Some friends wanted to start a campaign and I’m trying to digitize my character sheet. Initially I was going to use d&dbeyond so I could send my DM the character sheet digitally and make it easier for them, but I can’t pick Drow without paying for the character, for whatever silly reason. I’ve been checking out all the apps I can find on the play store and I can’t find any with Drow.
Are their any apps that give you all the character options? I’m using Android but I don’t mind switching over to my laptop (Windows/Linux). I had originally wanted an offline app but opted for online to help the DM, but since that won’t be possible anymore I could care less. Still, online apps are fine as I can just block their access to the internet or suffer the occasional ad if I really must.
A friend (fellow player) mentioned Pathfinder, but the DM wants to do D&D, he bought the books and everything already, but I think if this is a success among the group, we’ll be trying that out eventually.
Yeah, it’s totally understandable that they’d want to do D&D if they’ve recently sunk money into the books.
That said, not only are the rules free online, but there are a lot of very good (and free) tools built on top of those free rules that are worth checking out, even if just to see what could be. Pathbuilder (web and Android) and Wanderer’s Guide are two well liked digital character sheets. The Goblin’s Cauldron is another currently in early development, that looks like it’s going to be a great addition, too.
On the GM side of things, there lots of free online tools that really help GMs out:
There are several good encounter builders:
PF2Easy has a collections of ready-made and customizable reference sheets .
The creature creation rules have been used to create a creature creation tool.
Loot Dragon has a searchable and filterable list of items, as well as a random selection feature.
I lay all of this out just so you have some idea as to what could have been, in terms of support, in D&D, and also for reference for when the time comes that your group decides to actually give the system a view.
Thanks for all this! I'll share it with my DM and see what he thinks.
As someone who has DM'd both, I can vouch for Pathfinder being the more well-designed game (and also it is totally free, unlike D&D). That said, there's nothing really virtuous about playing one over the other. You play whatever the majority of your playgroup is open to playing, or whatever your DM wants to run.