Forum: Public Forum

on Fri 22 of Apr., 2011 00:13 BST, by Tony posts: 16

Has anyone here used PCgen? Its software for generating D&D player characters, which I was quite enjoying using until it threw up some really counter-intuitive skill stats.

I was using it to create a halfling character in 3.5, who according to the PHB are "agile, surefooted and athletic" and get a +2 bonus to climb and jump. So I was suprised when my jump stat for example came out at -4.

This seems to be due the fact that halflings movement rate is 20 and not 30, so they get clobbered for a speed penalty when calculating this skill stat.

So is PCgen just a bit buggy, or is it interpreting the letter of the law and in so doing bringing about some silly results? Its certainly daft that the player manual goes to the trouble of stating the nibblefootedness of halflings only to give them an attrocious jump skill stat due to their short little legs.

on Fri 22 of Apr., 2011 10:47 BST, by Len posts: 1095 United Kingdom

Sounds buggy to me. Even the SRD Spreadsheet has quirks, but it does not give great negatives like that on jump checks. It does not do it all for you, but there are versions for most classes. Armour penalties might account for it if you piled on some full plate or something as well as low strength?

Len

on Fri 22 of Apr., 2011 12:36 BST, by Tony posts: 16

According to the PCgen forums, this is not a bug, its a feature!

The modifier that's sending the jump stat into the negatives is a -6 penalty for each 10' below 30' for the character's walking speed. As the halfling's natural walking speed is 20, its applying this penalty.

I can understand this sort of penalty for a human-sized creature who was encumbered with far too much treasure that his normal walking speed is reduced to a crawl, but for unburdened and spritely halfling it seems a bit harsh.

Thanks for the link to the spreadsheets, Len. I have to say though that despite the above anomolies, I do still quite like PCgen. As well as sorting out my basic stats, it handles equipment and spells very well and will output to a variety of formats. So I'll probably stick with it and try and work through its oddities.

Forum: Public Forum

PCGen? Strange Skill Stats

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