5th Edition Best Practices

D&D 5e QA notes:

Check for appropriate source attribution. Usually if this is done correctly then all of the content being tested will be fine while if there is an issue then it will all show the same issue whereever the attribution is shown.

Situational or conditional effects

These need to show up in the appropriate places so a user can find them. If a character gets Advantage on an ATK roll against dragons then they should be able to mouse over the appropriate ATK calculation and see the effect (advantage on attack roll) and the condition (attacking a dragon) in the tool tip or popup description or in any other place that the description is displayed. Likewise, if an effect causes disadvantage on perception checks while poisoned with Green Tree Frog poison then the Perception skill descriptions need to display that effect and condition. Advantage and disadvantage are the most common conditionals in 5e and they can occur in lots of places so be aware that they need to show up appropriately.

Class Spell Lists

For testing class spell lists (usually from new source books) it is best to have a portfolio of characters on hand with all of the appropriate spell casting classes so that you can easily compare a list of spell details from a source with the available spells shown in Hero Lab. The Hero Lab D&D 5e spell interface will nicely show you either all of the cantrips or all of the other available spells by level and in alphabetical order so it is very easy to verify that all spells in a list are available.

Checking Individual Spells

Check for appropriate component tags: V, S, M or ? to make sure that they got entered correctly. Check for component costs: HL will add appropriate text to a base component cost '100 gp' to show 'worth 100 gp'. If this text shows doubled up then there was extra content that doesn't need to be there. Check for appropriate copy paste of the spell description. Check other spell details like Level, School, Casting Time, Range and Duration.

Checking list of abilities

This is a big part of checking things like Classes, domains, schools of magic and a bunch of other situations where making a specific choice will alter or add to a characters abilities. Usually the list in Hero Lab will present a progression of abilities that are added at appropriate levels so once again, having a set of appropriate characters in an accessible portfolio makes this testing much easier. The first thing to check is that the abilities show up at appropriate levels on the list and that the short descriptions are appropriate to the actual description. If there are adjustments to character settings then those adjustments must be checked to make sure that they are calculated correctly. Conditional effects must be shown in appropriate locations so that users can find them easily.