Digital Squire – For the Digital Player
Knowing that the iplay4e application exists for the iPhone, I started searching for a desktop application for use with the character builder data. A couple Google searches later and I find Asmor.com and his scripts. Originally looking for an app to use with Character Builder save files, I found much more, including an encounter planner, monster builder, and treasure generator. There are a few other tools on the site, but these were the ones that caught my eye.
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
