The second release of the Hero Lab Encounter Builder Beta just went out via email, and should be in our beta tester's inboxes soon!
Once you've used the encounter builder,
please complete our survey! We have some important questions we'd like to know your opinions on.
The following user-facing changes were made since the last beta:
- The Encounter Builder and Tactical Console have been moved to the new Gamemaster menu!
- Various other menu items have been moved out of the now-deceased "View" menu. They can be found on the "Tools" menu and "Settings" menu instead.
- The "Include enemies in the portfolio" checkbox is now more visible, and made other tweaks to the game-specific panel at the top-right of the form.
- Data file authors can now right-click a stock character to open the portfolio it was defined in.
- Data file authors can now set the sourcebook for all characters in a file via the Develop menu.
- The encounter builder is now less "flashy" when adjusting the number of characters in the encounter.
- The dashboard now displays the current APL of allies and the total CR of enemies, making it easier to see the current state of your encounter.
- Added more information to the description of each stock character (alignment, size and type).
- Several dozen monsters from the Bestiary didn't have their sourcebook flagged properly.
- Armies are now displayed at the end of the list of available characters, and show their ACR properly.
The following features were requested a lot in the last thread. Unfortunately they are not something we can squeeze into the first release of the encounter builder, but we do hope to add them some day.
- A simpler way to add your own creatures to the encounter builder
- Better support for searching based on e.g. the environment a creature is found in
- Built-in automatic treasure generator
Again, these will not be in the first release of the encounter builder. Requesting them only makes us sad.
Other than these common requests, please let us know what you like and don't like, any bugs you find, and about your "must-haves" for this feature. Also, please let us know if you like or dislike the changes we made since the last beta.
Once you've used the encounter builder,
please complete our survey! Thanks, and thanks for your interest in Hero Lab!