Quote:
Originally Posted by TheIronGolem
With the desired sources you mentioned, this is the minimum of what you should install:
Community Pack
Ultimate Spheres of Power
Spheres of Might
Champions of the Spheres
The order of SoP vs SoM doesn't really matter, but Community Pack should be first and Champions should be last.
If you have Wild Magic or the Bear handbook you can install those as well, but they aren't necessary. Any other legacy SoP books you may have (sphere handbooks or Expanded Options) should not be installed because USoP already contains them and you will get duplicate-record errors.
Downloading from DriveThru may or may not get you the latest version (I did email them the files I created this weeked but don't know if DDS has posted them yet or not and am no longer in direct contact with them).
Using the update mechanism in HL will get you the most recent version (barring any issues with Dropbox, your Internet connection, etc). This is because when you set up the update URL in the readme file's instructions, this tells HL what the newest version of the package is and where to find it.
There is nowhere besides DriveThru to purchase the HL packages for SoP/SoM as far as I am aware, and you certainly shouldn't need to buy anything extra to stay up to date.
EDIT: It occurs to me you are probably asking as someone who has never purchased/installed SoP before, so my explanation may be lacking. Let me drill down a bit further:
When you buy and download a HL package from DriveThru (at least, the ones I made), you're getting a zip file that contains two important things: A readme file, and a .hl file. The .hl file is the installer, and will give you whatever version of SoP (or whatever) was bundled into that zip file. The readme file contains an "update URL" and instructions on how to enter that URL into Hero Lab. When you do that, HL will use that URL to look up the latest available version of the package, compare it to what you have, and (if what's out there is later than what you have) notify you that an update is available for download. So for example, if you bought/installed Ultimate Spheres of Power on DT and the zip contained version 1.3, and you also set up the update URL, the next time you started HL it would find that version 1.4 is available and ask if you want to download that. The long and short of it is, I can't guarantee that what you download from DT is the latest and greatest, so if you want to stay up to date you will want to make sure to follow the readme's instructions to set up the update mechanism. Hope that helps.
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Thanks for the explanation. I *have* purchased SoP, but only recently started using it. I've only created a few NPC's with it (I'm the DM). I'm interested in USoP, as I have the hardback and the PDF, so I wanted to get the updated Hero Lab file.
Unlike many others, I only really started getting into Hero Lab in the last two years. I've only got I think 3 SoP books...the main one, Transmuter's Handbook, and Champion's Handbook.
I'm asking these questions, because I've seen so many people posting here about having difficulties, I'm trying to understand what to do to have it go smoothly.
I'm not actually sure *how* to delete packages I've already installed, if that's necessary. I've never had to until now.