Why I Love the D&D Character Builder

So I'm a big fan of D&D. For the longest time it was just the granddaddy game that my used to reminisce about, but a couple years back I bought the D&D starter pack for 4e and now i wonder why i waited so long. Everything about it seems tailored to an would be fantasy novelist, in fact a job at wizards of the coast is now up there on my dream jobs list (though to be fair it was up there back in the glory days of Pokemon cards too). The one thing I lack is a campaign group. One day I'll get around to finding one but until then i mostly DM custom dungeons for my younger brother and cousin every so often. DMing is great, building a story and setting your friends against it is fun, (can't wait until the encounter builder gets added to the DDi adventure tools they old one was pretty good already) but it means I never get to develop my own characters. Sure every so often i get to sneak a npc helper in to fill in gaps in the group but normally i just design the encounter for the number of players. My real passion comes in creating interesting characters. The greatest thing about D&D is if you think a rogue with wizard powers would be awesome, you can do that. There's no limit to your customization, especially with the new hybrid rules. I've come up with some really interesting characters, a Ranger who transforms into a wolf and fights beside his wolf companion. A Arcane hunter, Swordmage/Ranger with a wolf companion and hawk familiar who fights with a polearm and has ungodly perception, and most recently a melee sorcerer who can kill with daggers just as easily as his spells. Where the character builder is updated monthly, but its usually with the last months updates which means awesome stuff you just read in Dragon isn't in it after the update, but it does it's job fantastically. The feature that i love most though is the Level Up option. You can take a character all the way up to 30 (max in 4e) and level by level upgrade the character. You can fully plan out your character with everything he/she needs including paragon paths and epic destinies. You can see you character at the pinnacle of his/her power. Then once its saved you can use the View At option to print a character sheet of your character at any level you chose. You can go in and select the ideal items for your character, not assuming you'll get them but if your buying them, or the DM gives you a choice you already know which ones you want. Plus the View At will only show magic weapons and items you are capable of using at the chosen level, so if you have a +3 longsword (lvl 13) and a +6 axe (lvl 28) if you View At level 15 only the +3 will be listed in your characters inventory, while if you view at level 30 it will show both. The power cards that it creates shows the bonuses for attack and damage rolls on your attacks and you can tell it which weapons to display on the cards. The character builder lets you fully realize a character even if you may never have the chance to play him/her in an actual campaign. Plus it makes a great starting place for creating characters for fantasy stories unrelated to D&D. The building process is one way to develop the character and can help fully flesh him/her out. How they act in combat, and the skills they possess are directly representative, in part, to who the character is.