Package Deals, How Well do they Work?

[BlackCobra]

I'm contemplating two different Hero campaigns at the moment, one Fantasy and one Star Hero. I anticipate creating a batch of both racial & professional package deals for my players to use when creating characters, and I'd like for them to be available in Hero Designer (of course!).

The thing is, I haven't yet tried to set them up or use them in character creation. Before I input fifty or so of these things, I'd like to get a feeling for how well they translate into Hero Designer.

Has anyone used Hero Designer for racial or professional package deals? Are there any stumbling blocks? Suggestions on organizing things up front? Things NOT to do?

--begin Shameless Suckup--
BTW, Dan, thanks again for a great program. I'm putting characters together just because it's fun to do with the software -- not because I have any good reason to.
--end Shameless Suckup--

[Monolith]

Package Deals are a mixed bag in HD. Some of the problems stem from having additional or lower starting characteristics. You cannot really make a Prefab that has a character starting with an 8 DEX, and in the same token if you want a character to start with a 12 DEX you need to buy the additional as a power, which then screws up the NCM modifier.

You also have problems because HD divides all the sections of a character into tabs. Thus to be accurate your Prefab must have separate sections/tabs for Skills, Talents, Perks, Disads, etc. Because of this you do not get to select a single package. You need to select part of it in Skills, then part of it in Talents, and so on. I have found that to be somewhat of a pain in the butt in my Star Hero game.

I am not much of a programmer, but I have had better success with making custom templates, but having too many of those tends to overly complicate things, IMO.

[Simon]

If you want to get really serious with Package Deals, you're talking about using a combination of several things:

1. A custom template. This will allow you to define "0-cost" starting points for characteristics...as well as any house-rule modifications that you have. For characteristics, just edit the BASE value in the template to adjust the starting point.

2. A character file for each character type/package deal that you want. These character files define the "required" abilities that the character types have to purchase. For instance, if you want an Elf to have a minimum DEX of 18, but you want him to spend points to raise it from the starting point of 10, you would use a character file as a starting point, defining this and any other "fixed" abilities that you want. Distribute the character file to your players and tell them to use it when creating that character type. They just do a "save as..." and they're good to go.

3. Prefabs. Prefabs should be used to define any items which are optional (or of the "pick 2 of the following" variety). As noted, if you have a package deal which is setup with something like "Pick 3 of the following list of Skills, Perks, and Talents" you may have an issue, as the Prefab listing will be split across multiple tabs. One good way to handle this is to list them all as Powers in this case....pretty much any ability (other than Martial Arts) can be included on the Powers tab. Characteristics are a little tricky, but you should be able to work them out acceptably.

Using a combination of the above 3 concepts, you should be able to do most of what you need....if you run into a true stumbling block, let me know and I'll see what can be done.

[BlackCobra]

Thanks for the info. I'll test out a few concepts and see how it works.

It sounds like racial packages should really be Templates, with some Prefab action thrown in for culture skills, etc.

For professional packages, I don't see any reason not to just use Prefabs and show my players (who are new to Hero Designer anyway) how to use them across the tabs (which doesn't bother me now -- let you know when I try telling other people to do it that way).

Thanks for the help!