Hello, yet another annoying noob

[Venger]

Originally Posted by Valyar

I wish you luck and a lot of patience with this For me it was bridge too far.

Thank you!
Understood, I feel I will rise to my level of incompetence and mostly stay there

[Mathias]

Venger, I wanted to make sure you've actually gotten the correct product. What game system are you creating in Hero Lab? The Authoring Kit is for creating entirely new game systems from scratch, and is not needed to edit existing game systems. The way you're talking about what you want to add, it sounds like you want to edit PF1 or 5e, not create a new game system. If so, the authoring kit changes nothing about what you can do on an existing system, so you should probably contact support - we offer full refunds within 60 days.

Originally Posted by Venger

Yay! Thank you, misery loves company!
I bought in, and thus far the underdark is not so bad, but it is tricky, there are footfalls along the way..

i.e. I'm doing the tuts and mistrust myself when the Tut mentions something that hasn't been presented before, like the mention of bootstraps in Tut #2
I'm on Tut #6 and still haven't seen bootstrap's, bootstraps
So I retrace my steps, looking for secrets I might have missed, and there are many winding passages and earthly distractions.
I don't know what Picks are either but I know they are a thing, well maybe not a "thing", you get my point, and I'll get there by & by

Regarding the tuts, I've gathered all work is focused on dev and I'm good with that. Carry on.
Having a place here to ask for help is great
I continue on yet undaunted

I do have a noob question, possibly jumping the gun but I want to know
How deep does the AK go? Can I eventually get to the point of creating/editing my own tabs and fields, or are the ones presented sort of hardcoded and that's what I have to work with? (which is amazing)
Is there yet a deeper darker place learned sages go that allow them to alter the fabric of reality? (aside from HL program language level code which is for Wizards, I'm not worthy)
What if I wanted a PC who could possess multiple items that each had their own AC,HP, and what if manually tracking them was fine by me?
Could the learned sage do this?

(pardon the metaphors its just fun, humor an old man)
Thanks!

[Duggan]

Originally Posted by Venger

Thank you!
Understood, I feel I will rise to my level of incompetence and mostly stay there

A bit of advice from personal experience, stick with implementing the tutorial the first time. I tried to also start setting up my game system and the amount of confusion it cost me was almost palpable. Also, the tutorial is not always correct. We've had a few threads from people running through it pointing out cases where it gives a less than efficient implementation, uses old methods, refers to items implemented later in the tutorial, or just flat out has bad code.

Honestly, it's not that bad... it's usually pretty easy to suss out why something isn't working, and you'll learn efficiencies later, but I find that setting expectations lower helps so that you come into it with an attitude of "Oh, well they told me there'd be bugs, and the procedure they're calling is implemented further down the page, so that's not that bad" instead of "OMG! This code doesn't work! What did I pay for?!" We're always glad to help around here.

[Venger]

Venger, I wanted to make sure you've actually gotten the correct product. What game system are you creating in Hero Lab? The Authoring Kit is for creating entirely new game systems from scratch, and is not needed to edit existing game systems. The way you're talking about what you want to add, it sounds like you want to edit PF1 or 5e, not create a new game system. If so, the authoring kit changes nothing about what you can do on an existing system, so you should probably contact support - we offer full refunds within 60 days.

Mathias, thats the most incredible thing I've heard. Now, Thats customer support
So, I want to work with 5e characters mostly.
But, I want the ability to try new things. There's a freebie game system we've been tossing around, DeadSimpleRPG, I might attempt to tackle after the Tuts, and we've actually been doing work on a spreadsheet for a simple space combat game with a set of 2d tactical space/flying rules. Perhaps I'll fiddle with it in HL. Would sure make playtesting easier

I don't know how far I'll get along, but I will keep the AK, and if I fail to do more than cobble some crap, then consider my purchase a contribution to two tools to enhance our gaming, HL and for a long time RW

And if I'm more successful than that, then all the better, I will have some more useful tools in my bag of tricks.I think I will make good use from what I can learn

Thank you

[Venger]

A bit of advice from personal experience, stick with implementing the tutorial the first time. I tried to also start setting up my game system and the amount of confusion it cost me was almost palpable. Also, the tutorial is not always correct. We've had a few threads from people running through it pointing out cases where it gives a less than efficient implementation, uses old methods, refers to items implemented later in the tutorial, or just flat out has bad code.

Honestly, it's not that bad... it's usually pretty easy to suss out why something isn't working, and you'll learn efficiencies later, but I find that setting expectations lower helps so that you come into it with an attitude of "Oh, well they told me there'd be bugs, and the procedure they're calling is implemented further down the page, so that's not that bad" instead of "OMG! This code doesn't work! What did I pay for?!" We're always glad to help around here.

Yes sir I concur, the tutorial.You know whats kind of funny? I named my tut file, TutUncommon, hah! play on words and scary dusty HL mummies

I've had to workout a couple issues, something like a circular infinite loop for one tut, already "into the infinite" here lol, but I worked it out, and learned more in the process.
And yeah, throwing expectations out before even starting is best.

I don't want to impose my own limitations upon this software!
Thanks!