Hero Lab Encounter Builder Feedback Thread

[Michele]

So far so good. My only suggestion right now is the ability to set the APL and difficulty of the encounter instead of the EB listing the various APL and difficulties as you build the encounter.

@frumple. I see a "Target CR" that I can set to determine the "XP Budget" for the encounter. Isn't this what you are asking for? APL is the party level; it doesn't change for the encounter, so it is the encounter CR that is important to set, isn't it?

Hi frumple, does this fit your needs for setting a difficulty for the encounter?

 

[Michele]

- The ability to add CR changing templates such as giant, young, zombie etc...

Hi mezme, for the time being, one way to get around this is to import the hero as an enemy, apply the template you want, reopen the encounter builder, choose a target CR, and check "include enemies in the portfolio in the total CR."

 

[Manic Modron]

A treasure generator is one of those things on our long-term todo list, but out of the scope of this project.

Oh, I bet that it is. All those charts to compile and code... that can't be easy work!

Still, I look forward to the day when the Encounter Builder will have a Treasure button that will let me print out a master list of treasure in an .rtf file like a stat block and also have the little icon that lets me pass around that random loot to the NPCs involved.

Already though, I'm enjoying this a great deal more than the standard Import function. Great work so far!

 

[Golkiwu]

A thought:

-I like to give my creatures max HP on creation. The way it is set now, if I want 100 mites to have max HP, I would need to edit each one to do that (I know I could clone one I modified, but this is a BETA test right?). It would be nice to either have a way to select max HP for the entirety of the selected creatures in the Encounter, or have the Character Configuration options affect all creatures generated with the builder.

 

[DMG]

Can you give me more details on this? Are you getting a 404, or is the file downloading with a different name, or something else? Also, which email client are you using?

I'm using Outlook 365 (version 15?).

The file is downloading as 'hl43b_beta407_win_install' (it's missing the .exe from the end of the filename). Manually renaming the file after downloading works a treat.

 

[Steve]

1. Agree with DR above, showing CR and XP would be great. The opening blurb mentions it, but it doesn't seem to be active yet. Also, being able to key in a CR and add critters till the CR is full would be an awesome thing, but I think that was mentioned as part of the end goal.

You can enter a value for CR in the upper-right corner to set the XP budget. Is this what you wanted to do?

2. An easier way to sort by type would be very helpful. Searching for "cold" terrain creatures brings up anything with Cold in the text, even if it isn't a mechanical term. Not a big deal since PFSRD.com does that, but I'd like a onestop shop for these things.

Currently the search field checks the entire statblock. What individual elements would be useful to search?

 

[RavenX]

In regards to Encounter building, features that I would want to see include randomly generated treasure for the encounters. It would save GMs a lot of time having to generate these by hand if the software generated encounters with appropriate treasure based on the XP Advancement being used.

I'd also like to see the ability to limit encounters by CR, Subtypes, and Environment. If I wanted to just generate random encounters for a mountain region at CR 4 it would be nice to just put in that data and software creates an encounter appropriate for it with treasure displayed.

 

[FurryQuandary]

Hi,

I'm having an issues with the Search feature. I think it seems to be searching on type, but not name. For example, if I search for Ogre, I get several monster, including an orgekin, but not an Ogre. If I search for Giant, I get several creatures with the Giant subtype, like an Ogre, but no Giants (as Hill, or Stone).

Also, an option to change the list order would be nice. It displays in CR order at the moment, name order would be useful, but if the search worked by name, that wouldn't be as needed.

Thanks,
FQ

 

[CorzatTheGray]

So far liking what I'm seeing!

Hi mezme, for the time being, one way to get around this is to import the hero as an enemy, apply the template you want, reopen the encounter builder, choose a target CR, and check "include enemies in the portfolio in the total CR."

Glad I found the "include enemies in the portfolio..." check box. Was starting to get frustrated when I couldn't see what the effect of adding something in to an encounter already imported would do to the CR.

I immediately liked what I was seeing when I thought about the ease of summoning something now with this tool. Rather than slogging through the stock file importer, now all it takes is opening this up and searching for what you want to summon.

When searching, as others have already stated, would love to be able to customize the sorting in some way.

Standardizing what appears below the stock files would also be something to iron out. Whether it be Source, CR, Region, etc.

As I keep working with it I'll keep posting.

 

[Giorgio]

Status so far...

Ok, hope I can add something constructive.

Just received my beta email, but when I download the windows file it doesn't have an "exe" extension, and Windows 7 tells me it is an unknown file/cant install. It downloads the file "hl43b-beta407_win_install" , and when I click to run it is says "unknown file type" and opens a box that says "Choose the program that you want to use to open this file".

So I renamed the file to add ".exe" and it then changed to an application file. it worked. I installed the HL beta and imported the file (from my downloads folder), so far so good.

2- When I got the program to run, I could not find a way to filter results by CR, creature type, or MOST important to me, Terrain Type. These filters will go a long way to make this program useful for me. (Currently, I have to go to http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary to do it manually).

3- When I try to search for "orc", "ogre" or "skeleton" it doesn't pull those entries in the search bar.

I will give the program another run tomorrow, and see what else I can find out. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to participate!

 

[casiel]

I had trouble when first using the Encounter Builder, but these problems mysteriously evaporated upon subsequent launches of the program.

When I first used Portfolio / Launch Encounter Builder, it relayed the Importing Builds message, but did not seem to progress beyond 10%. After waiting 10 minutes, I end-tasked the process and rebooted my computer. Then upon launching the Encounter Builder afterwards, there were no creatures listed in the left column (which was expected with an incomplete build import). When I closed down the program and relaunched it a third time and launched the Encounter Builder again, it automatically restarted the import, finished the import within a few seconds, and then things worked properly.

 

[casiel]

Would it be possible to add templates to creatures shown on the right column of the Encounter Builder? For example, if we wanted to have 4 dire wolves, one with the Advanced template and two with the Young template.

 

[casiel]

Is it possible to import .por files into the Encounter so that custom-created characters can be included in an encounter? That way we could add a Boss NPC to a group of monsters for an overall encounter.

 

[Manic Modron]

You can enter a value for CR in the upper-right corner to set the XP budget. Is this what you wanted to do?

Mine has no such window. It just says "Characters in Encounter" and does nothing about any sort of budget. Do I have the wrong version somehow?

Currently the search field checks the entire statblock. What individual elements would be useful to search?

Creature Type, Terrain and Climate would be fantastic.

 

[Manic Modron]

OH, and until a treasure generator is added to the program, this generator right here has been the most useful that I have seen. Simple, customizable and easy to print off for the players.

 

[Silveras]

Mine has no such window. It just says "Characters in Encounter" and does nothing about any sort of budget. Do I have the wrong version somehow?

I've attached a screenshot of what I see. Below the banner for "Characters in Encounter" is section with (on the left) "Current CR" (based on total XP in the encounter, it appears) and "Target CR" (which you can set to allocate a 'budget' of XP with which to build the encounter).

Is this different from what you are seeing?

 

[Manic Modron]

Yes it is! That looks like what I want, but I'm not getting it. There is only a small amount of black space between the banner and the main window on the right. There is no Current CR, Target CR or even space for it to go.

 

[Aleslosh]

I had the same issue with the HL download file as some others - no .exe extension. Once I added that, no problem.

Filtering - would love to see the ability to filter by a RANGE of CRs. Would also like to see a filter for Terrain. If I had to choose between one or the other, I'd go for CR Range.

EB Descriptions - I do not see the book description as needed. (Once EB goes live, we won't be able to see what we don't have packages for, correct?). Also, removing this would help the inconsistencies talked of in previous posts.

Templates - the ability to add Templates (Celestial, for instance) would be a very nice bonus

Treasure - I noticed some NPC characters imported through EB have treasure but other entities do not (based on the books they come from, I'm sure). It would definitely be useful to have "stock" treasure attached to characters chosen.

All in all though, a very useful add on to this program! I encountered no errors and the user interface of the EB is very intuitive.

 

[Manic Modron]

Yes it is! That looks like what I want, but I'm not getting it. There is only a small amount of black space between the banner and the main window on the right. There is no Current CR, Target CR or even space for it to go.

It seems to work fine on my laptop, though. I wonder if the new data set didn't import right. I'll do it again when I go home and see.


(( EDIT: Okay, imjported again, nothing. Clean install, everything is fine. Thanks for the posted image! ))

 

[Silveras]

Interesting.. I have no idea what it is. Maybe the OS?

I'm on a Windows 7 desktop. I have a tablet that's Windows 8.1 (Surface Pro), which I will have to try tomorrow. That has run previous versions of HeroLab without issue.