Hero Lab
Experience one of the top-rated Free games on the App Store, Hero Lab! Developed by the innovative team at Lone Wolf Development, Inc., this Role Playing game provides a unique gaming experience like no other. With a content rating of 4+, it’s perfect for a wide range of players. Since its initial release on 8th April 2013, the game has seen numerous updates, with the latest version launched on 23rd April 2019.
Are you a fan of Role Playing, games? Then Hero Lab is right up your alley! You won’t be able to resist its appeal.
User Ratings of Hero Lab
Over 67 players have rated Hero Lab. Join them and share your thoughts!
How Much Does Hero Lab Cost?
Good news! You can download Hero Lab on your iOS device absolutely free!
Hero Lab Release Date
Eager to know when Hero Lab first graced the App Store? It was launched on 8th April 2013.
When Was Hero Lab Last Updated?
The latest version of Hero Lab was updated on 23rd April 2019, ensuring a more enjoyable gaming experience for all players.
Where Can I Download Hero Lab?
To get started with Hero Lab, head over to the official Apple App Store.
A Glimpse into Hero Lab
Character creation software has finally leveled up – Hero Lab now supports the D&D 5th Edition SRD as well as Pathfinder!
With a Hero Lab license, you can create, advance, and play Pathfinder & 5th Edition SRD characters and NPCs just like you can on your Windows or Mac computer. We’ve adapted the familiar Hero Lab interface for iPad, allowing you to build characters just as easily as you can on your desktop or laptop.
For users who don’t own Hero Lab, any character created in Hero Lab on Windows or Mac can be used with Hero Lab for the iPad. This allows GMs who own Hero Lab to provide electronic character sheets to any members of their gaming group, regardless of whether the player owns Hero Lab or not. With this flexibility, more players than ever can now realize the benefits of an intuitive, dynamic and fully electronic character sheet!
Because this app has the Hero Lab engine under the hood, it’s much more than just a plain record sheet – everything about your character is automatically calculated as you build and play, including ability modifiers, stat bonuses, encumbrance levels, and more.
Just entered a Barbarian Rage? Tap the box and watch your Strength go up, and with it your damage, attack bonus, and skills. Apply the effects of feats, class abilities, and spells with another tap on the screen. Track your character’s damage and see immediately how it impacts his abilities (assuming he’s still standing…).
Conditions and effects can be instantly applied and removed. Martial classes can quickly swap out their weapons and spellcasters can swap out their spells, as appropriate. Find and create new magic items and have Hero Lab automatically calculate their stats. See the spells in your spellbook and pick between them when you rest for the night. You can even purchase new gear and have the cost automatically deducted from the character’s treasury.
With full support for the Pathfinder game system, players can now see all of the character’s abilities and pick which one is optimal for a particular encounter. This speeds up game play by eliminating the need to search through multiple books at the table to find the details of a specific facet of a character.
There’s much, much more to Hero Lab than can be described here, but if you can do it in Pathfinder, Hero Lab supports it. Download the app and play with the example characters to see just why Hero Lab won a Gold ENnie Award!
PLEASE NOTE: If you are encountering crashes with the app, please email us at [email protected] so we can help you resolve them! We cannot contact people who leaves a review on the app store, so emailing us is the only way we can help fix your problem.
What’s New in the Latest Update?
Find out what’s new in the latest version of Hero Lab updated on 23rd April 2019:
Bug fixes
User Reviews on Hero Lab
Looking for more information? Read a comprehensive review of Hero Lab below:
We have tried Character creation software for several gaming systems, but Hero Lab is by far the best! We have been using it for approximately six year now for the following systems; Pathfinder, Shadowrun, Starfinder, Cthulhu and Pathfinder 2.
We would hands down give this app a 5 star rating if it werent for one tiny feature its missing. The ability to use the app in Landscape mode. Everything the developer has done has worked flawlessly and has made our gaming sessions a breeze having all the relevant item and spell information built into the character sheet along with being able to easily calculate buffs and debuffs. Please release an update with landscape support, or you could go the extra mile and allow split screen support so we can take hand written notes or draw maps without having to switch between app. Thanks for all you hard work.
We’ve been having trouble recently with tabs disappearing and errors displaying. That said, its still usable and a big asset to our Pathfinder sessions where we run 2 17-level characters.
The only reason we didnt give it 5 stars is that Id like to see a landscape mode available for the iPad app. It would make things like journal entry much easier since it would give you the ability to utilize a Bluetooth keyboard. Then we could quickly switch back and fourth between hero lab and say a browser or reference app and not have to keep rotating the tablet over and over again. Otherwise, love the app guys. Keep up the good work!
Good working application to simplify the character options during game play. That said, this needs to have an upgrade to allow for landscape mode.
We love the app, but it crashes every time we attempt to take damage to our HP. Cant seem to figure out why.
Pathfinder building character and freezes 3 times now. Wont clear. Have to delete and reload. No mods. Otherwise a good resource. Better to build on pc version then transfer over.
So after the last update the spells tab has vanished. Not sure if this was intended or a bug since we can get to it through the play tab, but its kind of annoying to be honest.
We were excited to have hero lab on our ipad, but was dismayed to find that the text is cut off on the right side of all text windows. You lose entire sentences and there is no way to scroll sideways. There is no in-app setting to adjust text size that we can find, and the ipad setting to reduce text size had no effect on this app. This makes it impossible to read information in the app. We will be uninstalling.
Let us start by saying we’ve been a customer / supporter of this app since it first came out. We have a developer background and have had extreme patience with typical bugs. They have always been reasonably responsive to issues in our opinion. That has now changed. Lone wolf seems to have pretty much dropped supporting this app since the new iPadOS release. They blame Apple for changing some rules… That was nearly 6 weeks ago. The app can no longer import portfolios from any outside source nor can any outside source load portfolios into the app… For us this spells the end of its usability until its resolved. Stay away until they fix this issue!
We understand that the developers are now probably more focused on the herolab online, but then they should not be offering a fully priced app for iPad that lacks basic features, such as landscape mode.
This app is worthless. We’ve been a long-time user of the desktop application, using it extensively for Shadowrun. Well oops! We guess the ipad version is only for Pathfinder and 5th Edition. And it only runs in portrait mode. That $10 additional key may be the last thing we buy from this company. If you’re not going to support an app, pull it.
The reason its not worth it is because first you have to get it on your computer for like $30. Thats expensive when we have found free apps that have just as in depth builders for these games that this gives. This company should feel ashamed for their scam.
This app use to work amazing. Apple is just greedy and makes this app unusable on newer iPads.
We have the newest iPad Mini and not one section can you read the entire section. It cuts off a good quarter to third of all the pop ups.
They havent updated this app since April of 2020. There are numerous bugs that need to be addressed and each new iOS update just reveals more. The company has focused all of there resources on their new subscription based online web version. They are allowing this software to languish and Im betting eventually die. Sadly we have lots invested in the data.
The company is no longer supporting the app and appears to want everyone to use their online service.
This is just great. So now, after this latest upgrade, it’s started freezing up and crashing on us. Cmon, can’t this be fixed?
We created a barbarian and was missing a +1 to a weapon. Upgraded the app to the latest and lost the ability to use the app for pathfinder.
Latest version freezes every time we add a spell or other adjustment. Please fix.
Most recent update makes the app crash.
Having Hero Lab on our iPad is great for when Im a player. Keep all our stuff in one neat organized little spot so we dont look like a dm without a screen. Although it confuses us that we cannot have both the 5th edition and Pathfinder at the same time. Is that something that isnt supported yet? It really bums us out cause we frequently switch from one to the other and really enjoy both games.
When are we going to get landscape view. We use a keyboard with our iPad and it is ALWAYS used in landscape. We never use it in portrait. This makes it so we DO NOT use the hero lab app for anything since our keyboard is always attached to our iPad. Please make it landscape compatible. It really is a superior product to your mac/pc versions. Please help us out here. Also, give us some GM tools in here. That would make it immensely more useable for us.
The lack of support for the encounter builder or even combining portfolios is disheartening as someone who mostly GMs. A dark theme as well as landscape support would also be nice (most stands and cases are made for landscape, good for longer games). For players, this is great.
This release of HL is crashy and buggy and needs updated to fix several of its problems ASAP. Design-wise it has needed to be streamlined for a long time now, with a truely functional and intelligent dice roller. Many not yet implemented features and functions that probably will never be addressed. Unfortunately we believe this app to be considered by Lone Wolf to be a bonus feature to their main offering and not given enough love compared to their clunky main product, despite the obvious need to embrace changing technology. Also, this $h!+s expensive.
Installed latest upgrade, and now the app wont start on our iPad. It requires us to connect to the license server to verify our license (why?..) but fails to do so. Worked after each previous upgrade. Need a fix ASAP!
And it does have a dice roller built in… For weapons if not spells, some other reviewers seem not to have noticed that.
If you already own Hero Lab for the desktop, the iPad app is free so it’s a no-brainer to at least try it out. But there’s no way I’d pay the desktop price just for this app. Hero Lab on the desktop has some problems: no way to seize the font, misleading menu options, confusing output format options, and more. But for all of its problems, it’s easily the best character management tool for Pathfinder games. The iPad version has similar nagging issues: no way to see the total value of all gear, no dice roller (!), no automatic flagging of critical hits or fumbles and no support for automatically rolling confirmation rolls when a critical threat occurs, and more. But for all of the issues, it’s very nice that the full desktop source support is available in the iPad app. The dev team tries to stay on top of bugs and features, but with Hero Lab Online coming out soon, they are stretched thin. We’re hoping the iPad app doesn’t become the red-headed stepchild while they focus everything on HLO; time will tell. We use this app all of the time to plan out our leveling up strategies or to play with character builds (the desktop version isn’t very standards compliant when it comes to the user interface, so much so that we find it hard to use; for example, none of the text can be copy/pasted!?). Unfortunately, the iPads are relatively low-memory devices and desktop apps tend to be memory hungry (since desktop gaming apps generally don’t have to worry about memory usage), but this doesn’t translate well to the mobile platforms.
The computer program has a dice roller attached to it, for all the rolls that dont fit neatly into the Play tabs. Why doesnt the iPad version have this?
We like the computer hero lab and use it a lot but the app doesnt support 3.5 very disappointing.
None of the help links in the help menu do anything. Additionally, its impossible to delete a portrait image after adding it.
We bet it’s this old version of iOS, but import was working like a champ years prior. Urged to update after some errors and warnings… The upgrade caused our character to disappear from the usable options. And with once working Import capability it’s unclear to proceed. Hopefully a fix is inbound.
Love this app but after the latest update it crashes every time we open it. Once thats fixed it will be 5 stars.
You can use this to make character creation easier and have an interactive character sheet!
This is a handy app that makes playing games like D&D or Pathfinder much easier. We use it to keep track of the various encounters that we throw at our party and to assist them in leveling up. Only issue we have is it’s a bit of a pain to purchase new Addons through the app.
Hero Lab used to support Dropbox. Some time ago DB asked all developers using their SDK to update to a new version, and were generous in how long they supported v1 of their API. Instead of updating like everyone else, Herolab blamed Dropbox for "abandoning support" of the outdated API they used. So we brought Herolab when they supported Dropbox, and now they don’t anymore. Third party services update their SDK all the time. If you ship support for one, it is expected you’ll do the work to keep it working. Herolab feels they don’t have to. We wish we could get a refund.
Loving the ease of transferring sheets from our laptop to our iPad (which has replaced our laptop in most ways)! Can’t wait for Shadowrun and Landscape support!
Every time we opened this app on our iPad it black screened, leaving us unable to switch out of the app or even lock the screen. The only thing we could do was force a restart to get out of it. This is on an original iPad with the latest update and it does it every time without fail.
Needs landscape support, without it the app is a pain to use if you have your ipad in a keyboard dock. For us, it’s not worth using without support for landscape view.
This app requires a license to use more than an hour. It’s 30.00 USD. Not worth it, move on.
We love Herolab. We have nearly ever Pathfinder source available for it. On the PC, we can create characters, encounters, and everything else the program is supposed to do. On the iPad, we can use the character sheet. That is it. We can attempt to create characters, buit it consistently crashes on thing where there are choices to be made. Feats, traits, spells, really anything where there is a choice to be made. We were once told this was a memory usage issue. Maybe. Except, there are no apps running in the background. It cycles through the feats, or whatever, and the app just closing, losiong several minutes of character creation. Again, this problem only occurs on the iPad and we completely stand by Lone Wolf on the PC version. The iPad app however, abysmal with tremendous potential. But, at least the character sheet works, right?
However we find that it seems to be missing functionally. We can not find how to turn our character into a pdf or print anything but text. After as much as this and the licenses cost, it is very disappointing to find that it is lacking important features. Too much money for not enough bang.
When we first downloaded this app a year or so ago, we would have given it 5 stars. It worked great. Now, not so much. It has been crashing non stop. We can’t even load any if our profiles or create a new one because it crashes or gives us an error. Very frustrating because it was a very helpful tool. Please fix this so we can change our two stars to five.
Great app but needs to support more of their games. Shadowrun fifth edition for one as the iPad is a deck in that world.
This thing just keeps crashing.
So let’s see… Buying Hero Lab for Mac: check Buying Shadowrun core: check Buying some add-ons: check Downloading the super cool app to be able to manage our character on our iPad: check Wait… What ? We can’t use our portfolio on this ? Do you guys only have dd5 and pathfinder buyers or are the other ones so negligible you don’t do anything for them ? Come on !
The latest update corrupted all of our files. Trying to open a character sheet now causes an error and forces us to re-link our license.
People are saying "wahh, money!" This is a great resource for Pathfinder and other RPG players. Yeah, it has a bit of a price tag, but it’s an investment to make sure your characters are being played correctly and to the best of their abilities. If you’re so concerned about the price, do what our Pathfinder group did and go in on it with some friends. Split the costs and just get extra licenses for everyone. The others have their Labs on their laptops and we have ours on our iPad along with the rest of our Pathfinder resources. You just have to weigh your options.
I’d like to use landscape mode…