Cubicle monkey that I am, I only had about ten minutes to pounce on the new Monster Builder released today. I have been looking forward to this because while the Character Builder had a rocky start – it clearly had a lot of potential even from Day One. I had hoped to see at least as much potential in the new Monster Builder. I didn’t expect anything as versatile as the classic Monster Builder – but I expected a reasonable amount of functionality. I thought I was being fair minded in my hopes for it by being neither overly optimistic or purely pessimistic.
Boy, was I ever overly optimistic.
I don’t have time to write much, but here’s the list I jotted down while perusing the new Monster Builder.
CONS
- No export
- No copy/paste
- No filter by level
- No ability to print multiple monsters all at once
- No ability to create new monsters
- No real customization of existing monsters
- Change level, automatically recalculates numbers
- Rename monster
- Rename attack powers
- Glitchy
- Monster block randomly jumps back and forth in the center column, clipping off the right side of the block.
Pros
- New monster stats (that the Compendium already has)
- Import custom monsters from classic MB (not tested)
- Monsters are saved online (yay?)
- Some monsters have monster art! (actually great!)
That’s it. As I commented on Twitter, the new Monster Builder does not qualify for the term “builder”. It is a Monster Namer. It barely functions as a database of monsters, and the Compendium does a better job for searching and filtering the monster database and it doesn’t require Silverlight. I can rename attack powers with Wordpad, or with a pencil, any day.
From WotC_Trevor:
Over the next few months we will be adding features and content until we meet, and in some ways surpass, what the classic Monster Builder offered.
I hope so! Until sometime happens, there really is no reason right now to use the Monster Namer over the classic Monster Builder.