Leveling up character.

[Hexagon]

I'm not sure if I should post here or tech support, but here goes. I played a session of D&D on FG. Now I need to level up my character. But when I log on I can't seem to make any changes to him. I click everywhere, but I cannot get a curser. What do I need to do? I have the original (local) character, and the copy of the same character for the campaign, but can't seem to modify either. Any help appreciated. Thanks.

[Mithrindir]

You will need the GM to log on then you log on his session. You can update your character there. I think this was meant as a control so players are nto tempted to edit thier character between sessions.

So have GM log on his campaign then you sign into it.

Mith

[Hexagon]

If this was intended as a "feature", it is a bad one. Playing online, even with such a great tool as FG is slow. Doing as much paperwork as possible offline only makes sense. A much better "security feature" would be a character print button for the DM.

[richvalle]

Did you create the character on the server or pick the version that was on the server when you played last?

Its pretty funny... when I told a friend about FG one of the first things he said was that their needed to be a way to stop people from changing their characters sheets on the local side. Different strokes...

rv

[Hexagon]

I have both the character that I created offline and the one I used in the campaign and can't edit either of them. You would think I could at least edit the one I did locally, prior to any campaign.

I've been playing D&D since 1977, and have had no problem with people cheating, because when people cheat, I stop playing with them. Any time you sacrifice freedom for security (whether in a computer program or in federal law) you are making a mistake.

[Hexagon]

Well, I just retyped the whole character as a new one, and dropped it into the campaign folder replacing the old one. So much for the security feature if indeed that's what it was. It would have been much easier to simply make the changes on the sheet.

I create my characters first using eTools and then type them into FG. If is far easier than rolling and takes care of all the paper work.

And if you are listening Smite Works. Take a cue from Code Monkey. In eTools, you can make any changes to a character that you desire. The program then indicates on the sheet for the DM, where changes have been made. Freedom for the player. Easy spot check for the DM.

[richvalle]

CM is said to be working on some sort of tie-ins with FG... hopefully you'll be able to just click a button in etools and create your FG character that way (or something of the sort).

Sorry, I've never played enough to have a character gain a level in FG so couldn't offer much help! :(

rv

[Mendorian]

I may be wrong on this one, but I know that currently this is the case for rulesets. When you connect to the server, the version of the ruleset that the DM is using is downloaded to your client, overwriting any files with an older time-stamp in your own rule-set folder.

I am not sure what it does with characters, i.e. if you level up the character on your local machine and then drop it in your folder, if you select the "server character" when you connect to the session it will likely overwrite any file with the same name on your local machine. So, you would have to connect and use the local character again, which would mean that the DM may not see any of the changes you had made until the day of the game.

While I understand your sentiments on cheaters, and not playing with them, one thing that used to happen from time to time was calculation errors. If you had a player that leveled up and they had a complex character, some rules-interpretations, or even just the math itself, might be done incorrectly, and then it isn't usually caught until the gaming session. So for example, a warrior is mis-interpreting a feat and an item and his increased level or whathaveyou, and his attack bonus ends up 5 points higher than usual. The DM notices it halfway through his invading orc force, and is wondering why they are being cut down like wheat, so then he has to call the game to a halt and everyone gets a headache trying to figure out what the stats should REALLY be, etc, etc.

Times like that can totally trash the flow and momentum of a session, and for those of us that only get a few times (if that) a month when they can even try to organize a session, losing time for something stupid is aggravating in the extreme.

One thing you might consider is what the first post mentioned, but just have the DM fire up the server the morning of the session or the night before or whatever. Then players have a chance to edit at their leisure, and likely not all at once, speeding it up a bit, and the DM has a chance to see what changes were made before the session starts.

At any rate, with the groups I gamed with (after High school at least) the issues were far more likely to be rules-related errors or interpretation problems than cheating.

However, Devs, can we get clarification as to why it seems that a character you create locally is editable until you connect to the server when a "server character" copy is made, but then, after a session, you have a listing for the local and server versions both in your client, but the local copy is not editable? It would certainly make sense as Hex said that this should still be able to be modified, if for no other reason than to test out different class choices and the like.

-Mendo