Hero Lab Encounter Builder Feedback, part 2

[Colen]

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:

1. The Encounter Builder and Tactical Console have been moved to the new Gamemaster menu!
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Data file authors can now right-click a stock character to open the portfolio it was defined in.
5. Data file authors can now set the sourcebook for all characters in a file via the Develop menu.
6. The encounter builder is now less "flashy" when adjusting the number of characters in the encounter.
7. 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.
8. Added more information to the description of each stock character (alignment, size and type).
9. Several dozen monsters from the Bestiary didn't have their sourcebook flagged properly.
10. 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.

1. A simpler way to add your own creatures to the encounter builder
2. Better support for searching based on e.g. the environment a creature is found in
3. 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!

[CorzatTheGray]

Just a quick look and a few quick imports this morning and so far no issues.

Like how we can see what the numbers are for the whole encounter now. Both the party's APL and the CR of the enemies. Good job to be able to see "Allies" and "Enemies"!!!

[Kendall-DM]

Do'h, I've been out of the loop sooo long, not able to keep up with all the things you Smiths and Joneses are doing! Ok, so this is the first I've seen of an Encounter Builder, how can I sign up for the Beta, if it is at all possible?

Not sure how much I can contribute, with the massive data project I'm working on right now, but I'm definitely intrigued.

[bodrin]

Had my first gaming session using the encounter builder last night.

Installation presented no errors.

Using it on the fly presented no problems apart from the inability to add templates to the stock creatures.

A lot of the encounters in published material usually have spells cast / modifiers applied to the stat block already.

I'd like to be able to search for and apply any necessary templates and adjustments before importing into the portfolio this, IMO, would reduce the amount of downtime during the game.

[wess]

Just wanted to let you know that the link for the setup.exe on the windows platform is missing the .exe as the file type. So when you DL the file it don't know what it is. I have to add the file type and then it will execute.

[evildmguy]

I loaded up the new version on my laptop and it worked fine. The first version had worked on both computers.

I just loaded it up on my desktop and now it won't load. I get this error:

The data files could not be loaded due to errors. Hero Lab will now attempt to load them in recovery mode. Once loaded, you can access the editor as normal to correct any errors.

The following errors occurred:

Resource 'encnothum' - Resource is not a 'system' resource - designation is invalid
Resource 'encselect' - Resource is not a 'system' resource - designation is invalid

and then this error:

The following errors occurred:

Resource 'encnothum' - Resource is not a 'system' resource - designation is invalid
Resource 'encselect' - Resource is not a 'system' resource - designation is invalid

Any thoughts? I'm more than willing to move files to see if I can get it working if it will help!

Thanks!

edg

ETA: Okay, I tried 410 and it didn't work. I re-installed 407 and that worked. Again, 410 worked on my laptop so not sure why it's not working on my desktop.

[Steve]

Originally Posted by evildmguy

I loaded up the new version on my laptop and it worked fine. The first version had worked on both computers.

I just loaded it up on my desktop and now it won't load. I get this error:

The data files could not be loaded due to errors. Hero Lab will now attempt to load them in recovery mode. Once loaded, you can access the editor as normal to correct any errors.

The following errors occurred:

Resource 'encnothum' - Resource is not a 'system' resource - designation is invalid
Resource 'encselect' - Resource is not a 'system' resource - designation is invalid

and then this error:

The following errors occurred:

Resource 'encnothum' - Resource is not a 'system' resource - designation is invalid
Resource 'encselect' - Resource is not a 'system' resource - designation is invalid

Any thoughts? I'm more than willing to move files to see if I can get it working if it will help!

Thanks!

edg

ETA: Okay, I tried 410 and it didn't work. I re-installed 407 and that worked. Again, 410 worked on my laptop so not sure why it's not working on my desktop.

This might happen if the game system data files are not updated.

There is a link to the Pathfinder data files in the Beta e-mail.

The second Beta requires newer data files than the initial Beta.

[Daijin]

Bug: Baobhan Sith CR 1/2 (but correct one is under it CR 6).

Just posting something that seemed out of place.

[evildmguy]

Originally Posted by Steve

This might happen if the game system data files are not updated.

There is a link to the Pathfinder data files in the Beta e-mail.

The second Beta requires newer data files than the initial Beta.

Good call, that was it.

Thanks!

edg

[Globetrotter]

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