Character sheet

While a player is logged into the judge they cannot update the character sheet.

The only way for a player to update his characted would be to open a copy of d20Pro in judge mode modify and export the creature and import it to the DM.

 

Please seriously think about changing this in upcoming releases. I am getting really tired of having to update the characters sheets for all 5 of the people playing in my game. None of them have judge licenses (they are all pretty poor), so I am the only one with a judge license and I also bought 6 character licenses to cover them.

Without having control of their own character, the players in my game have been very slack about updating their characters (basically they have to keep a paper/pdf copy, make changes and then tell me, usually via email, what changes I need to make to their characters in d20). When I ran paper and pencil games in person, I could barely get my players to remember to update their characters (they usually "remembered" to do so about 5 minutes after arriving at my house).

This is one of the biggest negative points for this virtual table top program (I otherwise generally like it a lot). I don't have a lot of extra time in my life with a full time job and 3 children, so in addition to prepping the game I am running, I really hate having to manually update everyone's characters.
Nighteagle

 

I will look into a mode that will allow players to edit the creature. So the Judge can turn it on and off as needed.

Are you playing 3.5, pathfinder, or 4e? If your players use HeroLab or DDI they can build them and send you the files to quickly import them in the mean time.

 

DDI is easier to build characters with (at least initially); but isn't very house rule friendly. Even though the DDI importer function works great (Dragonborn still get the wrong value for their healing surge) - expect to still spend considerable time modifying the imported files (especially if you have house ruled equipment).

HL is a little more difficult when it comes to creating characters, but you can absolutely tweak EVERYTHING. Resulting in a nearly flawless import.

 

We're playing Pathfinder. Unfortunately, most of the players in my group are as poor as dirt (one has been unemployed for a year), so I generally don't ask them to buy additional software, like HeroLab. So, since some of them don't even have Adobe Acrobat to use a fill in PDF, I've resort to typing their character info into a notepad file (the only file type I was sure that EVERYONE could use...), have them update it, and then send it back to me, for me to manually enter the changes. I've bought d20pro, plus 6 licenses so I could accomodate my destitute players, but I really can't buy seperate software for each one of them. Not to mention, from a purely philosophical standpoint, the characters are theirs, and they should have the capability of modifying their characters (within my veto limits, lol). We used Klooge prior to using d20pro, and in Klooge, characters were able to modifiy their own character sheets, so we were used to having that ability.
Nighteagle

 

I find that players are less in touch (with their characters) than they used to be.

In PnP days, all my friends went through great lengths to keep their sheets up-to-date. Transcribing the information to a new sheet as the old ones became dog-eared. The simple act of copying the information from one paper to another helped reinforce their memories of what they had and what they can do.

In this "electronic" era, players merely print out their updated sheets; and read through them. This results in characters that are unfamiliar with their equipment and abilities. Which, in turn, can greatly slow down the game. [If a character wants to use an immediate interrupt item/power, I give them mere seconds to locate the item/power or rule that they failed to act]

Having a way, and forcing the characters to use it, of allowing players to update their characters is, imho, a must.

If you were using 4e, I could provide you with some software suggestions (free) that would at least give your players some ownership of their characters; but, unfortunately, I have not done any research on "Pathfinder" resources.

 

Noted and submitted. Thanks for the idea!