Looks great Peter, thanks for your hard work :)
TL;DR: Version 3.4.0 is now live! Go check it out! :D
I normally make my pull request for the new changes on a sunday, so they go online on the following tuesday, but yesterday I thought I might aswell make the pull request right then and there, because then changes were ready for the coming tuesday.
But apparently Roll20 felt gracious yesterday, so the changes has gone live to the servers already!
Hello Roll20.
Here is a smaller update while we wait for the datalists to go live :)
This update is for the GMs, in case any of you actually uses the monster sheet!
Github PR: Pull Request
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Ie. a Broken One has 3 HD and a minimum of 5 hit points per hit die, so 1,2,3, and 4 is rerolled. Therefore the field should have a "4" in it. The output can be seen above. Putting a 0 in the reroll box (default value) takes the plain dice roll without any rerolls |
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This is it for this small update. Hopefully some of you GMs will find it useful.
For those of you who are interested: I am working in the background on a major update with a ton of datalists, but it cannot go live before Roll20 pushes the new improvements to the Live servers. I am waiting in excitement!
Nice.
Thanks Peter, for working ahead (datasets), for being careful about settings that people have been using so that changes are non-disruptive and provides toggle/options, and also for the clear presentation of your changes with the side-by-side views.
That's good community work. The 2e community on Roll20 is lucky to have this careful attention and programming skill.
Gold said:
Nice.
Thanks Peter, for working ahead (datasets), for being careful about settings that people have been using so that changes are non-disruptive and provides toggle/options, and also for the clear presentation of your changes with the side-by-side views.
That's good community work. The 2e community on Roll20 is lucky to have this careful attention and programming skill.
Wow. Thanks Gold! This really warms my heart and makes me feel like my work matter! :D
I hope that you or someone else can use these changes in your games. :)
All the updates are fantastic! Thanks for cleaning up this sheet. I have a problem with the most recent one though. The monster HD section is more finely tuned, but now I don't know how to autopopulate monsters as I drag them onto the screen. I have an API running (not sure what it's called anymore- I think it's in a tokennamenumber script). It used to take the information from @{hitdice}, if I put it in as an actual die roll, and roll the amount when I dragged a monster to the screen. However, since I can only enter an integer now, it doesn't work. Is there a way to get this to work again, or can someone write a script that works when dragging out a new monster? I can handle making small macros, but my ability to write scripts is pretty much non-existant at this point.
James H. said:
All the updates are fantastic! Thanks for cleaning up this sheet.
Thanks a lot. Glad you can use the update!
I have a problem with the most recent one though. The monster HD section is more finely tuned, since I can only enter an integer now, it doesn't work for me.I made so many changes to the Monster Sheet (cleaning up the HTML and formatting) that I did not even realize that I had changed the @{hitdice} attribute from text to integer.
I will change it back for you, so your scripts keeps on working. This is of course limit your use of the "Roll Hit Points" button, but I trust you are well aware of that :)
I made a Github PR: Pull Request
Anyways, the update will hopefully make it to tommorows update so you should have it then :)
James H. said:
It used to take the information from @{hitdice}, if I put it in as an actual die roll, and roll the amount when I dragged a monster to the screen. However, since I can only enter an integer now, it doesn't work. Is there a way to get this to work again, or can someone write a script that works when dragging out a new monster? I can handle making small macros, but my ability to write scripts is pretty much non-existant at this point.
Hello James H.
The above mentioned update has just gone live to the character sheet. The field is once again a text field and you can therefore use your API script as before.
Have fun gaming :)
If anyone has been wondering what is happening with the updates here is a little summary
I am currently waiting for Roll20 to try and push the enchancements to the live servers again. Once the new enhancements are stable on the Live servers, the next update to the AD&D 2E sheet will be pushed for all of you to enjoy :)
It has been a month since my last update, so it is due time to make another.
I have a large update ready for all of you guys, filled with new features, bug fixes, stylings and miscellaneous information.
I want to go live, but I have kept it back due to the current instability of the Roll20 Live servers. Adding new features only risk mudding the waters for any bug that my araise; in short: Is a bug from the Roll20 Character Sheet Enhancements (CSE) or from the new version.
I have been following the development of the CSE situation, and from what I can gather, no AD&D 2E players, have been affected by the various bugs introduced by the CSE. This has lead me to believe that the AD&D 2E Revised sheet has managed to dodge any bugs, which is very fortunate!
Based on the above statement, I feel confident that the new version of the sheet, can go live without introducing any more bugs.
Therefore I lean towards going forward with the new version
But as there are many more players than me, I would like to hear from all of you! So please give me a comment on your thoughts regarding the current situation
Here is the list of updates:
I look forward to read your comments :)
DO you have a bullet point list of the changes...???
I would like to see them prior to implementing them...
Thanks.... and keep up the great work, it has been fine so far... :)
Super long shot I don't expect to make it onto the sheet, but an option to switch all d20 rolls to 3d6 would be cool. The 5e sheet has the option and I prefer the bell curve.
Steve H. said:
Super long shot I don't expect to make it onto the sheet, but an option to switch all d20 rolls to 3d6 would be cool. The 5e sheet has the option and I prefer the bell curve.
Sounds interesting, however it will not make it into the sheet as of this time, as it a rather huge change, and to me feels more like a house rule than an official rule.
lol, all the datalists! Your "coming updates" list is a really good reminder/checklist for us other sheet authors when we gonna start doing them.
Datalists are also the first thing I'm gonna implement for a bunch of sheets, when I eventually convert them to be CSE-compliant.
New week my I'm gonna publish my first CSE sheet :D
A question for you...
For most roll a pop-up window opens to submit a misc input value...
Is there a way for it not to open? and just roll the dice?
Michel C. said:
A question for you...
For most roll a pop-up window opens to submit a misc input value...
Is there a way for it not to open? and just roll the dice?
As of right now, no. Everything is pretty much static.
I have looked at the 5E by Roll20 sheet, and seen how they handle misc values. Maybe in the future, a toggle can be added to allow players to choose if they want the modifier or not
Andreas J. said:
lol, all the datalists! Your "coming updates" list is a really good reminder/checklist for us other sheet authors when we gonna start doing them.
Datalists are also the first thing I'm gonna implement for a bunch of sheets, when I eventually convert them to be CSE-compliant.
New week my I'm gonna publish my first CSE sheet :D
Hey Andreas.
So you are starting to feel confident in the Roll20 Live servers? I have been fearing another roll-back, but by this time it seems that Roll20 are comitted to only moving forwards with the changes.
Pull Request: Github PR
With datalist you can either:
Important note: All datalists are meant as a *Guide* and not an exhaustive list. You can still put in any value into any field that you want.
So just because a desired value does not show up in a datalist does not mean it is an invalid value. Go ahead and use your value. It is your game :)
Additional note: Values for datalists has been gather from The Player's Handbook (PHB). So if a value is "missing", then it probably is not mentioned in the PHB, but from additional material (Fighters handbook, Player's Option, etc.)
This gives the greatest flexibility while helping new players.
Different books and settings probably have many more races. These are those listed in the PHB.
Different books and settings probably have many more classes. These are those listed in the PHB.
Here I added base movement for different horses, as I believe these to be the most common mounts. Of course there are more possible creatures that can be mounted in the world of D&D, these might be added at a later time if people wish it.
Here I added the different armors that a Thief / Bard can wear. Upon selecting an armor, the appropriate modifiers to rogue skills below are updated.
This list also include illegal armor, that a thief / bard might employ as a disguise. The modifier values for these armor types are taken from the Thief's Handbook and the Bard's Handbook
| Selecting Armor | Allowed armor skill modifier | Illegal armor skill modifier |
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This makes it way easier for less macro savvy Roll20 users to write the correct macro.
Any custom macro are of course allowed. If your kit, game, world, DM or anything else says so, feel free to write your own.
Remember to change the @{level-class1} to @{level-class2}, @{level-class3}, @{level-class4}, or @{level-class5} if you use one of the other fields to track your level.
Remember to change the @{level-class1} to @{level-class2}, @{level-class3}, @{level-class4}, or @{level-class5} if you use one of the other fields to track your level.
Here all weapons from the PHB has been written. Search by name or type:
Remember to change the @{level-class1} to @{level-class2}, @{level-class3}, @{level-class4}, or @{level-class5} if you use one of the other fields to track your level.
Nonweapon proficiencies has all been added with guiding values for what classes the proficiency belongs to. If you search for your class, then you can see all of your class specific nonweapon proficiencies.
Selecting a nonweapon proficiency automatically adds the appropriate ability score and modifier.
This allow easier selection of the correct value for new nonweapon proficiencies, that are not described in the PHB.
Here I added all the languages that I could find in the PHB. The languages has mainly been taken from the description of each race. I also added the 'Druidic' from the description of the Druid class.
'Thief's Chant' has been left out of this list, as it is described as not being an actual language, but rather a "code" that rogues talk in, to get information.
Just like nonweapon proficiencies, languages has been giving guiding values for what race can learn them, taken from the PHB. However the PHB also notes that any race can learn any language that your DM allows.
Please let me know if you find this guiding information obstructive or confusing to your players. If it causes more trouble than help, then I will remove it. Personally, in my games, we have never put any real restrictions on the languages a character can learn.
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Some weapons have been given guiding values, such as Polearms, and Swords.
Auto fill has also been added. Simply select a value from the list and it's data from the PHB will be auto filled in.
Auto fill only takes effect when the weapon's name is changed. After the auto fill has completed, any value can be changed to your liking.
Note on stats: Many weapons' stats gets changed from book to book.
Note on Knockdown: For completions sake, values for Knockdown, from the Player's Options: Combat & Tactics has also been added for all the weapons that could be found in the PHB. Some exceptions are:
Note on Strength bonus for Ranged weapons: This is based on my own interpretation of the rules:
If you have a simple magical weapon, such as a "Long Sword +2" then the auto fill will read the "+2" and update your attack / damage adjustments as well as lowering the speed of the weapon, to a minimum of 1.
Complex magical items are not autofill and left to the player to add correctly, ie. a weapon like "Axe of Throwing", "Short sword +1/+2 vs giants"
A minimum speed of 1 is a house rule at my games as is not based on anything in the books. Of course if your DM allows, your weapon speed can be 0 or go into the negative, just update the field.
Helping spell casters to select the correct field for tracking levels.
Again it is completely allowed to write any number value here instead, or add any bonuses. As en example if you are a priest under the influence of a _Combine_ spell, then you cast spells at a higher level, while all your other stats stay the same. So you can write "@{level-class1}+3" or something like that.
This gives more room for long spell names, and allows for searching by typing instead of reading through the entire list.
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Level 5
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Same as for the player race
Same as for player weapons
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In my games we constantly ask all sorts of spell related questions. I have gone through the PHB and the DMG and tried to combine all information I could find on spells. I added page references to each source to speed up lookups in the books, if the original text needs to be consulted.
Thank you to Erik H. for catching this!
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The ", 50" is to have another value that is always false in the value checker. This is a bit hacky but gets the job done. This might be reworked in the future
Thank you to Erik H.
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Thank you to Paul W.
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This is it for this humongous update! I hope you all will like the features once they all go live! Have fun playing out there! :D
Peter, you've done a lot of work here! It is looking good. You may recall I stopped using your sheet with the group I support due to my macros & stuff being too inflexible to work with the revised sheet: you'll be glad to know I've converted all my macros to a suite of APIs (which I will release to the community as soon as I've had time to document them... oh, the tediousness of documentation) which, at the flick of a switch to remove static rows, all now work perfectly with your updated sheet. So, I'm nearly ready to convert my group to its use.
However... (there's always a but...)
I've done a couple of custom mods to your sheet to handle 2 things: (a) distinguishing 1-handed and 2-handed weapons, and (b) hold a more detailed Armour Class table. Here are the explanations:
1H or 2H flag: Each row in the Melee weapon and Ranged weapon tables has a tick-box flag next to the Strength Bonus (strbonus) flag called twohanded, default 0 for Melee & 1 for Ranged - this I use to automatically adjust AC for shield or no shield in the APIs, and to restrict use of two weapons (unless the character has 3 hands!).
Extended AC table: I've added 3 columns to the AC rows on the Info/Tracker tab: Shielded, Shield-less and Armour-less. This allows to show AC in each situation with the effect of magic items and current spell effects taken into account, and is used in my AttackMaster & MagicMaster APIs, as well as by the DM & Player to know the AC quickly for any situation.
I wonder if these are enhancements you'd consider including in the standard sheet? If not, no problem - I'll take copies of the latest sheet HTML/CSS and add the fields and tables in myself as a custom sheet for my campaigns. But I thought these might be useful for others, and if I do distribute the APIs, they will work best if these additions are made (they will still work without them, but the fields will not be visible on the sheet).
Again, great work and I hope I can walk you through the CommandMaster, RoundMaster, InitMaster, AttackMaster, MagicMaster & MoneyMaster APIs in the near future (if the powers that be accept them for release... might be a few months of work yet)
Another quick question or perhaps information to consider:
I've been discussing with The Aaron the sharing of Spell and Magic Item Libraries and he quite rightly raised the issue of copyright infringement: I can't distribute libraries containing spell or magic item descriptions from the D&D manuals, which are copyright material.
Have you got round this for your spell descriptions on the character sheet? I assume you've invented our own spells and descriptions? Or is there another way around the copyright issue that isn't copyright to you and I can freely adopt? :)
Otherwise, The Aaron suggested (sort of) leaving description areas and specifications blank, and allowing users to fill them in themselves (from their imaginations, I assume).
Richard @ Damery said:
1H or 2H flag: Each row in the Melee weapon and Ranged weapon tables has a tick-box flag next to the Strength Bonus (strbonus) flag called twohanded, default 0 for Melee & 1 for Ranged - this I use to automatically adjust AC for shield or no shield in the APIs, and to restrict use of two weapons (unless the character has 3 hands!).
Hello Richard. I do recall that you stopped using the sheet, in favor of your own custom version. To be honest, it did make me a little sad as I have never been good with rejection. One of my hopes with the new update was actually to win you back, so hearing from your is great :)
About the 1H / 2H flag. I have thought about something similar. I was thinking more in a dropdown with a 1h / 2h / main hand / off hand. This was mainly to capture the to hit penalties for people using two weapons (-2 for main hand / -4 for off hand, adjusted by dex (Except rangers as they have no penalties)). This idea could very well be extended to include your need for 1h / 2h.
The primary reason why I haven't implemented this yet, is to keep the complexity of the sheet at a reasonable level. When I introduced the Proficiency dropdown, some people started saying that the sheet was becoming too complex.
I will think about adding this in the future. I do however have my sigts on other parts of the sheet :)
Extended AC table: I've added 3 columns to the AC rows on the Info/Tracker tab: Shielded, Shield-less and Armour-less. This allows to show AC in each situation with the effect of magic items and current spell effects taken into account, and is used in my AttackMaster & MagicMaster APIs, as well as by the DM & Player to know the AC quickly for any situation.
TL;DR: I have thoughts on a better breakdown for the AC table. I am still playing around with design :)
I have had my sigts on the AC table for quite some time. I would love to make something where players can add individual items, such as something like this:
I haven't found the right design for this yet.
Getting back to your idea, I do like the breakdown of armor class, especially the Armorless situation. A lot of time the party might get waken up at night and need to fight in their thigty whities :P.
Though there is a bit of redundancy, in your table. The AC Back has both a Shielded and Shieldless category, however the note states that being attacked from the back, does not include the shield. I know this is a matter of interpretation as the PHB actually do state that you can get AC bonus from your shield, from behind, if your shield is slung on the back of your character:
"Attacks from the rear or rear flanks cannot be blocked by a shield (exception: a shield slung across the back does help defend against rear attacks)"
Taking this idea a bit futher another category could also be added AC Flank. In the PHB shields are described as:
"A shield is useful only to protect the front and flanks of the user."
Continueing to read about each individual shield the following is stated:
- "A small shield ... It can be used to protect against two frontal attacks of the user’s choice."
- "The medium shield ... a character can protect against any frontal or flank attacks."
- "The body shield ... for attacks from the front or front flank sides.
I do not know if it is an oversight from the writers of the book, but reading the shields strictly as described here, the small shield does not cover the flank. Again this is a matter of interpretation, as fontal attacks could be read as including front flank, as described on the body shield.
This could also be taken another step further by adding left and right flanks, as the DMG, I believe, describes how the shield only works on the flank where it is. So if the shield is on your left arm, it does not protect your right flank, which makes sense.
I wonder if these are enhancements you'd consider including in the standard sheet? If not, no problem - I'll take copies of the latest sheet HTML/CSS and add the fields and tables in myself as a custom sheet for my campaigns. But I thought these might be useful for others, and if I do distribute the APIs, they will work best if these additions are made (they will still work without them, but the fields will not be visible on the sheet).
Again, great work and I hope I can walk you through the CommandMaster, RoundMaster, InitMaster, AttackMaster, MagicMaster & MoneyMaster APIs in the near future (if the powers that be accept them for release... might be a few months of work yet)
For now I think you will have to take a copy of my sheet and add your custom elements. My time for sheet working is limited right now as I have fallen back into playing World of Warcraft and that takes up the majority of my free time :)
I would love to hear more about all of your API's. I am not the DM at my games, but if the APIs are easy to use and helpful to the gameplay, I might suggest my DM buy a Plus subscription and start using it :)
Regarding AC, bearing in mind that variable AC exists, have you considered adding a vs. Slashing/piercing/bludgeoning entry?
Also, for wizards: having a spellbook sub-tab in the Spells section would be very handy! The rule for keeping track of pages used out of a spellbook is one I use every game, so normally I just make a handout for it... but that's less elegant!
I am very impressed at all the work that went into armor, weapons, and proficiencies in the last update, also. Thanks for still working on this!
Chronische said:
Regarding AC, bearing in mind that variable AC exists, have you considered adding a vs. Slashing/piercing/bludgeoning entry?
Also, for wizards: having a spellbook sub-tab in the Spells section would be very handy! The rule for keeping track of pages used out of a spellbook is one I use every game, so normally I just make a handout for it... but that's less elegant!
I am very impressed at all the work that went into armor, weapons, and proficiencies in the last update, also. Thanks for still working on this!
I have heard of people using different ACs for Pierce/Slash/Buldge. That could be implemented. However the official rules from the PHB, have the system turn around. Instead of having modifiers for the targets AC, there is a modifier for the attackers hit die. In the end it turns out to be the same.
The system for weapon types vs. armor is already implemented on the sheet, however I doubt many have used the system, especially on the sheet, as the entire system had been broken until I fixed it in version 3.4.0.
About the spell book. There is already the big text area just below the spells, which I think was intented to hold spellbook information. I do however understand that a more structual system would be desireable.
If you have a good idea to how the design of such a spellbook system should look, please make a muckup or a drawing or anything like that (using Paint is just fine).
I dont know when I will get around to actually implementing it, so there is time to brainstorm some designs :)
Thank you for your kind words. I love hearing the feedback from you guys on the changes I make :D
Peter B. said:
About the spell book. There is already the big text area just below the spells, which I think was intented to hold spellbook information. I do however understand that a more structual system would be desireable.
If you have a good idea to how the design of such a spellbook system should look, please make a muckup or a drawing or anything like that (using Paint is just fine).
I dont know when I will get around to actually implementing it, so there is time to brainstorm some designs :)
Please make sure that the note area on each of the spell tabs (and the Powers) is left in place, or an equivalent field is provided on each tab. My MagicMaster API indeed uses this field as the spellbook at each level for the spells and powers a character knows/has in their spellbook. The form of the spellbook is just a string of spell names separated by vertical bars e.g. 'Sleep|Magic-Missile|Grease', so as long as such a string can be held somewhere visible to the player, so they can update it, that's fine. The spell tables on each level tab are then used to hold the spells memorised for the day, which can be changed at a "Long Rest". The API then looks up the full specs of the spells known in the 2E Compendium library I've built, and can cast them with full effects on the target(s).
It will be a couple of months before the suite of APIs using the Compendiums will be released, still some testing & documentation to complete (just finished support for Dancing Weapons, and monsters with more than 2 limbs and able to wield many weapons at once - a nightmare for Individual Initiative calculations for the Turn Order!), but I'd hate to have the sheet change so they didn't work (though I'm sure I'd find a way to change it).
Thanks
Richard @ Damery
I use the "Spells Memorized" fields as a spell book, rather than the "Spell Book" text area.
This seems more convenient for me, and my gamers.
As you write a spell into your book, then you used the "Spell Memorized" fields to insert spell & macro for casting.
Plus all the other information needed.
The "Spell Book" text box, is where I ask to have the gamers write their "Spell's Memorized for the Day" in.
This way I can use API's to extract the text in that information box...(way easier macro to run)
Much more suitable than searching all the other spell fields for this information.
Now do they always cross them off when casted..??.... I trust them, so I hope so...
But I will remember what was casted and adjust it if they didn't, between games..
I am not the only DM or Player, that uses this sheet.
But all people that I know and do, use this system with the sheet.
If you used the "Spell Book" text field as your book, any time you changed your spells for the day.
You would have to repopulate "Spells Memorized" fields as needed.
This seem cumbersome to me, but that is my 2c
I know you have done a bunch of work for drop down selects.
Which are awesome....:)
But I utilize a bunch of custom spells / powers / psionics in games I run.
And even in games I play in, There are some spells allowed that are not in the code.
But are in various other books, this is why we use the sheet this way.
@Bilbo2 and @Richard
First of all I will not be removing any fields. Just to get that out of the way :)
This right here is the beauty of Roll20 and character sheets. In essence, it does not matter what the designer intended. The players can use the sheet in what ever way they want
When I started using the sheet, I saw what Seth had been building before me, and I read the sheet like this:
Manging the spells could be done in one of two ways:
Players in my games tended to do a combination of the two.
Based on this experience I tried to create the new spell section. More detailed and easier to use for the wizard for inputting the spells and faster to use for the priest, who could add / remove spells each day at a much faster rate due to auto fill.
One major point of confusion that still exists in the sheet is that the Spell Book textarea field, when moused over shows the developer name for the field which is @{spellmem}, which is short for Spell memorization. So it is not exactly clear what the field was intented for, by Seth back in 2017 (or when this particular part of the sheet was written)
Now back to @Chronische
For your scenario and use the Spell Book textarea is fine and dandy for a level 1 wizard, but as soon as the player reaches level 3, and gain access to 2nd level spells, then that player will have to keep track of two different Spell Book textareas both holding spellbook information. The major problem here is that the Spell Book textarea is not shared across all the spell levels, which makes keeping track of the information troublesome, especially remaining pages in a spellbook.
My first instinct was to remove all the duplicate Spell Book textareas, ie. deleteing @{spellmem2}, @{spellmem3}, @{spellmem4} etc. and only keep the first @{spellmem} field. That way it would solve your issue.
However now from the input from Richard and Bilbo, it is clear that removing the fields is no good. So the solution is to create new fields for this particular information.
If you have time @Chronische, then please provide a drawing of how you would like such a spellbook section to look. I have some ideas myself, but getting your input would be valuable to me :)
Final note
This discussion right here, is exactly why I created this thread in the first place. To get information from the players on how you use the sheet, and to best guide me in my efforts to move forward and increase the quality of the sheet.
Please keep up the discussion, as I read all the posts and using it to inform my next decision :)
Peter B. said:
I have heard of people using different ACs for Pierce/Slash/Buldge. That could be implemented. However the official rules from the PHB, have the system turn around. Instead of having modifiers for the targets AC, there is a modifier for the attackers hit die. In the end it turns out to be the same.The system for weapon types vs. armor is already implemented on the sheet, however I doubt many have used the system, especially on the sheet, as the entire system had been broken until I fixed it in version 3.4.0.
About the spell book. There is already the big text area just below the spells, which I think was intented to hold spellbook information. I do however understand that a more structual system would be desireable.
If you have a good idea to how the design of such a spellbook system should look, please make a muckup or a drawing or anything like that (using Paint is just fine).
I dont know when I will get around to actually implementing it, so there is time to brainstorm some designs :)
Thank you for your kind words. I love hearing the feedback from you guys on the changes I make :D
The simple way I record it for Slashing/Piercing/Bludgeoning is, say, plate armor is 1/3/3. Seems easy enough, and it's not THAT big of a deal since I can just record that in the field below the health and standard AC entries.
As for the spellbook:
The general gist would be like so:
Having tabs for additional spellbooks, or the ability to add more, is good because often you capture enemy spellbooks or need to create others since one fills up or is back at base. It would be nice if you could then select a spell you entered here in the Spells dropdown tab to have it auto-fill the details for you. Would be useful for priests, too, using spells out of other books or resources! Certainly I do use quite a few out of boxed sets (Birthright specific spells), and quite a few out of the ludicrously huge Wizard's and Priest's Spell Compendium lists (albeit often with modifications because some are totally useless at the level they were assigned).
Chronische said:
As for the spellbook:
The general gist would be like so:Having tabs for additional spellbooks, or the ability to add more, is good because often you capture enemy spellbooks or need to create others since one fills up or is back at base. It would be nice if you could then select a spell you entered here in the Spells dropdown tab to have it auto-fill the details for you. Would be useful for priests, too, using spells out of other books or resources! Certainly I do use quite a few out of boxed sets (Birthright specific spells), and quite a few out of the ludicrously huge Wizard's and Priest's Spell Compendium lists (albeit often with modifications because some are totally useless at the level they were assigned).
I see that your expectations are quite expansive, compared to what I had in mind. I can clealy see how your idea would work, including a button that allows the player to memorize a spell and thereby make a copy from the Spell Book section to the Spells Memorized section.
My own idea was a bit more limited. I wanted to primarily focus on the pages aspect, and have it look something like this:
For memorizing the spells, I would let the auto fill do the heavy lifting. I do realized that your games uses many spells not in the PHB, so the auto fill won't help you here. Please let me know what you think of this design.
I would ideally let player create an "infinite" amount of spell books, but Roll20 has a technical limitation when it comes to this. Each row in a spell book, would be added as a repeating section. Ideally the spell books themselves would also be coded as a repeating section, but as of now, it is impossible to have a repeating section within a repeating section on Roll20. I know many players has asked for it, but we are still waiting for the feature.
Due to this limitation the number of spells books has to be static for now. How many spell books would you find sufficient for your games? In your drawing you have made 5 "tabs" for other spell books, thus indicating that 5 total books would suffice for a single character.
As I am writing this, it starts to dawn upon me that using handouts actually might be a more flexible solution. By using handouts you can:
From my experience, the spell books are not edited often during play, so the player rarely have to consult this handout for the day to day use.
My conclusion is that using a handout is actually the best approach, as of right now.
Please let me know your thoughts on this. If you disagree, then we can work on a compromised between the two approaches
I have been use handouts for spells and books for a long time.
By inserting links to my spells.
Saves time to not be flipping through all the tabs to find desired spells.
As well, it is easy for a gm to open a handout and quick view a book.
These are all great solutions, but I think are doing too much on the sheet, and some of it should be in APIs. In my view, the sheet should remain relatively static, and additional functionality should be added through APIs so that DMs can choose what to add, and how to play.
Doing all this on the character sheet means that other people's macros & APIs that deal with learning, memorising and casting spells, like my MagicMaster API, will have trouble working. If at all possible, I'd really appreciate it if you could create anything like this as an addition to the current sheet and the fields in it, and do not replace it if at all possible. Otherwise, I and my group, that already have fully automated spell learning, memorising, casting & effects, with full spell specifications and actual effects on tokens HP/AC/Thaco/Speed (Haste Slow etc)/ and effects on any other character sheet attribute effected by spells, Magic items or Powers, will again not work, and I'll have to again go back to using my own custom sheets.
My API group will be released for AD&D2E in the not too distant future, but may not be of any use to you if it does not work with the standard sheet.
Just a thought, and thanks for the work being done and ideas - it is appreciated though sometimes frustrating chasing such a fast moving goal-post!
I use handouts myself, but it would be nice to be able to be able to create a library of spells that can easily be imported to the sheets/'Spells Memorized' tab. That is, of course, beyond the scope of simply adding a tab to a single sheet, so not easily imported across sheets. Ah, well!
Chronische said:
I use handouts myself, but it would be nice to be able to be able to create a library of spells that can easily be imported to the sheets/'Spells Memorized' tab. That is, of course, beyond the scope of simply adding a tab to a single sheet, so not easily imported across sheets. Ah, well!
This can be done by holding the definitions of spells in a separate place (in my case Ability Macros in a character called "MU-Spells-DB" and another called "PR-Spells-DB". You then put calls to those spell macros in the memorised spells area using %{MU-Spells-DB|Spell-name} or %{PR-Spells-DB|spell-name} - no need to copy the whole spell in. Even better is to have an API that gives the player menus to view the spells and change those memorised via an easy menu in a Roll Table - once released you can use mine, but you could create your own.
@Bilbo 2. I can totally see how your solution helps out. Honest I am not a fan of the multiple tabs for spells, as the players has to go through up to 9 tabs to get all spells sorted. Ideally I would change the design for this, but as the sheet has been like this since forever, I cannot change this without breaking the functionality for a lot of players, so I would never do changes to these sections.
@Richard. Just to reiterate, I would never change/remove the spells section. I will only ever add new fields that can be used as desired.
With regards to APIs. As for me, I am a Sheet author, therefore all my work goes into the sheet. Secondly I dislike the API as it requires the players to pay to use it. I prefer all features to be free. So in essence, my solutions will never be based on the API.
That being said, I look forward to seeing your API when they go public. I will read it, but probably not use it myself as I am not the DM, and as far as I know, your APIs are only for DMs?
@Chronische. So what you mainly want is a library to use as imports for spells memorization, and not a feature to count pages used in a spell book. If what you truely desire is a Library and not a Page counter, then I would suggest looking into paying for a Plus Subscription and ask either Bilbo 2 or Richard for help with APIs. I truely think this is the best way forward to reach your goals.
I have never used the APIs, so I cannot help you with this
Peter B. said:
@Richard. Just to reiterate, I would never change/remove the spells section. I will only ever add new fields that can be used as desired.
With regards to APIs. As for me, I am a Sheet author, therefore all my work goes into the sheet. Secondly I dislike the API as it requires the players to pay to use it. I prefer all features to be free. So in essence, my solutions will never be based on the API.
That being said, I look forward to seeing your API when they go public. I will read it, but probably not use it myself as I am not the DM, and as far as I know, your APIs are only for DMs?
Fair enough. Only the DM has to pay for a Pro subscription to use APIs - all the players can be free.
No, my APIs are for everyone. They facilitate full gameplay, and the players use the Chat Window RollTemplate menus to do 90% of their actions, such as attacking, using magic items, casting spells, using powers, looting and searching, storing equipment in their backpacks or getting it out, changing weapons, buying items in shops etc, etc. To be honest, they very rarely go into the character sheet, which I appreciate is not making best use of your efforts, but some of the players in my group think the character sheets are getting too complex and didn't understand all the fields and their meanings - hence they pushed me to develop the APIs, and Action Buttons (token ability buttons that appear when you select your token) which pop the RollTable menus up for them. Also, having to open the character sheet all the time, especially on laptops and those with only 1 screen (as opposed to the 5 or 6 I play on!), slowed down game play and imaginations. People tended to just have their paper copy and not use the Roll20 sheet at all.
Yes, the APIs also support the GM with all sorts of functions: Maintenance Menu (for managing the Turn Order, spell effects, correcting abnormal situations etc), End of Day (for enabling Long Rests, and charging for overnight accommodation and/or daily rations), and the GM-only change Magic Items menu (to set up Treasure Chests and lootable items on NPCs & monsters, cursed items, manage special magic items, set prices for goods in shops), and for setup of new characters and monster tokens with the Action Buttons needed, etc.
I think some of my fellow DMs and the players hanker for face to face play and doing everything on paper & with figures, and find that simpler! But we are all spread across the UK hundreds of miles from each other, so even when we're not locked down by this pandemic we can only meet face to face about every 2 months. Thus I try to make everything as simple as possible for them in Roll20.
I'm pulling together a little demo game that I can invite you, Gold, The Aaron and a few others to look at and see if you think the APIs are useful - pre-release and before I've done all the documentation, help text etc. You'll only really be able to see it from the player's side - though if some are interested I might be able to delegate DM status with careful control and guidance. That may be in a few weeks, if you are interested.
@Richard
I do get that the sheet is getting too complex.
I understand that your APIs can do a lot of stuff. I think it is cool and awesome, and I appreicate your work! I am confident that someone will find your APIs useful.
I think this all comes down to prefered way to play. Your players prefer to never open the character sheet, and have things automated.
My players prefer to always have the sheet open (even on latops), and use the different buttons on the sheet. Doing things more manually better replicate how we do things around the table.
Last game I just found out that we now have (for spells) a "Roll Template".
But me and my players found out your reference to the PHB are wrong...
Well Wrong if you are using the original PHB from 1989...
Any I could have a table of your data and I would give you both pages i.e. 276/245 (new/old PHB)
p.s. I made up those pages.
p.p.s do you need help transcribing more spells?
Michel C. said:
Last game I just found out that we now have (for spells) a "Roll Template".
But me and my players found out your reference to the PHB are wrong...
Well Wrong if you are using the original PHB from 1989...
Any I could have a table of your data and I would give you both pages i.e. 276/245 (new/old PHB)p.s. I made up those pages.
p.p.s do you need help transcribing more spells?
Hello Michel C.
Thank you for reaching out :)
As for the pages, this is not a singular problem. As the PHB, has been release and re-released multiple times, both physically and via PDF, the page numbers are bound to change. My point here is that there might be more than two sets of page numbers, such as "old/new/rerelease/pdf/combined pdf/cleaned up pdf".
I think it will only increase the level of confusion to include multiple page numbers.
For your games specifically, I suggest that, after you have added a spell to a character sheet, simply change the page number to the correct number for your book. The auto filled data is only ment help with the bulk of the work. It is up to the players to edit this data in anyway you see fit :). The same goes for spell descriptions, material components or anything else. If you want to shorten it, change it, alter it, revise it, based on your campaign, then feel free to do so. It is your game :)
PPS. Thank you for offering your help. I currently don't need any help with transcibing spells :)
Hi Peter, Hi All,
happy to see that there a lot of others SL still using AD&D 2E and even more happy to see that Peter is still working on the character sheet. Many thanks to you Peter for doing this to keep 2E alive.
Due to Corona situation my friends and me have re-activated our group (have played last time over 20 years ago). So we started using Roll20 as our solution to play online AD&D 2E as we have moved all over the country. It is still not the same like sitting personal togehter but much better then not playing. :)
I have started using macros for players and now I am looking to use macros also for my monsters. As I design a lot of own monsters during my campaign (with a hell of special attacks), I come now to limitations on the monster sheet. Mostly I have problems to get all relevant information in the sheet and then to use this informations in a macro.And here I want to ask for help if the monster sheet can be enhanced:
Example:
Monster with 3 Heads, 2 Claws and 1 Tail. In case all heads has different damage and may be special damage, I am no more able to use for each an own attack. So I want like to ask if the monster attack can changed in the way to create a table, where for each attack a dedicated line can be created and like in the payer sheet for weapons. Also further fields of informations would be very helpful:
Attack name, Thac0 of attack, Damage of Attack, Detailed information, additonal damage (in case of posion or paralysation (round numbers) or similar)
Also a 6-headed Hydra and each head has another special attack. In the moment I have either to create for each monster individuel macros which is quite time consuming. So I want to create more a generel one but can cover there only monsters with up to three attacks.
I am not sure, but I would see that this change could be quite easily implemented to monster sheet as an additional table. If this is the case, Peter are you able and willing to add this change request to your list please?
Regards
Robert
GM said:
Hi Peter, Hi All,
I am not sure, but I would see that this change could be quite easily implemented to monster sheet as an additional table. If this is the case, Peter are you able and willing to add this change request to your list please?
Regards
Robert
Hello Robert.
You are right that the addition of an attack table is not too much work, however there is a caviat. I will try to explain below.
On the monster sheet, there is first the primary monster, made up of static fields, below that additional Variations can be added, consisting of repeating fields. An example of such a monster could be a Basalic, as the primary, and a Greater / Dragon Basalic as the variations.
Atleast this is how I read the sheet. I was not the designer of this particular part, so I cannot say for sure what the original author intended :)
What you are asking for is a table, just like the weapons the player has, consisting of repeating fields. However Roll20 has a limitation that a repeating section cannot be placed inside another repeating section.
For your feature request, this means that only the primary monster would be able to get such a table, while all variations on such a monster would not be able to, as the variations are made with repeating fields. It would make the design of the variant section inconsistent. (However the current design does not have a name field for the repeating section either, so it is already a little inconsitent)
That being said! I do not know how many DMs actually use the variation monster repeating section. From my experience DMs tend to make a sheet for every monster there is, even if some of the monsters are variations of each other. So I do not see it as a breaking problem. It just isn't neat, that is all.
It would be fine by me to add your feature as requested. If possible, I would like a mockup, drawing (paint is fine) of how you imagine the table looking. Basically I would like to get a feel for how many fields you would like, and how the roll button (if any) should read and present these fields. Multiple damage sources can become hard to print out in a readable way :)
Hello Peter,
thank you for the fast repsonse and the good explanation of the sheet. I was not aware of the variants section on the monster. As I am not using it, it would be fully acceptable for me if only primary monster is getting additonal attack list and variants are staying as is. In this case also the current damage fields should stay as is.
To give you an indication of what I want, I added a picture to demonstrate. In case columns are not restricted, it would be a nice to have if another column could be added as a "Detailed description" field, where a little background of the attack could be stored and shared during fight with the players. Otherwise I can also store this information in the combat description and share it from there.
GM said:
I was not aware of the variants section on the monster. As I am not using it
Just as I thought. I doubt many people use that section :)
I can definitly add the table, in the way that you want. I will add it to my list of upcoming features.
I am currentlyl working on the reminder of the spells, which takes quite a bit of time
So a question for all your users of "Red & Parchment" sheet. I am working on a new feature and was wondering in what way of two versions to implement it.
I am making buttons for helping players reset their spells when the DM says "A new day". There are currently two versions "Short rest" and "Long rest". The first only counts down spent spell slots, while the later sets all slots to 0, indicating that the player has a "clean slate" in his mind for new spells. I know the PHB & DMG states the first case as the official rule for spells, but I have seen different players use different systems, so I am trying to support them both.
So time for the questions:
Here is an image of the proposed change: Note, names are subject to change
So time for the questions:
Do your even use the "Cast / Memorized" counters in your games, or do your have another system? Answer: Yes, we do. Otherwise people play silly buggers with the memorised spells.
If you use the counter fields, would you prefer:
A) A single button that resets the counters across all spell levels
B) A button for each spell level, for more granular control?(edited) This, please.
Peter B. said:
So time for the questions:
- Do your even use the "Cast / Memorized" counters in your games, or do your have another system?
- If you use the counter fields, would you prefer:
A) A single button that resets the counters across all spell levels
B) A button for each spell level, for more granular control?(edited)
Peter, as you have probably already thought, my APIs do indeed use both the Cast & Memorised fields, as well as all the other spell fields, including the Max and Current values. But as long as the fields continue to exist, very sensible to provide buttons to help other users of your sheet.
Regarding Short & Long Rests, I implement them in a similar way to emulate 5e, with the agreement of the other DMs in my group - that is Short Rests of 1 hour return 1st level spells (but no new spells can be memorised), and Long Rests return all spells, powers & recharging magic items (ones that regain charges overnight). Spell casters can only change memorised spells during a Long Rest. The Short Rest approach is helpful to keep parties going in a dungeon rather than trying to do a Long Rest after every encounter - priests gain back their 1st level healing spells (similar to the 5e ability for characters to gain healing after a short rest), and wizards get their 1st level spells like Sleep, which means the party feel confident to continue and keep the game flowing.
Wonderful with some feedback! I love it!
@Lexin. Thank you for your input. I was leaning towards two buttons for resetting the counters across all spell levels, as that is what my players are prefering, but seeing that you want more granular control, I am leaning back towards adding a set of buttons for each spell level.
@Richard. The fields will of course stay. The first question was more out of personal curiosity of how people use the sheet :). Thank you for your input. I highly value it :)
@MrBluezman. Hmm if what you want is litteraly a button that sets the Cast-field to 0, then the total of buttons will become three... It is getting out of hand :P. To clarify, my current design works like this:
| Button name | Explanation | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Short Rest | Counts down both fields by the number in the Cast-field. memorized = memorized - cast | If you have the values "2/3" (2 cast today of 3 memorized) and click this button, then the result will be "0/1" (0 cast today of 1 memorized) |
| Long Rest | Sets both fields to 0 memorized = 0 cast = 0 | If you have the values "2/3" (2 cast today of 3 memorized) and click this button, then the result will be "0/0" (0 cast today of 0 memorized - a clean slate) |
| MrBluezMan Button | Sets only the cast field to 0 cast = 0 | If you have the values "2/3" (2 cast today of 3 memorized) and click this button, then the result will be "0/3" (0 cast today of 3 memorized) |
MrBluezman. Please anser my two questions for you:
MrBluezman said:
- YES I use the "Cast / Memorized" counters all the time
- Possibly two buttons. One to reset all counters and another that just resets the 'Cast' fields to zero - for the spell casters /priests that tend to use the same spells most of the time.
If you didn't notice, I asked you a clarifying question in the above post. If you have time, please take a look at it, and hit me with a reply. I would greatly appreciate it :)
