BX Essentials Henchman Generator

Inspiration

My GM was frustrated with his current tool for rolling these random characters and expressed wanting something more custom.

What it does

It Generates henchmen using the B/X Essentials rule set. It is easily expandable in many ways, like adding to the name list.

How I built it

I build it with Javascript in Google Spreadsheets

Challenges I ran into

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

1) One personal foible is confusing rule editions. Accidently coding in races from other editions (gnomes & half-orcs), other values, or restrictions from another rule set kept setting me back.

2) Coding in a spreadsheet without using UID is murder on long nested if statements and other syntax. If I paste things in quickly with line breaks or tabs, the send that to another cell.

3) Using the syntax from VBA out of old habit.

4) At one point I forgot an absolute reference so that every time I moved down a column, I was eliminating one field in the possible random range. I was testing as I coded, so found it before I repeated mistake.

5) Custom formatting wasn't working with the randomization. It would change, but not change back as values changed...even with added rules to do so.

6) Plenty of issues recording from software problems to background noise.

What I learned

I familiarized myself with spreadsheets in google.

What's next for BX Essentials Henchman Generator

Put in the name list when GM gives it to me, add to backgrounds/possessions/features. Get feedback and tweak anything that needs it. Then start using for games.

Built With

• javascript