Questions 'bout herolab

[EndyBT]

Hey there,
I've been stalking the net to find the right tool form my GM needs, and helper of sort to let me save time (and peace of mind) while I prepare my sessions.
Hero Lab seems pretty much what I've been looking for all along, but before I buy it (since I've been recently burned with some pretty lame Ipad App that promised WAY more what it actually did) i need to ask some simple questions about it.
I've read that Herolab has official support from Pathfinder, and that is great since I really love the way Paizo has taken 3.5 to new orizons.. The problem is that I'm currently running a strict d&d 3.5 Forgotten Realms campaign (since I Own pretty much every single book from that edition and only a couple of PF).
Apart from the core books of 3.5 that are OGL, is there any way to Use Herolab with all the stuff that I already have 3.5 or not? And if not, using it only for/with ogld20 Stuff is it worth the money?
I do plan to switch to Pathfinder sooner rather than later, but I'm not considering doing it mid-campaign.

With Herolab Am I also able to advance monsters, add template to them and such? Or Am I stuck with npcs and pcs? (This is pretty much critical to my decision, I do need very much a quick and easy to use tool to do stuff with monsters)
What About Animal Companions? Does it have a quick way to create an animal compaion based on the druid/ranger/paladin/ect. class and manage it from there?
Is there a way to "switch on" several abilities/spells (like Turn on Rage, Activate Divine Power, Bull's strenght and so on) and have the program calculate all the related stats increase?

...and I think that's it for now.
Thanks a lot! Please say yes to all my questions, then shut up and take my money!

Endy.

 

[Mathias]

Hero Lab has a free demo - you can download it from http://wolflair.com/index.php?context=hero_lab and give it a try. The only things you won't be able to do in demo mode are save and print (although you can see the print preview)

 

[EndyBT]

Hero Lab has a free demo - you can download it from http://wolflair.com/index.php?context=hero_lab and give it a try. The only things you won't be able to do in demo mode are save and print (although you can see the print preview)

Thanks, I'm working with the Demo in this very moment, and I have to say I Absolutely love what you have done with this great piece of software.
I am absolutely sold at this point.
I've got just two major Issues:
1) Your store doesn't want to validate my card (which works pretty much everywhere else)
2) I still don't understand if there's a way to get stuff from 3.5 (FRC mainly) apart from the d20 System Core.

Endy
P.S. And sorry for my bad writing: English ain't my main language.

 

[Sendric]

Lone Wolf cannot provide anything outside of the OGL. However, there is a large amount of community added data from other 3.5 books available. See this thread. Anything that is not provided by the community can be added once you learn the editor.

The rest of it you can figure out with the demo, but the answer to the rest of your questions is yes.

 

[EndyBT]

Lone Wolf cannot provide anything outside of the OGL. However, there is a large amount of community added data from other 3.5 books available. See this thread. Anything that is not provided by the community can be added once you learn the editor.

The rest of it you can figure out with the demo, but the answer to the rest of your questions is yes.

WoW!
Thanks a lot! It seems almost too good to be true
Now I just need a valid way to pay for it and I'm set I guess...


Endy.

 

[EndyBT]

One more thing about using Herolab to advance Monster though:
Whenever a chose a monster instead of a pc race it doesn't seem to take into account the default feats that kind of monster should have, nor its Hp and so on and so forth.
Is this deliberate 'cause the software itself is more tailored toward PC generation or is there some kind of switch I can use to turn it into a more GM helper thingy?

Anyhow.. still loving it and still unable to buy it... oh the amount of rage


Endy.

 

[Sendric]

One more thing about using Herolab to advance Monster though:
Whenever a chose a monster instead of a pc race it doesn't seem to take into account the default feats that kind of monster should have, nor its Hp and so on and so forth.
Is this deliberate 'cause the software itself is more tailored toward PC generation or is there some kind of switch I can use to turn it into a more GM helper thingy?

Anyhow.. still loving it and still unable to buy it... oh the amount of rage


Endy.

I believe this is deliberate to allow more flexibility for the GM's. The HP's should be showing up, though I have the community files so maybe there's a difference between that and the stock version.

Try posting the error you are receiving when attempting to purchase the product in the "Hero Lab Discussion" boards. Another option is to email customer service (see here).

 

[John]

Anyhow.. still loving it and still unable to buy it... oh the amount of rage


Endy.

Hi Endy. Sorry for your difficulty with the purchase. Can you contact me directly? Please include info as to who the issuer of your credit card is, as that might be part of what's causing the transaction to fail to process.

 

[Colen]

Edit - I see John replied as well! Definitely get in touch with him to see if there's anything we can do.

-----

Thanks, I'm working with the Demo in this very moment, and I have to say I Absolutely love what you have done with this great piece of software.
I am absolutely sold at this point.
I've got just two major Issues:
1) Your store doesn't want to validate my card (which works pretty much everywhere else)
2) I still don't understand if there's a way to get stuff from 3.5 (FRC mainly) apart from the d20 System Core.

Endy
P.S. And sorry for my bad writing: English ain't my main language.

Hi Endy,

I'm assuming that you're not in the US? Unfortunately a lot of overseas banks don't implement the security features required to take their credit cards - we can't do address verification with them. That means if someone tried to use your credit card, our only options are to reject it, or accept it without any guarantee that it's not a stolen credit card number.

We don't want to enable fraud, so (unlike many online retailers) we simply don't allow credit cards without address verification to be used. Unfortunately this sometimes gets in the way of legitimate users like yourself.

If you just want the d20 system, you could purchase a boxed copy of Hero Lab online or at your local game store - you wouldn't be able to use your credit card to purchase additional packages or secondary licenses, but the core data package should work fine. A game store should be able to special order the product for you, or you could purchase it on paizo.com if that's an option for you. Alternatively, you could try picking up a prepaid US credit card and using it to buy the product online, which should support the address verification we need.

Hope this helps, and sorry for the inconvenience!

 

[EndyBT]

Thank you guys for the feedback and the customer service
As you've already figured out I'm not from the US, and probably the problem is the one Colen explained.
Tomorrow I'll try to contact you directly providing the error I'm getting, and I'll try with another credit card, issued from another bank, maybe that will work If all else fails I'll try to ask some friends in the US to do the transaction for me (assuming that is legal obviously... I think i saw somewhere the option to gift the license, Am I right?).
In the meantime thanks a lot for the support.

 

[EndyBT]

Ok,
just to let you all know: I've been able to purchase a license with the aid of a friend of mine
Thanks a bunch!

Now that I have everything unlocked (w/ community files for 3.5 stuff installed) I still have some questions in regard of "monster" creation and upkeep
Bear in mind that if something is not doable with this software it does not matter all that much to me, since as it is it's already worth every penny for npcs and pcs help.
Now on with the questions:
As stated above I'm trying to figure out if it is possibile to select a monster from the race selection and then advance it, in the 3.5esque way of doing things, and have the program calculate all the associated bonuses (and malus) upgrades.
The problem that I have is that if I select, let's say a Demon - Glabrezu, the informations about the monster don't make much sense to me.
For example I have, in the basic tab, a lvl "1-12", and a class "Demon, Glabrezu", while the Hit points taken into account are "54+12".
Does this means that the monster is actually the standard 12HD monster from the manual or should I fine tune something to get him to the actuala MM entry, and "then" start tinkering with advancement?
One other thing: For creatures it seems that the program always assume that unarmed strikes are the primary weapons (thus having a complete strenght bonus added on damage), even when they're not (in the previous example I've got a demon with "Pincers" that should've been primary weapons but are treated as secondary weapons due to the presence of said unarmed attacks...).

Thanks


Endy.

 

[EndyBT]

Hey guys... I'm pretty lost here: anyone care to explain how monster generation should work?
As I see it right now it doesn't work, or I'm missing something.
In addition to the problems with hit dice, levels and unarmed attacks (see post above), I've also noticed that creating a new monster race doesn't pull the right feats it should (according to monster manual).
Some help would be greatly apreciated.


Endy.

 

[Aaron]

Ok,
just to let you all know: I've been able to purchase a license with the aid of a friend of mine
Thanks a bunch!

Now that I have everything unlocked (w/ community files for 3.5 stuff installed) I still have some questions in regard of "monster" creation and upkeep
Bear in mind that if something is not doable with this software it does not matter all that much to me, since as it is it's already worth every penny for npcs and pcs help.
Now on with the questions:
As stated above I'm trying to figure out if it is possibile to select a monster from the race selection and then advance it, in the 3.5esque way of doing things, and have the program calculate all the associated bonuses (and malus) upgrades.

Before joining the company, I was the author who did most of the work on the 3.5 monster manual for the community files. As part of that, I added an Extra HD class that you can add to advance a monster's HD along with racial BAB and whatnot. It's not perfect, but hopefully that will help you out some.

The problem that I have is that if I select, let's say a Demon - Glabrezu, the informations about the monster don't make much sense to me.
For example I have, in the basic tab, a lvl "1-12", and a class "Demon, Glabrezu", while the Hit points taken into account are "54+12".
Does this means that the monster is actually the standard 12HD monster from the manual or should I fine tune something to get him to the actuala MM entry, and "then" start tinkering with advancement?

Yes, it is the 12 HD version, you don't need to add extra HD.

One other thing: For creatures it seems that the program always assume that unarmed strikes are the primary weapons (thus having a complete strenght bonus added on damage), even when they're not (in the previous example I've got a demon with "Pincers" that should've been primary weapons but are treated as secondary weapons due to the presence of said unarmed attacks...).

I think that was just an error when entering that race, that I forgot to make the pincers primary natural attacks. For example, if you change the race to Bebilith, the unarmed strike is still there, but the Bite is still a primary attack.

 

[Aaron]

Hey guys... I'm pretty lost here: anyone care to explain how monster generation should work?
As I see it right now it doesn't work, or I'm missing something.
In addition to the problems with hit dice, levels and unarmed attacks (see post above), I've also noticed that creating a new monster race doesn't pull the right feats it should (according to monster manual).
Some help would be greatly apreciated.

That was a deliberate choice when I was doing the entries. Because there isn't a "Customize" button like pathfinder has, if I were to bootstrap the feats listed in the MM there would be no way to remove them. I opted instead to bootstrap no feats so the monsters would be customizable to the DM's preference.

 

[Sendric]

I will update the Glabrezu's pincers attack to be primary for the next community release. Feel free to post any other problems like this that you see in the community bug report thread.

Edit: Hmm....this may prove more difficult that I thought. I think this may be something to do with the creation of the pincer weapon itself rather than an error with the Glabrezu. I'll post further updates in my Community 1.8 thread.

 

[EndyBT]

Sorry if I'm not quoting everyone who answered me, but thanks a lot for the great explanation from Aaron and thanks to Sendric for the community files future integration
Yesterday I used for the first time Herolab live during a D&D session... and it was a blast
Loving it everyday more!
I think I'm gonna need to buy the Pathfinder license too sooner or later


Endy.