[PF 1st] Naming Individual Attacks in template:pc Roll Macro

Hi, been exploring the wonderful world of macros and abilities over the last couple of days for the first time (very much a beginner). Found the handy " Many Attacks & Multiple Damage Rolls " Template to build off, the one thing I really would like to know how to change on here is when I roll this, it displays the Attack as "Attack #1", "Attack #2" etc. Is there a way to name each individual attack? Playing a character with 5 natural weapons and the DM being able too quickly differentiate which one is which would be extremely useful. (poisonous bite being one of the main reasons)

just realised this post is more likely to be better suited under the "Specific Use Questions & Macros" forum if a mod can move me over, or i can just repost :)

Hi Jaevwyn, the macro on the wiki is designed for a certain sheet (which pathfinder sheet? I'm not sure...)  I only mention this because the sheet's roll template will often determine what is/isn't displayed when a roll is made.  My guess is that the sheet's roll template will post "Attack #1"  when it parses "{{roll=", "Attack #2" when it parses "{{roll1=", "Attack #3" when it parses "{{roll2=", etc.  This is hard coded into the sheet's roll template, so unless you decide to customize a sheet (Pro option), you might need to sneak in your attack name some other way.  Perhaps adding  "{{roll=@{selected|attack_name} ..." (the exact attribute name depends on the sheet you are using).  Less flexible, but you could possibly insert a name in instead of the attribute name ie "{{roll=Poisonous Bite ..."  You would need to update each attack within the macro.  Again, not sure if this will work because it depends on the sheet's roll template setup.

I came to the same unfortunate conclusion, but thank you for the confirmation. With that in mind I have been trying to create one ability for each individual attack (via roll template, so each will be labelled) and one ability that queries something along the lines of "Am I Raging, Yes / No" and then a follow on question to ask "Full Attack Yes/No?" and then call each of my abilities depending on the answers, I have today found that Queries and Roll Templates are not a good mix so I am a little stuck again. I read through this page here that describes the need to substitute html characters, I substituted every single html character in the " Many Attacks & Multiple Damage Rolls " using some handy find/replace in notepad++ and it was a no dice.  Could anyone assist me in making the example macro above query friendly, hopefully I can then apply the same logic to my own abilities when I make them. (I would post the version of this I had with every single character swapped out but frankly it was massive) 

I'm not very good at figuring out what needs to be substituted for nested queries and such. ;-(  The general consensus on the forums suggests using a " macro character " to host your macros and access them using a Chat menu to make the desired roll(s).  Macros used to be the only way we could make rolls leveraging attribute data, but then along came character sheets(7+ years ago) to help make this easier.  IMO, multiple queries, nested queries, character substitutions, and such are a pain to create and maintain.  Macros are still useful but many common features for a given system have been built into many sheets. Being partial, I would suggest changing to a sheet that handles such things automatically...  ;-)

unfortunately my DM has done a ton of work on the Pathfinder by Roll20 sheet and shes not particularly inclined to move over, which I cant blame her for honestly (we also have someone who has never played DnD before in our session so the Pathfinder by roll20 sheet looked a lot more new player accessible in the first instance).  I will investigate the Chat Menu though! I havent heard of this function yet so interested to see what it can do, Thanks! :) 

The PF by roll20 sheet is a very "capable" sheet.  You might post what you would like to do exactly that's seemingly forcing you toward custom macros to accomplish. I'm not real familiar with the pf by roll20 sheet, but I know it's popular and used by many.  I'm sure you're not the only to have experienced a few hurdles with the sheet so I bet there will be some options that others will suggest.  Cheers

Essentially what I put in my OP covers what I am trying to do at a high level. I am playing a character with 5 (or more) natural attacks, some of which have special effects and some do not. I am trying to create a mechanism to trigger these attacks together whilst labelling each one individually to allow for further rolls such as poison DCs on attacks that require them (even better if I can build that functionality into the attacks that have them, though I haven't looked into that particular aspect yet). Currently I have one ability for each natural attack and one ability (set as a token ability for ease of access) to call them all. What I am aiming to do next is build in a couple of queries before calling the attacks, one to ask if its a full attack which would roll every attack or if its using just a standard action in which case I would be offered a dropdown of each attack I can make, and the other query to ask if my barbarian rage is active, as this influences access to some attacks and whether or not their STR bonuses are half or full (amongst a couple of other things). With the above in mind I need to learn how to get my attacks using a roll template to cooperate with being nested into a query. Will pop an extract of one of the attacks below, they all follow the same format and are nothing special on their own. Hope this clears up what I am aiming to achieve!  &{template:pc}  {{type=attackdamage}}  {{name=Gore Attack}}  {{attack=1}}  {{damage=1}}  {{atkvs=(Melee vs AC)}}  {{dmg1flag=1}}  {{charname=@{selected|token_name}}}  {{roll=[[1d20cs>20 + ?{Flank?|No,0|Yes,2}[Flanking] + @{selected|attack_bonus}[AB Bonuses] + @{selected|melee_mod}[Melee Attack] -5[Secondary]]]}}  {{critconfirm=[[1d20 + ?{Flank?|No,0|Yes,2}[Flanking] + @{selected|attack_bonus}[AB Bonuses] + @{selected|melee_mod}[Melee Attack] -5[Secondary]]]}}  {{dmg1flag=1}}  {{dmg1=[[1d10+@{selected|strength_mod}[STR] + @{selected|melee_damage_bonus}[Damage Bonuses]]]}}  {{dmg1type=Piercing}}  {{descflag=On}}  {{dmg1crit=[[1d10+@{selected|strength_mod}[STR] + @{selected|melee_damage_bonus}[Damage Bonuses]]]}}  {{desc=Quet’Kai tries to Gore his foe with his horns}}

I think I would lean toward using a chat menu.  Create X number of attacks/combos as needed (bite+2claws, sword+bite+1claw, etc.) with a full attack versus regular.  Create the chat menu of your attacks.  Assuming you are toggling a Rage buff already, maybe just use a buff for the flanking bonus as well vs a query?  Toggle buffs, call the attacks chat menu using a macro and roll your full attack or... as needed. quick example; Apologies, I don't really know the sheet or how complicated your characters attacks are, so maybe this isn't the best approach.

Yeah, making use of the buff system instead of queries would probably be simpler on that front.  Flanking, prone enemy, attacking from prone, spells, class abilities like Inspire Courage or Rage, etc. should probably all just be set up as buffs.  One thing about the chat menu is that you can put some of those menu buttons in the description section of attacks.  Special abilities that may not be usable all the time can be on a button and just click it to roll it when it is needed.  As an example, I do this with weapons with holy damage, so that it isn't rolled automatically.  If the target was evil, then the holy damage gets clicked and rolled for each hit with that weapon.  If you do something like that, then you could just trigger an attack from your sheet that would do the sword and horns, which would have a button in the description to trigger the bite and claws. 

So I made some progress between my last post and checking in here again, but still coming up stuck at the moment. I have this query that when i replace the text outputs with the abilities will do what I need it to do: ?{Which type of attack?|Full, ?{Is Rage Active|Yes, Full Rage|No, Full Non Rage|}|Standard, ?{Is Rage Active|Yes, Rage Standard|No, Non Rage Standard|}} This query worked and outputted the text as I needed it too which was great, then i tried throwing an ability into the mix. This ability did work on a single level query but isnt working from within the nested query above putting "%{selected|GoreHTML}" in place of the "Full Rage" text. &{template:pc} {{type=attackdamage}}  {{name=Gore Attack}}  {{attack=1}}  {{damage=1}}  {{atkvs=(Melee vs AC)}}  {{dmg1flag=1}}  {{charname=@{selected|character_name}}}  {{roll=[[@{selected|attack_bonus}[AB Bonuses] + @{selected|melee_mod}[Melee Attack] -5[Secondary]]]}}  {{critconfirm=[[@{selected|attack_bonus}[AB Bonuses] + @{selected|melee_mod}[Melee Attack] -5[Secondary]]]}}  {{dmg1flag=1}}  {{dmg1=[[1d10+@{selected|strength_mod}[STR] + @{selected|melee_damage_bonus}[Damage Bonuses]]]}}  {{dmg1type=Piercing}}  {{descflag=On}}  {{dmg1crit=[[1d10+@{selected|strength_mod}[STR] + @{selected|melee_damage_bonus}[Damage Bonuses]]]}}  {{desc=Quet’Kai tries to Gore his foe with his horns}} There's probably some nuance to having the ability in a nested query as opposed to a single level query that I havent learned yet so research continues on that front. Currently with the ability in the first query works and the second gives this as an option in the dropdown "Yes, &{template:pc" with an output of nothing. Flanking in buffs, completely agree I actually came to that same conclusion when trying to de-complicate the situation somewhat and have done that now! I havent explored chat tables as an option yet but if I continue getting stuck in this route it will be the other way I go for sure! I do actually use Rage as a buff, but it changes some of my natural attacks to have Full STR Mod applied to damage instead of Half STR Mod, im unsure if this change can be easily detected via the buff route but will look into it further for sure.  I have a decent bit of time invested in this route so I will attempt to see it through before going the chat table route, which admittedly seems simpler and I would've gone that way in the first instance if I knew about them at the time... very new to all of this!  Next steps right now are to figure out why nesting this ability was a no go, once thats done I will be nesting an ability that calls multiple abilities (keeping the attacks individually named which is still a my desired result if possible)  which would look something like this: %{selected|Claw-R} %{selected|Claw-L-Rage} %{selected|Bite} %{selected|Gore} all of that working would be what I am aiming to achieve, im sure its possible but just needs more time and reading, with chat tables to fall back in when im in over my head... which seems to be fast approaching! 

So its just been pointed out to me that this area of the wiki has a one liner: You can achieve further levels of nesting by "stacking" HTML entities: Character Replacement & & I am almost certain its this, but unfortunately my last attempt corrupted the chat archive (again) so i cant see the output of my rolls any more... waiting on my DM to reset it (again). until then ima play with the chat menus in my own test game, they seem way simpler! 

Wow chat menus - way easier!  Got what i needed working, thank you all for the suggestions!!  As it turns out the & was not the reason the query failed and I still havent figured out what went wrong so if anyone does figure it out it'd be much appreciated from a learning perspective, but for all intents and purposes I have what I need good to go, and more fun stuff to explore in chat menus.