You know, back in the 3.5 days of WotC, if you wanted their data sets, you had one choice too, Code Monkey Publishing. They were the ones supporting eTools and also PC Gen with data sets for Wizards non-OGL material.
With your initial investment, it seems to me it was about $20, you got the three core rule books and the Non-OGL monsters from MM1. Then if you wanted additional data sets of other non-ogl books they typically ran between $5 and $7 a piece as well. They produced a fair number of them before Wizards pulled the license in 2008 as well.
So paying someone to produce data sets isn't anything new....
I tried both PC Gen and eTools at the time and went with eTools as entering data and using it was easier for me. I dabbled with RPG Explorer as well before they withdrew from the market as well.
I don't intend to argue with DeathQuaker's opinion, but I would like to point out that you can install HeroLab on two computers with a single license.
Wow, a whole two computers?! Golly mister.
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(Below is my personal opinion and no it does not count for anything other then my opinion and no it does not mean more then any other person on these forums)
I come to these forums for positive comments and such, I just wish that it was always positive and not fraught with snide comments and belittling remarks like some in this thread. Most of the people that have commented on using Hero Labs have been nothing but positive in their responses with nothing negative towards PCGen at all. Then there are some on here that think that Hero Labs is a joke and everyone should be using PCGen instead. Making snide comments to those that use Hero Labs.
Look we all know that Hero Labs is not free. It has some problems in that I agree. But for the most part it is positive and extremely useful in what it does. If you do not like it state why and I personally do not have a problem when you do but when you come on here and make statements without actually researching about Hero Labs and make it sound like you have is just plain wrong.
Hero Labs has custom output now! It did not in the past true, but yes now it does. It costs money yes, but in my personal opinion you get what you pay for. Do not make it sound like you have to pay for everything up front as that is NOT the case what so ever.
With the initial payment of $29.99 you get the following:
All the player content for all the adventure paths to date.
The Core Rules book.
The Game Mastery Guide (Including ALL the NPC's listed in it)
An Editor that allows you the user to add any content you like and NOT HAVE TO BUY THE OTHER PACKAGES if you so choose not to!
All the Beta previews for any upcoming book
Two Licenses for two different computers.
Access to a vibrant community (even if you do not own the software)
Access to the developers on their forums and excellent customer support that near rivals the developers for Paizo even.
Community/user content.
For 9.99 you get The Advanced Players Guide and all of it's content.
For 9.99 You get the Ultimate Magic content.
for 14.99 you get the Bestiary
Which includes:
275 Monsters
Templates
Feats
All dragons broken down in to size/age categories.
All of the creatures from the book provided at a few clicks of a button.
For 9.99 you get the Bestiary 2
Which includes:
300 monsters:
All creatures broken down and accessible via a few clicks. Which also lets you customize with levels, templates and other unique content.
Feats
Templates
Player Companion Packages
The Player Companion Bundle combines the "Adventurer's Armory", "Player Companion Races #1", "Player Companion Races #2", "Player Companion Regions #1", and "Player Companion Regions #2" packages into one bundle for a discounted cost. Get 5 for the price of 4! ($19.99)
-Adventurer's Armory incorporates all of the material from the Adventurer's Armory supplement for Pathfinder. (this individual packages sells for $4.99)
-Player Companion Races #1 incorporates all of the material from the first three Player Companion supplements focused on races: Elves of Golarion, Dwarves of Golarion, and Gnomes of Golarion. (this individual packages sells for $4.99)
-Player Companion Races #2 provides the content from the following three Player Companion supplements focused on races: Orcs of Golarion, Halflings of Golarion, and Humans of Golarion. (this individual packages sells for $4.99)
-Player Companion Regions #1 includes all material from the first three Player Companion books focused on regions: Osirion, Land of the Pharaohs; Taldor, Echoes of Glory; and Qadira, Gateway to the East. (this individual packages sells for $4.99)
-Player Companion Regions #2 spans the content from the second three Player Companion books focused on regions: Cheliax, Empire of Devils; Andoran, Spirit of Liberty; and Sargava, the Lost Colony. (this individual packages sells for $4.99)
-Golarion #1 contains material from the Inner Sea Primer, and will include at least 1-2 other books in the future (to be determined as they're released, and added as free updates to anyone who already owns the package). (this individual packages sells for $4.99)
Campaign Setting Packages
The Campaign Setting Bundle combines the "Campaign Setting #1-5" packages into one bundle for a discounted cost. Get 5 for the price of 4! ($19.99)
Campaign Setting #1 includes Classic Monsters Revisited, Guide to Darkmoon Vale, Gods & Magic, Into the Darklands, and Dark Markets: A Guide to Katapesh. (this individual packages sells for $4.99)
Campaign Setting #2 contains Dragons Revisited, Dungeon Denizens Revisited, Seekers of Secrets: A Guide to the Pathfinder Society, and The Great Beyond. (this individual packages sells for $4.99)
Campaign Setting #3 holds content from Book of the Damned Volume 1: Princes of Darkness, Cities of Golarion, Classic Horrors Revisited, Guide to the River Kingdoms, and Classic Treasures Revisted. (this individual packages sells for $4.99)
Campaign Setting #4 includes material from the Faction Guide, Heart of the Jungle, City of Strangers, and Misfit Monsters Redeemed. (this individual packages sells for $4.99)
Campaign Setting #5 includes material from Book of the Damned Volume 2: Lords of Chaos, Lost Cities of Golarion, the Rival Guide, and Undead Revisited. (this individual packages sells for $4.99)
If you were to purchase all the above packages at once yes it would cost a total of $114.93. Is that a lot all at once, heck yea! But why are you wanting to make a large purchase like this all at once? Unless you are the kind of person that needs it all at once then make it a purchase over time instead.
Are you Planning on running as a GM? Or as a Player? If you are planning on running as a player then technically you can get by with the Core Rules book, Advanced Player Guide, Ultimate Magic Guide. This costs 49.99. While not exactly cheap. You get software that is extremely potent under your control. Again it can be purchased over weeks or even months. Bag lunch for a week or two if you need to save some money. Bring coffee with you instead of buying it at a Starbucks. There is all kinds of things you can do to bring this to your computer.
As a GM it costs a bit more but again the same thing above... there is no reason you do not need it all immediately. Just buy it in parts and go from there.
There is so, so, so much more to this software that I am not mentioning that makes this so strong. But others have in this thread already had mentioned and does not truly bear repeating.
Other then that I am done. Here is a link.. for those that like facts taken from the site itself and not my word of mouth.
Out of curiosity, I just went to look what I spent on eTools. It was $30 for the base program, $6.75 for the upgrade to 3.5, $11 for Monster Manuals 2 & 3, and $24 for the 4 Completes before Wizards pulled the license. That was in 2004 dollars, and I have absolutely nothing to show for it. :)
I still have my eTools and all the data sets I bought for it, and it still runs just fine. I also have all the data sets I built for it as well where I needed extra material where it wasn't available.
I couldn't remember the costs as I didn't have my invoices anymore. Granted I don't play 3.5 anymore, but up until 2 years ago I did and used it exclusively for my gaming. Was it perfect no, but it did the job I needed it to.
The primary point of the commentary was that paying for data sets wasn't new regardless of anyone's feelings regarding eTools and it's utility or lack thereof.
I had looked at trying to built a Pathfinder dataset for it but ultimately decided that I didn't have the time or the inclination to try to build it from scratch. I built out the Fighter as an exercise to see if it was possible.
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Hero Lab is Paizo's official stat block generator, at least for now.
Not entirely correct. Hero Labs is the only licensed Pathfinder character generation software. Paizo has their own method of creating stat blocks apart from Hero Labs.
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Hero Lab is Paizo's official stat block generator, at least for now.Not entirely correct. Hero Labs is the only licensed Pathfinder character generation software. Paizo has their own method of creating stat blocks apart from Hero Labs.
Which I believe is an excel spreadsheet (I believe JJ said that)- judging from the numerous stat block errors in almost every AP i'd say its amount of errors is significantly less than HeroLab (I can't speak for my experience of PCGen, haven't used it much).
Perhaps they are moving to HeroLab to save the work on their own stat block creator?
Hero Lab is Paizo's official stat block generator, at least for now.Not entirely correct. Hero Labs is the only licensed Pathfinder character generation software. Paizo has their own method of creating stat blocks apart from Hero Labs.Which I believe is an excel spreadsheet (I believe JJ said that)- judging from the numerous stat block errors in almost every AP i'd say its amount of errors is significantly less than HeroLab (I can't speak for my experience of PCGen, haven't used it much).
Perhaps they are moving to HeroLab to save the work on their own stat block creator?
One of the devs said somewhere that, as they're a Mac office, they're waiting for the Mac version and at that point will most likely switch to using HeroLab in office. I'll go poke around and see if I can find that post.
Here it is: lonewolf-rob's post and James Jacobs' answer from April.
We actually use a pretty complex Excel spreadsheet to build and check stat blocks; Sean K built the thing, and it's kinda a behemoth, but it saves a HECK of a lot of time in building and helping to proof stats.
That said, there's also hand-checking involved in the stat blocks.
We actually don't use Hero Lab, really, because we're all on Macs at Paizo.
(AND: Nope; we don't make our Excel spreadsheet available to the public, sorry!)
We actually don't use Hero Lab, really, because we're all on Macs at Paizo.We're hoping to change that in the next few months. :-) Once the Mac version of Hero Lab is available, it will finally become a viable option for use within Paizo.
With the myriad combinations of options in Pathfinder, developing a bullet-proof character management tool is a highly complex task. It seems inefficient for Paizo to maintain a separate tool for in-house use that duplicates the work going into Hero Lab. Thus far, the lack of a native Mac version has necessitated the continued use of a separate tool, but that will shortly change. At that point, it may make sense for Paizo to consider using Hero Lab in-house - and they wouldn't be the first publisher to adopt Hero Lab this way.
In the one head-to-head test I'm aware of, Hero Lab compared favorably to Paizo's spreadsheet, as discrepancies uncovered a couple of issues in the spreadsheet. However, that was just a number of spot tests, so it's not a sound basis for drawing any conclusions.
We'll hopefully get the chance for a more thorough head-to-head test once the Mac version is ready. After that, Paizo will have concrete data upon which to make a suitable assessment. So the answer to the OP's questions could potentially change in the upcoming months. :-)
We're hoping to change that in the next few months. :-)YAY!
"I have no doubt that I could still use eTools if the laptop I had been using it on hadn't died and if I could still find my original installation disk and if I could redownload all my datasets. :) Of course, most of the datasets past the core package didn't have any explanatory text, as adding that was a low priority thing after getting the sets out and then CMP lost the license and couldn't provide it. One thing I miss about eTools was the ability to make my own tables. I set up all my random encounters and could generate them right there; that was neat."
That is a whole different issue then. It does have some neat functionality. When Wizards pulled all the license data across the board, it was definitely not what I had hoped for.
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I've tried both HeroLabs and PCLabs....and I don't like either one of them. One may look prettier than the other, but both feel cumbersome to use.
My preference: sCoreGen.
Join the following Yahoogroup for more details.
Herolab
I've tried both HeroLabs and PCLabs....and I don't like either one of them. One may look prettier than the other, but both feel cumbersome to use.
My preference: sCoreGen.
Join the following Yahoogroup for more details.
I really like sCoreGen for JUST a PC generator/sheet creator (it doesn't have the GM tools PC Gen nor HeroLab has), but I stopped using it when the Johnny Angel was unable to keep updating it and I started using APG material.
I just noted on his blog that he did do an update a few days ago--the first since February of 2010. In that entry he notes the related PathForge project you link to is stalled. Can you please shed some light on that?
I also can't tell from the link to the Yahoo group what the relationship between sCoreGen, PathForge, and sCoreForge is. It'd be nice to understand, because if someone IS updating sCoreGen, that would be good news.
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I just noted on his blog that he did do an update a few days ago--the first since February of 2010. In that entry he notes the related PathForge project you link to is stalled. Can you please shed some light on that?Actually there was a b54-3 update in January. Regards the Yahoogroups, there's a lot of posting activity in July'11 with apparent member-tweaking of the eXcel spreadsheet (somebody was talking about getting armored kilts to work).
I also can't tell from the link to the Yahoo group what the relationship between sCoreGen, PathForge, and sCoreForge is. It'd be nice to understand, because if someone IS updating sCoreGen, that would be good news.
I assume everything is unofficial/fan-interest, because that's what sCoreGen always was.
(Note for others: sCoreGen is an editable/live-updating eXcel spreadsheet, so you'll need at least Office '97. Is flaky with Office '10, or at least the b54-02 version is.)
I just noted on his blog that he did do an update a few days ago--the first since February of 2010. In that entry he notes the related PathForge project you link to is stalled. Can you please shed some light on that?Actually there was a b54-3 update in January. Regards the Yahoogroups, there's a lot of posting activity in July'11 with apparent member-tweaking of the eXcel spreadsheet (somebody was talking about getting armored kilts to work).I also can't tell from the link to the Yahoo group what the relationship between sCoreGen, PathForge, and sCoreForge is. It'd be nice to understand, because if someone IS updating sCoreGen, that would be good news.I assume everything is unofficial/fan-interest, because that's what sCoreGen always was.
But what IS PathForge/sCoreForge, versus sCoreGen? What do the different names mean? Does the former HAVE GM tools? If the Yahoo Group has such information, I can't figure out where it is (but I loathe YahooGroups' interface).
Sorry if I sound tetchy... I really liked sCoreGen, so I'd love to follow an active project working on it, but the information you're providing is not enough to figure out what's going on, and is not consistent with the information provided by the creator, unless I've misunderstood something. I apologize if I'm being dense/overlooking something obvious. Thank you.
Sorry for the threadjack.
Here's a better idea than PC Gen or Lone Wolf's Hero Lab. Encourage Paizo Publishing to step up to the plate and create it's own official stat block generator (which it could sell on it's site)!
No. Just no.
There's something to be said for sticking to one's core competencies and not spending time and resources on in-house development. I'd much rather Paizo development dollars go towards new RPG, AP, module, & Gamemastery goodness than to develop a software development dept/practice from the ground up.
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I used Etools back in the day but it was short-term, hated it.
I tried PC Gen before Herolab came out and it was ok, I used the Combat intiative alot.
Then Herolab showed and I loved it for what it did for our gaming group. I have cheap bastards at the table that only do free things and are too lazy to do anything, they wait for the fan volunteers to get around to things needed for programs like PCGen.
I can not wait, we are gaming now and I pay for hardwork and consistant updates like Herolab does. I can't believe how cheap some people can be. I don't drive a fancy car or own a mansion but I know a good software for my gaming is worth my money. Soon after I bought it for me, the DM wanted it and bought it for himself. Then another two guys bought it as they saw what it brought to our gaming table.
Is Herolab perfect? No, but others have stated, nothing is perfect but each update is a step closer! The guys at Lonewolf may not be great at their wording on the forum to seem friendlier but they do listen and do help out alot with questions.
It interacts with the D20Pro program (don't know if PCGen does or not) and makes my life even more fun when gaming online too. Herolab gets the data on upcoming stuff from Pathfinder before we get the pdfs/books and alot of times the new stuff is ready on Herolab. If not, because of other things, they give us something with the updates coming as soon as possible (ex. Ultimate Magic). We live by Herolab for how it improves our gaming and soon the whole group will have it.
My vote- Make Mine Herolab!
EK
I have used the excel sheets and PC gen they are good to excellent tools for running and playing pathfinder.
I find Hero lab to be the best of all of them and worth the cost. Combine HL with Kyle Olsens (free) Combat Manager and as a GM you are in heaven.
My main criticism of HL is the Character Sheets. (I know that the community can now create their own sheets). Character sheets are the end result and the guys I play with are neo Luddites when it comes to tech and RPGs none of them will touch HL because the layout of the standard sheet is not up to scratch and they like to have dead tree at the table rather than Tablets or Laptops.
If Lone Wolf were to commission or create a good sheet as their standard I would be able to get another two or three people to pick up the program.
There's something to be said for sticking to one's core competencies and not spending time and resources on in-house development. I'd much rather Paizo development dollars go towards new RPG, AP, module, & Gamemastery goodness than to develop a software development dept/practice from the ground up.
Well, they do have some developers on staff.
But you do have a point in that I think we all remember the numerous fiascos of, say, WotC trying to do software development. Magic Online is infamous as a software disaster even outside of the gamer community.
Either work on iPad?
I have done a lot of different character management systems in my days, and I must say, just learning how to use Numbers on iPad, I'm done with chargenerators unless I'm GMing. I'll just stick the info I need to know on Numbers for iPad and game light. It's very powerful.
Neither will currently. PCGen likely never will until some dedicated soul try's to recode it for iOS from it's Java base. From what I gather at that point it'd be more time productive to just build a character generator from scratch.
Again, from what I've gathered, Hero Lab will eventually make it to iOS. They are rewriting it to run natively in Mac OSX, which is backend code wise not far from iOS. What will take them even more time would be the interface alterations. As the developer behind Dicenomicon noted as he tries to port from iOS to Mac, there are some serious interface differences.
The folks at Paizo aren't coders. That's why they're endorsing Hero Lab instead of trying to roll their own. Endorsing PCGen is not an option as it does not have a schedule for timely support of products at release.
They could always hire a coder to code a program and sell it on their website. It can't be that costly to them for the love of god!
If you were to purchase all the above packages at once yes it would cost a total of $114.93.
That pretty much rules out over half of the United States of America's population purchasing it then. I know at least 75 people in total and NONE OF THEM have $114.93 on tap.
The folks at Paizo aren't coders. That's why they're endorsing Hero Lab instead of trying to roll their own. Endorsing PCGen is not an option as it does not have a schedule for timely support of products at release.They could always hire a coder to code a program and sell it on their website. It can't be that costly to them for the love of god!
If you were to purchase all the above packages at once yes it would cost a total of $114.93.That pretty much rules out over half of the United States of America's population purchasing it then. I know at least 75 people in total and NONE OF THEM have $114.93 on tap.
Why do you think an in-house Paizo product would be any cheaper than HeroLab?
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That pretty much rules out over half of the United States of America's population purchasing it then. I know at least 75 people in total and NONE OF THEM have $114.93 on tap.
How many of them have more than $114.93 of RPGs? :-)
I'm a Herolab user, but as a cheapskate have only the Core and Bestiary 1 for running stuff. I'm not the smoothest user and find it clunky at times, but just the fight organiser is very nice, and the more I use it, probably the better I'll get.
I tried using the HL editor, and it was NOT friendly, at all, ever. I tried to plug in the Grig from Kingmaker: Stolen Lands (before they brought out Bestiary II) and it was PAINFUL. The guessing of which names you can use, the categorising, the finding of abilities and getting the thing to port into the game has put me off of playing with the editor, and I usually love playing with that stuff and jigging things. The scars have faded, so I may try again one day.
I'll also hafta look at PCGen.
Hero lab for the win. I have all the data sets and speaking as a player and a DM in several RL games and PBPs, the value is definately there. I know many people don't like laptops at their game table, but for high level play, I think there is nothing better. Personally, I love being able to apply several conditions, spells and feats to my character and see it calculate the math across the board. I understand it's simple math mostly, but at high levels with several cohorts/companions/summonings it can get a bit tedious, and Hero Lab solves all this with the checking of a few boxes and presto you have saved 10 minutes of in game time reconfiguring all those stats. Not sure if PC Gen has this function, but it hands down makes for the most efficient character sheet.
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The folks at Paizo aren't coders. That's why they're endorsing Hero Lab instead of trying to roll their own. Endorsing PCGen is not an option as it does not have a schedule for timely support of products at release.They could always hire a coder to code a program and sell it on their website. It can't be that costly to them for the love of god!
If you were to purchase all the above packages at once yes it would cost a total of $114.93.That pretty much rules out over half of the United States of America's population purchasing it then. I know at least 75 people in total and NONE OF THEM have $114.93 on tap.
Did you see the rest of my post then? Again this does NOT have to be purchased all at once. Please read further then what you have read about the 114.93. There are many many ways to buy this software. And Again you do not NEED all of it unless you are the kind of person that wants it all and wants it all right now. The 114.93 is ONLY if you buy it all at once. If you choose not to buy it all at once then you can buy it over time like 99% of the people that buy Hero Labs does. Over time! Buy the software one week... maybe next month buy another package and so on. Brown bag it for a week or two or buy coffee at the grocery instead of at a coffee store. There are way to many ways to buy this and not feel like you are spending an arm and leg, especially if you do not buy it ALL.
PLEASE read my entire posting up thread.. it answer a lot of questions. Instead of just pulling a quote completely out of context.
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There is no way in hell that the average player (as opposed to a breathes-the-game-like-life GM) is going to buy gobs of Herolab supplements just so he can get an heirloom fauchard to calc right (or even be selectable at all).
Why do you think an in-house Paizo product would be any cheaper than HeroLab?
They certainly won't be cheaper than free.
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There is no way in hell that the average player (as opposed to a breathes-the-game-like-life GM) is going to buy gobs of Herolab supplements just so he can get an heirloom fauchard to calc right (or even be selectable at all).
Luckily the folks at Lone Wolf don't hold a gun to your head and force you to buy EVERYTHING or NOTHING. It's perfectly acceptable to just buy the Core package.
And even if you can't 100% build the character you want with it (like if it requires a data package you haven't purchased or a 3PP supplement) and you don't feel like using the editor, you still get a huge amount of the work done, and adding in the extra bit that you don't have is much simnpler than creating the character from scratch.
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The issue with Fan projects is they are only as alive as its owner... when they stop or go away, it does too.
Well not to nit-pick but the PCGen Project has been going on without Bryan McRoberts for quite a long time (2006 is the last time I remember him being active, and that was largely due to some issues with CMP and the code base). He's only dropped in to say hi maybe twice in the last year.
As a whole PCGen has been on SourceForge since 2001, and IIRC Bryan had been working on it for a year already. So we're already ranked up there with some of the oldest continuously running Open Source projects
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There is no way in hell that the average player (as opposed to a breathes-the-game-like-life GM) is going to buy gobs of Herolab supplements just so he can get an heirloom fauchard to calc right (or even be selectable at all).Why do you think an in-house Paizo product would be any cheaper than HeroLab?They certainly won't be cheaper than free.
You make it sound like if the average player buys this then they are not capable of building a character with out this software then.
No one person is holding a gun to anyone's head here. If you do not want to purchase Hero Labs then don't but do not sit there and act all high and mighty and pretend to know every "average" player and what is on their minds. Besides one can get by without all the supplements too :)
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I never tend to see people who've actually bought it all say that- what I do hear them saying before they buy it is similar 'oh its probably not worth the money' though.
Two things:
A) There's a poster in this very thread saying just that, only a few posts above your own.
B) What you're describing is basic decision reinforcement and is really common in human psychology. E.g. "I spent money on this, so it HAS to have value, because otherwise I wouldn't spend money on it."
So while it may feel like an interesting observation, unless you've actually interviewed a lot of people on the topic, I rather doubt it is.
Not trying to be mean, just couldn't let this one lie...
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Some reasons that I might get away from PCGen:
1) It is very, very slow. Especially on my portable netbook.
2) It is pretty clunky.
3) Digital output leaves a lot to be desired. Not that you can't easily change that, it just seems like an afterthought.
It doesn't sound like HeroLab is the way to go, though, if it is indeed true that each splat carries its own price tag. That's exceeding lame, in my opinion.
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A belief that commercial quality work should be done for free soon leads to no work. Pricing for work per supplement is why Herolab is CURRENT when it comes to supplement support instead god knows when for PCGen. (Not knocking the latter effort, you get what you pay for, anything else is gravy)
But on the other hand unlike a commercial source like HeroLab, if there is a book that isn't for sale or otherwise distributed. You can personally code it up and donate it to the project and thereby directly helping the community.
And speaking of which last I checked we still offer more total sources that HeroLab does. :)
Of course a lot of them are for 3.0 & 3.5.
But on the other hand unlike a commercial source like HeroLab, if there is a book that isn't for sale or otherwise distributed. You can personally code it up and donate it to the project and thereby directly helping the community.
You can do the same thing for HeroLab.
They certainly won't be cheaper than free.
As much as that seems about a tautology, it's not necessarily true.
There's a saying in the world of software: "Free software sometimes isn't, unless your time isn't worth anything."
(Which isn't to say that Herolab is a dream or necessarily even better -- but it being someone else's actual job to fix bugs in a piece of software is worth a non-zero amount of money to a lot of people.)
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If cost is the primary issue for some people, why not share the costs? I purchaed all the datasets so far and I have 4 licenses. We play at any one of 4 locations so this worked perfectly. The whole group got together and payed. So that $115 price tag ended up being $115/6 which is less than $20 each. When a new dataset comes out, we all throw our money at it. It's only cost prohibitive if you let it be.
If cost is the primary issue for some people, why not share the costs? I purchaed all the datasets so far and I have 4 licenses. We play at any one of 4 locations so this worked perfectly. The whole group got together and payed. So that $115 price tag ended up being $115/6 which is less than $20 each. When a new dataset comes out, we all throw our money at it. It's only cost prohibitive if you let it be.Does the other 5 reimburse the one that moved and can no longer use said software?
I've been with the same group for several years. The houses we game at are with people I've been friends with for 10 years or more. It is unlikely that the situation will come up. That being said, it is something we will deal with when the time comes. I believe, but am not sure, that I can transfer the license to another computer at no cost.
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There's a saying by software venders in the world of software: "Free software sometimes isn't, unless your time isn't worth anything."
Fixed. ;-P
I reject the premise that commercial software is intrinsically better than community-wrote software. (E.g., anybody paid for a set of software encyclopedias recently, or did they just hit up Wikipedia?)
Any in event, the thread has devolved into a shouting match between salesmen now, so I'm buggin' out.
Neither. Seriously. Herolab is expensive and PCGen is unintuitive. At best.
Redblade > Herolab and PCGen.
If it wasn't for a number of bugs and a couple limitations, it would still be better to put all the info into it by hand for Pathfinder than use either of the other programs.
Anyone know C# and/or XML and have time on their hands? We can totally put something together that way.
Hero Lab is Paizo's official stat block generator, at least for now.Not entirely correct. Hero Labs is the only licensed Pathfinder character generation software. Paizo has their own method of creating stat blocks apart from Hero Labs.Which I believe is an excel spreadsheet (I believe JJ said that)- judging from the numerous stat block errors in almost every AP i'd say its amount of errors is significantly less than HeroLab (I can't speak for my experience of PCGen, haven't used it much).
Perhaps they are moving to HeroLab to save the work on their own stat block creator?
Excel is rather easy to use to make numbers do fancy things. Unless you make it difficult and try to write software with VBA instead of just writing software with VB (like every advanced, custom "character sheet" you can find).
There's a saying by software venders in the world of software: "Free software sometimes isn't, unless your time isn't worth anything."Fixed. ;-P
I've heard a lot of people say it who aren't software vendors.
Mostly, they're people that spend some percentage of their work week using free software.
I reject the premise that commercial software is intrinsically better than community-wrote software.
Which isn't what I said.
Although I would say the following variants of that statement are true:
1) In some areas, commercial software is almost always better than community-produced software (e.g. support, documentation, user interface quality -- basically the parts that aren't sexy to most developers)
2) Much (where much is defined as a percentage of total projects available) community-produced software is crap.
3) Much (where much is defined as percentage of how often people actually use it) community-produced software can be quite good.
(E.g., anybody paid for a set of software encyclopedias recently, or did they just hit up Wikipedia?)
The part of Wikipedia that's valuable isn't the software, and so it's somewhat irrelevant.
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(E.g., anybody paid for a set of software encyclopedias recently, or did they just hit up Wikipedia?)The part of Wikipedia that's valuable isn't the software, and so it's somewhat irrelevant.
The reason Wikipedia has any value whatsoever is because it doesn't cost anything to use it (which is why it's one of the biggest sites in existence rather than a miniscule backwater) -- so it's entirely relevant.