Intermediate Guidance

[JimGroves]

Over on the Paizo boards I was involved with a discussion that included Rob.

I started out by saying that I loved HeroLab, but found the Editor to be frustrating. He asked me to elaborate, for the sake of understanding and product improvement.

I replied at great length, but I'm going to trim it all down to the basic points. PLEASE NOTE: This isn't intended to be product bashing, or critical of the level of support that has been provided by Mathias in any way whatsoever. In fact, Rob even proposed a possible solution. That is what I am posting about, because I think the more that average users hear about it, the more they might be interested in Rob's idea as well.

My issues with the Editor are/were:

1.) The tutorials are very simple, and thoroughly explained. However, it doesn't take long for a user seeking to build something to go beyond the scope of what the tutorial actually teaches. For example, the Storm Elf tutorial won't teach you everything you need to take a creature from the Bestiary and reproduce it in HeroLab. The Storm Elf gets you started with the basic concepts, but there's a lot more to it.

2.) One has to understand something about Paizo Design 101. They love to add PC levels, Prc's, and templates to everything. Not only with their own material, but they will very commonly use 3rd Party OGL material as well (Necromancer's Tome of Horrors and a lot of material from Green Ronin). They make a more creative and versatile encounter that way, and they do it a lot. When updating Runelords, Crimson Throne, Second Darkness, and Legacy of Fire (which were all written under 3.5) to the new Pathfinder Rules, HeroLabs could be invaluable to show how creatures come out under the new revised rules. Except that you have to input the basic race to start with.

3.) Full use of the Tactical Console lies in having your monsters in HeroLabs. That is when the true potential of the TacCon is realized.

Rob addressed some of those issues:

I agree that the examples in the documentation *are* simpler than they could be. The docs are intended to get users started, and they focus on the stuff that everyone is going to want to understand. We don't want to scare users off by launching into all sorts of complexity when many of those same users won't ever need to delve into that complexity. Ignorance is bliss for users who want to add custom magic items, feats, and the like to support their house rules and the GM's particular world.

For the hardcore users, we've got the Authoring Kit, which provides all the gory details of the inner "magic" that Hero Lab achieves. It outlines all the sophisticated features of Hero Lab so you can accomplish virtually anything with it. As you point out, Hero Lab can more than handle all the complexities of Pathfinder. However, a tool that handles those complexities requires lots of sophistication, which in turn entails a significant learning curve.

Floundering in the middle are users like yourself. You want to leverage the product as fully as possible, which means wanting detailed access to all the creatures out of the Bestiary within the TacCon. That means you need to know more than just the basics. However, you also don't want to wade through all the complexities of the Authoring Kit, just to use 10-20% of it. You want something in between.

Spot on, correct.

Speaking for myself.. I'd love to import all the Bestiary Creatures into HeroLab, in my own spare time of course (and that might be a pipe dream, but I would at least like to do the handful that I'm actively working with).

However, I don't want to author my own rule system. That would be too much, at least in the foreseeable future. In fact, I love M&M, but I see no need to tinker with what Lone Wolf has already done with it.

I want something in between. I wish I was a programmer, but for the time being I'm not.

Unfortunately, we don't currently have suitable documentation that's really designed for users like yourself. Prior to Pathfinder, this really wasn't an issue, since users generally had all they needed with the Editor (plus a few questions on our forums) or they needed to really delve into the Authoring Kit. Things have changed with Pathfinder. We've recently realized this and begun discussing it internally to figure out the best solution.

Cool.

Here's what my current thinking is, so let me know if you think this would work for you. First of all, we identify a subset of the Authoring Kit that is required reading. This would introduce all the basic concepts and terminology that Mathias was using in his post. Second, we identify 5-6 creatures from the Bestiary and fully implement them. We choose creatures that cover a broad range of mechanics so that we can demonstrate how to do 85+% of the stuff that is needed for creatures. For each creature, we do NOT write up a detailed walk-through, since we assume users will already know the basics. Instead, we identify what's special about each of those creatures and outline how to implement the creature, along with why we've done things that way. We gloss over the stuff that users should already understand. Where appropriate, we point out various sections of the Authoring Kit that are specifically used, allowing users to read just the sections that they need. We then assume that users can figure out the rest and/or post questions on our forums to ask about the nuances of certain creatures they try to implement.

Would that give you something highly useful?

I believe it would!

And that is the purpose of this post.. so that other people can read this and hopefully post if this would be something useful to them as well.

So how about it community? Is this something you would like to see as well?

[huntercc]

I think that would be an excellent way to get people up to speed on what needs to be done to enter their favorite new race / monster / class / etc.

I agree that the tutorials are a little too basic for what most people would want, but on the other hand the Authoring Kit is more than a little intimidating (although very powerful!).

Something in the middle would be perfect. I've been able to learn things on my own or with assistance from the forums, but others may not be as quick to learn.

I like the idea of a set of "intermediate" documentation, as long as you provide links to the more basic documentation where appropriate.

[chiefweasel]

There is a community of files already being created. they can be found at www.cheeseweasel.net. i control that website and would love to see more people in the HL community provide more files for all users.

we even ave a small team of 3 people working on D20 3.5 books. the complete champion, our first one is almost done. but we could use all the help we can get.

[kunger00]

I'm all for a set of intermediate instructions! I'm not experienced enough yet to need them... but I hope to reach that point!