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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jhamin" data-source="post: 1109899" data-attributes="member: 1023">THis is going to sound like a bit of a Bi-Polar post, but bear with me.I thnk HeroDesigner is one of the best character generators I have ever used.  Nothing is random, you have to do all the building yourself but this is Hero so you knew that going in.  The beauty of this program is that it does all the math for you, leaving you to just dwell on character conception as you work.  I cannot recommend this program enough if your are a Hero True believer.Now the other side.This program will not let you make a character if you don't know the rules.  It will tell you things are illegal and nothing will be where you think it should be.  After you have made three or four characters the old fashoned way it will all make sense to you, but not until then.The interface is a bit clunky in places, and you *ABSOLUTELY* need a newer PC to use it (think high end PIII with 512M ram minimum).  Do not dismiss this.  THe program is written in Java and has some pretty serious overhead requirements.The software isn't cheap, but I have found it immensely useful.If you can afford to spend even more, hero also sells bundles of writeups from it's various books for about $5 each.  (except the Until Superpowers Database, which sells for $30, but that one is about 10 times the size of any of the others, and contains a much higher percentage of the book).All that being said, figure out how much you want to spend and how soon you want to get this app.  Hero has promised a HeroDesigner 2.0 will be released later this year or into January of 04.  Seeing as the programmer posts on the Herogames board daily and has almost never broken a promise, I tend to believe them.  V2.0 sounds like it will keep the integrity of the rules modeling intact, streamline the code and lower system requirements, and add lots more menu based customization.  If you like the concept but not the execution this may be the product to wait for.All in all HeroDesigner is a remarkably appropriate accessory to Hero System.  It takes a while to figure out, seems like alot of work at first, and requires that you play with it a bit before you grok it.  But just like with Hero alot of the folks who decide they like it will suddenly feel constrained by most other alternatives.</blockquote>

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