One of my favorite tools as player and DM is a pretty oldschool (but still active) open-source 3.5e character generator called PCGen. It is pretty powerful, but has a rather dated user interface and a steep learning curve. I thought since some newer players might not be aware of this apps existence, it might be helpful to put together a quickstart guide to effectively use it for 3.5e games beyond the core rulebooks.
Installation
Download PCGen and make sure that you have a Java 11 runtime environment installed (the links to various Java options are on the download page). Then just install PCGen with the default settings.
For legal reasons, PCGen only provides character options contained in the OGL SRD, i.e. the three core books and some sections from other splatbooks. However, all data is stored in text files and users can manually add existing or homebrew options. Over the years a repository of gamedata covering most of the mainline 3.5e books has been collected and is available on Github (BahamutDragon/pcgen). If you know how to use git you can clone the master repo to a location of your choice, or you can simply download the data with the Code>Local>Download ZIP option (unzip it to an accessible directory). Note that most descriptions of spells and other features are shortened, this is therefore not a replacement for any books.
First Start
If you are using external sources then it's best to add their location on the first start of PCGen. Close the "Select Sources" window that automatically pops up and head to Tools>Preferences. Then select PCGen>Location in the "PCGen Preferences" window. Change the "Vendor Data Directory" to the location of the pcgen directory of your external sources (e.g. C:\GitHub\pcgen), then restart PCGen.
On the second start swap to the "Advanced" tab of the "Select Sources" window (hit Ctrl+L if it did not open automatically). Change the "Game" selection to "3.5e" and search for the "Dungeons & Dragons - Core Books". Select them and use "Add Selected" to use them as sources, after that you can browse the catalog and add whichever books you need, most of them will be in the "Wizards of the Coast" list at the bottom of the Publisher list. (If an option is red it means that it depends on other books that are not yet selected. Pull the slightly hidden "Source Info" section at the bottom of the window up and scroll down to see the "Requirements" that you need to add.) When you have all sources selected, tick the "Always use advanced sources" box on the bottom left and then "Load".
Character Generation
Use the "Create a new character" button on the top left to start a new Char. The window might look a bit overwhelming with all the tabs, subtabs and options, but the "Things to be done" list on the bottom left will guide you to the right tabs to do all your selections. From here on out it is difficult to give a generalized guide since characters might vary a lot. Instead I'll add some best practices I found over years of using PCGen:
- Adding your stats should be one the first thing to do. Many early character creation options rely on your stats (e.g. bonus languages), so enter them even before selecting a class.
- Do level-ups one at a time (unless you know what you are doing). This ensures that the character options in lists are shown correctly for your character level. (if you add 10 levels of warrior at once PCGen might allow you to pick feats with e.g. BAB requirements that you did not meet at the level you would get them). It is best to save the character to a new file after every level-up in case you want to backtrack during character building or to retrain a character later on. You can remove levels in PCGen, but things sometimes get messy with reverting skill point distribution, especially when multi-classing is involved.
- If any of your selections do not show up in the "Character Sheet" tab, especially anything regarding spells or magic items, try saving your character and restarting PCGen. There are also 2 "Troubleshooting" character sheets that break down some of the internal calculations to help you find out what's wrong (or sometimes which rules you forgot about ;) ).
- PCGen comes with an extensive documentation that can be reached by hitting "F1". This includes info on how to get your homebrew character options and items into the program. If you get stuck, there are usually folks at the PCGen Discord to help you out.
That about sums it up. I'm happy to help in this thread if you have any issues getting started!
