I've been running a 4e game for a while now, and I use my laptop as my GM screen.
As such, I've spent a decent amount of time examining the various digital assistant offerings out there. I've mainly been using Virtual Combat Cards, MasterPlan, and OneNote to do what I want to do.
All are excellent offerings. However, none of them have exactly the feature set I want while running a fight. Since I prefer to fix rather than complain, I went about writing my own (being a programmer myself).
The first version is done, and I'm putting it up here for the world to examine, use, curse at, and lampoon.
Requires .NET Framework 3.5 installed (if you have the Character Builder or Monster Builder installed, you have this)
Can paste 'Copy to Rich Text' data from the Monster Builder on DnDi (button above the list on Compendium window, also button on individual detail screen).
Full initiative tracking.
Allows common HP/XP House Rules options to modify monsters (Dropdown titled 'Mod': Demi = 1/2hp+2/3xp, Semi = 1/4hp+1/3xp, Minion = 1hp+1/4xp)
Displays full statblock on the main window. No need to bounce around looking for information (main reason I wrote this).
Text-entry field for notes on each combatant (will be adding custom status/ongoing tracking later...for now, this suffices)
It is still a work-in-progress, but I figured I'd throw this version out into the wild for perusal.
Please let me know what you like, hate, or want. I'll be monitoring this thread.
Thanks!
__________________ WoW: Mortaneus of the Blood Cabal on Argent Dawn US
"It is a strange thing that many truly spiritual men...have actually spent some hours in speculating upon the precise location of the Garden of Eden. Most probably we are in Eden still. It is only our eyes that have changed." -G. K. Chesterton
Last edited by Mortaneus; 08-28-2009 at 01:58 AM..
I can open it, but... nothing happens. I mean, I get the window and I see what it looks like, and I can access the dropdown menus and everything, but it's all grayed out. Selecting "New Encounter" doesn't actually let me do anything.
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I can open it, but... nothing happens. I mean, I get the window and I see what it looks like, and I can access the dropdown menus and everything, but it's all grayed out. Selecting "New Encounter" doesn't actually let me do anything.
Sorry, needs documentation. Haven't had time yet.
You add entries to the battle from the Compendium window. Not the DnDi compendium, rather the Compendium->Open Compendium option on the menu bar of the utility (probably should have picked a better name, will change this in the next pass). There is an 'Add to Battle' button on there.
You simply select an entry, and hit 'Add to Battle'. The dropdown on the 'Add' button shows a queue of what you're adding. You can click on the dropdown to remove an entry from the queue before it gets to the main screen, if you change your mind. When you exit the compendium, everything in the queue added to the current roster. (This is a bit obscure, I know....I'll probably change this function to make it more obvious in a later pass)
You can't start the fight until there are entries in the list on the main screen.
Sorry for the confusion.
Adding to the 'To Do' list: Freaking documentation.
__________________ WoW: Mortaneus of the Blood Cabal on Argent Dawn US
"It is a strange thing that many truly spiritual men...have actually spent some hours in speculating upon the precise location of the Garden of Eden. Most probably we are in Eden still. It is only our eyes that have changed." -G. K. Chesterton
Last edited by Mortaneus; 08-27-2009 at 03:37 PM..
Everything drives off the Compendium window. It contains a list of all monsters/PCs that the program knows about, and it is what you use to assemble a battle.
When you load the program, it looks for a file called 'Compendium.dnd4' in the same directory as the EXE. If it finds it, it loads it. It's simply an XML file with a different file-type, so it isn't listed when loading an encounter.
When you quit the program, it saves the updated compendium to the file I mention above.
The easiest method for adding new entries to the Compendium (and the method I use) is to paste them from the Monster Builder. I'll eventually get around to adding 'Import from DnDi compendium' functionality, but haven't done so yet.
Also note that all stat data is ALSO saved in the .XML files created when you Save an encounter. When the encounter file is loaded, it checks the current compendium for entries with the same name/level as what is in in the encounter file. If it finds a compendium entry, it uses that in preference to the encounter entry. If it doesn't find it, it adds the entry to the compendium.
Basically, this means that even if the current compendium you're using doesn't have the stats for the stuff in an encounter file, it'll just get it from the encounter instead.
It still tries to use the compendium first, though.
Finally, you may notice that Skill data goes missing when you paste from the Monster Builder. There's nothing I can do about that right now, as it's a bug in the 'Copy to Rich Text' option in the monster builder. It simply doesn't pull Skills. For proof, copy an entry from the monster builder and paste it in to Word/Wordpad. The skills won't be there either.
__________________ WoW: Mortaneus of the Blood Cabal on Argent Dawn US
"It is a strange thing that many truly spiritual men...have actually spent some hours in speculating upon the precise location of the Garden of Eden. Most probably we are in Eden still. It is only our eyes that have changed." -G. K. Chesterton
Last edited by Mortaneus; 08-27-2009 at 03:30 PM..
The zip file doesn't download properly. It downloads as a 37k file I can't open.
Anyone else having this problem (in addition to Emryss)
Hrm....the file should be around 130k....
Running my game right now, but I'll try uploading it elsewhere later tonight.
__________________ WoW: Mortaneus of the Blood Cabal on Argent Dawn US
"It is a strange thing that many truly spiritual men...have actually spent some hours in speculating upon the precise location of the Garden of Eden. Most probably we are in Eden still. It is only our eyes that have changed." -G. K. Chesterton
Found out what it was - I was right clicking and doing Save As...
I followed the link and downloaded the file but the file extension was .zip_. Worked fine after I removed the underscore.
Trying it out now.
Ahh, excellent. Sorry about the trouble. Blame Microsoft, it's what I do.
Oh, if anyone is wanting to see screenshots, take a look (yes, I'm using Windows7):
__________________ WoW: Mortaneus of the Blood Cabal on Argent Dawn US
"It is a strange thing that many truly spiritual men...have actually spent some hours in speculating upon the precise location of the Garden of Eden. Most probably we are in Eden still. It is only our eyes that have changed." -G. K. Chesterton
Linear Mode
