No, it's not. It's like buying a program to build your PC. Buying one's books or pdfs is completely separate. I live and die by Hero Lab, but it's neither the book nor the pdf. It's for building characters.
If you own the HeroLab version, there's a way to get a discount on the official PDF.
If you own the HeroLab version, there's a way to get a discount on the official PDF.
Isn't that for Roll20? I haven't heard about a discount for owning a Hero Lab dataset.
You may be right, since I can't find anything about that benefit online.
Doing some more checking, it looks like it's Fantasy Grounds that has the discount, not HeroLab or Roll20
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No. You're required to own the actual Paizo materials.Bummer, it is like double buying materials. Ah well. This piazo con I am going to be very limited for a Society character then.
^ this is the number one reason I do not like their product nor do I recommend it for PFS or SFS players.
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I work for a brand that sells a product with a warranty, so long as the product is acquired through one of our authorized dealers.
Many "grey market" dealers sell our products at a discount, but without a warranty, and often don't advertise this distinction.
Should a newly purchased item need service, those owners naturally expect their discounted item to be covered under our warranty.
When we tell them the price of repair, they get upset at us, even though the discount dealer wasn't up front with the fine print.
I see HeroLab as no different.
You're buying a discounted product (software), and expecting the price of that product to also include a service (PFS approval), and then get upset that you can't have both for the discounted price.
Paizo has done nothing wrong, but somehow gets twisted to be the bad guy.
I have been an adamant and outspoken opponent of HeroLab for years, for many reasons, but this is probably my biggest pet peeve. If they were up front about their product, especially if you had to sign somewhere acknowledging the distinction, I'd have less of a problem with them, but of course that would be bad for business, and so naturally they'll never be honest about their product.
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HeroLab never claims to sell you copies of the books...only license to use the rules from those books in their program.
I knew this fully well when I began investing in HeroLab and do not regret my investment at all...it has saved me hundreds of hours of work.
Sure, I wish there was some sort of discount program...something like if you prove to LoneWolf that you own the book you get a discount...or the other way around...who wouldn't want to save a few bucks.
HeroLab may not be perfect...but it sure works better than some of the freeware options which are years behind on books and have just as many (or more) errors in what they do have.
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I find HeroLab to be a very useful tool, but I think it's important to acknowledge it's limitations. One of the biggest was pointed out to me a while back. It allows players to build characters they don't fully understand, and since HeroLab is not always correct, folks sometimes aren't aware of flaws in their characters. I've found that it's helpful to do a manual build of all my characters so I understand all their moving pieces and so that I can make sure they're PF and PFS legal.
Agreed. Hero Lab throws out errors from time to time. It is important to always cross reference with the book.
That said, they have an excellent customer service department. They accept emails to alert them of errors that are then corrected in the next update.
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Agreed. Hero Lab throws out errors from time to time. It is important to always cross reference with the book.
That said, they have an excellent customer service department. They accept emails to alert them of errors that are then corrected in the next update.
More often then not when I've informed them of a bug they've agreed that they have it wrong but say that it's too hard to fix.
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More often then not when I've informed them of a bug they've agreed that they have it wrong but say that it's too hard to fix.Agreed. Hero Lab throws out errors from time to time. It is important to always cross reference with the book.
That said, they have an excellent customer service department. They accept emails to alert them of errors that are then corrected in the next update.
I still have things they've said would be easy to fix sitting in the bug queue unresolved from 4 years ago.
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Herolab makes character creation/updating so much easier for me. It ensures I don't forget silly things like updating my CMD or pumping my base saves or bonus spells per day from high ability scores.
It is expensive and definitely has some annoying aspects (making sure money doesn't count vs. encumbrance, spending gold on spellcasting services). But on the whole I can't imagine playing pathfinder using only pen and paper.
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Venture-Captain, Australia—NSW—Greater West
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I like herolab as a character generation software, and understand that you need to still own the offical rules you are using. That said, I quite often get players who don't understand that just because they own the resource in HL, they then have to have it from Paizo as well. Many misunderstandings....