Best Free Character Creators?

[勝20100]

The black raven wrote:

Do PCGen or Coreforge run on mac ?

There’s a specific Mac OS X installer to ease the use. It requires a Java Runtime Environment 1.6 or 1.7, which is probably shipped with the most version of this OS.

[Vod Canockers]

So is there a trick for accessing Alternate Race Traits with PCGen?

[Nylanfs]

Are you loading the ARG? If so then on the Feats and Abilities tab, select the Racial Abilities tab, select the race trait type in the left window, select the one you are replacing and then double click the one you want to replace it with on the left.

[The black raven]

IIRC, when I installed PCGen on my previous Mac, it opened with a French interface (because I am in France and bought my computer in France, I suppose). However, I am so used to the English words that I could not really make sense of what the commands meant. So I switched the language to English and recovered my bearings, but the change in language apparently upset the software and it did not work properly anymore.

Is there a way to ensure that it opens with the English interface the first time I launch it ?

[Vod Canockers]

Nylanfs wrote:

Are you loading the ARG? If so then on the Feats and Abilities tab, select the Racial Abilities tab, select the race trait type in the left window, select the one you are replacing and then double click the one you want to replace it with on the left.

Got it. I was loading the ARG, I just couldn't figure out the interface. Thanks for the help.

[Sentack]

I've used sCoreForge in the past and do find it the most complete and, when it works, the most functional. PCGen, last time I used it, was confusing, non-intuitive and generally frustrating to use. Also, for a while it didn't have all the classes/feats/options that sCoreForge did, although it sounds like this is mostly resolved.

The only reason I can't fully recommend sCoreForge, is because it taxes excel well beyond it's limits, even on the fastest machine. Excel isn't designed to support workbooks that are that connected with so many macros, worksheets, and insane print/display layouts. It also doesn't work on some versions of Excel, and frequently crashes Excel if you're not careful.

I've been tempted to look at Hero Lab but the costs are way too high.

To me, PCGen is a good project that needs to reboot the project and focus again on user design. They have the data and all the different background elements, it just needs a better UI.

[Nylanfs]

The UI has been slightly redesigned in the last two versions Sentack., might want to try it now. There's also a list of things to be done on the summary page that is hyperlinked to the tab where you need to make selections.

Also the UI between Herolab and PCgen isn't that terribly different. It's all tab based.