Welcome
Welcome to the Hero Lab® 4th Edition Data File Manual, where you’ll learn how to create and manage your 4th Edition characters.
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Contents
How to Download Data
For those of you with D&D Insider accounts, we include a program is included to help you download game data for 4th Edition. Within Hero Lab, go to the Tools menu, Explore Folders submenu, and choose Game System Data Folder.
On Windows:
An Explorer window should open showing files for this game system. Find the ddidownloader.exe program and launch it by double-clicking on it. The following screen should appear:
On Mac:
A Finder window should open showing files for this game system. Find the ddidownloader_mac.zip file and double-click to extract the latest downloader. Once unzipped, the latest downloader will be selected. Press space or double-click the selected file to launch the downloader. The following screen should appear:
Note that if you used previous versions of the downloader, those ddidownloader_mac files may still be present in the folder. You can delete the old versions, or simply ignore them and always launch the newest version of the file (which may have a name like "ddidownloader_mac 2").
Downloading Data
First, make sure you're using the latest version of the downloader. The month the downloader was released in is displayed in the welcome banner - it should match the month listed in the launch notes for the data files (e.g. both will say "March 2012"). If the two are not the same, make sure you have the latest version of the data files and downloader, or you may experience unexpected behavior when running an older downloader.
Pressing 1, 2, r, d, or x selects one of the following options:
Once data has been downloaded, the downloader generates multiple files in its directory (named ddi_*) that contain the data retrieved from D&D insider. After the download has finished, relaunch Hero Lab or reload the game system to gain access to the new data.
The downloader is open source; you can find the source code at http://code.google.com/p/ddidownloader/.
Alternatively, you can post questions about the downloader at http://forums.wolflair.com/forumdisplay.php?f=58.
Configuring Your Hero
When you load 4th Edition for the first time, you'll see the Configure Hero form.
This allows you to select the starting level, gold, and ability points for the hero. By clicking the rules button on the right, you can also choose which settings the hero should use.
You can create & edit Monsters by changing the "Character Type" setting to "Monster (NPC)". See the Monsters section, below, for details.
Tabs & Summary Panels
To switch between different facets of the hero, click the tabs at the top of the form:
The contents of these tabs should be mostly self-explanatory. If a tab name is displayed in red, it contains errors that you should fix, or the hero will not be legal.
On the right of the form, you can see summary panels. Increasing the width of the Hero Lab window will cause more summary panels will become visible. These panels give you important information about your Hero - for example, when you're looking at the Abilities tab, you can look at the Skills summary panel to keep track of your skill details as you make changes.
Magic Weapons & Armor
Magic weapons & armor are added on the Armory tab. To add one, click the "Add New Weapon / Armor" button, and choose the "Magic Weapon / Armor" entry from the top of the list. You'll be presented with this form:
From here, you can select a type of magic item and a type of equipment to customize. Hero Lab automatically calculates all the rest.
Advancing Your Hero - the Journal tab
During an adventure, the GM will award you experience points and treasure. To track that, you'll use the Journal tab.
You can add a new journal entry for each adventure, give it an appropriate title and notes (by clicking the pencil "Notes" button), and track the dates that it occurred on. To add experience points or cash, enter the appropriate values and click the "Add XP" or "Add $" buttons.
Deleting a journal entry will subtract any XP or cash you added to the hero from it, so be careful!
Special Abilities
The Special tab displays a summary of your powers, consumables and features for quick reference during game play. You can see an abbreviated list on the "Powers" summary panel to the right of the form.
In-Play
The In-Play tab allows you to use Hero Lab at the gaming table, by keeping track of your health, action points, and healing surges. You can also add temporary adjustments to account for the effects of powers used by you or upon you by other heroes.
Editor
By selecting "Launch Editor" from the "Tools" menu, you can use Hero Lab's integrated editor to create your own content for the game system.
Click here for more information on using the editor.
Dashboard
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The Dashboard appears when more than one hero is present in the portfolio. (You can add additional heroes by creating or importing them from the Portfolio menu.) Each hero displays its name and current health. You can mouse over the icons for additional information - in order from left to right the show special abilities, skills, attack & defense, ability scores, and adjustments. You can click the crosshair button to switch to the appropriate hero, or the gear button to fetch gear from that hero to the current hero. You can find more information about the Dashboard in the main Hero Lab manual. |
Tactical Console
The Tactical Console shows a list of all the heroes in the portfolio, with the same buttons found on the Dashboard to show information about them.
Out of combat, enemies are sorted to the top of the list, and allies are sorted below them. A skill summary is displayed for each hero, as well as saving throws, defense and the Notice skill value.
In combat, the list is sorted by initiative order. Once a hero acts, he moves to the bottom of the list - in this way, the next hero to act is always shown at the top of the list (with the exception of heroes who delayed or readied actions). Once all heroes have acted, press "Next Round" to start a new round.
You can find more information about the Tactical Console in the main Hero Lab manual.
Monsters
You can create & edit Monsters by changing the "Character Type" setting to "Monster (NPC)". If you do this, several Hero-specific tabs (class, race) disappear and a new one - the Monster tab - is added.
The Monster tab allows you to create a monster with just a few clicks of the mouse. Once you've entered the monster options (including movement types, resistances and immunities) and powers on the Monster tab, you can configure its ability scores & defenses on the Abilities tab, and trained skills on the Skills tab. The monster will appear on the Dashboard and Tactical Console with the heroes, and you can then use Hero Lab to manage encounters between them.
Printing & Statblock Output
Hero Lab can print and save PDFs in several different formats:
To change the format from the Print Preview form, click the "Dossiers" button.
To generate a statblock for the hero, choose "Output Active Hero Summary" from the File menu. You can choose to generate the statblock in plain text, HTML or BBCode, and then save it to a file or copy it to the clipboard (by right-clicking in the summary and choosing "Select All", then hitting Ctrl+C on the keyboard).
Legal Information
Hero Lab and the Hero Lab logo are registered trademarks of LWD Technology, Inc.
Dungeons & Dragons and all other Wizards of the Coast product names are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast. ©2008-2014 Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
Known Issues / Feature Requests