I hate wasting skill points)

Oh one things I LOVE about these demos is you have everything done section by section (feats, skills, etc.) instead Level 1 choose everything, level 2 choose everything, etc. seems easier to do it that way (obviously hands on testing will allow me to confirm this)

I noticed someone asking if this would work on a cell phone or I-Pad, I'd really love if that was true (mind you my productivity would plummet at work lol)

The "lite" aspect of the builder actually makes it look very clean and since your making this assuming people have the wiki open you don't have to worry about descriptions, icons, etc. it's a nice ascetic, the only thing is in the demo there doesn't seem to be anything stopping you from taking any feat regardless whether you meet the pre-reqs,etc. is there plans to implement this? (unless it already does and I'm just seeing it wrong, in which case awesome :P)

Speaking of the feat section the "filter" is awesome, any chance of adding filters for "Bonus Feats" since those lists are specific (ie. Fighter, Arty, Monk), actually would the reverse be possible...ie. I want to see all feats except epic ones.

The option to select <Any> for spell selection is a nice touch.

Anyways I cannot wait to get my hands on this, good luck with the bjillion enhancement trees

Note: Sorry this post is a bit disjointed I just typed as I watched.

[EllisDee37]

Regarding the logic used for Max Ranks in the skills screen, I discuss it in this post. It's probably worth copying it into this thread for posterity:

My first thought on how to max skill ranks was very simple: At each level, apply the max ranks allowed. Sounds so simple, right? Sure, a cross-class skill ends up with 11.5 ranks, but the user can easily just remove that last half-rank at level 20 and call it good enough. But there's a more insidious issue in play.

Consider an 18/2 Cleric/Fighter build who takes the two fighter levels at 1 and 2, followed by 18 cleric levels. Consider if you want to max out Heal. What happens when you apply max ranks at every level? Level one get 2 ranks (cross class fighter), level 2 gets a half-rank for 2.5 total, then at level 3, when it forevermore becomes a native skill, instead of being able to raise it to the full max of 6, you're limited to 5.5 ranks. In fact, you can never correct that extra half rank applied at level 2. (Well, you can do it manually, but the "Max Ranks" logic has failed in this instance.)

So I decided that my "Max Ranks" logic would only increase a skill up to the highest full rank allowed. For this example, that means 4 points at level 1 (2 ranks), no points at level 2, 4 points at level 3 (up to 6 ranks total), then 1 rank per level after that.

This had a nice side-effect of treating permanently cross-class skill the way I prefer to do it. Consider the same build maxing UMD: 2 ranks @ 1, followed by one full rank every odd level. (3, 5, 7, etc...) This finishes with the full 11 ranks by level 19.

All happy with myself, I then started using it and immediately ran into my second "It would be nice if..." moment. Let's say I want to max two cross-class skills, say both Heal and UMD on a pure wizard. With my logic as written, I end up with four points spent on every odd level, zero points on every even level. That's not super helpful to me as a user of the utility.

So I added a second "Alternate Max" option to the middle mouse button. (Clicking the scroll wheel.) The alternate max logic is to add half the allowed ranks at level 1, then max ranks allowed at every even level, zero ranks at every odd. This ends up being a nice, user-friendly, complementary interface to work with.

To help visualize, here's a screen shot of my kensei cleric's skill screen with dummy skills listed to illustrate the points. Concentration shows what it looks like to be maxed with my first logic, just maxing it every level. Perform shows how a cross-class skill looks when maxed using my revised logic. And search shows what it looks like to use the alternate max logic:


how to screenshot on windows

You'll note the red point totals for levels 3 and 4, where we spend more points than we have. Manually clicking individual cells limits you to the points you have to spend, but I intentionally coded both "Max Ranks" logics (normal and alternate) to ignore everything else and just perfectly apply max ranks to that skill. It's much easier to work with for the end user that way.

[EllisDee37]

It's not done as regular feats and the feat slot doesn't even exist in some cases where I'd think it should.

Cleric 6 already, take paladin 1, you don't get a class feat slot at all. I mean, it would've made more sense to me to be able to take a "child of" feat in the class slot in that case, since you're supposed to be qualified for it after cleric 3.

(Yes, I was testing with iconics. They also qualify only for a single deity line... which I do find a bit funny, especially with Shadar-Kai. I mean, we're already getting Eberron drow clerics of Vulkoor, and Vulkoor is an antagonist deity in a lot of the content...)

Now I'm curious what happens if you go:

1 Paladin (Follower of...)
2-7 Cleric (Follower of...skipped? But then at the 6th cleric level, do you get the appropriate level 6 deity feat? Or none at all?)
8-12 Paladin (If cleric skipped the level 6 feat, I assume paladin 6 @ 12 gets it)
13-18 Favored Soul (Do we now skip the Follower.. feat but get to pick the Child of Feat @ FVS 3?)

I'm getting a headache just thinking about it. It shouldn't be too hard to implement, but geez, talk about complexity!

[EllisDee37]

I noticed someone asking if this would work on a cell phone or I-Pad, I'd really love if that was true (mind you my productivity would plummet at work lol)

Someone else is free to use the design concept to write a portable version, but I don't know how to write apps so it's overwhelmingly unlikely that I'll port it over.

the only thing is in the demo there doesn't seem to be anything stopping you from taking any feat regardless whether you meet the pre-reqs,etc. is there plans to implement this? (unless it already does and I'm just seeing it wrong, in which case awesome :P)

The logic is implemented, and you can see it working in the demo. When you grab a feat, the first thing that happens is all the "hard" requirements are applied during the logic that "lights up" the drop locations. Hard requirements are minimum stats, skills, BAB, class levels, feat type (bonus feat? deity feat? etc...) and the ability to cast spells of spell level #, or the ability to cast healing spells. You'll note when I drag Empower Healing Spell and Extend that I am not allowed to drop those in the feat slots for levels 1 & 2 because I can't cast spells (or healing spells) until level 3.

Feat prereqs (where a feat requires another feat) are considered "soft" requirements, using the logic that you can easily fix it without too much trouble. (As opposed to, say, changing your class split or redoing your skills.) Early in the demo I grab Great Cleave to show the "soft" requirement effect. Because I haven't yet taken Cleave, the available drop slots show as red instead of yellow and then when I drop it, the text is red to show that there's an error. (Also note the BAB hard req prevents great cleave being dropped earlier than level 6.) At the end of the feat demo I also show how switching out Power Attack throws an error on Cleave, and because there's an error, the output no longer includes the Feats section. Output that you export only ever shows sections that are perfectly complete with no errors. (Output to the main form while actively working in a screen shows for just that screen regardless of errors.)

Speaking of the feat section the "filter" is awesome, any chance of adding filters for "Bonus Feats" since those lists are specific (ie. Fighter, Arty, Monk), actually would the reverse be possible...ie. I want to see all feats except epic ones.

Reverse isn't in there, and I likely won't add it. But for your specific example, you could choose the "Heroic" filter to filter out the epic and destiny feats.

Regarding bonus feats, if you click any feat slot, the list is filtered to only those feats that can be dragged there. So clicking any fighter bonus feat slow shows only fighter bonus feats, etc... You can see me do this with deity feats and the human bonus feat at the start of the feat demo.

[Failedlegend]

Re: Feats

I rewatched the video and I see that happening, awesome...I also noticed the heroic filter...cool. Beyond that I'm glad to know clicking on a bonus feat slot filters the available feats. ( I did see the "deity" feats I just wasn't sure if it was the same for class feats)


Re: Portable

Heh no worries, I just noticed someone asked so I thought "Neat!"




Re: Skills

How would it work for this example.

Wizard18/Rogue2

Rogue taken @ 1 & 11

Most efficient is probably to let the skills lag a bit between 1 and 11 using the bonus skill points during the rogue levels to catch your trap skills up than by Lvl 12 you should have enough Int to handle it solely on Wizard levels.


Example 2.

IconicX/Rogue or Arty X


Due to the forced level of Iconics anything but Shadar-kai are completely borked for getting their trap skills since their not even a cross-class option until you take a class (Arty or Rogue) that has those skills. Same thing used to go for Perform but anyone can cross-class that skill now so this only affects iconics now (flavour reasons aside)



Example 3.

RogueX/BarbarianX/FvSX

Most ridiculous case I could think of in well 5 seconds lol, different class skills & different skill points per level

[EllisDee37]

what does the alternative do...the most efficient (aka least spent points) max? (if not is that possible, I hate wasting skill points)

Ah, actually, now I see what you're asking. No, that logic isn't in there, and likely won't be. That's more of a human element kind of thing. It's up to you to stretch those skill points as far as you can! hehheh.

I very much like your output its very easy to read and I especially like the option to show your build with everyone point buy amount without affecting your builds actual point buy but I would like to see a way for the output to show which point buy the build actually uses (if you can't do this no biggie I'll like just edit it in the forum manually)

That's a pretty solid idea. I'm thinking make the "preferred build points" column bold.

[Failedlegend]

Ah, actually, now I see what you're asking. No, that logic isn't in there, and likely won't be. That's more of a human element kind of thing. It's up to you to stretch those skill points as far as you can! hehheh.

Ah ok, minor issue it would just save alot of time if you could throw a formula at it lol.

That's a pretty solid idea. I'm thinking make the "preferred build points" column bold.

Pretty much what my plan was if you didn't implement it.

[Munkenmo]

Where do I host the files so people can download them? Figure 2 megabytes tops for any given download -- the current version would be a 200k download -- plus the download zip would include an exe file. Some hosting sites automatically strip out exe files for virus prevention. Ideally there'd be some kind of discussion board feature so I could post release notes, get feedback (bug reports) etc...

Mega.co.nz could take care of hosting, as for discussions not so much.

I'm still away from home for another 4 days, when I get back I can help you fill in some enhancement files, I know very little about coding but I need to pick up some skills for uni anyway so I figure this might help.

If you pm me a copy of a working enhancement file and a list of what you want done I should be able to figure it out.

[Failedlegend]

Oh and I forgot to mention that I would be very much in favour of having the enhancements section/output work similar to how you have done epic destinies....I almost never plan what enhancements to take for 1-19 its just a play it by ear thing its not to 20 that I've really figured out what works best for my character and I all that really matters is if I can fit in everything that the build needs are 20

[EllisDee37]

I'm still away from home for another 4 days, when I get back I can help you fill in some enhancement files, I know very little about coding but I need to pick up some skills for uni anyway so I figure this might help.

If you pm me a copy of a working enhancement file and a list of what you want done I should be able to figure it out.

I very much appreciate this.

The enhancement files are essentially stripped down versions of Ron's data files: text files in the old-school *.ini format. You'd think I would have just used his data files, but no, I had to be a special snowflake, creating mine from scratch. On the plus side, my files are much, much smaller than his.

Ideally I'll have a functional version of the enhancement screen before I farm out help with the data files. Four days might be a bit optimistic; I'm targeting next week sometime.

[Illarvan the Legend]

I support this tool, It looks awesome, and like many others I like the simplicity of it, I've been using Excel sheets for years as I'm sure most people have :P.

For hosting the file, if you like, I can host it on my website, and can give you some space for a website to put a blog, some pages, or whatever you're comfortable using for release notes or whatever. Anything to help the DDO community out


Edit: First post clarification, my main forum account broke so badly that they had to make me a new one :P

[Failedlegend]

I support this tool, It looks awesome, and like many others I like the simplicity of it, I've been using Excel sheets for years as I'm sure most people have :P.

For hosting the file, if you like, I can host it on my website, and can give you some space for a website to put a blog, some pages, or whatever you're comfortable using for release notes or whatever. Anything to help the DDO community out


Edit: First post clarification, my main forum account broke so badly that they had to make me a new one :P

Hi Illy

[EllisDee37]

Quick update:

• Added the ability to set a maximum number of levels for a build, like say you're making a favor or challenge farmer.
• Devised a plan to change the data structure to fully support all prereqs: unique selector requirements (swashbuckling style), selectors that cost different amounts (eg: Human Fighting Styles), artificer bonus feats that only allow certain selectors, epic skill focus, magister schools, etc... All prereqs should be supported. This is designed but not yet implemented, and it kind of needs to be implemented before any further data entry for enhancements.
• Devised a new data structure for feats that will support alternate feats (take "x" or "y"), feat exchanges, and even deity feats, which to be honest I thought was going to be literally impossible based on the old structure. As an added bonus, this new structure make it trivially easy to maintain your feat list even if you change out your class levels. I almost broke my brain supporting that with the old structure. Much like selector prereqs, this is designed but not implemented.
• Added an Options screen, which lets you opt out of my possibly-misguided non-standard sort orders throughout the program, Also in Options, we have...
• Colors! I went WAY overboard with the colors, allowing the user to customize virtually every color in the program to suit their tastes. I also made it easy to share color schemes with plain text posts. I think I was just happy to finally have something straightforward to implement so I dialed it up to 11.

Here's a quickie 2:00 demo of the colors:



On deck is finishing skills (adding "max level" support) tomorrow then starting the feat/prereq overhaul. On the plus side, the prereq overhaul is mostly re-usable for destinies and enhancements. Not 100%, but mostly.

EDIT: Also, as can be seen in this demo, I implemented the suggestion to make the preferred build points column bold in the output. (28pt in this example.)

[LightBear]

I've been working on a character builder since Christmas, and it's coming along pretty well so far. Adopting a minimalist philosophy -- thus the "Lite" -- it's geared toward people with a decent working knowledge of the game. Truth be told, I envision using it with ddowiki open in another window.

Right now at this moment I'm still a week away from being able to let anyone else play around with it, but in the meantime here's a couple demo videos showing how it works:

Part 1 (Classes, Stats, Skills and Feats)

Part 2 (Spells and Destiny)

Both videos are 1920x1080. You may have to manually increase the resolution if youtube defaults to lower than 1080.

Suggestions and ideas welcome. Particularly regarding enhancements, since I do not yet have a clear vision of how to implement that screen. One thing I know for sure is that I want to support enhancement resets in the middle of leveling.

Looks very slick so far.
Could use some icons of the classes to make it a bit more clear, a single letter can be confusing.
(Barbarian vs Bard, Ranger vs Rogue, Favored Soul vs Fighter)

[Stoner81]

Looks very slick so far.
Could use some icons of the classes to make it a bit more clear, a single letter can be confusing.
(Barbarian vs Bard, Ranger vs Rogue, Favored Soul vs Fighter)

That's not a bad idea at all

Bb = Barb
Ba = Bard
F = Fighter
FvS = Favored Soul
Ra = Ranger
Ro = Rogue
A = Artificer

I think most of the others don't have clashes that I can think of off the top of my head.

Stoner81.

[EllisDee37]

Looks very slick so far.
Could use some icons of the classes to make it a bit more clear, a single letter can be confusing.
(Barbarian vs Bard, Ranger vs Rogue, Favored Soul vs Fighter)

Each class is assigned 3 letters. When you pick your classes, the primary class always gets its first choice letter. (The first letter of its name.) The second class then goes through its three letters looking for a unique one. Then the third class does the same, looking for something not picked by the first two. Here's the lists for all the classes:

Artificer: A, T, I
Barbarian: B, R, N
Bard: B, D, R
Cleric: C, E, L
Druid: D, U, R
Favored Soul: F, V, S (heh)
Fighter: F, G, T
Monk: M, O, K
Paladin: P, D, N
Ranger: R, N, G
Rogue: R, O, G
Sorcerer: S, O, C
Wizard: W, Z, I

Note that images aren't a viable solution because the forum output is formatted the same way, and can only use letters.

EDIT: I'm currently adding data integrity checks, which (attempts to) resolve all "pointers" in the data files. (Granted feats, enhancement prereqs, etc...) This is super helpful for data entry, but adding this logic is slowing me down. The logic isn't overly tough, but keeping track of all the relevant info to display to the user when errors are found is tricky.

[EllisDee37]

Not easily testable, can anyone tell me definitively:

Does Superior Weapon Focus require Greater Weapon Specialization?

Here it says it only requires Greater Focus. Here it says it requires Greater Focus and Greater Specialization.

[Michele]

thanks for the effort

[Failedlegend]

Each class is assigned 3 letters. When you pick your classes, the primary class always gets its first choice letter. (The first letter of its name.) The second class then goes through its three letters looking for a unique one. Then the third class does the same, looking for something not picked by the first two. Here's the lists for all the classes:

Artificer: A, T, I
Barbarian: B, R, N
Bard: B, D, R
Cleric: C, E, L
Druid: D, U, R
Favored Soul: F, V, S (heh)
Fighter: F, G, T
Monk: M, O, K
Paladin: P, D, N
Ranger: R, N, G
Rogue: R, O, G
Sorcerer: S, O, C
Wizard: W, Z, I

Is it possible to change it to 2-3 letters as this way seems to be quite confusing...so like lthis

Artficer: Ar or Art
Barbarian: Bb or Brb
Bard: Bd, Brd
Cleric: Cl. Clr
Druid: Dr. Drd
Favored Soul: FS, FvS
Fighter: Fi, Fgt
Monk: Mo, Mnk
Paladin: Pl, Pal
Ranger: Ra, Rng
Rogue: Rg, Rog
Sorcerer: Sr, Sor
Wiz: Wz, Wiz

Obviously 3 letters is far more recognizable but might not fit into your design.