Hero Lab Design Journal #4

Hello again everyone. It’s been a few months since we released Mutants & Masterminds data files, and in that time we’ve made a lot of improvements, bug fixes, and other changes. Now we’re ready to announce that our next project is almost ready – Ultimate Power and Mastermind’s Manual support for Hero Lab!

About Hero Lab
For those of you who haven’t encountered Hero Lab before, here’s some brief background information. Hero Lab allows you to create, manage, and advance player characters and NPCs. As well as creating new heroes (including picking abilities, skills, feats, powers and equipment), Hero Lab allows you to print heroes in a variety of formats, access pre-created stock NPCs, track additional power points added through experience, track your hero on an “electronic character sheet” during play, and for GMs manage encounters and combats between the players and their opponents.

A picture tells a thousand words, so here are a couple of screenshots showing how Hero Lab displays the ability scores and powers of the Battlesuit archetype from the core rules:

For more details about how Hero Lab works, check out the Lone Wolf website, or the previous Hero Lab design journals. The first covers power creation and editing; the second covers printed output; the third covers support for GMs. A free demo version of Hero Lab is also available from our web site (click the link to download).

Ultimate Power Support for Hero Lab
Ultimate Power support has been one of the most requested additions to Hero Lab for a long time, and we’re happy to announce that it’s almost here. The Ultimate Power package for Hero Lab will contain all the new powers from Ultimate Power, including the Array, Container, and Variable powers, the new power modifiers, and all of the changes to existing powers.

If you play in some games that use Ultimate Power and some that do not, don’t worry – you can turn the Ultimate Power rules on and off with the click of the mouse (as shown in the screenshot below). You can even choose to use the old versions of individual powers, if you started using it mid-way through your campaign and your GM allows you to keep them.

Mastermind’s Manual Support for Hero Lab
The second part of our supplement package is support for many of the optional rules in the Mastermind’s Manual. As you can see from the above screenshot, you can enable and disable any of the rules individually, customizing Hero Lab to work exactly the way your game does. If you have different gaming groups that use different optional rules, no problem – each hero can have a separate set of settings configured.

We don’t have all the Mastermind’s Manual rules in place yet, but we’ll be adding more of them in the coming weeks. Here’s a list of the optional rules that Hero Lab currently supports:

Chapter 1: Basics

• Drawbacks Limited to NxPL - you may not take more points of drawbacks than N times the Power Level.


• Grapple Limited to NxPL - your total Grapple bonus (including strength, attack bonus and all other factors) is limited to N times the Power Level.


• Max NxPL Feats - you may only pick a number of feats equal to N times the Power Level.


• No Power Points Limit - heroes are no longer subject to the Power Points limit, although they must still obey all relevant Power Level limits.


• Power Cost Limited to NxPL - you may not add powers that have a total cost of more than N times the Power Level.


• Power Rank Limited to NxPL - you may not add powers that have more ranks than N times the Power Level.

Chapter 2: Abilities

• Insight Saving Throw - adds the Insight Saving Throw to the list of saving throws.


• Stability Saving Throw - adds the Stability Saving Throw to the list of saving throws.

Chapter 3: Skills

• Broad Skills - the normal list of skills are removed, and replaced with the list of Broad Skills.


• Narrow Skills - narrow skills, more specific versions of existing skills, are added to the list of skills.


• New Skills - adds new "normal" skills to the list of skills.

Chapter 4: Feats

• Fighting Styles - new fighting styles are added to the list of feats.


• Optional Feats - the new optional feats are added to the list of feats, including Challenge Feats.


• Powers as Feats - the list of feats based on 1-point powers is added to the core list of feats.

Chapter 5: Powers

• Alternate Power as a Flaw - Alternate Powers have a 1-point flaw, instead of being a 1-point power feat. This makes them much more expensive.


• Energy Points - adds support for Energy Points, including an Energy Points entry to the Combat table on the abilities tab, an Energy Points table on the In-Play tab, and new power feats and modifiers related to Energy Points. Buttons appear on the powers tab, allowing you to easily spend energy points.


• Wide Arrays Extra - adds the Wide Array extra, allowing you to spread more points around dynamic alternate powers in an array.

Chapter 6: Characteristics

• Reputation - adds a Reputation entry to the Feats tab, as well as new reputation-related Feats.

Chapter 7: Devices & Equipment

• Proficiencies - adds proficiency feats to the list. Weapons and armor you aren't proficient with give you penalties to attack and defense.

Chapter 8: Combat

• Attacks of Opportunity - adds the optional Opportunity feats to the list of feats.


• Extra Attacks Power - adds the optional Extra Attacks power to the list of powers.


• Fatigue Level: Weary - adds the Weary fatigue level (between Exhausted and Unconscious).


• Fatigue Level: Winded - adds the Winded fatigue level (before Fatigued).
  (Further rules will be added as free updates for those who own the package.)

All these rules are directly integrated into Hero Lab. For example, let’s take the Battlesuit archetype we used above, and enable the Energy Points setting. We can now add an energy source to his Battlesuit device, representing the pool of Energy Points its powers can draw from. Clicking the new button on one of those powers automatically subtracts the appropriate number of Energy Points from the device. If we add a “Weapon Summoning” power directly to the hero, it displays a different button, indicating that it draws its power directly from the Hero, not an external source.

The In-Play tab also changes, displaying each energy source and allowing you to add and subtract points from it at will. Moving your mouse over the info button displays how many Energy Points you’ve spent so far, and you can easily reset an energy source to its full points total, or undo the last change made to it.

Other Game Content
In addition, game content (other than archetypes and NPCs) from the following books will be added to this supplement in the future:

Further Mastermind's Manual optional rules
Agents of Freedom
A More Perfect Union
Book of Magic
Golden Age
Hero High
Iron Age
Lockdown
Paragons

Again, all content added to the supplement after release will be a free download for anyone who already bought the supplement package.

Pricing & Release Date
The tentatively named “Ultimate Power & Mastermind’s Manual Supplement Package” for Hero Lab is expected to release within the next two weeks, at a price of $19.99. It contains content from Ultimate Power, the Mastermind’s Manual, and the other books listed above. (You must own Hero Lab for Mutants & Masterminds before you can use this supplement.)

That’s all for now! We’ll be sure to post again when the supplement goes on sale. Until then, check out the free demo version of Hero Lab you can download from our web site!

If you want to find out more about Hero Lab, you can visit the Lone Wolf website. You can also ask questions and provide feedback in the Hero Lab forum at the Atomic Think Tank.