I'm not opposed to updating the Blood Hunter. It's just that there are so many first-party things that still need to be done (mainly monsters and items from Waterdeep onward). So it's not my focus and won't be for quite a while, unless one of my players that uses Hero Lab decides they want to play the class and need it working.

That said, if anyone wants to try and update it for the pack, they're always welcome to do so! And I and others here would gladly lend our help with any questions that person has.

I have a question about the protection domain (UA 11/2016). My 3rd level cleric has this domain, and it's giving me protection from energy and slow at 3rd level, but those spells aren't gained until 5th level.

I don't know to get that fixed. HL is showing me that I can't have those spells (which is correct), but I didn't pick them - they were granted when I took the domain.

Yup, this is definitely an error with the file. I'm fixing it for the next release. In the meantime, you can fix it by doing this:

1. Open the Editor (Tools > Show Editor)
2. Open COM_5ePack_UA - Cleric.user
3. Go to the tabs Class > Custom Ability, and click on "Protection (UA - 11/2016)"
4. Click on the Edit button by "Spell-Like Abilities" (should have a x10)
5. On the line for Protection from Energy, click the "Tags" button
6. On the tag for "BonusSplAt" change the number from 3 to 5
7. Click OK
8. Repeat steps 5-7 for Slow
9. Repeat steps 5-7 for Guardian of Faith and Resilient Sphere, but change the number from 4 to 7.
10. Click OK
11. Save the data file (click yes when it asks you to save the record)
12. Close the Editor
13. Reload Hero Lab with Ctrl-R

So whoever set these up put in the wrong numbers there; you'll notice the correct numbers are the level you get these bonus spells (hence the tag "BonusSplAt", or Bonus Spell at Level....).

TCE Magic Items missing
 

I see that Tasha's Cauldron of Everything has been added, and that's amazing. I can't express how much I appreciate all the work you guys do.
I'm not able to find some/all of the new magic items from TCE, but the rest of the content seems to be there. Have the new items not been added or am I possibly doing something wrong when configuring my hero?

The Tasha's items haven't been added yet. Only stuff called out in patch notes are included, so if something (IE the items) aren't on there, they're not in the pack. They are on my to-do list, though!

I finally got around to installign the last Community pack. Fantastic work Fenris. I have yet to update to the lastest GIT version. I hope to do so over the next few days.

Hey, Fenris, thanks! I never would have figured that out on my own!

Appreciate the help!

-Mark

Release 3.1, which I am calling Monster Mash, is coming along nicely. In addition to the spell adjustments mentioned earlier, it will focus on getting in a lot of the monsters that have yet to be programmed in. Right now I can promise GGtR and IDRotF monsters will be in, but I’m working towards a lot more than that. I’m also hoping to get a bunch of items in, especially TCoE. But those are a whole lot of text to rewrite, so without any help it is very time-consuming.

In case anyone is interested, I can pull back the curtain on the process on programming in monsters. I have a way of pulling dumps of the monsters for a particular book in spreadsheet form. One enterprising HL user (I can’t remember who otherwise I’d give credit) had developed a spreadsheet that can convert such data into Hero Lab’s programming language. Over the years, I’ve built on that format. It can pull almost all the stats in a stat block in automatically, with a few exceptions.

With changes I’ve recently made, it can even pull in the basic attacks (those that have +# to hit, #d# damage) and generate them automatically. It also now can identify when a caster is a named NPC, so that their spellcasting description doesn’t say “The john mageman’s casting ability is...”, and instead properly rewrites that text.

The few things that require manual touches still take a ton of time. Any special abilities, actions, reactions, legendary actions, and lair actions all must be rewritten to strip out descriptive text and to not be direct copies (for copyright reasons) of what’s in the book. So I have to pull all those out, type out their new text, and tweak their damage, range, type of action, etc. in another spreadsheet that generates that specific code. Then I dump those programmed abilities into the HL file.

The next step is to open the editor and manually match each of those abilities to their monsters. This is relatively easy, but again, time consuming.

Finally we build a .stock file, which is the same as your .por files for your saved heroes/parties. You create each monster as an NPC, selecting that monster for the NPC’s race. Any armor or regular weapons (short sword, mace, longbow, etc.) get added here. Also, any spellcasters with prepared spells (versus innate, which are programmed manually in the editor) must have their spells chosen at this stage.

Finally, you review the monster in the .stock file to make sure it matches the book version of that monster. Some things have to be tweaked. For instance, Hero Lab can only add Telepathy up to a range of 600 ft. by default. For a monster with 1,000 ft. of telepathy, I had to make some tweaks in the editor.

Once all that’s done, you save the .stock file to your 5e data folder. Once Hero Lab reloads, you can see those monsters in the Encounter Builder. And that’s how I program monsters.

I’m working on a similar solution for programming items. On the whole, items require more individual programming than monsters, since their effects are far less universal. But at least I can get rewritten descriptions, weights, rarities, sources, attunement, etc. automated. But again, rewriting the descriptions takes a ton of time!

So if anyone is interested in helping without having to do any programming, there’s plenty of work in that rewriting. It’s pretty straightforward. Think back to your school years, where you copied stuff off the internet for a report. You re-stated it, making the words different while still saying the same thing. That’s exactly what we do for all abilities, items, spells, etc. in the community pack. That, plus removing the fluff. We don’t need text like “the Druid calls upon its bond with nature, summoning a powerful ally.”

Edit: accidental duplicate post

Just to update, almost all text-rewriting for all outstanding items and monsters (with the exception of Wildemount items) has been completed. Now’s the fun part: programming it all. I’m fairly confident that everything from Tasha’s, Icewind Dale, and Eberron will be done for the next release. But there are tons of other books that are all in some stage of progress. If you’d like to give your opinion on what to prioritize, head to this thread.