I got a chance to look at Digital Squire, a tool for use at the table by players. It allows a player to load their saved character file from the DDI Character Builder and track game information within the application, replacing a printed character sheet. Digital Squire has a built in dice roller, allowing you to do a quick roll, where you can type what you want the app to roll, or you can choose the die icon next to many of your characters stats and it will roll using your character’s modifier. The app also has the ability to track damage, healing, healing surges spent, powers expended, and short and extended rest.

When spending a healing surge it allows you to specify an additional modifier to be added in, easily taking into account any healing kicker from your party’s leader. Power’s that you have expended, automatically refresh after clicking the rest buttons, encounter powers after a short rest and encounter and daily powers after an extended rest.

The feature I found incredibly handy, was the tie in with the DDI Compendium. Once a character is loaded, the Compendium menu at the top allows you to quickly open the Compendium to your character’s class or race. There is an option to have the Compendium info open in an external browser or by default it tries to open the info in a window created by Digital Squire. I could not get the info to display in Digital Squire, but once I set it to open in browser, I was prompted to enter my DDI log-in for the web page and was seeing the entries in no time.

The tie in with the Compendium also works with equipment and powers, allowing you to quickly get the full description for any item, ritual, or power you have. The one thing I wish you could see in the program is your character’s feats, with the ability to look up in the Compendium.

In the Powers screen, you can see all of your powers broken out into At-Will, Encounter, Daily, Utility, and Extended. You can select a power and choose to use it, which brings up a dialog where you can pick what weapon or implement to use with the attack. From there, it will make an attack roll with your modifiers and display the results. The results show a break down of  attack and damage rolls, as well as show any misc. modifiers you may be able to add from class features. For example, I loaded a copy of a rogue for a player from the last DnD game I ran. When using a power it would roll the attack and damage for the standard power, but it would also list +3d8 once a round for sneak attack. I don’t like that it doesn’t roll this damage, I would rather it roll the damage and keep it separate to be added if needed, but it is nice to have these things shown as a reminder.

It will be a while before I get a chance to try this at the table, but I can see this being something I would use. Our current gaming setup involves players from out of state, so our setup includes several players with laptops out at the table. I think having the Character Builder open to make any permanent changes, like xp or new items, and Digital Squire open as my character sheet, I will enjoy not having to shuffle around several pages of character sheets and power cards.

As I look over more of the tools created by Asmor, I may post additional posts if they seem as handy as Digital Squire appears to be.

-Matt

If you run into any issues with the new site, please email podcast@runningdtw.com to let me know.

First off, we mentioned on the last podcast that our normal recording spot, my basement, is currently under construction and I will be spending much of my free time working to get it finished.

Second, we have been working on updating our site.  In addition to a new look, we are changing a few things on the back-end.  I am hoping for a smooth transition with these updates, but if I think these changes will effect how you receive the podcast, I will post on the site with details.

Right now, it looks like sometime in July for the construction in my basement to be done, or at least to the point we can start recording again.

In the mean time, you can still follow us on Twitter (Matt or Jason), or email the show with suggestions for anything you would like to hear us talk about on the show.

-Matt

Instead, the Monk has become a Psionic character, a striker no less. My first thoughts were something along the lines of “Really?”, but once I thought about it more it started making sense.  To me the Monk was always about obtaining perfection in mind, body, and soul, which seems like a perfect fit for the Psionic power source.

Then I went through and read the Design and Development article about the creation of the Monk. It talked about how they thought the Ki power source seemed to be getting thin. They didn’t want to just dump all of the Asian themed classes into it, just to fill it out. As Jason put it, “We don’t need the Asian power source.”

We will talk more about some of the mechanics and powers of the Monk in our next episode of the podcast.

If you have a DDI subscription and haven’t looked at the Monk playtest yet, I would definitely check it out.

-Matt

-Matt

-Matt