Ran first session with the Tactical Console!

[daplunk]

So last night my group completed the Tomb of Horrors and it gave me an opportunity to test out Hero Labs and Realm Works together.

Click Here To See My Tomb of Horrors 3d Build (http://downunderdm.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/tomb-of-horrors-3d-build-pictures-of.html)

I upgraded the room with a player visible monitor so Realm Works could display information to the players and used Hero Labs for the encounter.

Absolutely please with the Tactical Console! Combat was efficient to manage and having all the information at my finger tips helps immensely.

I did however hit a snag.

How do you manage large combats that you have not prepped in advance?

The story really took a turn for the unexpected at the end putting me in a situation where I have about 20 Drow including special characters potentially about to jump into combat.

What's the most efficient way to handle this in Hero Labs?

I imagine I would need to have presets built for all the characters prior to the session.

In relation to Realm Works I'm seeing that you need to have seperate *.por files in order to link an individual stat block into the relative Monster mechanic within Realm Works. Is that how it should be done?

Is this going to be a null issue once the Encounter Builder is released?

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a60/Plunk1984/2016-03-13%2017.30.18_zpsxjjbrgha.jpg

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a60/Plunk1984/2016-03-13%2022.20.33_zps2m6nufij.jpg

[Angela2013]

For the 20 drow just import 1 drow then go to Portfolio then duplicate drow. Enter in the number of copies you want. Even numbers them for you.

[MNBlockHead]

You do need to have the por for the drow pre-created though, no?

[daplunk]

I'm thinking its the only way to do it efficiently. It's just not acceptable to do it at the table. You have to add armor, gear and in the case of special characters (I needed Jarlaxle and 2 of his officers) you need to adjust a heap of stats to get it right and add feats etc.

[MNBlockHead]

That's what I do now. I put HL snippets into the scene topics in RW. I'm also try to have the POR files precreated for the most likely random encounters saved into directory so I can just open on the fly if I need to. What I am thinking of doing is adding the POR files to my monster articles in RW. But I'm hesitant to put too much work into this because I'm hopeful that in the not too distant future, the Content Market will go live and all the SRD monsters will be in RW will HL snippets embedded in each.

[ShadowChemosh]

I'm thinking its the only way to do it efficiently. It's just not acceptable to do it at the table. You have to add armor, gear and in the case of special characters (I needed Jarlaxle and 2 of his officers) you need to adjust a heap of stats to get it right and add feats etc.
If you have this and assuming its built with the community Pack you could share. For Pathfinder we have tons of the modules and adventure paths pre-done.

HL even built the "Encounter Builder" with preset data sets based on our community design. Which was that you have a tree structure to separate out chapters, rooms, and encounters (pre-filed with characters .por files).

Then finding "monsters" on the fly becomes easier because you have a large database of creatures to pull from. And you could maybe get other community help because building allot of the Encounters into .por files does not require editor knowledge.... :)

[daplunk]

You need a separate *.por file for each mob dont you? I noticed that RW will load every stat sheet thats saved in a *.por file. Is there a way to have the *.por file contain multiple races but Realm Works only display the required Race stat block?

[ShadowChemosh]

You need a separate *.por file for each mob dont you? I noticed that RW will load every stat sheet thats saved in a *.por file. Is there a way to have the *.por file contain multiple races but Realm Works only display the required Race stat block?
Hmmm not that I am aware of no. But if the .por has 5 monsters in it why would you not want to see them all. Only reason would be they are minions and you have 5 Drow all the same. Is that the case?

For one my point was ignoring RW and just talking about those making full use of HL without RW.

If you do use RW and you stored an Encounter File (.por) why would you need it to display the full stat blocks in RW? Wouldn't you just open it into HL anyways?

[ShadowChemosh]

So last night my group completed the Tomb of Horrors and it gave me an opportunity to test out Hero Labs and Realm Works together.
P.S. - I love the DF pieces. The new castle builder kickstarter is out by the way. :)

[daplunk]

My thinking is the *.por file would work like a database containing all of the Monsters and I could pull individual monsters from there and load them individually into Realm Work but it doesn't seem to work that way.

Thats not DF. It's all Hirst Arts. DF is way more expensive. I'm currently building a castle myself. My wife would divorce me if i spent that much on a castle.