Beginner Box 'ruleset upgrade' and other BBox related requests...

[Romaq]

I purchased the Pathfinder rule-set, but I am also doing work with PF Beginner Box games.

1) I tried to 'import' a Beginner Box profile into the full Pathfinder data-set in lieu of 'upgrading' a character. It does not appear there is an upgrade path, the character would have to have everything re-entered. With my PFBB games, I hope to nudge new players into kicking around the HL 'free' Beginner Box software, having fun with it, using it as a GM, and *THEN* 'upgrading' the group when they are ready for the full ruleset. Even if they don't want to use Hero Labs, *I* want to use it as a GM for the group, and I can just bring fresh copy of people's character sheets or send them the PDF if they don't want to by the software right now. Or they can use their sheets in Demo mode until they unlock it, which for most people will be just fine enough anyway.

But I missed the part where Beginner Box made characters can 'upgrade' into the full software, or that part doesn't exist. Please make it exist. This will help me 'sell' your game for people inclined to upgrade Hero Labs along with their Beginner Box character. Or at least allow *me* to 'upgrade' their character, and they can enjoy a read-only copy of their file while I manage the 'official' copy of their character sheet from my software. They should *not* lose their journals or anything else that made their Beginner Box character special to them as the cost of using the full Pathfinder ruleset.

2) The full Pathfinder set has the Beginner Box iconic characters at various levels, and so on. I would love a 'BBox Toggle' rule that would take in a portfolio and a) Flag in error everything not compliant with Beginner Box rules, b) refuse to save the portfolio as long as it was in error, c) allow me to EXPORT into Beginner Box format a full Pathfinder Portfolio that passes the Beginner Box rules.

This would allow me to have the Black Fang Beginner Box dragon made for the full Pathfinder character set, but when I want to use him for a Beginner Box game, I can make certain in the full set he is Beginner Box rules compliant, and *THEN* save him in PFBB format, even give the profile to someone who wants to GM but *ONLY* has the Hero Labs PFBB software. Or if someone else is GM'ing by PFBB, I can take my favored Pathfinder character and 'downgrade' him fully compliant into PFBB, and pass that data to the PFBB only GM. These two requests will help me getting people new to Pathfinder and willing to try Beginner Box into using your software and kicking it around. Once they are using your software and having a blast, THEN we can get them hungry for your full Pathfinder core.

3) The "Energy Heart" magic item that is stock with the Beginner Box could be placed in there, that would be happy.

The Energy Heart appears to be a large flawless ruby. It grants the wearer 10 Damage Reduction to energy attacks once per day, and is worth 1000 GP.

I know you really don't want to put customization into the Beginner Box Demo, but having this as a magic item with the description would be less painful than having a custom valuable with a 'Wall-of-Text' item name that gets truncated around the word 'Dam' on the print-out. I don't know if you would call it 'armor' or 'magic gear', but it would also be very happy to have a flag if it were used for this day or not.

4) The Dragon Bane Longsword that is in the Beginner Box kit... I attempted to make it as a custom item. I have - within "Base Item", Longsword... NOT Masterwork, Normal material, +2 & +2d6 damage vs. Dragon, +1 bonus. The Bonus Equiv is +1, Total Cost 2015 gp.

The book does not give me a resale value to help me check my work, and my version of this item comes up with this error: "Bane (Dragon) Longsword: If you take special abilities, your weapon must be +1 or better."

If I make the Base Item of the sword "+1", the bonus equiv is +1 and the cost is 8315 GP, which is INSANE treasure for a Level 1 fighter.

So what I need is a 'by the book' version of that longsword that doesn't trigger the validation error and makes a *good* sword for a level one fighter, but not an OVERPOWERING 8k plus power-gamer treasure that will keep him in debt to the rest of the group until he hits level 5 or 6. That's simply not fair either to the player or to the group.

There is also a Dragon Toy, but beyond that I can't think of any particular treasure in the Beginner Box that is not easily enough made. Having King Fatmouth's profile and the other goblins (one 'guard' type, one 'warrior' type) already built-in as profiles would be skippy. So would a handy PDF chock full of hand-holding, "Here is how to use Hero Labs PFBB step-by-step with your Paizo Beginner Box Black-Fang encounter!"

The Beginner Box is something I can shove at a pre-teen and have *him* be the GM, and I'm rather expecting to help him do just that. I would love something well written on the same level to make the Hero Labs 'freebie' product a part of that new GM experience. Hell, I didn't even know about the Tactical Console and the implications of it until I came across that here in the forum, and that 'missing' feature of Hero Labs really makes this software rock for me as a GM.

So please... help *me* sell your software. Please. It's great stuff, I really think it would help, and I think it is a fantastic companion to the Paizo Pathfinder Beginner Box. How would you re-write the Black Fang adventure if your software was a part of it? Where are the treasure items that match that book encounter within your software? How do I use HLPFBB to 'manage' combat? Can I get a Goblin Guard and King Fatmouth profile? How do I modify the Goblin Guards and save Goblin Warrior profiles and use those? How can I manage a recurring Black Fang villain profile? And how can you communicate all this at the level the Beginner Box encounter was written for?

Thank you for considering my suggestions.

 

[bodrin]

FYI The NPC Codex *free* update has the iconics statted ready for play.

 

[Romaq]

Thank you. I did note the Iconics were statted at various levels rock & roll for the full Pathfinder. I essentially did a 'download everything' even for games I didn't purchase yet, so that must be where they came from.

Hopefully, the ability to 'upgrade/ downgrade' as requested is something that makes sense with marketing and isn't too hard on the engineering side.

And having those Beginner Box unique items... I hope that isn't too big a deal to put into an update. It's bad enough giving the level 1 player a 2k GP statted sword that returns a validation error, but that should be much closer than the 8k GP sword statted so it does *not* return a validation error.

 

[bodrin]

I think you can use the portfolios created in the beginner box in the demo / full version of HL anyway.

Just import the .por files and it should work. Obviously you can't print from the demo version but its okay to save pcs up to level 5 at least.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

Obviously you can't print from the demo version but its okay to save pcs up to level 5 at least.

You can't save or print while in demo mode. I am pretty sure you can't even OPEN a .por file while in demo mode (have not tested this). But unless something changed recently no print or save in demo for characters.

The editor is fully functional in demo mode....

 

[bodrin]

You can't save or print while in demo mode. I am pretty sure you can't even OPEN a .por file while in demo mode (have not tested this). But unless something changed recently no print or save in demo for characters.

The editor is fully functional in demo mode....

Really? I thought you could save up to 5th.

I never used HL in demo mode to save or print, just bought it after trying the character builder for D20. So much easier than pen and paper calculations.

Such was my faith in the program.

Apologies for the wrong information.

 

[Romaq]

I have the full PF license.

So I go into the PF, and attempt to import Kyra.pse...

"File was created for a different game system and could not be loaded. Please switch to that game system and try loading again."

I can, of course, do the upgrade 'manually', copying data from printed sheets back into Core PF, but that really bites.

'Upgrading' a profile is far more useful and relevant than 'downgrading'. We *want* people to buy the software.

And I still have to deal with the Dragon-bane Longsword. Somehow. Anyway, thank you for your kind comments on this issue.

 

[Colen]

Hi Romaq,

1) You're correct that you can't bring your character from the Beginner Box directly into the full Pathfinder ruleset. The Pathfinder Beginner Box is available as a separate ruleset for the full version of Hero Lab - if you don't see it on the "Select a Game" screen, you can find it by pressing the "Find Updates" button. You can then load your .pse portfolios into the Beginner Box game system, use the Tactical Console, create NPCs and use stock portfolios, etc.

Even with just the core data, there are so many new options (and even subtle differences between the rulesets) that we thought it was best to enforce a "rebuild" for characters who were transitioning from the beginner box to regular Pathfinder.

Even if you're at level 5, it shouldn't take long to re-enter the character for the full Pathfinder system, which also allows you to consider the additional options the full ruleset gives you. In our opinion that's likely to be something that people do anyway - once they've got their feet under them with the beginner box, they're ready to start exploring those options, so they'd probably want to rebuild at least some of their character anyway.

4) Unfortunately, going by the full Pathfinder rules, a +1 Dragon Bane Longsword does indeed cost 8000+ gold. This is one of the subtle differences that I referred to above.

I'm not aware of any rules in the full Pathfinder game that would allow you to get the same effects for any cheaper than that. As a level 1 fighter, you're pretty much stuck with non-magical, non-masterwork weapons - magical ones don't come along until several levels higher. The party in my game just got to level 5 and I don't think they have a full set of +1 weapons yet.


Thanks for your other suggestions - we'll keep them in mind for future releases of Hero Lab and the Pathfinder data files!

 

[Colen]

Really? I thought you could save up to 5th.

I never used HL in demo mode to save or print, just bought it after trying the character builder for D20. So much easier than pen and paper calculations.

Such was my faith in the program.

Apologies for the wrong information.

FYI, for future reference - Hero Lab for the Pathfinder Beginner Box allows you to save and print characters up to level 5, at which point the beginner box rules don't let you go any further. The full version of Hero Lab does not allow you to save or print at all until you purchase a license.

 

[Romaq]

Thank you for your response.

Thank you for your response. Ok, I can see the subtle workings between rule sets may make it impossible to quite get all of the changes between them for the 'upgrade/ downgrade' as I suggested.

If the Energy Heart, Dragonbane Longsword and Dragon Toy objects could be placed within the data-set according to the Beginner Book stats, that would be very helpful. Meanwhile, I'll fudge things on the Longsword and see what we can do to cultivate a group that is just playing by Pathfinder Society rules anyway. I have the license, it would be good to use it.

Thanks!

 

[Cards77]

Thank you for your response. Ok, I can see the subtle workings between rule sets may make it impossible to quite get all of the changes between them for the 'upgrade/ downgrade' as I suggested.

If the Energy Heart, Dragonbane Longsword and Dragon Toy objects could be placed within the data-set according to the Beginner Book stats, that would be very helpful. Meanwhile, I'll fudge things on the Longsword and see what we can do to cultivate a group that is just playing by Pathfinder Society rules anyway. I have the license, it would be good to use it.

Thanks!

I'm attempting to create Energy Heart as a custom item in the main PF ruleset. However, I'm running into a few problems since I don't know what "child" to use for energy resistance to ALL energy. It's really Damage Reduction 10 (any energy) but that "THING" doesn't exist in the Pathfinder rules.

There are many other "things" in PF for energy resistance, energy absorption etc. I just do not know how to script it. I was wondering if you ever got it created in your home brew?

 

[Aaron]

This item gives you resistance to all elements? In that case, either define a new universal ability called "Energy Resistance, All" and bootstrap that to your item with a value of 10, or foreach through all energy resistances already on the hero and apply a value of 10 to each one you find.

 

[charlieluce]

It's not quite that simple: "The first time each day that you take acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage, the gem reduces the amount by 10 points (minimum damage is 0)."

So there will need to be a counter as well.

 

[Aaron]

Well, in that case, I would just add the 1/day counter, and ignore the the normal energy resistance picks.