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Hero Lab: Incomplete

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Dgrm44

Well-known member
I have been using Hero Lab for about a month now and what a disappointment it is turning out to be. It has such potential, but the software team can't meet that potential due to lack of resources.

I hope that someone eventually releases a complete tool for Pathfinder. It is such a shame that Hero Lab is missing so much. If a complete tool ever shows up I will be the first in line to buy it. Hopefully someone will soon.
 
Umm.... perhaps it would help if you could articulate what it's missing rather than simply lamenting about an unspecified "so much" amount? What is it that would make this, or anything else, complete?
 
1. All data from all Pathfinder products. All monsters, feats, spells etc.

2. Complete tactical control over your combats including auto tracking of effects and total rounds. Automatically adjusting the stats per effect as they are active and later inactive. This includes all buffs/debuffs/spells/conditions/etc/etc.

3. Able to read the data in each of the columns in the main window, too much info gets cut-off. Just seems very cheaply done. The overall UI needs improvement including where the tactical console shows up in relation to the main window. The fonts and overall look could also use a slight update.
 
Don't get me wrong. I don't think that I wasted my money, I am just unhappy that no one has done a truly COMPLETE solution to game management of Pathfinder.
 
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I find it has enough to run pathfinder games and play in them as a character.

If you want all the pathfinder books, buy the expansions to the tool.

It is just a tool to help you, not do it all for you. The tactical console does track rounds, but I have not looked to see if it can control powers on or off. If you add the changes to adjust tab for spells, conditions for well conditions. And the best bit is it's accessible from the tactical console, click the box to apply.

I've done most of that manually, due to characters abilities used lasting longer than most combats.

Hide some of the windows to show only what you need to see, I run mostly from the tactical window as a GM and as a player I have a character sheet printed out that I refer to, but have the tool available for more information.

The compatibility with things like the d20 electronic tabletop programs sounds more like what you are looking for??

- And look at Realm Works listed on the site as coming soon for keeping track of non-character specific information.

While this tool is not everything, it has simplified running my games, and all characters are available at every session, I just need access to a printer if the sheet is lost.

So if it is not working for you, see if you can find a way to use it differently, customise it, I added text fields to containers so they were easier to choose between.

And in the end, its a tabletop game, this tool simplifies the rules management, but you still have to think and if it is not working for a case, apply logic and work around it. It is worth its cost just as a character builder as far as I am concerned. That it is far more useful and used in game by my group is a bonus.
 
I am starting to feel the same way. I am getting tired of assigning a feat or ability to a character and it says it has not been implemented yet. It seems that these things have not been implemented but have been in this state for a long time. It is do some of the work and then move on to the next book while never fixing or implementing the old stuff.
 
Dgrm44 said:
1. All data from all Pathfinder products. All monsters, feats, spells etc.

2. Complete tactical control over your combats including auto tracking of effects and total rounds. Automatically adjusting the stats per effect as they are active and later inactive. This includes all buffs/debuffs/spells/conditions/etc/etc.

3. Able to read the data in each of the columns in the main window, too much info gets cut-off. Just seems very cheaply done. The overall UI needs improvement including where the tactical console shows up in relation to the main window. The fonts and overall look could also use a slight update.
Click to expand...

Everything you are complaining about is in the software already. Being picky about where the tactical console shows up is just nit picking too. The GUI is a personal preference as well.. If you do not like it there are more that do. Not everyone is going to be happy over aesthetics and such when it comes down to personal preference.

All conditions are in the game. All spells as far as buffs and such are NOT hard to add yourself if you like. But as far as them being in.. not hard to figure out from there. I do so quite easily.

You do complain about a lot of little things in these forums DGRM44 I wish that you would be truly happy. But the things I am seeing here do not warrant your saying it is incomplete because of the UI for the most part and some other minor issues. Remember not everyone is going to be happy with everything.
 
First, let me say that I absolutely love HeroLab - it's an awesome tool and I use it all the time. I bought a license for a friend and he's now hooked on it as well. I support HeroLab with my voice (talking it up to my friends, 'posting it up' both here and on ENWorld) and my money (I have almost every Pathfinder dataset, and as soon as my finances recover from my imminent vacation I'll pick up Ultimate Magic and my collection will once more be complete).

However, the OP does have a valid point. It's not complete.

  • As he said, there are many things that "have not been implemented." This is a bit of a letdown. I paid for it, it should be available; if it's not, it should be made available at the earliest opportunity.
  • Each installment of the adventure paths includes about 6 new monsters. That's about 140 monsters to date, and that number just keeps growing. (Yes, I know some/most of these are available as .user files, but I'd much rather see them included in the official package).

There are likely other things missing from packages that are already implemented that I've not thought of, but these two popped immediately to mind.

I understand that LW is a very small company and resources (employees) who can do this work are limited. But this is a problem that is only going to get worse unless steps are taken to correct it. Paizo surely isn't going to stop putting out material, which means that LW as it currently stands is always going to be struggling to keep up with the new stuff, which means that finding time to go back and take care of the "this has not been implemented" stuff (and the AP bestiaries, etc) is always going to get pushed to the back burner.

This should change - if I pay for a product, I'd really like to get the whole product.

(Did I get the tone right? I'm not bitter at all; as I said, I love HL and support it whole-heartedly, but I think part of that support should be giving feedback about what I think would make the product better).
 
Well said Mowgli. I am not giving this feedback to trash the program, only to alert Lone Wolf that they have a gap and if it isn't fixed it could be a serious issue down the road. Especially if someone comes along and creates something more complete than Herolab.
 
Nikmal said:
Everything you are complaining about is in the software already. Being picky about where the tactical console shows up is just nit picking too. The GUI is a personal preference as well.. If you do not like it there are more that do. Not everyone is going to be happy over aesthetics and such when it comes down to personal preference.

All conditions are in the game. All spells as far as buffs and such are NOT hard to add yourself if you like. But as far as them being in.. not hard to figure out from there. I do so quite easily.

You do complain about a lot of little things in these forums DGRM44 I wish that you would be truly happy. But the things I am seeing here do not warrant your saying it is incomplete because of the UI for the most part and some other minor issues. Remember not everyone is going to be happy with everything.
Click to expand...

Nikmal, I am not complaining...I am giving legitimate feedback about a product I paid for. I spent my cash so I earned the right to give my opinion. The product IS incomplete. Adventure Path monsters are not included. The issue with the GUI and Tactical Console are personal preference, but if it was more user friendly and could track what round and turn a buff/debuff ends on then it would "FEEL" completed to me.
 
I would like to give my two bits as well. I will say I love Hero Lab and it makes our game MUCH easier. (Especially at higher level.) Many of the above comments are personal preference and DO play into a product review, but they are also subject to opinion and taste. And the adjustments tab is there to allow you to implement the spells you want. Hero Lab is an AID to the game and not a GM. The players and the DM need to know how to use their characters and when to check and un-check the boxes for conditions and spells.

On the other hand many of the points have a small amount of validity. I say small amount because the program includes an editor to allow you to custom tailor the product to how you want it. An RPG like pathfinder is VERY complex. No program will cover all of the material that is out there and you will always need to add or tweak things for your game to some extent. The free add on material such as the AP's are just that... free add-ons so they do not need to be 100% complete. Anything you get is bonus. (But I would REALLY like it if they added the monsters... I would even pay for it.)

If you pay for the extra add-on material it would be nice if that add on included everything at release. But patience is a virtue or so I have been told. And eventually they do get it all included. So while I would say faster is obviously better everyone will have their own opinion on how fast is fast enough. This should go into your decision on if you want to pay the extra money. (I will because I am lazy and they WILL get it done faster them me.)

Finally, I would like to stress as a paying customer. Please consider adding the monsters from the AP's in the future. Either as a free check mark like you do now, or as a supplemental bestiary that you pay for.

Other then the the program is great. It is powerful and does a lot of the heavy lifting for you and allows on the fly adjustments to your character in the middle of combat when you get hit by Dispel Magic, or three different kinds of poison and a curse. Thanks for making it a great product and please see this as encouragement to keep up the good work with some suggestions on how to make the program even better. :)
 
considering I started to game 32 years ago, and we used paper and pencil, what we have today is awesome. Yes, not complete, but it's pretty dang awesome. I've taken it on myself to help the guys at Wolf Lair fill in the blanks bu writing files for some of the stuff that they have on the back burner. Perhaps you should try your hand at it. I'm sure they would love to have another volunteer.
 
tatteredking said:
I've taken it on myself to help the guys at Wolf Lair fill in the blanks bu writing files for some of the stuff that they have on the back burner.
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Yep its what I do myself. If anyone goes back and re-reads the updates you will find most, not all, of the spell adjustments where actually added by myself.

Of course I don't find it work I find it fun as it combines my two favorite things. Programming and D&D. Mmmm its like chocolate and peanut butter. :p :)

Anyways is the software perfect. No, but is it always getting better with each release of the software YES. That is the most anyone can ever expect of software.

Also I recently spoke to Mathias about the "not implemented" stuff and really their is not allot of them compared to what what IS in the system. Plus some that are not done look really easy on paper, but are a nightmare from a programming stand point. On top of this don't forget its GenCon in what 12 days or something.

Give them some time after GenCon and I expect you will start to see things finish out.
 
There are good points on both sides of this discussion. For me, it boils down to this: There are some things that I think Hero Lab should be able to support for my Pathfinder games that it doesn't yet do. It does many things very well, though; and it is surprisingly easy to add your own material, once you get comfortable with the Editor. However, not everything can be added by users, so LW needs to focus their efforts on those things, first.

For example, implementation of a few of the feats from Advanced Player's Guide and Ultimate Magic still remain, if I recall; and the Bladebound archetype still needs to be added to Ultimate Magic. Official rules material that should be part of a paid-for data package needs to be implemented, but LW fully acknowledges that and is working hard to make that a reality.

While I'd love for the monsters from the Adventure Path bestiaries to be included, I personally consider the AP stuff to be "bonus" material. It's free content that gets added as it comes out, allowing folks to build their characters for a campaign. That's pretty cool, if you ask me.

Like the Pathfinder RPG, itself, I think much of Hero Lab's strength is in its community. With the help of a few very active folks on the boards, not to mention Mathias's frequent and patient advice, I've found that I can add many of the things I need.

In fact, I will have the entire Darkmoon Vale campaign arc of modules entered into HL by the end of the week. I got Chava's files from ShadowChemosh's page on d20pfsrd.com for most of them, but I was able to build all the creatures, items, and NPCs from both "Carnival of Tears" and "Hungry Are the Dead," myself. (Okay...I did get some tips on a few things in Carnival, but I have yet to ask for help on "Hungry Are the Dead." ;) ) I'll be sending those files to ShadowChemosh very soon, so he can post them on his page.

While I initially would have preferred to have someone else do all of that work for me, I'm glad I'm doing it because (1) it helps me learn how to do things for when I want to enter a completely new creature, item, class, etc. of my own and (2) it allows me to give back to the community.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.
 
The main thing that I can't add that I'm waiting (mostly patiently for) is the implementation of multiple minions. (Broodmaster Summoner, or the Ranger variant that I like).

But that's because I likes those.
 
Just my two cents, but I think the Pathfinder support has been marvellous. Lone wolf has really focused on supporting the new system, keeping up with books as they are released.

As for the rest, the community can do a lot to fill in the blanks. 3.5 support has been largely abandoned for the last year, and I've been looking with jealousy at all the goodies you guys get over here. To rectify that I pulled up my sleeves and added all the monsters from the Monster Manual, replicated the types and subtypes mechanics you have in pathfinder, and now have added mechanics for advancing the HD of monsters (in the next release). I'm sure with the number of people who enoy pathfinder you guys can add the monsters from the AP beastiaries with little trouble.
 
Lawful_g said:
Just my two cents, but I think the Pathfinder support has been marvellous. Lone wolf has really focused on supporting the new system, keeping up with books as they are released.

As for the rest, the community can do a lot to fill in the blanks. 3.5 support has been largely abandoned for the last year, and I've been looking with jealousy at all the goodies you guys get over here. To rectify that I pulled up my sleeves and added all the monsters from the Monster Manual, replicated the types and subtypes mechanics you have in pathfinder, and now have added mechanics for advancing the HD of monsters (in the next release). I'm sure with the number of people who enoy pathfinder you guys can add the monsters from the AP beastiaries with little trouble.
Click to expand...

How do I add the monsters myself?
 
On the menu bar, go to the Tools menu and click "Launch Editor". Once you open the Editor, you can click "Help" and "Help on using the Editor" to get the basics.

Inputting your own data can be a bit intimidating at first, but you aren't likely to "break" the program and if you run into trouble you can post questions to this forum, and folks like Lawful_g, ShadowChemosh, chava, and even Mathias, can point you in the right direction.

:D
 
I think they are doing awesome getting as much done as they go...small company that they are. What I'd really like is beyond their control...and that's for 3rd party developers to do HL files for their supplements...like Super Genius did for their revised Dragon Rider...because I like to allow more in my games...but I pretty much only allow what's in HL to be used at my table. Though my players are welcome to program stuff that's not in if they want me to allow it :)
 
Lawful_g said:
I'm sure with the number of people who enjoy pathfinder you guys can add the monsters from the AP bestiaries with little trouble.
Click to expand...
This is a great idea Lawful_g. As this is more complete type of add-on I could also setup a type of auto-download feature like we use for the d20 project.

If nothing else we can make a .hl import file instead so that the .por and .user files would get loaded easily. Though thinking about it a little more we could also probably get these to maybe be added officially which would make it even easier for everyone to get to.

I am already stretched too thin to really help with this but it would be great community thing to do. Made by the community for the community... :)
 
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