How to get clarity in combats with larger groups

I'm fairly new to Roll20 - I've been playing around with a 5e scenario to practice GMing before actually running a proper game. The particular scenario involves two groups of mooks fighting, and the players may join in on one side. I've been using the 5e shaped character sheet, along with the option to allow a target to be picked for attack rolls. One thing that has become pretty clear is that without a lot of very careful verbal signposting from me, the combat will be very hard to follow for the players, because there are a few visual indications of who is attacking whom, and the chat doesn't help much in this case either. I've added a few scripts which have improved things a bit: TokenNameNumber makes it easier to identify the mooks, and TurnTracker means it's clearer who's acting at any given point. But the chat outputs from the character sheet are still unhelpfully generic - they don't specify who attacked whom (ideally they would do so with Token Names to take advantage of the numbering thing), which makes looking back over the last couple of turns pretty imcomprehensible; and most importantly there's still no visual indication of who the target is for the players (or me, if the players are targeting someone). I can think of a number of possible approaches to solving this by using scripts and customising the character sheet actions, but I don't want to reinvent the wheel here. Are there some standard ways to deal with this that people use that amount to more than just saying in voice chat "I'm going for the one on the left"? I'm keen to have it as crystal clear as possible, since I'm pretty sure that there's going to be plenty enough confusion during our first session playing remotely as it is! Cheers, Lucian

Customizing the macros is your easiest route, so that they have an included line of 'Target: @{target|token_name}' somewhere in them. If you need help with that, I'm sure Mark will be along to help you tweak his sheet ^_^

Thanks GenKitty. Ideally I'd like to avoid creating a custom version of the sheet. I can quite happily modify the character sheet or write new scripts (I was a web developer of some fairly hardcore JS websites in a past life) , but that means that I have to e.g. fork Mark's work, and every time he updates his sheet, I'll have to catch up with his changes which may or may not break what I've done. With a tool as powerful and open-ended as Roll20 (especially at Mentor level) it's very easy to end up with everyone rolling their own solutions to each problem they come across. It's great that that's possible, but in the long run it diminishes the value of the tool for everyone, because you lose many of the benefits of community co-operation. Everyone's macros, scripts and sheets end up doing things in slightly different ways, so they don't work together well, further reinforcing the need for everyone to make their own custom solutions to things. Since I'm just starting out, I don't have particularly strong pre-conceptions about how to run my game on Roll20. I'm happy to follow some established best practice followed by other GMs here. Guys like Mark and Aaron and HoneyBadger have obviously got some pretty sophisticated setups, which is why I've latched onto their stuff, but there's not much material on how best to run a game at this level. I've found a bunch of roll20 videos about the basics, but I'd really love to see (or would be happy to produce, once I know more) some documentation for Mentor-level DMs that says: here's a good way to run a game to get the most out of the advanced features of the system and the best of the community scripts that exist. I know GMs tend to be a fussy lot how don't like people telling them how to run their games, but sometimes having a reference point, a description of how a bunch of other people who really know the system have made it work for them, can be really helpful. I spent about 6 hours last night experimenting and piecing things together <rubs eyes> but I still don't feel like I have a good handle on how the "masters" of this run their games. In the long run I think the community would benefit a lot from the existence of a walkthrough that gives new users some examples of running a relatively complex game scenario using existing scripts, sheets and tools. There will always be people who want to do things completely their own way, but if you can steer the majority towards some relatively standardised approaches it's usually a win-win: they have an easier time of it, it's easier to support, and the community benefits from focussing most of its energies on making a limited set of tools work as well as possible for a known workflow rather than fragmenting across lots of different approaches. As I said, very happy to contribute to that process once I know more! TL;DR: how do people who really use Mentor-level Roll20 to its potential handle these big combats with lots of similar mooks on multiple sides without it getting confusing? I guess I'm directing this question particularly at people like Aaron with his massive library of amazingly useful scripts, but really happy to hear anyone's perspective in the hope of getting a sense of best practice here. Cheers, Lucian

I didn't mean to indicate you should make a custom character sheet . I said customize the macros . There's a number of ways of doing that, and yeah, every GM has their own preferences as you say. How do I handle big battles? I use TokenNameNumber for easier setup, I use TokenMod for moving tokens from the GM layer to the object layer/revealing name&HP bar quickly, all macros have targets clearly labeled, I use GroupInit for adding NPCs to the turn tracker quickly, and I use the built-in turn tracker. I know others simplify their prep by using universal/generic macros but that's never worked well for me. I don't use character sheets, I use the raw Attributes & Abilities tab for the handful of stats & macros my mobs need. Small battles or large battles, it's all the same logistically.

Ok. I'm caught up on the thread now. =D Script-wise, I do basically the same thing as GenKitty. Additionally, I use Bump to move tokens between GM and Object layer and I use Mark for specifying a target (if it's necessary to do anything more than ping it). I've also got a bunch of TokenMod macros setup for applying/removing status markers on targets. I use the 5e Character sheet (Actoba's) and Jean-Francois's Importer . (Mark has an importer for his sheet as well, based on this one). Additionally, I've got HoneyBadger's PowerCards for some special output, MotD to update the players on what happened last time, Torch because the syntax is so simple compared to doing the same thing in TokenMod. From a setup standpoint, I import monsters ahead of time and get all their properties setup correctly and tokens linked. Then I Transmogrify them into whatever campaign I need them for. I've also got spell templates setup as characters with the right token sizing and the spell details in the character bio. With them set to controlled by all players, but not in player journals, I just have to drag them onto the table and let the players place them where they want them. (They can move and rotate but not resize). For convenience, I have in the bubbles from left to right: Save Type, DC, Concentration (for example: W,15,C), with the DC editable by the players so they can fill it in. I like handouts, and always want to make lots of them with various details, and pass them to players as needed. I'm also a big fan of Dynamic Lighting and will setup fairly complicated DL when I get the chance (Checkout Walls if you're making your own maps in GIMP), though I've had to tone them down of late to not kill one player's computer. I make heavy use of the folders for organizing, though I don't have a good recommendation on how I would suggestion doing that--I'm still changing mine! Hope that helps!

Oh hey, that Mark script is a nice alternative to putting targeting information in a macro, especially for people using a character sheet and its built-in macros.

Yeah, I need to update it now that we can .remove() things. Not a huge deal, but it could be improved... =D

I name the mooks, and insist players use my macros, for two reasons, the first is that I want all of the macros to report uniformly, and I want to avoid errors or cheating, most of which is down to misinterpretations, you can get some very strange results with poorly written macros. I have already made all of the mistakes possible and want to spare us all the trouble. There are some good scripts out there that help a lot with keeping it all together. My biggest problem is that on large maps players tend to run in six or seven directions at once, I have now started dropping a monster on anyone who strays too far away from the party, nothing like having your character surrounded by Mind Flayers to make your replacement character stay with the group...

al e. said: I name the mooks, and insist players use my macros, for two reasons, the first is that I want all of the macros to report uniformly, and I want to avoid errors or cheating, most of which is down to misinterpretations, you can get some very strange results with poorly written macros. I have already made all of the mistakes possible and want to spare us all the trouble. There are some good scripts out there that help a lot with keeping it all together. My biggest problem is that on large maps players tend to run in six or seven directions at once, I have now started dropping a monster on anyone who strays too far away from the party, nothing like having your character surrounded by Mind Flayers to make your replacement character stay with the group... Try this: &{template:5eDefault} {{title=?{Weapon|Longsword}}} {{character_name=@{target|Attacker|token_name}}} @{PC Macros|show_character_name} {{subheader=?{Ranged/Melee|Melee} • ?{Range|5 ft.}}}} {{weapon=1}} {{Target=**@{target|Target|token_name}**}} {{Attack=[[1d20+?{To Hit|5}]] | [[1d20+?{To Hit|5}]] vs AC}} {{Damage=[[?{Damage Dice|1d8}+?{Modifier|3}]] ?{Type|Slashing} + [[?{Damage Dice|1d8}]] if crit}} @{PC Macros|classactioncustom1skill} Here's a completely generic macro to create ANY kind of attack you want with any weapon you want. Add a character sheet called "PC Macros" and give anyone using the macro permissions to edit it. Alternatively, they can change "PC Macros" at the end to their character name. However, I found that many, many prompt boxes doesn't flow well in the flurry of combat, so instead, I'd modify the above macro to cater to the attacks you will be doing that session. So for instance, if you have a lot of archers, replace all the fields with longbow stats! If you want something for spell with effects and saving throw DCs, I can write it up for ya too. ^.^ Also, I highly suggest checking out my other threads about macros, they are huge helps in learning how to do it yourself, as well as the Roll20 wiki. <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/2101003/5e-templ" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/2101003/5e-templ</a>... <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/1747672/post-you" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/1747672/post-you</a>... <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/2066624/post-you" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/2066624/post-you</a>... <a href="https://wiki.roll20.net/Macros" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.roll20.net/Macros</a>

The Aaron said: Yeah, I need to update it now that we can .remove() things. Not a huge deal, but it could be improved... =D Eagerly waiting... still waiting. :-)

Hahaha! I'll see if I can work it in...

Wow, thank you everyone for the super-helpful replies. I've spent a lot of time reading stuff on the forums now, and it's beginning to come together! I've been desperately resisting the temptation to wade in and start writing reams of javascript myself because that's probably a rabbit hole that I shouldn't get sucked down. It looks like the answer to my original question is probably a combination of custom Token Macros for attacks (or persuading Mark to include some more options for customising the output of the ones built into his sheet), TokenNameNumber and possibly also using Aaron's Mark script. Love the idea of creating characters for spells - that's neat!

Lucian H. said: I'm fairly new to Roll20 - I've been playing around with a 5e scenario to practice GMing before actually running a proper game. The particular scenario involves two groups of mooks fighting, and the players may join in on one side. I've been using the 5e shaped character sheet, along with the option to allow a target to be picked for attack rolls. One thing that has become pretty clear is that without a lot of very careful verbal signposting from me, the combat will be very hard to follow for the players, because there are a few visual indications of who is attacking whom, and the chat doesn't help much in this case either. I've added a few scripts which have improved things a bit: TokenNameNumber makes it easier to identify the mooks, and TurnTracker means it's clearer who's acting at any given point. But the chat outputs from the character sheet are still unhelpfully generic - they don't specify who attacked whom (ideally they would do so with Token Names to take advantage of the numbering thing), which makes looking back over the last couple of turns pretty imcomprehensible; and most importantly there's still no visual indication of who the target is for the players (or me, if the players are targeting someone). I can think of a number of possible approaches to solving this by using scripts and customising the character sheet actions, but I don't want to reinvent the wheel here. Are there some standard ways to deal with this that people use that amount to more than just saying in voice chat "I'm going for the one on the left"? I'm keen to have it as crystal clear as possible, since I'm pretty sure that there's going to be plenty enough confusion during our first session playing remotely as it is! Cheers, Lucian So I use a lot of Aaron's stuff very similar to the way he also uses it. Except Mark, I actually use Mark with the Shaped Character Sheet (The Sheet Author Mark) in his new weapon attacks actually has a spot for the Macro to run with every attack. So as long as the PC is using the Sheet "attack" or creates a Token Macro from it, it really helps out a lot.

Hi Greg, That's exactly what I decided to do in the end! It seems like the simplest and neatest solution. I've asked Mark if he'll consider adding a similar facility to the NPC version as well so it can be clear both ways... Cheers, Lucian

Lucian H. said: Hi Greg, That's exactly what I decided to do in the end! It seems like the simplest and neatest solution. I've asked Mark if he'll consider adding a similar facility to the NPC version as well so it can be clear both ways... Cheers, Lucian Cool, works well for me, not a bad idea if you have a lot of pc's very good idea to have the npc's marking as well.

Aaarg. My other half is logged in on Safari and I keep accidentally posting as her d'oh ( in case anyone was wondering about the sequence of deleted posts) Anyway, yeah, in my case the NPC thing is a particular problem because they don't just attack the PCs - which makes things extra confusing :-)

I would like to weigh in here with a non-API non-macro approach: As GM, I let my team take each wave of their attacks concurrently for the players, then then report by pinging the mooks that got damaged. I record that, then my mooks attack. I indicate who I am attacking by pinging the player's token. Since I am only one person, I must ping, attack, and report damage one person at a time. They are recording their damage while I move on to the other players. It works ok, but then I trust they are reporting accurately, and not cheating. There are so many different ways to cheat in the game that I don't even try to monitor it. Mostly, if they don't understand something, they ask about it. -Falsoon

For a purely tabletop visual indicators I would use the the color dots and icons (depending on how many mooks are involved). Say if Mook1 attacks Mook6 then I would mark each with a blue dot. There are seven dots so that is 14 paired Mooks in the fight. If I run out of dots I could use the status icons to match up the attacking/defending mooks. This way the players can look at the colored dots to easily see who is fighting whom. Not sure if an API would be able to generate these unique markers automatically though.

One definitely could. I'm no scriptomancer (yet), but marking tokens in pairs wouldn't be too difficult, I think.

It could, or at least more quickly. You could do it with TokenMod: !token-mod --set statusmarkers|+blue or !token-mod --set statusmarkers|+?{Which color: red blue green brown purple pink yellow|blue} First one sets blue on all selected tokens, second prompts for a color (default blue) then sets on all selected. You could also use the Status Indicator Numbers : !token-mod --set statusmarkers|+blue:1 !token-mod --set statusmarkers|+blue:2 That would give you 70 different pairs, and you could do that without the API as well.

To throw another solution onto the pile, I just added the ability to specify a token on which to center an animation in my Animation script. So you could do something like: !anim run sword_swing -T @{selected|token_id} !anim run blood_splatter -T @{target|badguy|token_id} /em smacks @{target|badguy|token_name} with a sword %{selected|sword_smack}