Hero Lab Character Creator Is Coming To 5E Very Soon!

Yesterday, I reported that popular character builder Hero Lab support for D&D 5E was very likely to be coming. Then WotC announced their new SRD and OGL - at which point, Lone Wolf announced that Hero Lab support for D&D 5E is DEFINITELY coming, along with the Realm Works campaign management tools. Not only that, but they anticipate that it'll be here pretty soon - they've already done a lot of the work. It'll cost you $20 to add 5E to your existing Hero Lab license. This is all based on the SRD - they are still talking to WotC about upgrading that to an official license; using the OGL and the SRD, they won't be able to use the brand names and other trademarks, so I'm guessing it'll just be called "Hero Lab 5E" or somesuch.

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The image above is from the Pathfinder version, but it should help give you an idea of what Hero Lab looks like if you're not already familiar. It enables you to create characters, and to manage them in-play. I used it for a recent Pathfinder campaign, and it's great to be able to toggle statuses and spells and other things on and off and have everything auto-calculate.

"When will it be available? The SRD has been openly discussed by Wizards of the Coast for over a year, so we’ve already built preliminary Hero Lab data files for D&D 5th Edition. We’re currently poring through the SRD to figure out what we have to omit and what holes we need to fill. We’ll provide a more informed release estimate by the end of the week, but we expect it to be a pretty short wait."

Realm Works is another beat entirely - it's a campaign management suite. It will soon be launching its own Content Market with loads of Pathfinder material. They say "We’ll obviously be making the D&D 5th Edition SRD available as well. Beyond that, the SRD will allow us to work with publishers to offer D&D 5th Edition adventures, settings, and more."

More news as/when I hear it! In the meantime, here's Lone Wolf's website, where you can find out more about both packages.

 

[SkidAce]

Can't see signature when reading comments as a news article instead of the forum.

 

[Nikosandros]

That would really be worthless. I mean the SRD is great, but it is missing more than 50% of the Characteroptions. Actually for a commercial Version I would expect the Data from all official Sourcebooks (only the Sword Coast book at the moment).

Worthless is, IMHO, a bit harsh, but it's not terribly useful to me. But that's what will happen without an official license from WotC.

 

[Nylanfs]

Can't see signature when reading comments as a news article instead of the forum.

Good point, I don't see them on Tapatalk either.

 

[darjr]

PCGen

 

[Sir Brennen]

SRD and DG aren't necessarily the only way to go. By the sound of it, Lone Wolf was working on a specific licensing agreement with WotC for Hero Lab and a different one for their other product.

 

[LWDLiz]

Will we be able to build the parts that are omitted? like the subraces that aren't part of the SRD?

As far as I understand it, they can use the full books if they publish it under the Dungeon Master's Guild. Only beeing able to use the SRD would be useless for a Character Generator.

Much as I like Hero Lab,a character generator that, for example, doesn't include the battlemaster fighter is basically useless to me...

I mean the SRD is great, but it is missing more than 50% of the Characteroptions.

That's one thing that makes Hero Lab unique compared to many character creation apps out there. A key part of Hero Lab is its extensibility and customizability, and that will be critical to many D&D players. What does that mean? There's an editor where members of the community can readily go beyond the limits of the SRD. If you aren't familiar with the Hero Lab community, just know that it won't take long before many of those holes are filled.

 

[Zaran]

Yes. That's one thing that makes Hero Lab unique compared to many character creation apps out there. A key part of Hero Lab is its extensibility and customizability, and that will be critical to many D&D players. What does that mean? There's an editor where members of the community can readily go beyond the limits of the SRD. If you aren't familiar with the Hero Lab community, just know that it won't take long before many of those holes are filled.

That's what I figured. I'm all for updating my Hero Lab license for 5e then.

 

[LWDLiz]

But can you even create Computer Programms under the License (in 3E it was not included) and as far as I understand they could not sell it on their own page, since the Guild is an exclusive deal.

Hero Lab falls within the purview of the OGL. Lone Wolf Development has been around for many years (prior to the original OGL). We supported the original SRD (our d20 System), so this is within our wheelhouse.

 

[Jester David]

I'm half excited for this.
It's neat, but making characters is pretty darn easy and the SRD is pretty bare.

It'll be nice when some fan datapacks of OGL subclasses, subraces, and the like are released. But making an actual character with the OGL is hard.

The best thing Lone Wolf could do is enable monster creation. Enter the numbers and have it spit out an approximate CR.
That and an encounter builder might be worth the price of admission.

 

[BrockBallingdark]

$20 for 5e on my herolab is a fair deal to me. I'll buy it the minute it launches. I've messed with the editor when I did pathfinder stuff, so I don't mind adding things, I just wanted the main format to work with. I'm ready!