New Roll20 GM needing questions answered!

Hey there! I'm new to roll20 trying to run my first campaign. I had a few general questions that I haven't been able to answer by trawling the wiki (they may be in there I just can't find them) and was wondering if anyone more familiar with the system could help me? 1) When I click on character sheets in my campaign my browser (friefox) stalls for 1-2 seconds. Is this normal? Unique to firefox? My computer is fairly powerful (i5, 8meg ram). Is this a fixable problem? Nothing else in roll20 seems to run slowly, even with fairly large background pictures. 2) Due to the aforementioned problem it's very frustrating to have to constantly open character sheets to make each tokens attack. What I'd really like to do is just apply each monsters attacks to the token itself, or to my journal page so I could make them at will. So if I have an orc with an axe and an orc with a bow and I want them to attack one after the other, rather than go: orc melee sheet -> orc melee attack -> orc ranged sheet -> orc ranged attack I'd like to be able to just go: orc melee attack -> orc ranged attack 2A) Honestly I'm not sure I need in system stats at all for my monsters (other than HP totals which can be tracked on the tokens), if there any way I could just get a list of 'attacks' to use for quick combat? move orc next to player -> hit "orc melee attack button" i have prepared -> it rolls in chat Would make combat go very quickly -) 3) Is there some easy way to roll initiative for a lot of separate mobs quickly if they all have the same stats? 4) Is there a way to prepare whispered text if I want to say something privately to a player, but don't know which one i.e. if I have a certain skill check I am going to make the players all roll but I don't know who will succeed it. 5 Players roll investigation checks -> 1 of them rolls a 24 -> I quickly send them the text "you notice the stones in this area are a slightly different color than the rest of the wall etc. etc." Rather than having to type it out on the fly (and make typos :) ). Thanks for any help you can provide me!

2) I would check into using macros, if I were you. They can be created on the character sheet and when you drag the character sheet onto the map (assuming you have a token assigned to the character sheet), all macros (attack or otherwise) would be attached to that token. The Wiki has a lot of rule-specific examples of macros for each ruleset (D&D or otherwise). 3) TheAaron has a script for rolling initiative for groups, but you would need to be a Mentor in order to use them. 4 and 5) I normally prepare things like this in advance, usually in an Excel file, so that I can just copy/paste them into Roll20 while playing the game. I do it for set descriptions of rooms or other details as well. Saves time during the game too. :)

2) I'll check that out thanks. 3) Boo. 4+5) Good idea, I will steal that :) ty.

(Moved to Specific Use) 1) Some character sheets are fairly large, a delay can occur when loading them. This is likely a network bandwidth issue, so a faster computer won't necessarily help you with that. 2) As Nyghtmare said, making abilities or macros is probably the way to go. You can execute a sheet roll, then push up while the chat box is focused and get the command it executed, and copy that into a character ability, then set it as a token action. All tokens that represent that character will then have that button show up across the top when they are selected. Macros are not tied to a particular character, and are added in the settings page. 3) I'm sure you're Booing having to be a mentor, not the script itself. =D You can add an ability to the characters to execute their initiative via a token action, which can speed things up greatly. 4-5) You could write some macros that either prompt for the player name, or whisper to a selected or targeted character: /w "?{Player|gm}" you notice the stones in this area are a slightly different color than the rest of the wall etc. etc. /w "?{selected|character_name}" you notice the stones in this area are a slightly different color than the rest of the wall etc. etc. /w "?{target|character_name}" you notice the stones in this area are a slightly different color than the rest of the wall etc. etc.

The Aaron said: Such a detailed reply! 1) Gotcha. 2+3) Yes this is exactly what I wanted. I definitely should have spent more time combing over the macro wiki page, this will be an immense help. 4+5) Again, pretty much exactly what I was looking for. This community is incredibly friendly to new players. I've actually had 2 people PM me since this thread went up with links to helpful DM tools, It's really a credit to what's been created here. Thankyou for all of your assistance :).

For TheAaron's #3 suggestion, I actually take it one step further and in addition to having an Initiative macro, I also have a macro to randomize and set the individual token 's(monster's) hit points — unfortunately, it requires TheAaron's TokenMod script, but I just wanted to throw that out there as the kind of thing that can be done in Roll20.

And Roll20 is a great site with a great community, starting with the Devs and working downwards to us little people. ;)

Yup! BTW, I have a script specifically for rolling hit points, a bit more automated....

My macro for HPs has to be set up on each monster's character sheet — lemme guess, with yours there is an Attribute on the character sheet and the script rolls/assigns based on that value, right? With my macro, I roll an extra Hit Die and drop the lowest one for each of my critters to make them a hair tougher than average. ;)

Yeah, pretty much. It has a few other options (you could specify the 5d8 hit dice for a critter as 6d8kh5), but sounds like you have a solution ready to go. Could make a one off to the script that would do the rolling the way you do.

The macros work just fine for my needs, so I wouldn't take away from the many other scripts that I know you are working on to write this little snippet of code. :)

If you have character sheets set up for your monsters, you can also set up macros as token actions in the Attributes & Abilities section. Then the macros will only show when you click on the related token. But setting up individual NPC character sheets with linked tokens and Ability macros may be more work than what you're looking to do.

In my case, I have the macros attached to the character sheets for the PCs, NPCs, and everything that they encounter that they could end up engaging in battle (so no commoners from the local village or the like). I also have 2 blank character sheets — one for PCs and one for monsters — with the base macros and attributes that I want showing on each one. Then I can just copy one of these templates to use for a new character sheet, be it PC or monster.

Lots of options here all are good, I'll toss out a few things i've done as I went from method 1, to method 2, to method 3. Method 1 - Grab a screenshot or a pic of the MM Stats for a given monster; Roll Dice via the Dice Roller, Macro or /r etc and add the modifiers for a monster. Method 2 - Create an NPC Sheet (1) for each monster/mook. Setup all actions in the NPC Sheet under actions click/roll as needed. Minimize when not in use. Method 3 (requires mentor) - Import Stat block into sheet, adjust/debug as needed. Assign all abilities to token actions. With the use of Aaron's Tokenmod API, Mark's Shaped Import script, and a modified Macro script (Kevin's) I think it takes about 5 minutes to make a new Monster with basic abilities. I then can move it to whatever campaign i need it in. It often takes longer to locate the token I want to use than to do the hard work.