able to retrieve herostat?

[noxnyc]

Hey all
Thanks for all your help so far. 

I accidentally overwrote one of my game herostats (though I had been keeping them archived in their own folders), but I still have all the saved game files-- just not the correct herostat. I was wondering if there is a way to derive the original herostat (or at least the lineup of characters as they appeared) from the save files, or is all lost?

Also, is there a definitive guide to beginning to mod characters for XML anywhere? Obviously it's all very technical and takes a lot of experience and finessing but I'm a fast learned and I'd like to get my feet wet. I took a look at the tutorials posted here but they aren't explaining from the ground up.

Thanks!