Unofficial update for Hero Lab 4e

After nearly five years, we've come to the end of our last D&D 4e campaign. Since those of us using Hero Lab already had the Authoring Kit for Savage Worlds, we started using Hero Lab for our 4e characters. Over the years, we've done a fair amount of work on the 4e files. We didn't expect any more "official" updates, and we were doing these for ourselves not really expecting our work to be used outside our own group; that means that rather than doing things in discrete files to be added to the downloaded system files like we would have for Pathfinder or Savage Worlds we actually edited our copy of the game files. Nonetheless, there's been some outside interest in our work, so I've put a copy of our modified files up for download for anyone who wants to use or just examine them. Sorry that I don't have a proper fix list, but it was never a proper project.

Because it's a modification of the official files, you have to have the official files installed first, and copy our files over the initial ones.

Here's the procedure:
1) Download the Zip archive here.
2) Open the Hero Lab 4e Game System Data Folder. The default location in Windows is C:\ProgramData\Hero Lab\data\4e but in any case you can get to it from within the Hero Lab for 4e menu at Tools > Explore Folders > Game System Data Folders
3) With Hero Lab closed, unzip the archive to the Game System Data Folder, overwriting any duplicate files.
4) Now when you open Hero Lab 4e, you should be using our files.

Do realize that although we fixed a ton of bugs, there are undoubtedly many more that we never ran across. Please don't send us bug reports; we're done with 4e. If anyone wants to use our files as the basis of their own efforts, more power to you.

Thank you

Thanks for this.

Ironically my friend and I bypassed 4e (we were playing FATE and Savage Worlds) and have come to it via 13th Age, 5e and Pathfinder 2e, with a parallel detour into True20.


So thanks.

I realise this isn't being maintained, and I guess that's why there is no option for Cleric Lore, or was it not openish content?

The post here
https://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=61071
does not seem very clear to me.. I can't follow the steps and might need a screenshot.

tzunder said:

I realise this isn't being maintained, and I guess that's why there is no option for Cleric Lore, or was it not openish content?

The post here
https://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=61071
does not seem very clear to me.. I can't follow the steps and might need a screenshot.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you're referring to here. Lore is a Pathfinder thing and 4e doesn't use it; "Cleric Lore" would be part of the Religion skill.

Must be something odd then.. see screenshot attached:

Oh, it's a Class Feature (sorry, even after playing in two campaigns my 4e knowledge is spotty). Do the drop-downs not work for you? They work when I try them.

Nope. I am guessing there is a file missing somewhere.
I have copied over the latest zip file from the thread so I think I have installed all that has been released on top of the 2016 pack that comes with Hero Lab.

Well, just in case I audited the Zip and none of our files are missing (and I don't think that could cause that sort of problem anyway), and I can't duplicate your error on two different PCs in either the 32 or 64-bit versions of HLC.

The best I can advise is to move out any .user files you may have added, re-download the base 4e system, overwriting our files, then see if the problem persists. If not you can re-apply our patches and check again, then add your own .user files back.

I also can not create the issue tzunder is having, may need to do a reload.

I am still running and playing 4E heavy and strong, my group just started a new campaign in May 2021 introducing even more players into the 4e System. I wish we had been able to finish the program like the CBI information, HL does a good job running with the dashboard when all the characters are loaded.
I still use this for most characters and hopefully, someday we can find a way to finish the data sets!

Lol I still have the site up. All for finishing the data set, but I don't play 4e, and dumped my books years ago. Be glad to hand over ownership of the data set if somebody wants it.

Not 100% sure how to do that to be honest, but if there's a more fully updated data set, I'd be glad to post it up. When I stopped working on it 5e was out... I didn't expect there to be much more. :/

We had an enthusiastic 4e DM who ran the two campaigns that we played, but he's since followed me into running Pathfinder Second Edition.

If you want to fold our patches into an "official" update, go right ahead.

cryptoknight said:

Lol I still have the site up. All for finishing the data set, but I don't play 4e, and dumped my books years ago. Be glad to hand over ownership of the data set if somebody wants it.

Not 100% sure how to do that to be honest, but if there's a more fully updated data set, I'd be glad to post it up. When I stopped working on it 5e was out... I didn't expect there to be much more. :/

Click to expand...

I'm still all in on 4e, and I doubt I'll stop any time soon. So, while I don't know precisely what's involved, I could probably take it off your hands if you like. Drop me a private message if you're good with that, I guess!

Soooo, I've tried to contact some Lone Wolf staff about this (so I could push 4e community updates to their system) but had no luck getting any response. Does anybody know who among Lone Wolf staff is active and likely to respond to such a request?

Fox Lee said:

Soooo, I've tried to contact some Lone Wolf staff about this (so I could push 4e community updates to their system) but had no luck getting any response. Does anybody know who among Lone Wolf staff is active and likely to respond to such a request?

Click to expand...

Emailing support would be your best option.
What exactly are you trying to do? I don't think they'll host user files. You can set up your own source and updates.

Dami said:

Emailing support would be your best option.
What exactly are you trying to do? I don't think they'll host user files. You can set up your own source and updates.

Click to expand...

I'm aiming to take over administration of the 4e community data files, as discussed with Cryptoknight a few posts upstream.

Alas, emailing support is one of the things I tried, but I've had no response.

Fox Lee said:

I'm aiming to take over administration of the 4e community data files, as discussed with Cryptoknight a few posts upstream.

Alas, emailing support is one of the things I tried, but I've had no response.

Click to expand...

Community files are handled by the community, generally with one person handling everything, or hosting them on GitHub so multiple people have access. You should be able to work that out with Cryptoknight and charlieluce for the files.
I don't see how LW would be involved with that. (I may be wrong) Mathias (LW staff) is active on the HLC forums, try sending him a message.

Dami said:

Community files are handled by the community, generally with one person handling everything, or hosting them on GitHub so multiple people have access. You should be able to work that out with Cryptoknight and charlieluce for the files.
I don't see how LW would be involved with that. (I may be wrong) Mathias (LW staff) is active on the HLC forums, try sending him a message.

Click to expand...

Um...yes? Please understand, I've already discussed this with Cryptoknight in private messages; I'm not coming at it from a position of ignorance. The whole point is that they are currently the "one person handling everything" and they are looking to pass that role to somebody else, and I volunteered. But there is a small complication that would require action on LW's part, hence I'm trying to contact LoneWolf on Cryptoknight's advice. Hopefully that make things clearer

Thanks for the advice about Mathias, I'll give him a try!

Apologies... there's a step involved there I haven't come across. Hope it works out.

No worries. I didn't give any details about the situation, so I can see why it might have appeared that I was misdirected.

and fwiw, LW reached out to me about passing the ownership to Fox Lee about this over a week ago. I agreed... I hope they've moved it along.

Just stopping in to say hi and that I'm still alive, my group is very heavy into 4e still. We are on a break to play symbaroum right now but 4e is the d&d for me ...lol well that does make me laugh...