sentry0

Download section would be cool, we already have a number of fan made conversion there.
 
Link it here when you do as well.

I found this little gem the other day on reddit...
 

Both the Android and iOS beta channels are now live so you should be able to get the beta build now.  There's a couple of things I know I need to do around the app going into the background and being suspended.  The next beta should hopefully address those issues but for now I would suggest you keep the app in the foreground to avoid strange behaviour while testing.
 
Thank you in advance to anyone who helps me test this out. 

Fantastic work, Sentry0.  Very much appreciated.

I've been working on a status effect tracker for characters this weekend.  It's a simple system that currently tracks Aid, Drain, Entangle, and Flash effects for the currently selected character.
 
Here's a screenshot of what it looks like on the Combat screen, note the "Status Effects" heading:
 
 
 
There's UI elements to Add/Edit/Clear statuses en masse or individually.
 
Here's a screenshot of what the UI looks like when adding a drain status to a character:
 

 
Should be available in the 1.7.0 release.

Looks good, sentry0! I appreciate the work you have done on this project a lot

I get you want shiny tools like other systems have but they don't come from a vacuum.  Someone has to build them and HERO isn't exactly flush with cash to pay developers for their (expensive) time.  I can't speak for the other software devs who have products out there but I certainly don't make money off my project... and to be brutally honest if I wanted to make money off an app I would target a community much bigger and active than HERO.  I lose money on my hobby project because of things like Apple developer fees, my actual hourly rate,  and tool costs etc... but I never set out to make money of this endeavor.
 
That said I've been eyeballing this project which claims to be able to turn my app into a webapp with little effort on my part.  Could be a fun little side project but then there's additional costs on my part for things like domain registration and hosting fees.

Agreed.  We are also definitely not talking about the same thing 😁. I sincerely hope the Hall of Champions program helps alleviate some of the pain of setting up a campaign by providing interesting settings and canned adventures.  Honestly, we have no one but ourselves to blame now that the gates are open to us.
 
I also am a member of a Meetup group that runs weekly mini-cons and I've noticed that the 5e tables always fill up first.  The non-5e tables?  Good luck with that.  That's sort of the problem with the hobby, the vast majority of people are only interested in playing D&D.   Critical Roll is a big factor I think... people think that playing D&D is like that.
 
Unpopular Opinion: the hobby is currently in a bubble that will burst.  All the hipsters will run with their hands above their heads back to their craft breweries as they await the next trend.  Calling it now 😝
 
 

I am pushing the 1.6.1 build into production for Android and iOS as I write this.  This build continues to add support for loading 5th edition characters directly from Hero Designer files and addresses a serious crash to desktop bug.
 
Patch notes:
Added in support for 5th edition specific powers such as Find Weakness Added support for Elemental Controls Added support for 0 point characteristics with advantages A warning message now appears when importing an XML character Fixed a couple of display issues with Compound Powers Fixed a bug with equipment which were created as Compound Powers Using the XML export template and loading that character into the app is officially deprecated at this point.  At some point in the future I will be removing support for it entirely.. the warning message will stay in place until that time.
 
The new build should start showing up on your devices later today or tonight depending on how fast they receive approval.
 
Due to how characters are imported now I would recommend you re-import your characters, especially for 5th edition characters or characters using equipment.

Finally found the issue after spending all night banging my head against the wall.  Very annoying bug to track down but it's been squashed.
 
I also fixed an unrelated display issue with compound powers while I was in there.
 
I'll see about pushing a build over the weekend.

I have been using the app as a player during online games I have been playing for months.  You have done a fantastic job with the application.

There is a simple counter and it's you can't take Sally Sorcerer's Aether Arrow spell away from her.  You may be able to deny her the ability to cast it by exploiting the limitations on the spell, but she will always have that spell.  Wally Warrior can lose his Vorpal Blade permanently.

The 1.5.0 version of the app was pushed into review on the app Android/iOS app stores today.
 
Patch notes:
Portraits now display when loading a  Hero Designer character It is now possible to load up to 5 characters at once All characters now have a "Notes" tab Combat State and notes will be preserved if importing a new version of your character They should be hitting your devices later today.

The 1.5.0 version of the app was pushed into review on the app Android/iOS app stores today.
 
Patch notes:
Portraits now display when loading a  Hero Designer character It is now possible to load up to 5 characters at once All characters now have a "Notes" tab Combat State and notes will be preserved if importing a new version of your character They should be hitting your devices later today.

The 1.5.0 version of the app was pushed into review on the app Android/iOS app stores today.
 
Patch notes:
Portraits now display when loading a  Hero Designer character It is now possible to load up to 5 characters at once All characters now have a "Notes" tab Combat State and notes will be preserved if importing a new version of your character They should be hitting your devices later today.

I think universal focus is enough in this case, given the genre.  I think in another genre, say Super heroic, it would be inappropriate but fine in Fantasy.

There have been many attempts at producing a decent but manageable killing attack, right?  Maybe we have been going about it all wrong…
 
So, thinking about damage, superheroes seem to be largely immune to Body damage from Normal attacks, right?
 
How about this:
 
1.       Normal Defences only count half against Body damage.
2.       Killing attacks are a +1/4 advantage and mean that Normal Defences only count a quarter against Body damage.
 
So:
 
50 points: 10d6 attack against 20 (normal) pd:
 
Average Roll: 35/10 = 15 Stun through Defences and no Body and no real chance of Body using existing system (10 average against 20 defence) BUT an above average Body roll WILL cause some Body damage: not likely to be much and the result is not highly volatile, but some.
 
Same 50 points, gets you an 8d6 attack with (+1/4) killing.
 
So, Average Roll for 8d6: 28/8 gets 8 Points of Stun and 3 Points of Body through Defences.   Again, not highly volatile, but a worry.
 
I think this would make healers more valuable , and regeneration.  I think this could be really interesting.  Thanks to ScottishFox for basically handing me the idea.
 
So.  Whaddya think?

Portraits will be available in the next build for the Hero Designer character viewer 
 

 
I'm still testing some scaling code I wrote but it looks like this one is a sure thing for next build.

I'd like to see a simple knockback calculator. Input distance traveled and what lies behind (wall 10 meters, 5pd 10 body). Calculate total distance traveled and damage. 

Portraits will be available in the next build for the Hero Designer character viewer 
 

 
I'm still testing some scaling code I wrote but it looks like this one is a sure thing for next build.

I just pushed the 1.4.0 build out to production for Android and iOS.  This build adds a couple of new features such as support for tablets and sounds.
 
Patch notes:
Added support for tablets Added in the ability to manage characters within the app The app now plays sounds when rolling dice Added a back button in the top left corner of the app The default sound when rolling is a dice sound but if you have picked a SFX for a power from within HD it will play a sound based on the SFX.  I realize that not everyone will be happy with the sounds I picked for the effects which I hope to address by allowing you to customize SFX sounds in a future release.   Sounds can be disabled from settings too if you would prefer not to play them.
 
The reason for the change in how characters are loaded and stored by the app is for features I want to implement in the future such as loading multiple characters at once, viewing portraits, and equipment/notes fields.  It's a little different than it was before but it shouldn't cause too many issues... I hope!
 
The patch should be available over the weekend.

I finally got my Mac VM to update to Catalina after 2 days of time consuming and boring install attempts and rollbacks.  
 
The good news is that I can now access files via iCloud again which means I can test the character viewers.  I already found and fixed some display issues and am continuing to test as I write this.
 
It all looks pretty promising for a release soon, probably tomorrow morning.

Work on tablet support is nearing completion.  I added icons and splash screens for iPad's tonight and fixed some issues with the header on various sized devices.
 
I have a very annoying issue that I've been fighting on the iOS side.  I don't own an iPad or iPhone so I usually use the Simulator tool that Apple provides to developers to do my testing.  Unfortunately, my Simulator tool is refusing to load iCloud files for me at the moment, it throws an error message when I click on a file regardless of the device I'm simulating.  I'm going to try to bypass iCloud entirely but it's a bit of pain to do.  
 
That's a long way of saying that I haven't seen the character screens because I can't load a character  
 
Anyways, barring any further issues with the Simulator tool I may end up pushing a build as early as tomorrow morning.

A couple of the guys are programmers and I had a process engineer and a teacher at the table... they may have just been overthinking things
 

HERO is both a roll low and roll high system at the same time.  My new players were pointing out that it's a little weird to do both.
 
It doesn't bother me and probably the vast majority of users on these boards but it was honest feedback from fresh eyes.