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psionics?

kingpaul

Well-known member
I just d/l'd the demo and am playing around with it. I noticed that psionics are not included. Are they just not available for the demo, or haven't you completed the psionic classes yet?
 
Hi Paul,

I was wondering when we'd start getting some of the PCGen notables kicking the tires and asking probing questions. Welcome to the forum!

I'm going to reply to both of your questions here in this one thread, because the answers have already been posted multiple times in other threads and I need to get to bed (it's 6am here and I'm about to fall over).

There are four substantive components of the SRD that have NOT yet been added to Hero Lab. The four missing components are:
1. NPC Classes
2. Monstrous Races and related facets (e.g. templates)
3. Psionics
4. Epic Classes

These omissions were publicly spelled out when we released HL a few weeks ago, and we have a poll setup here on the forum to find out where users think we should focus our efforts next (with the missing SRD material being one of the options). Feel free to cast your vote if you'd like. :-)

So why did we omit these four components? Based on informal surveys of consumers and retailers at multiple Cons since we announced Hero Lab this past summer, these were the four components that the majority of players had little or no interest in. So we instead focused our energies on enhancing other facets of the product. I've got my fingers crossed that we made the correct decision. Based on the early feedback to the product and in the aforementioned poll, I'm pretty sure that we did. :-)

Anyways, I hope that answers your question(s) adequately. Please let us know if you have additional questions and we'll do our best to answer them.

Thanks, Rob


At 04:35 AM 1/6/2007, you wrote:

I just d/l'd the demo and am playing around with it. I noticed that psionics are not included. Are they just not available for the demo, or haven't you completed the psionic classes yet?
 
rob said:
I was wondering when we'd start getting some of the PCGen notables kicking the tires and asking probing questions. Welcome to the forum!
Heh. Thanks for the welcome.
 
I'd like to ask that if possible, psionics and templates be added as upgrades to the proggram. Without these, the program has a tad limited use for my campaigns.
 
rob said:
There are four substantive components of the SRD that have NOT yet been added to Hero Lab. The four missing components are:
1. NPC Classes
2. Monstrous Races and related facets (e.g. templates)
3. Psionics
4. Epic Classes

....

So why did we omit these four components? Based on informal surveys of consumers and retailers at multiple Cons since we announced Hero Lab this past summer, these were the four components that the majority of players had little or no interest in.

I'm curious -- while I'm sure that the majority of players aren't interested in those components, I'm not so sure that's true for the majority of purchasers.

In my experience, the players almost never buy anything -- the PHB and maybe one splatbook for their preferred class. Moreover, they have little need for character generation software given that they make one character over the course of about two years.

It's the GM's who spend the majority of the money, and we definitely need the monster support. So far I enjoy playing around with Hero Lab, and look forward to seeing how it will turn out -- but I use other chargen software for my game because I need monsters that I add stuff too, and a way to export the final result as a stat block to the clipboard so I can paste it into my Word document or whatever else I'm using.
 
sppeterson said:
I'm curious -- while I'm sure that the majority of players aren't interested in those components, I'm not so sure that's true for the majority of purchasers.
That's the boat I'm in. I'll admit, I'm biased towards PCGen, but many of the other chargens out there are missing monster/psionic/deity/etc support. I don't feel inclined to buy a piece of software that can't support what I use in my games. Then there's also the lack of Modern support.
 
At 11:50 AM 1/23/2007, you wrote:
I'd like to ask that if possible, psionics and templates be added as upgrades to the proggram. Without these, the program has a tad limited use for my campaigns.
Both are on the todo list, with templates currently having more votes, I believe. They shall be added.

-Rob
 
I have to agree with the sentiments on all the posts here. I purchased Hero Lab based upon the working demo, knowing that bits of the SRD were still to be implemented.

As a Dm and Player I get annoyed at the amount of D20 Generators that only offer "Standard Classes" and have meager support for custom data or even official content that gets ignored, Psionics seem to be eschewed for more variant spellcasters.

At 1.02am 18th February 2007 I downloaded the update Version 1.0H from 1.0g and Templates have appeared, I got myself a Human Fighter with a Ghost template for a test, Psionics are big on my wish list to be added next please.

Hero Lab seems very promising with respect to adding support for all classes from official and open game sources, so please Lone Wolf Dev. don't make us Psions, Wilders, Soulknife, Psychic Warriors and Lurks (Complete Psionic) wait too long for our "Class" choice to be incorporated. Templates are great but classes are better.

Carpe diem!
 
rob said:
These omissions were publicly spelled out when we released HL a few weeks ago, and we have a poll setup here on the forum to find out where users think we should focus our efforts next (with the missing SRD material being one of the options). Feel free to cast your vote if you'd like. :-)

Ummm...maybe I'm missing it or something, but I can't find this poll of which you speak. :?
 
At 05:24 PM 2/17/2007, you wrote:
Hero Lab seems very promising with respect to adding support for all classes from official and open game sources, so please Lone Wolf Dev. don't make us Psions, Wilders, Soulknife, Psychic Warriors and Lurks (Complete Psionic) wait too long for our "Class" choice to be incorporated. Templates are great but classes are better.
Our prioritiies are based largely on the feedback we've gotten, which includes direct emails sent to us, comments at shows, posts here on these forums, and posts in forums elsewhere. In this respect, psionics has generally been lagging behind the other missing facets of the SRD in demand. Another factor is the volume of work involved in adding a particular piece of functionality. In that respect, fully implementing psionics represents a substantial amount of work compared to the other missing facets of the SRD.

Given both of these factors, I'm not surprised that psionics has been viewed as a relatively low priority by the creators of other tools. We are faced with the same decisions regarding the order in which we tackle adding each piece of functionality. In addition to the SRD, though, we also have to factor in new features to the core Hero Lab product, as well as the development of data files for other game systems. And don't forget the clamor for us to prepare the Authoring Kit for general use. So there's a lot of competition between these various tasks, and the reality is that, regardless of which features we do first, there will always be people who would rather we did things in a different order. That's an unfortunate reality, and I would love to be able to wave a magic wand to have everything implemented all at once.

Given the above factors, our current objective is to get all of the remaining missing elements of the SRD into place within the next couple of weeks, with the *exception* of psionics. We are also planning to add a few features to HL within that timeframe - features that we've had continuous requests for. Once that is done, some of the most important items on our todo list will be put to bed and psionics will percolate upwards in the list.

I realize this isn't going to be viewed as the optimal sequence by those of you who desperately want psionics added. But we're faced with making hard choices that are guaranteed to make some people unhappy. We faced this same problem when we first released our Army Builder and Card Vault products, and those products ultimately evolved to include all the core functionality that everyone was clamoring for. It just took us a bit of time to get it all added. So please hang in there. Psionics is definitely on the todo list - it just hasn't yet percolated to the top. :-)

Thanks, Rob
 
What's next

Now that the rest of the SRD is in place with 1.1, what do you estimate the timeframe to be for completion of Psionics...??
 
At 08:06 AM 3/22/2007, you wrote:
Now that the rest of the SRD is in place with 1.1, what do you estimate the timeframe to be for completion of Psionics...??
I don't have an answer for that yet. In addition to psionics, we also need to add epic support to have the complete SRD in place. So we need to figure out who many people want epic support vs. psionics.

We got V1.1 out the door just in time before we left for the tradeshow. As a result, we haven't yet had a chance to discuss the game plan for the next few months. The first iteration of that is going to be happening on Monday.

I guess we need to setup a poll and use that to fuel our planning. So look for a poll on Monday that address this topic....
 
rob said:
At 08:06 AM 3/22/2007, you wrote:
we also need to add epic support to have the complete SRD in place.
And don't forget divine ranks and salient divine abilities so you can build gods. :D

Of course, that requires the epic stuff first :)
 
At 09:27 AM 3/25/2007, you wrote:
rob wrote:
At 08:06 AM 3/22/2007, you wrote:
we also need to add epic support to have the complete SRD in place.

And don't forget divine ranks and salient divine abilities so you can build gods.
icon_biggrin.gif


Of course, that requires the epic stuff first
icon_smile.gif
Which is why we've basically lumped it in with the epic stuff for all practical purposes.
 
I would really like to see psionics support. I have been looking for a program like this one, but as my main character is a psion, I can't really use it until psionics support is completed, so doesn't look like I'll be buying it just yet...
 
kerashi wrote:
>
>
> I would really like to see psionics support. I have been looking for a
> program like this one, but as my main character is a psion, I can't
> really use it until psionics support is completed, so doesn't look like
> I'll be buying it just yet...


I'll be working on Psionics next week.


--
Colen McAlister (colen@wolflair.com)
Chief Engineer, Lone Wolf Development
http://www.wolflair.com/
 
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