Mounts in r20

How do you handle them in your campaigns? My players do not have their own mounts yet, but I am trying to figure out the best way to represent them in the interface. The thing I am currently trying is having a horse token "carry" the rider using the carry API script (I use the one from the sticky listing of available API). I rather like it in that the rider moves when you move the horse but the horse stays when you move off the rider. Anyone with a good system for this?

Bob, that would probably be your best option. I use the Carry Script for player tokens to carry torches. It works pretty well.

Bob, it wouldn't be too hard to write a specialized carry script for mounts that understands the relationship between horse and rider better. In particular, maintaining the proper offset from center relative to the horse token when moving and rotating, and applying the same operations to both such that moving one moves the other and rotating one rotates the other, etc.

While Aaron writes incredible scripts. Is there some reason you need to have a mount token? Are you going to go to the detail of mounts taking damage, etc? I guess that's why I'm not a fan of them in d&d, especially for combat. Personally I would just use a token marker, however I am a huge fan of token markers.

Token marker === status maker?

Aaron said: Token marker === status maker? Yes, Status Marker, by the way, I can't figure out in your Mark script where you are setting the red status marker. I'm looking to switch it to the bullseye marker.

Ah. You should post it on THAT script's thread (then I get an email and come reply immediately! =D)

I wasn't necessarily tied to the idea of an API solution. I was just pointing out that it seemed workable, at least in my case (I only tested it on a 2x1 horse and 1x1 rider, and in that case the token seemed anchored at about the correct spot). I can think of some situations where it could be important to have the rider and mount separate, especially in the case of monstrous mounts. A goblin riding a worg, for example would probably be a good case for some kind of solution like the API might provide. I actually like the idea of just marking a status. It is elegant, and probably fine for most player applications. My my priorities for a mount system (most to least important): -Clearly displaying a token is mounted. -Showing the token the aforementioned one is riding in a way that makes interaction easy. -Making it look good (sitting in the right spot, facing the right way, etc). What seems harder is doing something like a wagon or a siege engine where there are multiple riders and "seats". I imagine you could add "seat" tokens to the large vehicle, group the objects, and have the seats carry riders... Maybe? Just thinking.

Kristin C. said: I'm going to move this to the API forum, since this is definitely going to require some additional scripting to achieve this effect. Why not just "Group" the 2 tokens (horse & PC)? Doesn't require API, built-in feature of Roll20. Select the PC Token & the Mount Token, right click and choose "Group". Then they will move together. When you don't want them together, right-click and say "Ungroup".

This is also a good solution. I am not sure it would make it easy to interact with the mount's token without grouping and regrouping. But it like you said, it works and it doesn't require the API.

It might just be me, but I've had issues with the group system working the way I want it to work. seems like the tokens don't maintain the same relative spacing, like it individually snaps their position to the grid after moving or something. I was picturing a system where mountable tokens have a mount token action and an dismount token action (if anything is mounted). Then set the relative orientation and rotation at that time. That would allow placing people on a wagon, then selecting the whole shebang and clicking mount (lowest token in a group get's it's macro buttons displayed). You could just as easily use it to mount several people on a dragon, or put people on a horse, etc. For mounts, I'd maintain the orientation between the two, so moving or rotating one moves and rotates the other. I can see doing a similar script for when you just want to lock a token to a given inertial frame of reference, like a ship. (embark/disembark) When the ship moves and rotates, so does everything on it, but tokens moving on the deck would not move the ship. Bryan K.: I answered your question in the other thread. =D