Stuntworks Thank you for reviewing this Stuntworks project. We have done our best to insure that this product is bug-free and of the best possible quality. All attempts have been made to create a program with an intuitive, easy-to-learn user interface with your Texas Instruments calculator. This documentation serves as a tool and a guide to help facilitate that goal. Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition Character Utilties This document assumes that you have downloaded and installed the entire suite of character utilities available in AD_DUTIL.85G. Some instructions and steps may not apply to you. If there is a reference to a program or plug-in that you have not downloaded, ignore it. The only necessary program is ADdDCHAR.85p. This document will take you step-by- step through the process of creating a character for a stock AD&D game, and is illustrated with actual screen captures. If you are reading the text version of this file, there will be no pictures, so feel free to follow along on your calculator. WARNING: This program is no substitute for the official book Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition Player’s Handbook published by TSR, Inc. This program is meant to be used with this book and many of the extra rolling methods will be meaningless to you without the book. The rules of creating different character types are not explained in this book, so as to avoid copyright infringements. Begin by running the program ADdDMENU.85p. You should see the following screen. (If you did not download this shell, then please skip to the next step.) The first option (F1) is the main program that we will be primarily dealing with. The second option (F2) is the Dice Roller program, a stand-alone utility that is included in this package because it is well suited to the AD&D game. It will be covered later. The third option is a plug-in for the Character Utility. It will also be discussed later. For now, we will choose F1 and learn how to create a new character. We have three choices at this menu. We can either check to see what races our character can be, we can start checking for classes, or we can roll new stats for our character. There is also an option (F5) to quit, and an option (F4) for more choices. Let’s press F4 to see our other options. Here we see that we can either enter our stats, or view our stats. If you prefer to roll your stats by hand with real dice, you can do so and enter your stats here for the program to use. After all, isn’t some of the fun of the game in actually rolling the dice? You can also view your stats by pressing F2. Lets go back to the first menu by pressing F4 and start making a character. The first thing you have to do is roll stats for your character, so press F3. The following screen pops up: The top of the screen says "Method I scores:," which tells us that we are using method one as described in the Player’s Handbook. This is the default method of dice rolling. The calculator rolled stats of Str: 10, Dex: 12, Con: 8, Int 10, Wis 7, and Cha: 11. Not a bad character, but not the best, either. You could reroll the stats by pressing (-) (the negation key) to the left of ENTER. Or, if your DM allows it, you can use some of the alternate dice-rolling methods described in the Player’s Handbook. If you installed the program ALTDROLL.85p, then you can use these methods on the calculator as well. Just press MORE and the alternate rolling method menu will pop up. You will need to write down numbers for methods III, IV, V, and VI. You need the book for that. I prefer method II myself, because it is quick and produces slightly higher than average results. Method II is rolling 3d6 twice, then using the higher score for each stat. Choose method II (F1) and we’ll see if we get better stats than before. This time we got fairly good stats. Str: 15, Dex: 9, Con: 11, Int: 10, Wis: 11, and Cha: 11. Not the best character, but perhaps a good fighter. If you want to reroll, you can still press (-). In fact, on all the methods, you can always reroll by pressing (-) when the results are displayed, or MORE to choose a different method. If you are following along on your calculator, enter the above stats manually by pressing at the main menu F4, then F1. Press F4 to return to the main screen. The first thing you should do once you know your stats is choose a race. Press F1, and your stats will be checked against the restrictions for different races. We can see here that our character has passed all racial restrictions. Choose a race that you would like to play. If it is not listed, roll again. Press ENTER to continue. You are returned to the main screen. Press F2 to choose your class. When you press F2, the following screen will be displayed: This will be displayed only for a second, while all the necessary variables are created and initialized. All told, the program will need 1063 bytes for this. As anyone who has done it by hand can tell you, it is an incredibly complex process to choose a class, and this program does everything in seconds. The extra REAL variables can be deleted while the program is not running. After a second, the following menus will show up. The two menus can be switched back and forth by pressing F4. To view the different races that you qualify for, choose the race you want and press the associated menu key. If you do not qualify for the race, the program will not allow you to select that race, and you’ll have to choose another or reroll. Let’s have our character be a Half-Elf. Use F4 to show the menu with "H-Elf" listed at the bottom, then press F1. The following screen appears while the program loads a list of allowed classes, then disqualifies you from any class whose requirements you do not meet. You will be given four options. These are the different types of character classes. The different displays, with the classes you qualify for, are shown below. For example, we could create a Half-Elven Fighter/Cleric named Farógrim, if we wanted to. The rest of the rules are in the Player’s Handbook, but this program will quickly tell you what classes you qualify for, and perhaps you’ll see something new to try out and have fun with. The Character Viewer that is included with this program is a handy way to view your stats in case you forgot to write them down. There are two options for viewing those stats: You can either view your rolled stats, or the modified stats that are based on the race you chose in the Character Generator. There is a problem with the modified stats, however. Originally, the Character Generator exited to the main menu from the Classes menu. This was changed after the Character Viewer was written. To view your modified stats, you will have to press ON to break out of the Generator before you run the Viewer. The fix for this will make the Generator longer, and is a bit involved, but it will be fixed and a interface improvement will be made in the next version. The display will specify whether or not you are viewing the stats as rolled, or as modifed. It will also display which dice-rolling method you used in the upper-right hand corner. The Dice Roller program is extremely useful for playing during school, or in other places where using dice isn’t possible. When you choose F1, you have to put in the values of the dice you want to roll. The value is similar to AD&D format. First you put in how many dice you want to roll. Then you enter what kind of dice you want to roll. The display will show the result of the roll, as well as the values of the individual dice. Also, a modifier will be displayed. To change this modifier, press the - and + keys above ENTER. The dice total will be recalculated in real-time. The above display shows the die roll with a modifier of negative 2. To reroll the dice, press the (-), or negation key. Any modifer that you have set will be applied to the new roll. ENTER returns to the main menu. You can press F2 from the main menu to reroll the same dice you specified before. The same dice and modifier values will be used. If you press F3 from the main menu, your last dice roll will be displayed for you. This way you can easily see your last roll in case you hit ENTER by mistake. Stuntworks Members As of January 15, 1997: Handle Position Name Email address ----------------- ---------------------------------------------------------- Stuntman president, QuickBASIC/Visual BASIC/HTML programmer Nathan Haines stuntman@cyberverse.com Librus artist, Turbo PASCAL programmer Alex Rivera librus@juno.com Fireman Internet coordinator, human relations Eric Hobbs fireman@cyberverse.com For technical support, call voice at (562) 804-4279 between 3pm and 9pm, *PST*!!! I'm in CALIFORNIA! I cannot have calls come in for me late at night! Ask for Nathan. Thank you for your courtesy. On the Internet, you can visit us on the World Wide Web at: http://stuntworks.home.ml.org/ If you want to contact a Stuntworks member, either send email to them, send email to me mentioning them in the title, or send a letter to: (Member name) c/o Stuntworks 14743 Leahy Ave. Bellflower, CA 90706-3125