Hero Lab Encounter Builder Feedback Thread

[casiel]

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.

[casiel]

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.

[casiel]

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.

[Manic Modron]

Originally Posted by Steve

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

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?

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

Creature Type, Terrain and Climate would be fantastic.

[Manic Modron]

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.

[Silveras]

Originally Posted by Manic Modron

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?

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?

[Manic Modron]

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.

[Aleslosh]

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.

[Manic Modron]

Originally Posted by Manic Modron

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.

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! ))

[Silveras]

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.