I've tested everything I can find and none of the various excel character generators has everything in the PRD. All of them are missing one or more books, feats, classes, or archetypes.
One might be missing the witch, the other the summoner. Another might have Summoner but be missing ninja. Another might have archetypes from Ultimate Combat but not Ultimate Magic or vice versa. And so on.
Check out an application called PCGen. pcgen.sourceforge.net.
I'm a huge herolab fanboy though there is a cost associated with it. You can net basically every Paizo book with it and overall it is very user friendly and you can put out great results(whether char sheets, statblocks or in bbcode for play-by-post).
I have herolab too and like it a great deal. It's a bit expensive to get all of the essentials but I think it's worth it. There are some free bits for it on d20pfsrd.com
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PCGen is free. There are datasets for the bestiary 2 and several adventure paths, game mastery guides, player guides and more. I do not think there are data sets for ultimate combat or ultimate magic yet (which I assume herolab already has), but I am sure that material will be available soon.
PCGen is free. There are datasets for the bestiary 2 and several adventure paths, game mastery guides, player guides and more. I do not think there are data sets for ultimate combat or ultimate magic yet (which I assume herolab already has), but I am sure that material will be available soon.
Yes Hero Lab has them. Seems to me all official pathfinder books is released in hero lab at the same time they come out.
PS. I'm a hero lab fanboy too
Wow, I guess I am the only one who likes PCGen. That's a shame, because it is so much more than a character generator. It is a great tool for GM's do design encounters as well, with the ability to create balanced encounters with any number of monsters/enemies, round-by-round initiative tracking, spell/ability effect tracking, and much much more. In addition, all the data-sets are xml files, and it is quite easy to create your own data-set within the application, so if you play with a large amount of house-rules, custom content like new classes, spells, feats, monsters, etc., you can create your own custom data-set to reflect your own rules. Finally, it is available for all pc operating systems (windows, mac and unix-like operating systems such as linux.)
By the way, I am in no way associated with the PCGen project, I just like it very much.
I agree with PCgen's coolness, and I have and use both it and Hero Lab (though I use Hero Lab for Mutants and Masterminds, mostly). PC Gen is quite impressive, given its limitations as a Java app that is free and community-supported... and if memory serves, it integrates with Maptool, doesn't it?
Herolab does pretty much all that as well. It, also, is more than just a character generator.
I like PCGen, but yes, it does not have Ultimate Magic (yet). It's certainly better than nothin'; helps me catch things. It did appear to be giving me extra skills on one character. I appreciate that it's free and community-based. :)
Once there is a Hero Lab for Mac, I might consider it.
I broke down and got Hero Lab after being asked to run an adventure three days before hand and having to create 6 characters to play - and I have to say, I was so pleased, I bought all the expansions and have added all of my regular game's characters in to it. Even though my regular game is set in Eberron using Pathfinder rules, I was able to find Pathfinder adjusted Eberron races, and a data pack for Dreamscarred Press's Psionics Unlimited, all easy to add to my Pathfinder ruleset.
On top of making character generation/leveling easy, it turns out that it has a ton of combat tracking capabilities. I'll be using it next weekend to help manage combat - I'll let y'all know how it works out!
I use it for all oof my games as a combat tracker. Works great!
I'm a huge herolab fanboy though there is a cost associated with it. You can net basically every Paizo book with it and overall it is very user friendly and you can put out great results(whether char sheets, statblocks or in bbcode for play-by-post).
Hero Lab:
1) Expensive as heck. Confusing pricing model but it looks like over $80 for everything.
2) Demo didn't even acknowledge alternate classes like Ninja, Anti-Paladin, or Samurai. They didn't even appear as greyed out options. Also demo was slow and crashed 3 times just making a halfling rogue on a new Windows 7 Pro Install.
3) Does not run on Linux.
Hero Lab:1) Expensive as heck. Confusing pricing model but it looks like over $80 for everything.
2) Demo didn't even acknowledge alternate classes like Ninja, Anti-Paladin, or Samurai. They didn't even appear as greyed out options. Also demo was slow and crashed 3 times just making a halfling rogue on a new Windows 7 Pro Install.
3) Does not run on Linux.
1) Define "everything". Some people see "$80 for everything" and don't realize that that "everything" is all the campaign setting books, players books, dm books etc etc. Almost no one needs every single data package and add-on. Players most likely won't need any of the Bestiary packages, for example.
Oh, and you can input any data from any book you want for free. You pay for the convenience of not having to do so.
2) I don't know what your issues with the demo were, but A) the alternate classes are in a data set, not the base set. You were demoing the base set, not every product in the line, so OF COURSE those weren't in it. and B) I run Hero Lab in Win 7 with several datasets and I've never once had it run slow or crash. Not. One. Time. In over 3 years, with two different OSs (Win XP and 7).
3) Can't speak to Linux, but it's not advertised as a program for Linux boxes. There is a Mac version and an iPad version in the works, however.
The expense is relative to the functionality. It's been years since I used the demo, so I can't comment there, but the overall functionality HeroLab provides is considerable. They are very responsive to any issues found in the code and implement Paizo products faster than any other product. And you can take the base product as-is and just add in items, feats, spells, etc. as needed to reduce cost.
This is coming from a guy that tried his hand at maintaining a character generation tool for a while (see my profile)--HeroLab is hands-down the best thing I've used for Pathfinder.
Now I'm just waiting on them to develop an Android app so I can run it on my tablet!
According to the Lonewolf update I got the other day, the Mac version is due out at the end of march. Had not heard about an iPad version.
For what it's worth: Ultimate Magic for PCGen is approximately half-way done. I've done the plurality, if not the majority, of the work on it so far, and I should have a bunch of free time this coming week to get more done.
...I was able to find Pathfinder adjusted Eberron races...
Wow. I Googled this and found it. That's a dream come true. I completely love the Eberron setting. Does everything look balanced to you?
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Hero Lab:
1) Expensive as heck. Confusing pricing model but it looks like over $80 for everything.
2) Demo didn't even acknowledge alternate classes like Ninja, Anti-Paladin, or Samurai. They didn't even appear as greyed out options. Also demo was slow and crashed 3 times just making a halfling rogue on a new Windows 7 Pro Install.
3) Does not run on Linux.
In other words, once it has saved you a couple of hours work it has paid for itself.
Demo is just a demo. I've also never had it crash. It's worth running Memtest and checking your hardware. I'm currently running the beta on Mac and that has never crashed either.
Might run under Linux using Wine; does run under Linux using VirtualBox and XP.
It's the best of the bunch for computerised generators. Next best option is PCGen. After that, paper, pencil, dice, brain.
3) Does not run on Linux.
Herolab CAN run on Linus via WINE and PlayOnLinux. Just correcting wrong information. :)
Of course PCGen is still better :)
3) Does not run on Linux.Herolab CAN run on Linus via WINE and PlayOnLinux. Just correcting wrong information. :)
Of course PCGen is still better :)
I don't know about better or worse, as I have never tried herolab. But I do very much appreciate the PCGen team developing a sophisticate tool for players and GM's for free. I have used it for years (It is great for 3.5 also), and the developers are very quick to improve the program and add new content and generally provide a great user experience based on being responsive to user requests. Perhaps herolab has more content, but as someone who plays in groups which stick to core content, PCGen has been such a wonderful tool for easing the work that goes into gaming.
The killer feature for me -- as somebody who hasn't GM'ed a game since AD&D, playing with players who are new to RPGs completely -- would be if the product could print character sheets that contain brief rule summaries of each spell or feat possessed by the character. I couldn't find anything like that in the Herolab demo, and haven't tried PCGen.
Any suggestions?
Arma - PCGen does this by default.
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Good news, so does Hero Lab. Obviously there are passionate folks on both sides of the fence here. I would look primarily look at two things. What products are you using. How much are you willing to pay for a solution.
For me, I use all of the Pathfinder line from Paizo and a number of third parties. All of the Pathfinder line is available for Hero Lab. Even Pirates of the Inner Sea and Distant Worlds. Increasingly, third parties are also making their content available for Hero Lab (see the recent 101 Pirate and Privateer Traits product from Rite Publishing as an example). Also, like PCGen there is a ton of community support resulting in things like the Eberron work mentioned upthread.
The downside for this speed and comprehensiveness is cost. I'm fortunate. I bought into Hero Lab as soon as it came out. As a result, my investment has been spread out over a couple of years. Those of you just getting into it are facing a similar challenge to what you do with the Paizo content. It is costly to catch up.
Obviously, if you have restrictions on things like operating system or if you're just morally opposed to paying for products, you'll have to take those into consideration. Good luck with your decisions.
BTW, I also have NEVER had Hero Lab crash and I get heavy, heavy use out of it.
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The killer feature for me -- as somebody who hasn't GM'ed a game since AD&D, playing with players who are new to RPGs completely -- would be if the product could print character sheets that contain brief rule summaries of each spell or feat possessed by the character. I couldn't find anything like that in the Herolab demo, and haven't tried PCGen.
Herolab can do this. It's an option 'Show Feat / Ability Descriptions', off by default, at the bottom of the tree of tick boxes that you see when you create a new character 'Configure your hero'. At least, it is in the full version.
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The killer feature for me -- as somebody who hasn't GM'ed a game since AD&D, playing with players who are new to RPGs completely -- would be if the product could print character sheets that contain brief rule summaries of each spell or feat possessed by the character. I couldn't find anything like that in the Herolab demo, and haven't tried PCGen.
Any suggestions?
The Demo version does not contain the new output for the character sheets. Right now you CAN output custom character sheets in the paid for version of Hero Labs. It HAS rule summaries of all the feats for every book out right now if you own the supplement or have inputted the data from said book. The paid for version also has ALL the spell descriptions printed out as full descriptions OR as a summary.
PCGEn is the best free version of character creation and GMing tool out there. Not complete at the moment and much slower then Hero Labs for data output. :)
Hero Labs immediate data output for all new additions to Pathfinder RPG. Can be cheap if you want to input all the data yourself though.
Thanks, everyone. I spent a lot of time today with both products. For me, the user interface on HeroLab was much better than PCGen. Unfortunately I liked the default printed character sheet for PCGen better than HeroLab, but hopefully the custom character sheets (mentioned by Deanoth) will be better than the default.
The killer feature for me -- as somebody who hasn't GM'ed a game since AD&D, playing with players who are new to RPGs completely -- would be if the product could print character sheets that contain brief rule summaries of each spell or feat possessed by the character. I couldn't find anything like that in the Herolab demo, and haven't tried PCGen.
Herolab can do this. It's an option 'Show Feat / Ability Descriptions', off by default, at the bottom of the tree of tick boxes that you see when you create a new character 'Configure your hero'. At least, it is in the full version.
Thanks for mentioning this! I had no idea my HeroLab did this, and it'll help so much with my players who love to get feats and then forget what they do!
Thanks, everyone. I spent a lot of time today with both products. For me, the user interface on HeroLab was much better than PCGen. Unfortunately I liked the default printed character sheet for PCGen better than HeroLab, but hopefully the custom character sheets (mentioned by Deanoth) will be better than the default.
One of our users has put together full details and sample output from each of the various custom sheets available for Hero Lab. You can take a look at them all at the link below:
http://shadowd20.pbworks.com/w/page/41240085/PFRPG_HL_CustomSheetHope this helps!
Thanks, everyone. I spent a lot of time today with both products. For me, the user interface on HeroLab was much better than PCGen. Unfortunately I liked the default printed character sheet for PCGen better than HeroLab, but hopefully the custom character sheets (mentioned by Deanoth) will be better than the default.
PCGen has a new user interface PROGRAM HERE, and screen shot of OLD UI HERE and NEW UI HERE. It is however, still in alpha status (industry alpha, not our previous rock sold alphas). I am hoping that it will be ready soon (few months, or sooner) for prime time.
-- david
Papa.DRB
PCGen Yahoo moderator, PCGen data monkey
I've tested everything I can find and none of the various excel character generators has everything in the PRD. All of them are missing one or more books, feats, classes, or archetypes.
One might be missing the witch, the other the summoner. Another might have Summoner but be missing ninja. Another might have archetypes from Ultimate Combat but not Ultimate Magic or vice versa. And so on.
TOS+ has all the stuff from the APG, the UM, UC and UE. Recently, all the races from ARG have been added to the community forum...
TOS+ is one of the most powerful Character Sheets for Pathfinder: It has a full implementation of the stacking rules, has a LOT of integration (i.e. does the math for you) and can be used Dynamically (see a video of Dynamic Play HERE) during a gaming session...!
Before getting TOS+, you can check out TOS CORE, which is a 'core only' version of TOS+.