D&D 4e Online Resources
This is the first in a series of articles where I scour the web in search of useful resources for popular systems. I figured I would start with one if the newest systems, Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. I chose D&D 4e because it was the newest, and therefore probably the easiest to get a handle on. In spite of its youth, there are a lot of people and companies producing great tools and resources for the 4e gamer out there.
Publishers
- Wizards of the Coast – The official stuff
- Adamant Entertainment – Non GSL adventures
- Goodman Games – Only current GSL publisher I know of
- Kenzer & Company – Non GSL Kingdoms of Kalamar
- Mongoose Publishing – GSL (Wraith Recon) products on the horizon
Custom Classes & Races
- Dungeon’s Master – Has an excellent heroic tier Necromancer as well as Paragon Paths and Epic Tier powers for it.
- RPGNoticias’ - Leandro has an awesome custom Monk Class (the mechanics are in English)
- PlayWrite’s 4e Class Creator - with accessories, weapons, damage and power types, as well as power sources
- Wizards’ Community Class Compendium – A massive repository of custom classes from the WotC forums
- Wizards’ Community Race Compendium – An equally massive repository of updated and custom races
Character Generators
- Pfheonix’s Character Sheet - An editable character sheet that performs many calculations for you
- RPTools’ CharTool – They have just added 4e support to their character generator
- Emma’s Char Manager – There is a subscription for this service, but it stores your characters online
- Hero Forge Character Generator – Currently in production
Character Sheets
- Kiznet’s Foldover Sheet – This is a monster sheet that provides storage for included power cards when folded
- Neceros’ RPG Sheets – Several varieties of character sheets including landscape & classic versions
- Mad Irishman’s Sheets – The Irishman has some nifty customizable sheets, don’t want the logo, remove it
- Shado’s Character Sheet – Very polished character sheet and power cards with full color 4e theme
- Mount Abora’s Sheets – “Merlin” Williams has two very clean looking character sheets
- Emma’s Static & Dynamic Sheets – THIS SITE HAS BEEN C&D’d BY WIZARDS OF THE COAST!
- Wizards of the Coast – The official 4e character sheet
Power Cards
- PlayWrite’s 4e Power Toolkit - Make your own custom powers and then put them on a card
- Asmor’s Power Tracker – Software that helps players track available powers during play
- Alroon’s Power Cards – A nice set of editable power cards hosted by ADnD Downloads
- Ander00’s Power Cards – A ready-to-print collection of all the PHB powers
- Tools for GMs – A Google Group with several flavors of power cards
- 4e Fan Publishing Cards – Some more power cards, though not complete
Combat Managers
- Pfhoenix’s Encounter Manager – Software that orders combatants by initiative and tracks effects
- PlayWrite’s Trackwork - A 3.5 & 4e combat initiative tracker
- Ex Nebula’s Virtual Combat Cards - Designed to assist Dungeon Masters in running 4e D&D combat
- Turn Watcher – A very polished piece of software that tracks a whole slew of things, for $15
- Anubisware’s Encounter Manager – Sorts by initiative and lists name, defenses, & hps and can be found at the Geek’s Dream Girl
- RPTools’ InitTool – RPTools has a whole suite of wonderful, free apps, and this is one of them
- Traveon Wyvernspur’s Tracker – A pretty thorough Excel spreadsheet for encounters & initiative
- Chad’s Encounter Tracker - An analog manager that tracks all the expendables for a single character
- Alroon’s Combat Conditions Tracker - A nice image with rows of condition icons, thanks to ADnD Downloads for providing this
- Dr. Midnight’s Hand Dandy Nev-R-Fail - ADnD Downloads also has this one sheet that tracks the initiative and effects for 6 entities
- Tools for GMs – A Google Group with a couple of initiative and condition cards
- Kiznet’s Combat Crib Sheet – Gives a nice synopsis of combat, modifiers, and definitions
Monsters
- Mad Menagerie – The Labs’ custom creatures located on this blog
- Core Mechanic’s Monsters – Custom monsters from Jonathan @ The Core Mechanic
- Pen & Paper Portal Monsters – Some more monstrous goodies from the blogosphere
- Wizards’ Community Monster Compendium – Custom monsters from the WotC forums
- Asmor’s Monster Math Cruncher - Creates general stats for creating custom 4e monsters
- Asmor’s Monster Maker – Lets you save monsters and create authentic looking stat blocks
- Core List’s Monster List – The Core Mechanic’s list of monsters and terrains
- Tools for GMs – A Google Group with some monster cards
Treasure
- Asmor’s Quartermaster – random treasure generator
- Asmor’s Treasure Trove - A searchable database of magical items
- Tools for GMs – A Google Group with magical item cards
Miscellaneous
- Tools for GMs – A Google Group with odds and ends like condition and hazard cards
- The Core Lists – More lists from Jonathan @ The Core Mechanic including adventures, rituals, & templates
- The Gamer Dome – A FULL index for the 4e PHB (better than the one included!)
- The Gamer Dome - Another awesome index, this one for the 4e FRCS
- MadBrewLabs – I have a list of virtual table tops/digital game tables right here
- Asmor’s Random Encounter Generator – Generates random encounters for 4e
- Alroon’s Passive Skill Tracker – A nice sheet to track player’s passive skills, in care of ADnD Downloads
- 4e Fan Publishing – Icons & Fonts for powers and attacks
- 4e D&D Player Reference – Cribbed notes on everything
D&D Insider
- Vaporware?
- Dragon & Dungeon magazines – stopped the press and moved them online
- D&D Compendium – search for rules (but you better know what you are searching for!)
- Encounter Builder – generate encounter lists
- Ability Generator – build stats for character generation
- Character Visualizer – NOT AVAILABLE (make 3d models of your pc)
- Character Builder – now available
- Dungeon Builder – NOT AVAILABLE (build 3D dungeons maps)
- Game Table – NOT AVAILABLE (import your dungeons to this virtual game table)
This list is obviously not even close to being complete, but it is the extent of resources I am aware of. I haven’t listed any generic resources, as I plan on writing an article specifically aimed at general RPG tools. If you have something that you would like added or know of something I missed, drop a comment.
I CALL FIRST POST!
this is sooooo bookmarked. THANKS for all the linx! Excellent! Someone should have done this a long arse time ago… oh wait, 4E is only 3 months old – /clap NICE JOB! =D
sorry.. i’ve had about 5 cups of coffee
@Jonathan: Thanks for creating some of the resources I linked to! I actually hope to maintain the list, so as new stuff comes out or updated, so will this post.
This is a fantastic repository of stuff! Thanks so much. Like Jonathan, this is totally bookmarked.
Shameless plug: By the way, I don’t know if it even fits into your list, but I developed a “Settlement Sheet” for managing simple descriptions of the places in a campaign.
http://mattwarren.net/dnd_tools/settlement_template_v1.doc
@Matt: Your welcome, and shameless plugs allowed.
This should prove very useful.
I prefer my own Monk class though. (Yeah, shameless plug.)
Great resources! I plan to take the time to go through all of these to see which`ll benefit me the most. Thanks for taking the time to compile the list.
@Scott: Cool. I thought I had seen another Monk class out there. I think there is a barbarian class floating around too.
@Czar: You welcome, I hope some of them come in handy for you.
I’d also like to thank and give some praise to the people that created these tools as well.
@Labs: There are quite a few new and revamped classes floating around — the Wizards forum had a Ki (I think) defender, the Wulin Xia (or something like that) that was really good. I’ve also seen a completed druid (controller, not shapeshifter) and barbarian that were pretty good.
There’re a bunch that are poor quality or badly balanced (there are at least three other monks that I’ve seen, none of which I’m too fond of), but there’re also some quality classes out there.
This is pretty impressive. A nice collection of useful tools and miscellaneum. I’m bookmarking this site because I’m definitely going to be using the to help build my Campaign Setting. When I’m done with it all, I’ll make a site so anyone can use it and hopefully it’ll make it’s way back onto this list.
Again, good show mate.
Since shameless plugs are allowed… It’s not exactly the same kind of “character generator” that you have listed, but I made a random character gen for 4e: http://chaoticshiny.com/4egen.php
Not specifically made for 4e, but heavily based on it, is the fantastical combat terrain gen: http://chaoticshiny.com/cterrgen.php
Just got into 4d DnD. Can’t wait to use this.
/plug
WarriorNation.net, 2500 member strong video gaming clan. We support 40+ games. Dungeon and Dragons online included =D
Bah, I’ve been wrapped up building a new home for the blog and neglected my readers…
@Josh: Can’t wait to see your setting. I am creating a campaign setting as well, “The Dead Wastes.” Forging a world can be an intensive, but very rewarding process.
@Swordgleam: No shame in pluggin useful resources, thanks for sharing!
@WNxProphecy7777: G’damn, a 2500 member video game clan! I though my ten member UT3 clan was impressive. Welcome to D&D and I hope you get some use out of this.
Dear madbrewlabs
I to have been struck the the readerneglection virus due to a bit of DIY on my site. I feel the same pain.
Loving the list thoguh :)
Bob’s last blog post..System Update
I’d like to contribute with the Virtual Combat Cards encounter tracker to the list. It tracks initiative, health, and has space for conditions. Check it out here: http://www.exnebula.org/vcc
@Nebulorum: I gotcha added, thanks for letting me know about it!
Madbrew, thanks for the link. We are hoping to have the Epic Tier of the Necromancer ready later this month.
We also have a great section on Skill Challenges. Our purpose in creating them was to provide DMs with some plug & play challenges for their games. We all know that a DMs time is precious and often everything doesn’t get planned out the way it’s envisioned. As a result our skill challenge section was born. Check it out here: http://dungeonsmaster.com/skill-challenges
We are also publishing a series of modules which are free to download. Our first one The Magistrate’s Daughter is up and we hope to publish the second one within the next two weeks.
Wimwick’s last blog post..Skill Challenge: Temple Treasure
@Wimwick: Not a problem, I’ve had it on my to-do list since I read the Heroic Tier, and I am looking forward to the Epic Tier. I am currently collecting Skill Challenges (but Critical Hits beat to the punch on listing them, so it has taking a backseat) and I’ll be sure to add you guys to it.
Take down the party sheet down. It’s, well, not appropriate.
@Nilum87: Whoa! Yeah thanks for the head’s up!
Encounter Manager link is broken. Here is the new place to get it (you need to register for free on the forum to get the download link):
http://encountermanager.anubisware.com/Forums
The D&DI Character Builder is now finished, and is fairly well polished.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/insider/characterbuilder
@IanJ: Thanks for the updates… I should make a point of returning to my old posts and updating links.
Hey! Thanks for the mention!
Neceros´s last blog ..Mentions
Well, since shameless plugs are allowed:
http://www.RPGCharacterIllustrations.com
High-quality custom character illustrations starting at $15. Each illustration built to your exact character specs. Take a look, we’re always looking for feedback.
Craig´s last blog ..Testimonials
Shameless plugs being allowed, my site has a crapton of D&D 4e player and DM options, since it is based on a whole new setting with a lot of differing assumptions than 4e’s Points of Light.
@Wyatt: Wtf, I don’t have your site on here… I’ll have to remedy that this weekend while I do maintenance.
I’m pretty easy to miss, I think. Thanks!
Wyatt´s last blog ..Playing Online: Google Wave