Last time, I reviewed the SSI AD&D software title
Dungeon Master's
Assistant Volume I: Encounters; this week we'll take a look at Volume
II: Characters & Treasures.
The overall appearance of Characters and Treasures is pretty much the
same of Volume I; it's an all-text, keyboard driven interface. The
application runs under DOS (versions for virtually all platforms were
created, this review focuses on the DOS version), but runs without a
hiccup under Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows NT 4, Windows 95/98/ME
and of course Windows 3.1/3.11.
If you've ever created a character using the Advanced Dungeons and
Dragons rules, you'll be at home using the character generator that
makes up half of the program. It's an easy to use tool that permits
the creation of all character race/class combinations, and with the
"flip of a switch" also permits character race/class combinations from
Unearthed Arcana, as well as generating character stats appropriate to
those optional rules as necessary. Further, you can select any legal
level for any character class generated. If you ever wanted to see how
a 20th level Magic User looks on paper without the hassle of writing it
down, here's your chance!
Interestingly, no option for creating a Bard of any level is given; to
do so one must create a Fighter and go from there.
When generating a character, you can either use the default die-roller
or enter the values manually (if you prefer to roll 3d6 yourself).
Interestingly, the character generator asks you which class you wish to
generate a character for first; that is, if you select "Paladin", you
will automatically be given at least the minimum scores necessary for a
Paladin character type.
Like Volume I: Encounters before it, however, Psionics are notably
missing from this work; if you happen to create a character that might
have the potential for any Psionic discipline, you'll have to drag out
your copy of Player's Handbook to calculate the ability - if any - he
or she might have.
Other than that, character generation is right on the money, all the
way from Languages, secondary skills, starting money and suitable arms
and armor. It even includes standard adventurer's equipment with each
generated character so you never have to answer the dreaded question
from the Dungeon Master : "Did you *write* 'ten foot pole and fifty
iron spikes' on your character sheet?"
Once generated, the character is "open" for editing, so if you did gain
Psionic ability or wish to otherwise alter or add to the character
sheet, you can do so. One I find myself doing is overcoming the
limitation on character name-length and occasionally changing a few
things here or there, such as available spells (the program will often
generate a Magic User who has no Write Magic spell, for example).
The program also gives "starting money" to whatever character it
generates, which can produce some amusing results; for example, if you
rolled up the abovementioned 20th level Magic User, the program will
dutifully give that character the same amount of "pocket money" as a
1st level prestidigitator!
That brings us to the second half of the program, the Treasure
Generation utilities. These are pretty fun to use, as it requires
simple yes/no options to select and will create as much or as little
treasure of whatever type desired. There are sub-options that allow
for the creation of caches of potions, wands, staves, rods, jewelry,
magic weapons (including intelligent weapons) magic armor, gems and
"miscellaneous" magic items. The jewelry and gems generator is nice
because a selecting a Detailed description will give not only the full
GP amount but describe each gem or bauble with some detail (pulling
from a small database of adjectives for the gems - e.g., "large" agate
or "huge" chrysoberyl, etc.). The weakness to the treasure generator
is that it won't generate "mundane" items. Further, intelligent
weapons cannot be manually created - either it is created or it is not.
Despite this weakness, overall the treasure generator is a very good
tool and a fine timesaver.
As with the monster database in Volume I, new treasure types (from AA
to ZZ) can be created and added in with roughly the same difficulty as
with monster generation.
Rounding out the package is, like it's sister product, a die-roller that
functions virtually identically.
characters and treasures are saved as .CHR or .TRS file types; with a
little work both can be opened in Wordpad, Microsoft Word or Notepad
(or just about whatever your favorite text editor is) and monkey with it
if you so desire.
All in all I feel that this was the better of the two products in terms
of ease of use; utility to the Dungeon Master might be a bit limited in
that "all" it can do is generate treasure hoards and characters, but if
you're struggling to create a party at the drop of a hat, or come up
with an Ancient Red Dragon's treasure pile you can't go wrong with this
app.
Sadly, no further Advanced Dungeons and Dragons utilities were ever
created, nor to the best of my knowledge were any sort of updates or
patches ever released. I've often wondered what language these
programs were coded in; my meager knowledge of computer programming
doesn't give me much insight even when I look at the code with a
hex-editor.
I give Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Assistant
Volume
II: Characters and Treasures four out of five stars.