A Guide to this wonderful tool.
Before we begin, I would like to point out the following.
This project has been evolving for several years. And like many other ambitious projects created by an individual it may never be completed. Development takes a long time, made longer by the need for human company, sleep and money. Also, due to the long time between start and end I often have other wonderful ideas I would like to implement, some of which I have, others which I have left for the next release. Often I have other projects which for a while seem more exciting, and so steal time from Bigby's Helping Hand.
Introduction
What is it good for?Ok, so how does it do it?Right, now how do I use it?History never repeats
Important Information
Well, how to start? Maybe with the about blurb from Bigby's Helping Hand - IV?
Maybe not. Bigby's Helping Hand was started many years ago in an attempt to ease the work load when running my first adventures. I was having dificulty (and still do as I have never really gone without) keeping track of everything, who got their attacks when, what modifiers for what rolls. None of this was made any easier buy the rules for AD&D. Some times you add a modifier for a better result, other times you subtract. Some times rolling high is good, some times rolling low is good. I am sure you know what I mean.
So Bigby's Helping Hand was born. With this re-write I have made several major improvements. One of the most noteable I feel is the addition of events.
Other intersting features are:
The calendarHit point regenerationRandom seasonaly weighted weather patternsThe ability to attack from the rearAttacks with multiple weaponsNatural attacksMovement calculatorDice module can be called from the shellPotion description module
Bigby's Helping Hand is designed to ease the load on the DM during battles in the AD&D game system. It does this by tracking the die rolls of monsters for attacks and damages while still allowing the players to roll their own. It also tracks initiative roll and this is used along with weapon speed to select the next attack. Curently there is an option to include a Dexterity bonus to the initiative (As per the reaxtion adjustment).
Player one has one attack, Weapon speed is 5, goes on 9
Player two has two attacks, weapon speed is 4, goes on 8 & 12
Monster one has three attacks with claws, speed 0, all on 6
Monster two has one attack, weapon speed 4, goes on 10
Monster one gets the first three attacks.
Player two gets an attack.
Player one gets an attack.
Monster two gets an attack.
Player two gets an attack.
Bigby's Helping Hand was born. While driving to town one day it occurred to me that a computer could easily do the donkey work. Leaving the DM to play with the important stuff, the details! Bigby's Helping Hand version 1 could handle 6 players and 12 monsters. All it did was sort out who went when, and rolled hit and damage for the monsters.
It was immediately obvious that Bigby's Helping Hand could not cope! First time out and one of my players brought two attack dogs, as I already had 5 members in the party I only had one spare slot! Rewrite time.
Bigby's Helping Hand version 2 was in use. 12 players and 16 monsters. Essentially this is all that differs. The players and monsters had limited armor types, that is to say, basic AC ranging from 10 to -10. Weapons were stored as files and could handle magic bonuses but players were limited to one attack per round.
Problems already, soon I realized my players would be getting more than one attack per round
Starting to make improvements. Late 1992 brings version 2.1 Improvements include:
Multiple attacks (for monsters as well. One of the underlying philosophies is 'all things should be equal').
Added a bonus button allowing players bonus attacks. Though I thought this was a good idea it was in practice difficult to use.
Later I included the weapons modifiers, so that different attack types had different bonuses to armor types (This is an optional rule in AD&D, though many people don't use it because of the added complexity. Yet another reason for a computer do to the donkey work. With the computer adding this automatically it is transparent to the players and DM, yet more realistic as well)
Next, the swap function. I added this as I needed a way to show a marching order on screen. What better than to read from left to right.
Area effects. I even set it up so that the weapons automatically set the area mode.
Finally I added the alignment tracking system. This was in-line with the new alignment system for Dragonlance adventures. At the time I thought I might run a Dragonlance adventure, but I never did and it was dropped for version 3.1
Version 3.0 was a short lived bug fix for version 2.5. I had just upgraded to an A4000 and the benefits of AGA. Unfortunately something funny was happening with the fonts. All text was shifted (either up or down, I can't recall) by one point making the whole display appear ugly. All 3.0 did was move all text one point.
Effectively 3.0 renamed.
After a few days of useing 3.0 I decided to do a re-write. Thinking carefully I renamed 3.0 as 2.9 (Having seen Imagine bumped up to a similar revision, it seemed ok).
So, decisions made, I went all out on the real version 3.0
Finished in October of 1994. For some reason I still have a copy of this floating around, designed to run of a floppy. It is very primitive, the players have to do all thier calculations and then tell the DM if they scored a hit... Not a very good method. Also only supported group initiative.
Some more tidying up. By now it's mid 1994! Fixed a couple of bugs and disabled some features for an 'Unregistered' version. Though I never sent this out, I later renamed it a free demo to promote interest in version 3.1 which I was planning.
Sent all over the place
Well, there I was. Finally getting it all togeather. And finally realising the folly of my way!
The problem as I came to see it was that an all in one package was to limited. Buy having every thing as a part of the main programme I could not update a small part with out altering the whole package. What I was looking for was a modular approach.
I decided that I need to begin again. This was quite depresing, after all these years (I did do some other things with my life, ok?) I was going about it the wrong way.
So I began again in early 1996 with version 4, or as we now know it. Bigby's Helping Hand - IV and it's revisions.
Uhh? Well, actually no. At the moment there is nothing serious to note. But I would suggest that you use 'CycleToMenu' by Federico Giannici rather than the one suplied by all in one programmes such as MCP. The others tend to behave a little strange with very long menus like the ones Bigby's Helping Hand - IV uses, and with theses it might not always be possible to acces every option.