Q:

Why doesn't this regular expression work in Notepad++? 

EDIT: It was some issue with Notepad++'s regex engine.  The regex worked fine in Python. 
I'm working in Notepad++.  I tried to make a regexp that would transform this (if you're curious, it's a Spanish guide for a game):

*Acero: En la Estatua de Gabomba
  **Absorbe PV de un enemigo

To this:

====Acero====
  *En la Estatua de Gabomba
  *Absorbe PV de un enemigo

I came up with this, but it doesn't match the text:
\*([^:]+): ([\w ]+)\n\*\*([^\n]+)

Am I missing something obvious? 

A:

It seems that Notepad++ cannot find line breaks in regex mode.  You'll have to replace the line breaks with, say, |, in extended mode, apply the regex on your new string, then replace the |s with line breaks. 

A:

Your regex is correct.  Try to search for \*([^:]+): ([\w ]+) and \*\*([^\n]+) separately and it will match. 
It is just that Notepad++ does not support multiline regular expressions (because Scintilla doesn't).  Note that there are two different search dialogs available: Ctrl+F shows the builtin dialog, Ctrl+R shows TextFX's dialog which has more options.  But TextFX doesn't support multiline search either.