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- The Lone Wolf Development Team
Hero Lab Support Plans for Pathfinder RPG
- Thread starter rob
- Start date
Inner Sea Primer will be available Soon™ (before Christmas if everything goes to plan). I'll be the first book in a new "Golarion" package, that will also include further books when they're released (exact list TBA).
We haven't made a decision on further "[Race]s of Golarion" books; further ones might be put into a new package, but that's not final yet.
We haven't made a decision on further "[Race]s of Golarion" books; further ones might be put into a new package, but that's not final yet.
Bestiary 2 has been quite a lot of work, so it's going to be a separate add-on. We're working hard to make have it available the same date that the book is officially released (currently December 29th according to the Paizo site).
There are a LOT of supplements for Pathfinder. That means we've got lots of additional content that we need to get entered into the system, fully integrated with all the different game mechanics, and verified as correct. After that, we need to support and maintain the add-ons. All of this entails a definite cost on our end, and it needs to be paid for somehow.
In the case of the Bestiary 2 book, it took us weeks of time to get everything into place. That's a good bit faster than it took to get everything into place for the first Bestiary book, but it's still many thousands of dollars invested on our end. Mathias, Colen, and the rest of the staff all expect their paychecks every month so they can pay their rent. We need to charge for the data files in order to accomplish that.
We're just trying to recoup our investment and have a little left over to re-invest in new products and enhancements. Due to the reduced workload on the Bestiary 2 book compared to the first Bestiary, the price of the Bestiary 2 add-on will be 33% cheaper (only $9.99). We're passing our savings on to the users.
We realize that these touch economic times make every expense a careful assessment for folks. That's why we've made it possible for users with more spare time than spare cash to add whatever content they want themselves. It's not as if anyone is being held hostage here.
We do our best to keep our prices reasonable and make sure that users can invest the effort themselves if they prefer. That's not a philosophy shared by most business enterprises, regardless of the industry.
We're gamers, just like you, and we're trying to make a living by creating quality tools that we can all leverage in our games.
I just wanted to put in my two bits. Hero Lab for Pathfinder is a great product and one I enjoy using. In the past I used the editor to make a LOT of things for my home game that I took from the various Paizo books I purchased. You cannot do that in many other programs out there.
That being said I gladly pay the extra money to have the work done for me in a professional way and maintained as it allows me to spend more time making stuff for our home game as opposed to setting up the system so I can THEN do the same work on my home game.
I like to compare this to the older Never Winter Nights game. You could buy the game, and you could buy the expansions to play. You could also use the editor to make your OWN game modules... or you can search the Internet and find some free stuff others have done. This is like that... once you have the base game you can have everything... you just have to decide if time or money is more important to you. For the amount of time I would have to spend entering the data myself I would have to work in a sweat shop to pay myself the amount it costs to just buy it for 5 or 10 bucks.
So thank you to the Lone Wolf team for making a product with options that allows me to play the game the way I want to play it.
That being said I gladly pay the extra money to have the work done for me in a professional way and maintained as it allows me to spend more time making stuff for our home game as opposed to setting up the system so I can THEN do the same work on my home game.
I like to compare this to the older Never Winter Nights game. You could buy the game, and you could buy the expansions to play. You could also use the editor to make your OWN game modules... or you can search the Internet and find some free stuff others have done. This is like that... once you have the base game you can have everything... you just have to decide if time or money is more important to you. For the amount of time I would have to spend entering the data myself I would have to work in a sweat shop to pay myself the amount it costs to just buy it for 5 or 10 bucks.
So thank you to the Lone Wolf team for making a product with options that allows me to play the game the way I want to play it.
Maidhc O Casain
Well-known member
I'll add my two cents worth as well - I love this product, and gladly pay for every PF data set to support those who write it.
As Rob stated, the beauty of this product we know as Hero Labs, We can enter all the information from each book that Paizo puts out for Pathfinder should we choose to do so. We are paying Lonewolf to enter it for us though if we choose to purchase the datasets.
I prefer to pay for the datasets as entering the information in to Hero Labs is fairly time consuming and would take me much longer then I would prefer not to mention I do not have the programming knowledge that I would need to do it effectively. Therefor buying the datasets actually saves me money in the long run as I value my time against the cost of the datasets and purchase accordingly. In this way I am actually saving money in the long run then.
Is your time equally valuable? That it might save you money too
slaaneshgod
Member
I love hero lab its been an immense help with both npcs and mobs in my games. I would just like to know if there is any possibility of adding the monsters and npcs from the adventure paths to hero lab for loading? I am running the serpent skull campaign and being able to load up euryptids or dimorphodons would be amazing. i can make up the npcs with available stuff no problem but the monsters i cant
Rob, you guys are doing it brilliantly. The tools you're creating are the single best thing I have ever used in RPG aids. And the cost is extremely reasonable...I honestly don't know how you guys do it as reasonably as you do.
I just wanted to add my 0.02 gp as a resounding clap on the back for you guys. Thank you for your hard work, and thank you for helping make our games easier to organise and hence more fun to play.
A lot of the critters from the adventure paths are being added (you have to make sure you select the appropriate path in the "Configure Hero" screen) already.
If you want to add your own, it's not that difficult. Open up the editor, create a new file called "race.user", and then import something similar to what you want to create. Sometimes you can actually make a copy, other times you have to create from scratch (but you can still use an existing critter for reference). I find the easiest way is to create the base creature, then create a new NPC and give it the race of the creature you've created. From there, it's a matter of adding the bits and pieces (attribute bonuses, skills, feats, special abilities, etc) and then reloading your NPC until you have the thing you're after. I'm a big fan of trial-and-error!
Bear in mind you'll sometimes need to create new racial abilities/special abilities, too, but honestly, it's not that difficult if you use existing ones as a guideline.
chiefweasel
Well-known member
Something to remember when adding in the characters from the adventure paths, Piazo ddint use all their own rules for the NPC creation. sometimes they refer to old D&D books for feats or abilities. dont know why they did this but they did. i have tried to enter in the NPCs from the kingmaker path but ran into a lot of difficulties.
i talked to Shadow about it on one of our converence calls and we came to the conclusion that the information should just be entered in, knowing that there will be errors, but to just allow the errors to stand.
I have been very busy as of late, new job coming up, business trips and such so i havent gotten nearly as far with this project as i wanted too. i will get back to it soon though. i hope to run a PF game this weekend and will try to get some of the players to help me out and create some of the NPCs themselves.
i talked to Shadow about it on one of our converence calls and we came to the conclusion that the information should just be entered in, knowing that there will be errors, but to just allow the errors to stand.
I have been very busy as of late, new job coming up, business trips and such so i havent gotten nearly as far with this project as i wanted too. i will get back to it soon though. i hope to run a PF game this weekend and will try to get some of the players to help me out and create some of the NPCs themselves.
slaaneshgod
Member
Yeah i have been running the serpent's skull path with my sca group after practice every week. Hero Lab is amazing as a dm tool especially for tracking mobs and the like. I have had trouble with the creating some of the new monsters like dimorphodons but its no biggie I can still run pen and paper. I was more stating that I hoped they added the mobs into the software soon. The adventure path isnt done coming out yet anyway. Thank you very much for the Great work on both Hero Lab and Army Builder without which i would have trouble playing the games I enjoy as much as I do. Keep up the good work and I will keep leaving feedback on things i might like to see.
Languages
For those of us who are not computer savy and cannot easily add to the race section (Ex: Human (Chelaxian)), how about a way to put in what region a PC is from that automatically adds their language? This way an Osirian does not have to put a skill point into languages in order to speak his native tongue.
For those of us who are not computer savy and cannot easily add to the race section (Ex: Human (Chelaxian)), how about a way to put in what region a PC is from that automatically adds their language? This way an Osirian does not have to put a skill point into languages in order to speak his native tongue.