Comments on: One More Reason that Character Builder is Awesome

By: Month in Review: November 2009 — Dungeon's Master

Month in Review: November 2009 — Dungeon's Master — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:25:08 +0000

[...] One More Reason that Character Builder is Awesome – Following November’s Character Builder update, Ameron made a discovery he couldn’t keep to himself. [...]

By: Ameron

Ameron — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:26:46 +0000

@xerosided
I was presently surprised too.

@Hrm
I was happy to make this discovery, but you’re right, a prompting or notice would have been nice. But now that I know I can keep it in mind moving forward.

@Kyre
I’m just stoked that it’s there at all. I suspect it was a fairly recent addition since I hadn’t heard of it before now. You’d think others would mention discovering this functionality if it’s been around since day 1. I’m actually surprised that Wizards hasn’t promoted this functionality.

@Scott
Your suggested work-arounds are excellent ideas. I agree that the benefits certainly outweigh the possible negatives.

@Vinicius Zóio
Sounds like you were as happy to make this discovery as I was.

@Pangalin
Good point. The likelihood of someone creating a unique power with the exact same name, class, and power level as one that Wizards releases are pretty slim. Your work-around is another great idea. Thanks for the comment.

By: Pangalin

Pangalin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:39:16 +0000

Seriously, Hrm? What’s the likelihood that he would have created a custom power of the same name for the same class WITHOUT intending it to mimic the official power?

If anyone’s seriously worried about that “problem” they can just put words in the names of their custom powers that WotC would never use in an official power name. Or hell, just stick an asterisk on there, that’d probably do it.

By: Vinicius Zóio

Vinicius Zóio — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:35:46 +0000

It’s been there for some time. The same happened to one of my PCs when he took Vampiric Heritage . He took it the day the feat was released. One day, custom character, another day, complete and legal! ^^

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:06:16 +0000

Hrm: You have a couple of options.

First, you can make a copy of all your custom information and store it somewhere else, which is probably a good idea anyway.

Second, you can add a prefix or suffix to each of your custom rules elements’ names that would prevent them from matching the names of any future official rules elements, so that they would never be replaced.

Really, though, this is one of those nifty features that does a lot more good than harm.

By: Kyre

Kyre — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:09:53 +0000

I know that that ability has been there at least since Divine Power came out–I had put in custom powers for those abilities, and when it updated, it instantly converted them, much to my great pleasure. I don’t know if it was around before that.

By: Hrm

Hrm — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:50:50 +0000

This is kind of troubling. What if I don’t want Wizards to overwrite my painstakingly created custom power with something that happened to have the same name published at a later date? It should have at least asked you, first.

By: xerosided

xerosided — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:19:23 +0000

That’s a pretty sweet discovery, and something I wouldn’t have come to expect from my experience with the Character Builder. I’m pleasantly surprised.