Dave, when you say 'almost fully functional', is not being able to print the only thing missing? Not exactly Can't print. High-complexity characters can't be created (no idea when what the cut-off is. I never hit it and then decided to buy it).
Also, you only get the core PF book - the trial doesn't include the Advanced Player's Guide, Ultimate Combat and Ultimate Magic (those are the three I got. $10 each for a total of $60 investment in the package - I can now create amazing characters with nearly infinite options). Dave, when you say 'almost fully functional', is not being able to print the only thing missing? Not exactly Can't print. High-complexity characters can't be created (no idea when what the cut-off is. I never hit it and then decided to buy it).
Download Hero Lab for free. Hero Lab allows you to create, manage and evolve characters from various RPG games. Download Hero Lab for free. Hero Lab allows you to create, manage and evolve characters from various RPG games.
Also, you only get the core PF book - the trial doesn't include the Advanced Player's Guide, Ultimate Combat and Ultimate Magic (those are the three I got. $10 each for a total of $60 investment in the package - I can now create amazing characters with nearly infinite options).Dave I'm not sure I understand completely. When you're saying you only get the Core Rules, do you mean you get a pdf of that as well as the Herolab stuff?
I don't need that. Or, do you mean that only the info from the Core Rules is used in the character creation application of Herolab? I assume that's what you (and others) mean, that you can only create certain characters depending on what resources you have in Herolab.???? I noticed you get one game system included when you purchase the software, so I guess that's what it means. I'm not sure I understand completely. When you're saying you only get the Core Rules, do you mean you get a pdf of that as well as the Herolab stuff? I don't need that.
Or, do you mean that only the info from the Core Rules is used in the character creation application of Herolab? I assume that's what you (and others) mean, that you can only create certain characters depending on what resources you have in Herolab. It means you can only pick characters, spells, feats, equipment, etc. From the core book. If you add the Advanced Players Guide (for example), you would get a bunch more spells, feats, character classes, archetypes, etc.
Same for Ultimate Magic. Same for Ultimate Combat.
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The Monster Books are mostly useful if you want to use Hero Lab as a GM to create NPCs, monsters with class levels, apply templates, etc. I don't use Hero Lab in that way. A typical Hero Lab character outputs as follows: (for spellcasters, it will also output compact spell lists and full spell descriptions - all from the content provided within HeroLab). Ah, thanks Dr.
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That looks pretty sweet. Now my only concern is, if I let Herolab do the work, I won't be learning as much. Or you'll learn faster. I thought I was good at character creation but wasn't until I entered the data into Hero Lab that I found some (small) mistakes. I felt like I know better now! -Dave I'm with Dave on this it's like using Tax software, enter the data and see the correct results plus before your character levels up, you can try different options feats, spells, magic items, weapons, whatever more time to enjoy playing the game, less time on rule clarifications. I use Hero Lab, it's great, though pricey for PF.
I can totally see how it wouldn't be the best way to learn how things work. Using pen and paper is going to force you do all the math and make sure all the details are in place.
One thing that I made for 3.5 and continue to use to this day is a. It really helps to map out a character and more clearly see the 'forest between the trees' by getting just the core details of progression laid out on one sheet of paper. The one I have on my website is designed for Pathfinder Society play, so it only goes up to 12th level, and assumes you start with two traits, but aside from that it's all standard Pathfinder.
I've got zillions of character builds all mapped out on these sheets. It's a great way to just experiment, let the mind wander and figure out what kind of character concepts you can create. Also on that sheet is the results of an ungodly number of hours I spent going through a huge number if point buy iterations to figure out which ones were the most optimal in terms of getting the most ability score bonuses overall. I broke them out in terms of the number of dump stats you would like to use. While all of those listed are descent, the number sets in bold make the best use of the points. That way people can just pick a set, plug in the values and run with the character and save time on going through the point buy process. After looking around at PCGEN and some fillable XLS and PDF files, I ended up with Hero Lab.
It's not super cheap, but it's really well done and kept up-to-date. The Beginner Box version is free. And the demo is nearly fully functional but you can't save or print. They let you install on 2 different machines (primary and secondary license) so I keep it on desktop and laptop (I think iPad will come eventually) and use Dropbox to keep my characters available across both. My problem with Hero Lab is that it doesn't run on the computers I have.
No Linux version. No Android version (in addition to ipad) either. I can see that a different technical architecture, and implementation, would improve portability but also maybe open up new revenue streams for them. It would be a fair chunk of work though.