The rest of the post is aimed at generating a conversation (better yet some actual working legal software) about a way that legitimate owners of the PHB could get a working character generator. I included a link to what is probably a copyright violation as an example of what something like this could look like, and I am quite willing to edit that out.
Wizards of the coast 5e character builder software#
If the software is freely available, and legal, then there is no reason other software developers could not also take advantage of it. In fact, the Fantasy Grounds company claims to be in discussions with WoTC to sell 5e content. The resulting XML is utilized by the Fantasy Grounds commercial software, all without any cease and desist litigation from WoTC.
![wizards of the coast 5e character builder wizards of the coast 5e character builder](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a36be8412abd90cb2a36875/1553642620238-DYDUML0JN0GLDANVK3A4/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kEpkzlq0i_5NmSE9RL9-WqpZw-zPPgdn4jUwVcJE1ZvWEtT5uBSRWt4vQZAgTJucoTqqXjS3CfNDSuuf31e0tVFGxLw-OhR6fjPYgd3r2NJT54sidvHhyJhj-ZL1mAa1ltsQWGar195b-4f7CxV-eiQ/dungeons-dragons-5th-edition-players-handbook-p234320-200701_thumb.jpg)
My point in the post is that Fantasy Grounds has found a nice (and seemingly legal) balance by making only the parsing tool available, and leaving it up to a user with a physical Players Handbook (PHB) to scan their content and feed it into their free parser. There does seem to be a threshold that WoTC is comfortable with allowing content as evidenced by the continued existence of some limited builders on the web and a few mobile stores. Currently no legal 5e character builders exist that contain extensive content from their published material. Below is the chain of discussion:īased on my research, I don't think there is a way to get the Wizards of the Coast (WoTC, parent company of D&D) to bless any use their content in any software and there is no OGL. *Edit: After discussing with takumf, I removed an example in the post that could be copyright infringement. A great video tutorial exists on YouTube which walks a user through the steps.
![wizards of the coast 5e character builder wizards of the coast 5e character builder](http://cdn.escapistmagazine.com/media/global/images/library/deriv/801/801291.jpg)
I used the program today, and while it is painstakingly tedious to scan your PHB, the rest is a pretty straight forward, albeit long process. The good folks over at Fantasy Grounds have perfected a way to parse out any 5e book into a workable xml format using a free program called PAR5E. this is not possible without major copyright violations, I know.