Tracking combat

[bluesguy]

In a typical combat situation in Hero there is a fair amount of bookkeeping to take care of. It seems that this would be a good place for a computer program. Has anyone found or written a program to do this?

Also using Hero Designer files as the basis input for the characters would be a helpful starting point, IMO.

Basically one would enter in the type of damage, body & stun (normal or killing), if it affected the character's vulnerability, etc. And then the result would let you know if the character was stunned, how much stun & body they had left. I would only use this for tracking NPCs.

What do you all think?

[Dreamstreamer]

Seems doable. If I get any free time during this extended weekend, I'll try to whip something basic up. Just to be clear, you're only looking for a damage counter/tracker for NPCs, right?

[bluesguy]

Yes. I am actually looking at doing it with a spreadsheet and a macro

[bluesguy]

I am almost done with a spreadsheet with two macros that do an adequate job - for me. It handles normal, killing, NND, & AP attacks. It takes into account PD/ED/rPD/rED. It also tracks Stunned, Out Cold, and will do the Recovery math. It is simple and kind of crude as far as UI goes but it works.

When I have used it for a few games I will post it to the free area.

[Hyper-Man]

If you check the 'similar threads' section at the bottom of the page you can find links to similar efforts by other board members.

I Have found that it's functionally easier to just use herodesigner to printout a group list of DEX & SPD (I forget what it's called but it is one of the default exports available from the vault) and then use something like the following at the game table.

http://paizo.com/store/byCompany/o/openMindGames/v5748btpy8bkr
http://paizo.com/image/product/catalog/PZOOMS/PZOOMS1000-2_500.jpeg

[Hyper-Man]

I would then just use the current printout of each character to track all the various combat effects they experience.

[bluesguy]

In the past I have used the "paper & pencil" (and variations) to track combat. It works well when you have small groups of bad guys (2 to 4) but if you have a battle between the players and 20 or more minions plus a master villain the paper & pencil method gets bogged down. Even using the product GameMastery (which I did look into) won't help in that situation. I may be new to posting here but I was GMing back in the late 70's & early 80's (dropped out for a long time) and I remember how much I wanted adequate software tools to help with bookkeeping. And much of what slows down combat in Hero is bookkeeping.

I will let you know if my solution speeds up the bookkeeping after a few game sessions where there is combat. We don't have combat every session so it might be a while before I know.

[Erkenfresh]

I'm interested in seeing where you're at. I'm pretty competent with GUI programming, in particular with the QT package so I could make something up nice if nothing has been done yet.

[Erkenfresh]

OK, I'm off to a pretty good start for just a few hours work. I've attached a little screenshot to show what it looks like. Right now you can apply damage to these pregenerated heroes but there's no good way to add a new hero. You can edit the three heroes there yourself but it's cumbersome. I plan on allowing you to add all the defenses so those get subtracted automagically. If you'd like to give it a test drive, you can download it here:

www.erkenfresh.com/HeroUberBattleSimulator.zip (http://www.erkenfresh.com/HeroUberBattleSimulator.zip)

Enjoy!

42547

[bluesguy]

I am working on instructions on how to use my tool. I should point out that it just a spreadsheet with a couple of macros to do the processing.

[Lezentauw]

I am working on a program right now along this lines to help the GM handle the book keeping, so he can concentrate on the game.