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4th Edition Power Creator

Update: The 4e Power Toolkit is now available! Create custom classes, power cards and powers!

I’ve resigned myself to the fact Wizards of the Coast is far too busy with other projects to worry about those silly online tools it promised to deliver when 4th Ed launched. Still, the outside possibility of an official character creator (or an unofficial one that isn’t Javascript or a spreadsheet) has stopped me from whipping up my own in .NET.

What it hasn’t stopped me doing is coding a power creator for DMs and players with a creative streak. Called the 4th Edition Power Creator (surprise!), the tool lets you customise your own features, utilities, at-wills, dailies, encounters, etc, save them as XML files and output a directory of said files as HTML. It’ll even sort them by level and frequency.

The ZIP below contains the executable and an example of a custom class built with it (or, you can view the program’s output here). This is an older version to the one I’m currently using (I can tell because the example class is utterly busted), and it does have a few quirks you’ll have to work around. But mostly, it does exactly what it was designed to do. I’ll upload an updated version in a day or two, so be sure to check back for it.

The usual “use at your own risk” disclaimer applies, though I’m 96.25% sure it won’t blow your PC up. Requires the .NET 2.0 Framework for XP users, while people with Vista should be right to go.

Download 4th Edition Power Creator
Make suggestions or bug reports at the Power Creator forum.

~ by Logan on October 30, 2008.

Posted in Dungeons and Dragons

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18 Responses to “4th Edition Power Creator”

  1. I’ve been looking for something just like this, but I get an Invalid or Corrupt File message if I try and open the zip.

    Mike said this on October 30th, 2008 at 10:23 pm

  2. I hope Wotc does something like this with the charcter creator, I loved the power sheets for the premade characters. You’ve done an excellent job with this.

    Mike said this on October 31st, 2008 at 11:49 pm

  3. Link seems to be broken :(

    sefotron said this on November 3rd, 2008 at 1:21 am

  4. Zafehouse link doesn’t connect, but I got the Wikiupload to work, and you have some nice improvements in this version. I noticed that you seem to be missing the Force keyword under Damage and Subtypes.

    Mike said this on November 6th, 2008 at 5:03 am

  5. Powers with secondary and tertiary targets are going to need a few extra lines, for attack and target. I had to pick Force Orb as my first power to try and make haha.

    Mike said this on November 6th, 2008 at 5:15 am

  6. I knew I’d miss a power or keyword here and there. Thanks for pointing it out.

    I’ve intentionally passed on adding second and tertiary targets because there’s a bit of work involved in getting it all to gel. It’s definitely something I’d like to do when I get a spare moment.

    Glad you’re getting some use out of the app!

    Logan said this on November 11th, 2008 at 9:27 am

  7. How’s the rewrite coming? Found this very interesting and started to make powers. Got lots of work in, having built in control for secondary and tertiary attacks would be super awesome. I also started with an idea for a multi stage attack, I’ll have to hand adjust the HTML to get it to look right.

    Brian said this on January 6th, 2009 at 7:51 am

  8. Hey Brian,

    Funny you should ask – I did a lot of work on it over the last few weeks while I had some time off work. It’s coming along well – I’m just implementing support for secondary and tertiary attacks, and trying to add in as many “special cases” as possible.

    I’ve made sure there’s support for custom power sources, accessories, damage types, etc, so adding your own stuff is not at all difficult.

    If you have any suggestions, be sure to post them here: http://forums.zafehouse.com/index.php?board=14.0. It’s the forum for the current power creator, but it’s a good place to put feedback.

    Logan said this on January 6th, 2009 at 3:17 pm

  9. […] is nifty, but the 4e Power Creator, 4e Class Creator and CrawlNotes are as nifty, if not niftier. Hey – niftier is a […]

    Playwrite: Trackwork the initiative tracker, now 4e compatible said this on January 12th, 2009 at 3:32 pm

  10. First off, I would like to note that this is a truly awesome application. I would like to note a couple of issues I’ve found with the Power Creator.

    1. There is no “Melee or Ranged weapon” option under range.

    2. If you wanted to create a new basic attack, you have to supply a level number (when basic attacks have none).

    3. There needs to be an additional text box that doesn’t supply anything in bold, this would be used for text like “Increase to 2[W] at 21st level,” etc.

    Shirizaan said this on January 16th, 2009 at 8:04 pm

  11. Thanks for the feedback Shirizaan.

    I’m working on a feature-packed replacement for the Power Creator, called the Class Creator. It includes the changes you mention here, except for the third one. Though it’s quite good so I’ll make sure to add it!

    Logan said this on January 16th, 2009 at 8:08 pm

  12. Logan – This is a fantastic tool so far, and I’m looking forward to playing around with it more when I get home. (You’ll be pleased to note that it’s also the first addition to my list of RPG tools on my own blog.) The idea of creating custom powers has appealed to me for a while, especially since I’m trying hard to find ways to inject more flavor into individual powers; so I LOVE the ability to add flavor text as well as rules. Great job.

    Saragon said this on January 19th, 2009 at 1:56 pm

  13. […] there’s the Power Creator. This lets you make powers just like the 4e Power Creator before it. Except this has support for Secondary and Tertiary attacks as well as Sustain and more. […]

    Playwrite: Introducing the 4e Power Toolkit: Create your own classes, races, powers and power cards said this on February 11th, 2009 at 2:47 am

  14. Where do I write the Sustain text?

    Yunah said this on April 3rd, 2010 at 2:20 am

  15. Suggestion! It would be really cool if the Power Creator could create .part files for the CBLoader.

    I said this on February 8th, 2011 at 3:06 pm

  16. I have been toying with the idea. My only concern is that Wizards might not approve.

    Logan said this on February 8th, 2011 at 3:20 pm

  17. i doubt they would care, if they havent taken down cbloader, why would they take you down?

    megrim said this on July 14th, 2011 at 9:23 pm

  18. I just want to know whether or not their will be an essentials class builder, really just a format change that has something like Level 1 features, and whether you will create special templates for oddly formated powers, such as all the monk powers.

    DPRSlayer said this on April 1st, 2012 at 10:27 pm