Hero Designer is the character, vehicle, and base creator program for Hero 5th Edition. Made to perform the heavy lifting of character creation, it takes a lot of the pain and math (which for some are one and the same, I know) out of Hero character creation. Though it can be something of a system hog and is not the most beautiful program ever, it does its job very well and offers substantial support for Herophiles.
The Program
Hero Designer is a workhorse program that is designed to let you build anything you could build using the Hero books, but with a computer handling the math, the formatting, the collating, and the storage for you.
The program is navigated by using tabs for each “section” of the character – Basic Info, Stats, History, Skills, Perks, Talents, Martial Arts, Powers, and Disadvantages. In each screen there are various options and choices that can be chosen and added to the character. From there the chosen options can be spindled, folded, and mutilated until they fit the desired parameters of the option, power, or disadvantage.
Everything starts at the opening “Basic Information” screen, which looks like this:
This page lets you set point values, either by hand or by loading a template, and lets you give name, basic details, and choose a picture for the character. From there you move through the various other fields, filling out the details for each section.
Statistics, for example, looks like this, and lets you simply enter the value you want, or increase and decrease it with arrows. Meanwhile, the program calculates values for you, and can be set to use normal characteristic maxima, age limitations, and so on:
The more complicated areas, such as powers, use multiple pop-up windows to handle the details of making nested and variable powers. Certain powers can be loaded automatically from templated power packages, which will enter the default parameters for complex but common powers. This is a very nice tool, but even without it you can build any power from the basic framework “by hand.” The powers screen looks like this:
By using this system Hero Designer lets you easily break down and control character generation. The one weakness of the method used is that it can be hard to keep track of items in other screens (like running point totals) without a lot of flipping back and forth. Still, it’s a small price to pay for the ease and completeness of the program.
The Good
There certainly is a lot of good in Hero Designer. First off, if any system ever designed could really use a program that handles the math and calculations of making a character, it is the Hero System. Those who have nightmares of fractional multiplication of sub-systems of linked-powers can finally rest easy, because Hero Designer takes care of all of that for you. Secondly, the program is set up to make maximum use of the Hero System’s flexibility and control. You really can use all of the options from the Hero System in the program, and can even make up your own easily and quickly. The ability to make vehicles and bases as well as characters is a further bonus, and one that adds a lot of spread to the program. On top of all this, the program is easy to use. Unless you want to make your own export templates or the like, you can probably jump in and start using the program intuitively – no need to RTFM on this one, it works pretty much exactly the way you’d expect it to.
As a final note, there are book based expansions to Hero Designer that look like they may be useful. You can, for instance, get a download that has all the stats for every character, base, and vehicle in the Conquerors, Killers, and Crooks sourcebook in Hero Designer format, or all of the vehicles, templates, and races from Star Hero. This could add a lot of power for GMs wanting to use Hero Designer to run a campaign. (I’ll do reviews of the individual supplements if I get time and/or comp copies.:) )
The Bad
The main problem is that Hero Designer is a system hog. I run a 1333 mhz P3 with 256 Megs, and I occasionally get lag minor when running Hero Designer and any other program at the same time. Considering this is a problem I don’t get when running Photoshop, QuarkXPress, IE, Word, and SimpleMU all at the same time, but will happen when Hero Designer and Notepad are both active, I think I can safely say that Hero Designer could use some more optimization on running speed.
The Ugly
The ugliest issue is that there have been a rather large number of minor tweaks and fixes required by Hero Designer. Luckily these are easily and freely available from Hero Games, and so the issue is a minor one. As of the writing of this review the system is up to 1.44, and most of the bugs seem to have been taken care of. If you get the program, get the patches, they aren’t necessary to run Hero Designer, but they sure can save some headaches if you stumble into a hole.
Also, the interface of the program is very functional and solid, but it is not particularly attractive, nor does it lend itself to easy access to large blocks of text in areas like the history and personality fields. Like the Hero books Hero Designer is very much set up for function over form, sometimes at the cost of things being a little ugly or awkward in appearance. Still, the program is very usable, so looks are allowed to suffer a little.
The End
The question, in the end, is “can a character creator be worth 40 bucks?” The answer, in this case, is “that depends on how much you play Hero.” For those who play Hero now and then, and have limited need for creating, collating, and maintaining massive numbers of characters Hero Designer the program probably is not worth the money. For anyone who plays Hero primarily, or anyone who runs Hero on a regular basis, this program is more than worth the money. It makes creating, storing, and making character sheets so much easier that it could literally save hundreds of hours over the course of a long campaign.
For having a rather bland interface, being something of a system hog, and its ever-growing number of patches Hero Designer gets a 3 in Style. For being a tool that will do your heavy lifting for you it gets a 4 in Substance.
Note: The product reviewed was the CD version. Hero Designer can also be downloaded for 5 bucks cheaper at
