Consideration before buying, HL and CM
 

HI all; new here. I currently use combat manager by Kyle Olson for running my weekly pathfinder game. Does anyone know if HL and CM are fully functional together? This is what I mean: I created a 5th Paladin/7th Holy Avenger with some free software, when I dropped the NPC into CM it made him a full Paladin and dropped the HA aspects. I am not sure if this is a CM issue (no replies on that forum still) or a pcgen issue.

Does anyone know if HL and CM work 100% together? If I drop a HA made from HL into CM will it work? If someone knows for sure that it does then I will pick up HL, otherwise I will have to scrap everything and just use Excel sheets that I have created. My friend has HL but I have been waiting about 2 months for him to respond, states always busy. :( Even if someone could just throw together a HA and email the HL file to me or test it themselves with CM (free) then I would know for sure.

Thanks all!!

Chris

Welcome. I doubt that the programs are 100% compatable. But if you want to build a character in HL you can create a pretty complete one. You can certainly have a multi-class character. At each level you assign the class for the char, so it can change with each level.

I think Holy Avenger is a prestige class?

If you like you can download the demo version of Hl and try it out. It wont allow you to svae the characters, or have any of the extra data packages with it but it will give you a good sense of how the program works and things like that. I would sugest doing that first and maybe asking some questions of the user community through these forums. Also in the tag line below, I have been creating demo videos on how to use Hero lab, feel free to check them out.

Thanks for the reply. I tried the demo version before posting and was able to build the Holy Vindicator (not avenger) in HL quite easily. Unfortunately, without being able to test run HL and CM (Kyle states CM supports HL and PCGEN, but PCGEN does not populate spells in CM and I have no way of testing if HL does/doesn't) to see if they work correctly I am hesitant to drop the money, especially as I would be buying all the books except beastiary since I DM. Is it at all possible for you to just throw a HV together and email it to me in HL format? I know I am a nobody here, but this is a test I must do before committing $$.

(I don't care for the combat manager in HL but I really like how easily it is to build a high level NPC quickly.)

Lone Wolf does have a 30 day money-back guarantee, so you can always purchase the program and the packages and if it doesn't work the way you want, ask for the refund and they'll cancel your code.

Ahh that is an option for sure. I don't mean to be a pain, but would not a simpler solution be even for someone there, if sending me a file doesn't work, try the combat manager + HL and see if they work fully (they do work together, just is everything there?). Once again, just seeing what can be done that is easiest.

Thanks for the replies.

Ok,checked out the agreement and from what I read a refund requires returning software to Lone Wolf directly, I see nothing about DL version.

"or if you purchased the Software directly from Company, then return the Software with a dated receipt within sixty (60) days of purchase to Company for your refund. "

In order to process a return for an online sale of HL directly from us, we simply need the user to send us a copy of the receipt email that is sent when the product is purchased. In reality, all we really need is the order number of the original purchase. If we have that, we can look up all the other details and take care of the refund.

There is a thread on Paizo's forums that is specifically for the Combat Manager. I'm sure if you post your question there, you'll be able to get the answer you need in short order. Kyle also monitors that thread himself, so you'll potentially be able to get detailed answers from the tool's creator. I think that's the best way to get the answers you're seeking with a high confidence in their accuracy. :)

Link to thread:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards...gerApplication

I have posted there, no joy from Kyle. Not sure what I will do then, maybe just stick to excel sheets or buy HL, but then a real pain to do a return, especially since I lose $ in exchange rate.

Thanks all.

What email should we forward the receipt email to? I am going to have to get a refund because some of the bugs I am running into make it less worthwhile to use the software then I first hoped.

Refund requests should be sent either to support@wolflair.com or sales@wolflair.com.

May I ask what the bugs are that you're running into? If you could share them, we'd have an opportunity to find and address them to improve the product.

I can't answer for Holy Vindicators, but I'll say I've never had much in the way of problems transferring my characters from HL to CM.

Do you have the module that would provide the HV for your HL? If so, could you run an experiment and see if it works (everything is populated).

At least with the latest versions of both HL and CM, the HV PrC is not dropped.

Thanks for the reply. So all the spells show up? That is my concern, I tried several PCGEN drop in PCr for CM and none of the spells show up, and in the case of the HV it just turned the HV into a paladin. I created one with pencil today...eech, took a long time and then I had to force CM to take it as a HV.

Cheers

Chris

worth a try
 

Ok, I will buy and see if CM and HL work fully. I guess no one else uses these two programs so the hard route is the only route.

I use both.

Let me exactly the things to make in a HL character and I'll import it using CM and get with you over the results.

I'll say this - in the past, there have been some issues with created characters not importing correctly into CM (both HeroLab and PCGen characters) but a short note to Kyle resulted in a fix within a few days/week or two.

That's true of every issue I've reported to Kyle, so I for one wouldn't worry.

Thanks once again. I really like CM and it was the first free program I have ever donated too. In regards to HV, anything will do, I just want to know if it will populate CM correctly for the prestige class. As stated near the start, it just turned the paladin 5/HV 8 into a paladin 13 from pcgen (to date no fixes for pcgen from Kyle for CM, but pcgen is clumsy anyway). My concern is will it do the same from HL, or will it keep both sides of the house? The character doesn't even need to be complete I guess, just the two classes and HV special spells.

****my friend with HL finally created a spell caster for me so I could test spells from HL into CM, which worked correctly. He said he would create the HV for me, but it took him 2+months to create the MU****

Ok, I bought HL to run my own tests, even if I do lose money on exchange if I opt out. I am going to see how hard it is to create my own stuff etc.

****Ok, for those who were wondering, combat manager does populate correctly with HL, the vindicator showed up with all his special abilities and spells.****