A couple Questions from a (semi) old herophile

[Insaniac99]

Hi everyone!

Though many of you may not know/remember me I played hero up until about a year ago. Now I finnally found a group to start gaming with and I have a few questions so I thought I would consolodate them here.

first, I'm trying to decide on whether or not to buy Hero designer, I only really used the beta of v1 and I want to know more about v2 and v3. If I decide to buy it (which I'm still undecided on) I'm leaning towards buying v2 (it's availble at my FLGS) because I saw lots of files availble for it for free, and it is a one time purchase and so forth, but I'd like to know more about both from people who have been using them. what advantages does using hero designer have over the excel spreadsheets that are available? I use the char sheet and the power calc ones the most. also, what about premade disadvantages in both of them? so any info you guys can provide me there will be helpful.

second, back when I stopped someone was creating a database of physical, psychological, and social disadvantages, called the "master list of ______ limitations" my old links for that site are no longer good, so anyone have the new link, or if it died, is there a saved copy that someone made?

on a related note, what are some of the good sites or utilities I might want to look into? while I'm primarily interested in the free stuff since If I don't like it I've lost nothign but my time, if there are any good programs that you have to pay for then I'm still interested, I'm just less likely to use them due to money.

thanks in advance for the help, if I have any more questions I'll post them here.

[Dust Raven]

Buy HDv3 and accept nothing less. There are several reasons for this, primary among them are 1) It's cheaper than v2, 2) It comes with 2 years of free updates/upgrades and 3) It does everything that v2 did plus more and does it all better. Buying v2 not only would cost more, it will never be updated.

As for that master list thing, there are several out there but here's a link to the one I reference the most: http://www.globalguardians.com/maste...rlistindex.php

Other utilities are in abundance everywhere. Without knowing what you are looking for it's hard to suggest any. Browse through the Free Stuff page on the main Hero Games site and see if you like anything.

[Lord Liaden]

Hey, Insaniac, good to see you back! Hope your new group works out well.

The Free Stuff here on the website is definitely worth a thorough perusal. It's grown considerably over the past year, in ways that aren't always reflected in the titles of the links to various web pages; so I recommend checking out what's under each one.

On the subject of freebies, if you haven't seen it before you might want to look up Franklin W. Cain's massive list of Background Skills, alphabetized with notes as to pertinent category, related Skills, and a description of what the BS entails if it's not obvious from its name. This can be very helpful for people who don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of every past, present or potential future science or profession.

Mr. Cain has also provided links to his house rules for using Skills in HERO, which are worked into some of his Skill descriptions; but even if you don't use them, the Skill List alone can really help you flesh out and define your character's abilities. Here's where you'll find the list: http://fcain.tripod.com/h5skills/background_00.html

[Dust Raven]

That's a great list! Unfortunately it's a tripod site, a webpage provider I'm alergic to. Would you know if Mr. Cain's list is available on PDF download, or in some other format I can read without my browser crashing due to all the pop-ups?

[Talon]

I have not used HDv3 yet, but HDv2 was a vast improvement over v1, so I would definitely upgrade one way or the other. While the feature set didn't seem to grow massively for v3, it's cheaper and apparently template-compatible with v2, so I'd go with v3 personally.

[ghost-angel]

HDv3 is not only cheaper but is being updated regularly. And will include future rules alternatives as books are released in it.

Also, all the free stuff you see for v2 either works in v3, or the people who made the v2 stuff are upgrading and making it fully v3 compatible. So it will eventually come with MORE free stuff. In fact there's an entire website dedicated to v3; Hero Designer Site. It contains free export templates, prefabs, package deals, campaign templates and even characters for the downloading. All free.

[tancred]

Buy HD v3 as soon as possible. It's improved over v2, not least being that it's faster and that it's constantly having new things added. (Just look at the list of updates on the Hero Designer site already linked to.)

It's actually cheaper than the older versions, and you are guaranteed to get updates as they come out for 2 years from the day you buy it.
Absolutely indispensable if you want to run a Hero game in any genre.

[Shike019]

I'm going to echo what everyone else is saying about HD v.3 It is a cheap upgrade from v.2 (about half the cost) and a much better program.

I use it for everything. Also, the 2 year contract model system allows for Dan to add fuctionality as he designs it instead of waiting for the next version release. There will never be a v.4 in this model.

[Lord Liaden]

That's a great list! Unfortunately it's a tripod site, a webpage provider I'm alergic to. Would you know if Mr. Cain's list is available on PDF download, or in some other format I can read without my browser crashing due to all the pop-ups?

I'm afraid I don't know; but Franklin has recently started posting to these forums again as fwcain, and can be reached by email, Private Message or Instant Message. You could ping him and see if he has any alternate formats.

BTW I recently added a popup blocker offered by my web server to my system; much less aggravation.

[Doug Limmer]

I'm leaning towards buying v2 [...] because [...] it is a one time purchase[.]

I'm not sure anyone covered this point.

It appears you might think that, with the 2-year 'subscription,' the program could stop working after 2 years. Fortunately, this isn't true; you just don't get any upgrades/fixes/whatever after that point. I'd think all the serious bugs would be worked out in 2 years.

I, personally, am not buying v3, because I already have v2, haven't used that version much, and (or perhaps because) I'm not currently in a HERO System game.

[Dust Raven]

One point about v3 that might not have been spelled out completely: you aren't buying a 2 year subscription to the program, you are buying the program, complete and fully functional, which is yours to keep for ever and ever and will always work just as it did when you download it. What you get on top of that is a subscription to upgrades, updates and other downloads for the program for 2 years. After the 2 years, you can renew the subscription for substantially less than the original cost (I'm not sure if Simon has decided upon a renewal cost yet, after all, he has nearly 2 years to think about it).

[Dust Raven]

I'm afraid I don't know; but Franklin has recently started posting to these forums again as fwcain, and can be reached by email, Private Message or Instant Message. You could ping him and see if he has any alternate formats.

BTW I recently added a popup blocker offered by my web server to my system; much less aggravation.

I've got a number of pop-up blockers on my home computer, plus a massive memory upgrade and a faster processor, so it's not that much of a deal at home. It's when I'm on my laptop that it causes trouble sometimes. Not all tripod sites to this, and so far Mr. Cain's site hasn't crashed it... yet. All it takes is one of a cetain kind of pop-up to get through, and then I have to Ctrl+Alt+Del and shut down my browser or live with my computer frozen for who knows how long.

[prestidigitator]

I've got a number of pop-up blockers on my home computer, plus a massive memory upgrade and a faster processor, so it's not that much of a deal at home. It's when I'm on my laptop that it causes trouble sometimes. Not all tripod sites to this, and so far Mr. Cain's site hasn't crashed it... yet. All it takes is one of a cetain kind of pop-up to get through, and then I have to Ctrl+Alt+Del and shut down my browser or live with my computer frozen for who knows how long.

Mozilla Firefox blocks the popups for me all on its own. I'm sure plain Mozilla would too. If you are already using one of those browsers, look through the preferences dialog for a checkbox like, "Block popup windows" (it usually isn't hard to find). If you aren't already using one of them...well, there's something wrong with you.

[Insaniac99]

Thanks for the welcome back and the help so far, the master list you linked is indeed the exact one I was thinking of, do they have any of their lists (including the powers section which is new) in a PDF or word format? last year before the update started I had saved each individual webpage as a PDF which was an immense hassel.. I'll PM Mr. Cain aobut his lists too, they are very helpful for my new players

in Re to Hero designer three, It looks that when I purchase a hero designer it will be three, I'll probably wait till I inherit someone's laptop (they're planning to upgrade to a new laptop later this year) at which point I'll install the Hero combat simulator too.

I do have a few questions about somethign else though (though I should probably ask this in the company questions section), I'm interested in the champions 25th anniversery package that is in pre-order right now, but is it only available online, or will it be released to our FLGS too? is it a fully limited run? I know you can get a numbered copy but it sounds like only the numbered part is limited? I really want to get it from my FLGS, mainly because he lets me put stuff on layaway so I can pay the 100 bucks a little at a time, while still reserving myself a copy.

[ghost-angel]

I do have a few questions about somethign else though (though I should probably ask this in the company questions section), I'm interested in the champions 25th anniversery package that is in pre-order right now, but is it only available online, or will it be released to our FLGS too? is it a fully limited run? I know you can get a numbered copy but it sounds like only the numbered part is limited? I really want to get it from my FLGS, mainly because he lets me put stuff on layaway so I can pay the 100 bucks a little at a time, while still reserving myself a copy.

The Champions 25th Anniversary is only availble online through Hero Games.
It is a fully limited run, all of them numbered.
You can request a specific number, if you don't you get a random number when they complete the order.