Initial Character Tool Feedback

Firstly, thanks a lot for the invite to the alpha test…!

Our group has been using Herolab for the last 10+ years, first for Pathfinder 1E and now for Pathfinder 2E. Although rough around the edges and quite cumbersome to customize, we liked the digital tool. However their new web version for Pathfinder 2E leaves a lot to be desired, so if you guys and girls can pull this off, our gaming group will be switching as soon as this will offer what we need.

Your off to a great start here, we know this is an alpha and lot of things are missing, but this definitely have the potential to be great.

The following list are the things I noted after my first round of character building, many of these things are probably already on your radar, and again I know this is the alpha, but I will list them anyway just in case they are not on the radar yet.

Break Down Overviews
Number break-downs are some of the most important functions on character builders, it is important because it gives new players a overview of why and where different modifiers comes from, but it also serves as an important tool to find potential bugs, when some modifiers are not calculated. Example, right now there are no break-down overview of my AC. So I can’t see why I am missing two points, due to the shield I have equipped are not “raised” and therefore not included in the calculations.

Although, I can see that the tool shows breakdowns on some calculations like saves, the following would be a “must” to include:

  • Ability Scores - Only shows partial break downs
  • Armor Class
  • Attack Rolls
  • Hit Points
  • Perception
  • Skills - Only shows partial break downs, equipment modifiers are partial listed
  • Spell Attack Rolls

Possible Actions Listed on Skills
I would recommend that basic actions and “trained-only” actions are listed when you click on the skills, so player can see what they are able to do with the skills they have chosen.

Proper Support for Shield users
One of our biggest complains about Herolab, is the lack of proper shield support.
Please, please please, prioritize the ability to quickly see, add and remove hit point on shields, and customize their stats, as this is a big part of many classes in Pathfinder 2E.
Shield Block is default for fighters and many other classes benefits from this as well.
Also, add the ability to “raise shield” so you can include the shield modifiers to your AC.

Better Visuals of Common, Uncommon and Rare Categories
As this limits what you can take on character generation, Ancestry, Equipment, Feats and Spells should be highlighted or maybe color-coded to represent this.

No Lore Skills and Languages
Alpha, I know.

Simple Ability Boost
Maybe Consider a more simple way of boosting/choosing your ability scores, like the way they do in Herolab. One overview screen instead of boosting/choosing it in three to four different sub-menues. (see attached screendump)

Class Summery
Consider adding an easy overview of what the class gets in the different levels (see attached screendump)


This is my initial feedback of the character tools, I will be back with more, when I have spent more time on it. Like everyone else I also experienced sluggish performance, missing options and so on. I did not include info on this, as many other people have already mentioned it, and this is an alpha version. Again, Great Job on the initial build and presentation, this looks like a solid start..! Keep up the good work.


Thanks for sharing your thoughts and welcome to the forums!

We’ll review and consider in its entirety, but I thought I would briefly reply to a few of the items specifically:

We wholly agree, and these calculations will be displayed in all the places once we get there - they are simply not in the alpha build to this point. You’ll see all of what you mention make its way to the alpha prior to the Open Beta.

Not entirely sure what you mean here - expanding the Skill rows do display all the available actions for that particular skill:

We plan to add full support for shields in a similar vein to what you’ve described.

We’ll have much more to come in this category, including actual Pathfinder Society validation / checks in the future.

We already have an alternate method to manage ability scores planned - it’s just not currently available in the alpha. We’ll share more details as we get closer to it being in released.

Thanks again!

Really enjoying the alpha so far. I’ve had the same lag issues that others have had, but also experienced this error; after making a character (complete) and navigating to the character sheet itself, I can’t see the feats when I click on them in the Actions & Activities section. Here’s what displays:

I imagine that I’m supposed to see the feat description. So far, an excellent start to the digital toolset!

Hi Adam,

Thanks for the quick reply… :slightly_smiling_face:

My bad on the skill actions, I simply clicked on the name of the skill and got the descriptions. I totally missed the small arrow at the end, which expands the view and shows exactly what I thought was missing.

This looks great…!

Thank you for the invite to the alpha. I’ve had a chance to build a fairly simple character (Dwarf Cleric).

Outside of lag, which has been reported by others, I’ve noticed a few things:

  • Selecting Cleric at level 1, clicking the Deity item brings up a box that is completely empty.
  • Cleric Initial Proficiency doesn’t seem to do anything; since Skills are selected further down, this seems redundant and confusing.
  • Same thing for Key Ability. I know that this is probably an artifact of emulating the text from the books, but this also seems redundant (or, at least, should be a statement, and not a selectable box).
  • Clicking on the twisties next to either Divine Font causes an error page to display (" Application error: a client-side exception has occurred (see the browser console for more information)."). I can make a selection, but I can’t read the full text behind the twisties. This doesn’t happen in the Doctrine section.
  • The main page (i. e., the area outside of the character details selection boxes) does not scroll. Some detail selection boxes (such as the one to select abilities to boost from class selection) also does not scroll. I can see one additional ‘line’ by hiding my bookmarks bar but that’s it. Clicking and dragging on the scrollbar does nothing. If I change the zoom level of that page, the scrollbar starts working.
  • After making enough selections to go to the character sheet, the full sheet isn’t visible. Scrolling works, but not all information is ‘reachable’.

Dell G15
Core i5-11400H
16GB RAM
(Probably) rendering through the iGPU
Windows 11 22H2
Chrome 108.0.5359.125 64-bit
Probably not enough coffee

PS - wishlist item - if it’s not already in the plans, the ability to print out a completed character sheet would be lovely, please and thank you.

Exporting a character to a PDF sheet is on the list for sure!

No worries at all, I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something with what you were saying. (And it is not implemented yet, but the intention is to make that entire row clickable to expand instead of only the small chevron.)

Thanks!

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