I promise I'm not trying to be funny, but I'm curious:

What's the big deal with Hero Lab? I've read reviews for supplements (like Mutants & Masterminds, for example) where people all but cry if there are no Hero Lab files for the characters contained within the supplement. Is there something wrong with just printing that page from the PDF? And as far as other games, what's so hard about printing a blank character sheet and writing on it with a pencil? It's not like they aren't readily available anywhere online.

I use Hero Lab for Mutants & Masterminds 2E character generation and tracking because it’s a math-intensive system with a lot of fiddly options and interactions and, while I can generate a character concept just like ringing a bell, I have no head for numbers and Hero Lab tracks the numbers and does the math for me while I’m working, so I can fiddle with stats until I have them just the way I want them, without having to break out the scratch paper and a calculator.

As Odin442 said, it helps quite a bit with the math.

Also, it may have character creation options that people might not own the books for, so you can at least create a fully functional character without needing the books.

Thanks for the answers; I think I’m beginning to understand!

So, let’s say for example, there was a supplement with Superman, and it also came with the Hero Lab file for him. Is this because some players or GMs might want to fiddle around with his stats, such as making him a lower/higher power level to fit a particular campaign/game?

I use hero lab pretty heavily. For large and complicated systems (Pathfinder, GURPS etc.) getting the math and being able to see all your options in one place is very helpful for rapidly verifying/creating characters.

Hero Lab is also useful for games in flight as you can usually track resources like HP or magic pools or what not. For Pathfinder, for example, it tracks equipment, spells, XP, gold, encumbrance as well as auto-calculating your various stats due to spell effects or other modifiers like barbarian rage.

In reply to minioch (msg # 4):

There is that too.