The Character Planner Tutorial

[countesscrow]

The whole planner works great. Was able to create most of my equipment.

However I cannot get any of my loaded equipment to actually show up and effect stats, resists, or bab.

What am I doing wrong?


Thank you

Chaotics

[Zion_Halcyon]

Any chance of getting the guide updated for 3.34?

[Ron]

Once the new calculation system is in place, I'll update the guide. I know it's out of date, but I don't want to do it too soon and have it go right back out of date again

[Olds-cool]

What's the template design area for? I was hoping to correct some of the problems with the output for the forums that I am using but can't figure out what exactly the Template Design part is for....

Any notes/directions or a tutorial anywhere?

Thanks!

[Ron]

Templates don't do anything at the moment. They are future functionality that I'm still working on. They are meant to solve the very issue that you bring up, to allow people to design their own output formats for the forums.

Don't worry, I'll write a little mini guide/tutorial for them once they are ready. It isn't going to be trivial to use them, but hopefully with the example output shown, people will be able to get the hang of it farily easily.

[plooker]

There has to be a better way to enter an existing char into the DDOCharGen ... other than iterating every level, and trying to remember what skills, feats, enhancements, etc were chosen (years ago).

Yes?

-- joe

[Drallac]

bit of a thread res here but, is there any chance of a mac osx version of the generator, i primarily use a mac and ddo on a windows partition itd be nice to run it straight in mac?

[Irinis]

Hey Ron, how were you thinking of handling epic items and slots, or is that too far in future functionality to think about right now?

[Ron]

bit of a thread res here but, is there any chance of a mac osx version of the generator, i primarily use a mac and ddo on a windows partition itd be nice to run it straight in mac?

There are no current plans for a mac version. Sorry.

Hey Ron, how were you thinking of handling epic items and slots, or is that too far in future functionality to think about right now?

Yeah, I don't know. Equipment is a tricky thing. With all of it's various incarnations with crafting and events and slots and such, the equipment code could end up being as big as the rest of the planner code combined. I'm not really sure what is going to happen with it going forward. We'll probably add a bit at a time here and there.

[BOgre]

I like the planner, but i think I'm missing something. that is, I'd like to plan a character 'in reverse'. Like I want to go to lvl20 and pick what the chr should look like at the end, then go backwards and fill in the prereqs. It doesn't look like the planner can do that.
so, okay, even going in forward order, I still get confused. Like, how do I know how much of a stat i need, unless i already know in advance what +'s i'll be getting along the way. How do I know what enh's to take, unless I know all the prepreqs for everything else?
What I'm getting at is that using the planner, for a newb, is just like playing the game without a planned build. It's all flying blind. Well, instead of playing for weeks and breaking a character, you play with the planner for hours only to find something cooler at a higher level and have to go back and re-do everything.
I'm a little frustrated.
So my question is: How does one intelligently plan a character? At what step should one start? For example, if there was no such thing as unbongwah's tempest trapmonkey, how would you start planning it out, with the end result already in mind?
Am I making any sense?

[Ron]

Am I making any sense?

Well, yes and no.

You have to know what you are working toward. The planner (and indeed any tool in the world) cannot help you if you don't know what you want So if you create a build only to find toward the end you realize there is something cooler you wanted to take instead of what you were building toward, I can't really help you with that one. That's just a matter of getting enough experience to know where you want to go before you start.

But I think I understand what you are getting at. You know what you want, so you want to put it in at level 20 and have the planner tell you what to do to reach that point. Yeah?

This is a request that comes up from time to time. And I'll tell you the same thing I tell everyone that asks for this. The problem with a system like that is that there is more than one path from A (the start) to B (the end, with your selections). And the planner cannot, and should not, try to figure out which path to take for you. Those are decisions you have to make as the designer.

The best thing to do is to start at level 20, check out what you want, make a note of what the prereqs are for those items, and start working backward from there. The prereqs for any given feat or enhancement are listed right in the description box, even nicely color coded for you. It's not really that hard to go to level 20, click on an enhancement you want, check it's prereqs, see which ones are not green, decide from those which one you want, go to the level where you can grab that prereq, take it (or check out it's prereqs), then flip back to level 20 to check the prereqs again, repeating until you have them all (all prereqs listed are green).

I know, it sounds complicated, but it's not, really. This is how character building is done. I guess it does take some getting used to. There is a web based enhancement planner program that will possibly help, which gives what is perhaps closer to what you are after (you can select an enhancement, and it will tell you what you have to take to satisfy the prereqs for it, or at least it gives you a list of possibilities). Maybe that would help. Give it a try and see.

[hermespan]

There has to be a better way to enter an existing char into the DDOCharGen ... other than iterating every level, and trying to remember what skills, feats, enhancements, etc were chosen (years ago).

Yes?

-- joe

MyDDO tells you what you took at each level, if your MyDDO isn't fubar'd, which is quite possible.

[BOgre]

Thanks Ron,
Your advice helps. If I know that to get to where I want to go, I have to jump back and forth a little, and write stuff down & go from there, then that's what i'll do. I'll for sure check out the enhancement planner as well, 'fI can find it
peace.

[SensaiRyu]

I thought there was a bug thread - maybe this is it?

Grandmaster of Oceans stance first line of the description: "The mountain is eternal, as are you." The rest is correct (requires Wis 18). and I can take it with a Wisdom of 18 - I cannot take Grandmaster of Mountains - my con isn't 18.

A great tool!

[insaneuou]

Edit: had a issue figured it out.

[danotmano1998]

Thanks to Ron and all the folks that made this possible. It's the one tool I cannot live without!!!

One thing I noticed which may or may not be a bug.. Going back and swapping your enhancements is tough. Typically, if I take an enhancement line, then go back and change a feat, I get the red error messages, but I am unable to change the enhancement that needs fixed as it doesn't show up. I have to go back, put the feat the way it was, remove the enhancements, then start over. Same deal with enhancements that rely on other enhancements. If you go back, they don't show up on the level that needs correcting.

Bug, WAI, or am I missing something?

[Ron]

Hmmm, do you have the "Show Unavailable" checkbox checked? I'm not sure what happens if an enhancement is considered "Unavailable" but you have taken it. I suspect (based on what you say) that it won't show up. However, if you check that box, it should appear.

Let me know if that is not the case.

I can take a look at the default behavior (you know, with all the free time I have ), and see if it needs changing.

[SensaiRyu]

Thanks for the update

Bug: missing Skill focus UMD.

[Olds-cool]

Some things I've seen using the planner today after grabbing the update:

1. Artificer enhancement Uncaring Master is missing
2. Artificer enhancement Improved UMD doesn't seem to toggle the Skill number
3. Open Lock and DD seems to be showing up in two spots during leveling for adding skill points... might be because I'm trying to multiclass a ranger/rogue/art?


Thanks for the update!

-Olds

[Olds-cool]

With the latest update (03.22.02) I notice that in the item builder for armor in the epic setting there are several non-armor selections (e.g. Epic Big Top, Epic Brimstone Verge).

I don't know how long the epic and GS stuff is in here but AWESOME SAUCE!!

Thanks!