Hero Lab Encounter Builder Feedback Thread
 

This thread is now closed - please post your feedback in the new encounter builder thread. Thanks!

Yay, I'm in! But I found a minor one already...

The HL installer file isn't downloading with the .exe extension... Could be confusing to some people.

I'm running a Skype game tonight, so I'm looking forward to giving it a test run.

Cheers,
Jim.

Mac install worked great. Is a nice simple tool.

Couple initial comments
1. I would like to see the regular portfolio screen show the XP, and CR for its contents.
2. There does not seem to be a way to change a creature already in the encounter into an ally or enemy. One might need to do this because they added a creature wrong … OR they just want to see what the CR of their party is!
3. It would be nice if there was an indicator as to whether a member in a portfolio is an ally or an enemy.

It looks like it will be a great start.

1. Agree with DR above, showing CR and XP would be great. The opening blurb mentions it, but it doesn't seem to be active yet. Also, being able to key in a CR and add critters till the CR is full would be an awesome thing, but I think that was mentioned as part of the end goal.

2. An easier way to sort by type would be very helpful. Searching for "cold" terrain creatures brings up anything with Cold in the text, even if it isn't a mechanical term. Not a big deal since PFSRD.com does that, but I'd like a onestop shop for these things.

Nothing bad has happened so far. Hopefully I'll use it soon and see if anything snaps apart or clicks together.

And I know that this is an ambitious thought, but a treasure generator that can print out a list of the loot appropriate for that encounter, this would be sweet.

There are online tools that can do this, but again a one stop shop would be ideal.

Custom Folder
 

The first thing that would improve the encounter builder is the ability to 'add' custom folders to the set of locations incorporated into the EB.

Here's my use case;

I'm using the encounter builder to check if an encounter in my Rise of the Runelords Game might turn into a TPK. The encounter consists of 2 lamia Clerics, 2 stock CR10 red dragons and a jotunblood giant.

The lamia clerics and Jotunblood giant exist as community *.por files available online; I can bring in the red dragons from the bestiary files.

To do this though, I have to save the lamia and giant *.por files into the data/pathfinder directory - which clutters it up a bit. If I could 'point' the EB at the folder where I've already got the custom *.por files it would speed everything up.

failing that, if I can have a single 'custom' folder for EB files within my data/pathfinder directory, that keeps things neater.

in terms of use of the EB, I'm naming these custom files 0Custom_filename.por for the moment so that I can locate them quickly. The EB did show me that when the giant turns up, the encounter shifts from CR 14 to CR 17; so I'd better put quite a delay in before the giant makes it into the combat! In that sense the EB is *really* useful

I just received the Beta, and one thing jumps out right off, an unnamed hero is also built into the encounter when I set up an encounter. Did I miss how to keep that from happening?

So far so good. My only suggestion right now is the ability to set the APL and difficulty of the encounter instead of the EB listing the various APL and difficulties as you build the encounter.

@frumple. I see a "Target CR" that I can set to determine the "XP Budget" for the encounter. Isn't this what you are asking for? APL is the party level; it doesn't change for the encounter, so it is the encounter CR that is important to set, isn't it?

Issues:

Installer - Like DMG, I had the issue where the Windows installer did not save with the .exe extension. I had the same issue with the previous beta, as well, and reported it then.

Armies - I see the armies, especially the first army in each series of multiples, displaying odd information in the text below the name. For example, the Kobold Army entry reading:

The same is true of other army entries.

Information text - The information text below the name is inconsistent. Sometimes it is the source book (ex. "Bestiary 2"), sometimes it is the Class/Level ("War 1"), sometimes it appears to be the header for a related entry (ex. the "Alabaster" entry has "Cat - CR 1/4"), and sometimes it is blank (ex. "Cat" entry). Perhaps Size and type/subtype(s) would be consistent and useful?

Parenthetical Numbers - Some entries have parenthetical numbers (ex. "Baby Centipede (4)"). It is not clear what these are for. When the source is not indicated, it is difficult to tell whether these are from an encounter portfolio, or something else.

Summary
Overall, looks good so far, aside from the above. I would agree with forbinproject that being able to designate additional folders for portfolios would be useful.

More (or better defined) search filters.
If I try Angels as subtype, the research gives me a lot of creatures that has nothing to do.
Just to give an example.

Can you give me more details on this? Are you getting a 404, or is the file downloading with a different name, or something else? Also, which email client are you using?

A treasure generator is one of those things on our long-term todo list, but out of the scope of this project. :)

I love it !
 

I tried it a bit this morning. (on a mac)

No trouble installing it.

- This is a much better way to import creatures into a potfolio.
- Filtering such as creature types, environment and CR would be great.
- The ability to add CR changing templates such as giant, young, zombie etc... would make it even better.

As is it is already a great improvement.

I will post any bug encountered, I have seen none yet.

Thank you guys, this will save me a lot o time.

2) In the character menu, choose "Configure Hero" - the Enemy/Ally Selector is on that form.

3) From the view menu, choose "Show Tactical Console" - if the picture's on the left, it's an ally, if the picture's on the right, it's an enemy.

Adding own *.por files to encounter folder
 

Hi - how can I add more creatures to the encounter builder database - NPC's etc

In the Tools menu, choose "Explore Folders", and then "Game System Data Folder".

Create the NPC you want to add to the database as normal, and then instead of saving the file to the default location, save it to the "Game System Data Folder", and instead of the default extension of .por, give it the extension .stock.

Had a quick play with this today.

No installation problems.
No crashes.

The interface is simple enough, however I'd like a few more filtering options. Rather than the standard search box.

Terrain / Type / Subtype / Etc. Filter switches would be a more streamlined method of searching.
It's still a bit clunky searching for certain things. I tested for a specific XP total, once I'd included a space after the numerical figure, ie 600 XP not 600XP, that's when it became more intuitive however still cumbersome.

My first error
 

So, this happened upon first trying to launch the encounter builder. I followed the instructions of the email and successfully finished the import with no problems. Everything seemed to be functioning as normal. Then I clicked the Encounter button, and ...Error message! Following the message, the program froze up and the computer had to be restarted.

HeroLab.exe has encountered an error and needs to close.

Please email a DESCRIPTION OF WHAT YOU WERE DOING, in as much detail as possible, along with this message, to support@wolflair.com. PLEASE NOTE: Unless you tell us what you were doing, we won't have enough information to fix this problem!

Right click and choose "Copy to Clipboard" to copy these details, or you can find them in this file: C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Temp\lwderror13716.txt

C:\Program Files (x86)\Hero Lab\HeroLab.exe
4.3b 407

major: 6, minor: 1, build: 7601, platform: 2, version: Service Pack 1, spmaj: 1, spmin: 0, suitemask: 00000300, type: 1
ACCESS VIOLATION
Address: 0x0060e244
Type: bad read

Thank you

Hi DivingRhino! Thanks for taking the time to check out the new encounter builder!

What exactly do you mean by the regular portfolio screen?

Thanks for the feedback! We are brainstorming a few ways to make a hero's allegiance more visible. Did you have a particular place in mind?

Hi frumple, does this fit your needs for setting a difficulty for the encounter?

Hi mezme, for the time being, one way to get around this is to import the hero as an enemy, apply the template you want, reopen the encounter builder, choose a target CR, and check "include enemies in the portfolio in the total CR."

Oh, I bet that it is. All those charts to compile and code... that can't be easy work!

Still, I look forward to the day when the Encounter Builder will have a Treasure button that will let me print out a master list of treasure in an .rtf file like a stat block and also have the little icon that lets me pass around that random loot to the NPCs involved.

Already though, I'm enjoying this a great deal more than the standard Import function. Great work so far!

A thought:

-I like to give my creatures max HP on creation. The way it is set now, if I want 100 mites to have max HP, I would need to edit each one to do that (I know I could clone one I modified, but this is a BETA test right?). It would be nice to either have a way to select max HP for the entirety of the selected creatures in the Encounter, or have the Character Configuration options affect all creatures generated with the builder.

I'm using Outlook 365 (version 15?).

The file is downloading as 'hl43b_beta407_win_install' (it's missing the .exe from the end of the filename). Manually renaming the file after downloading works a treat.

You can enter a value for CR in the upper-right corner to set the XP budget. Is this what you wanted to do?

Currently the search field checks the entire statblock. What individual elements would be useful to search?

In regards to Encounter building, features that I would want to see include randomly generated treasure for the encounters. It would save GMs a lot of time having to generate these by hand if the software generated encounters with appropriate treasure based on the XP Advancement being used.

I'd also like to see the ability to limit encounters by CR, Subtypes, and Environment. If I wanted to just generate random encounters for a mountain region at CR 4 it would be nice to just put in that data and software creates an encounter appropriate for it with treasure displayed.

Hi,

I'm having an issues with the Search feature. I think it seems to be searching on type, but not name. For example, if I search for Ogre, I get several monster, including an orgekin, but not an Ogre. If I search for Giant, I get several creatures with the Giant subtype, like an Ogre, but no Giants (as Hill, or Stone).

Also, an option to change the list order would be nice. It displays in CR order at the moment, name order would be useful, but if the search worked by name, that wouldn't be as needed.

Thanks,
FQ

So far liking what I'm seeing!
Glad I found the "include enemies in the portfolio..." check box. Was starting to get frustrated when I couldn't see what the effect of adding something in to an encounter already imported would do to the CR.

I immediately liked what I was seeing when I thought about the ease of summoning something now with this tool. Rather than slogging through the stock file importer, now all it takes is opening this up and searching for what you want to summon.

When searching, as others have already stated, would love to be able to customize the sorting in some way.

Standardizing what appears below the stock files would also be something to iron out. Whether it be Source, CR, Region, etc.

As I keep working with it I'll keep posting.

Status so far...
 

Ok, hope I can add something constructive.

Just received my beta email, but when I download the windows file it doesn't have an "exe" extension, and Windows 7 tells me it is an unknown file/cant install. It downloads the file "hl43b-beta407_win_install" , and when I click to run it is says "unknown file type" and opens a box that says "Choose the program that you want to use to open this file".

So I renamed the file to add ".exe" and it then changed to an application file. it worked. I installed the HL beta and imported the file (from my downloads folder), so far so good.

2- When I got the program to run, I could not find a way to filter results by CR, creature type, or MOST important to me, Terrain Type. These filters will go a long way to make this program useful for me. (Currently, I have to go to http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary to do it manually).

3- When I try to search for "orc", "ogre" or "skeleton" it doesn't pull those entries in the search bar. :(

I will give the program another run tomorrow, and see what else I can find out. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to participate! :)

I had trouble when first using the Encounter Builder, but these problems mysteriously evaporated upon subsequent launches of the program.

When I first used Portfolio / Launch Encounter Builder, it relayed the Importing Builds message, but did not seem to progress beyond 10%. After waiting 10 minutes, I end-tasked the process and rebooted my computer. Then upon launching the Encounter Builder afterwards, there were no creatures listed in the left column (which was expected with an incomplete build import). When I closed down the program and relaunched it a third time and launched the Encounter Builder again, it automatically restarted the import, finished the import within a few seconds, and then things worked properly.

Would it be possible to add templates to creatures shown on the right column of the Encounter Builder? For example, if we wanted to have 4 dire wolves, one with the Advanced template and two with the Young template.

Is it possible to import .por files into the Encounter so that custom-created characters can be included in an encounter? That way we could add a Boss NPC to a group of monsters for an overall encounter.

Mine has no such window. It just says "Characters in Encounter" and does nothing about any sort of budget. Do I have the wrong version somehow?

Creature Type, Terrain and Climate would be fantastic.

OH, and until a treasure generator is added to the program, this generator right here has been the most useful that I have seen. Simple, customizable and easy to print off for the players.

I've attached a screenshot of what I see. Below the banner for "Characters in Encounter" is section with (on the left) "Current CR" (based on total XP in the encounter, it appears) and "Target CR" (which you can set to allocate a 'budget' of XP with which to build the encounter).

Is this different from what you are seeing?

Yes it is! That looks like what I want, but I'm not getting it. There is only a small amount of black space between the banner and the main window on the right. There is no Current CR, Target CR or even space for it to go.

I had the same issue with the HL download file as some others - no .exe extension. Once I added that, no problem.

Filtering - would love to see the ability to filter by a RANGE of CRs. Would also like to see a filter for Terrain. If I had to choose between one or the other, I'd go for CR Range.

EB Descriptions - I do not see the book description as needed. (Once EB goes live, we won't be able to see what we don't have packages for, correct?). Also, removing this would help the inconsistencies talked of in previous posts.

Templates - the ability to add Templates (Celestial, for instance) would be a very nice bonus

Treasure - I noticed some NPC characters imported through EB have treasure but other entities do not (based on the books they come from, I'm sure). It would definitely be useful to have "stock" treasure attached to characters chosen.

All in all though, a very useful add on to this program! I encountered no errors and the user interface of the EB is very intuitive.

It seems to work fine on my laptop, though. I wonder if the new data set didn't import right. I'll do it again when I go home and see.


(( EDIT: Okay, imjported again, nothing. Clean install, everything is fine. Thanks for the posted image! ))

Interesting.. I have no idea what it is. Maybe the OS?

I'm on a Windows 7 desktop. I have a tablet that's Windows 8.1 (Surface Pro), which I will have to try tomorrow. That has run previous versions of HeroLab without issue.