Area of Effect Templates for Spells

I would love to see ruler type templates that are based on the area effects of spells that we could just drop on top of the map to see who is affected, quick and easy.  Or select a template and drag it out from the casting position and see what it effects at that range.

Neat suggestion for a new ruler type for Roll20 tools, Wulfgaar. In the meantime to achieve a similar appearance, be sure to search the Roll20 Marketplace for 'spell effects' (link below), as there are many art-sets for sale with common spell shapes (circle, cube, cone) that you can drag onto the Roll20 tabletop and drag-it-out from the casting position to the appropriate range. What's extra cool about the Marketplace offerings is, they visually depict effects like fire, cold, acid, sound. Just last week in one of my games, the bullywug wizard casted an acidic circle against a group of giant rats. The green spell effect circle looked awesome and showed how many squares of rats were affected. Marketplace Spell Effects, <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/search/?keyw" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/search/?keyw</a>... Also, the free Roll20 built-in drawing tools can be used, to make a rectangle, square, oval, circle, of any color and can be dragged to any size. Wiki Docs for this, <a href="https://wiki.roll20.net/Drawing_Tools" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.roll20.net/Drawing_Tools</a>

Yea I looked at all that and sadly it doesn't meet what I am after, I am not after the effect as much as a template that speeds up combat by being able to show who is in the effect of a spell in one shot.

I'm following you. So the main problem with Drawing Tool is you don't want to drag-and-resize the circle each time, and also that it doesn't have a "Cone" shape built-in, is that the drawback on the drawing method? And likewise from the marketplace templates (which offers cones... that can be dragged to any size of your specification), the key is you would prefer not to drag-the-size to the appropriate radius, but instead have it produced immediately at the desired size. &nbsp;So the Suggestion is to add templates that can be dropped at pre-determined sizes, such as (example) 60' cone, or 20 foot radius circle, correct? Please add on as many details or screenshots of what you want, to explain the ideas, or correct me if there are variations from my interpretation. Other users may also propose ways of accomplishing this, such as with the Roll20 API. Even with alternative methods your suggestion is valid as a request for a core feature to be added.

You can actually do it by creating a sample character for the spell, with a visible aura. When the player casts that spell, you just put it on the table and ask him to position the AoE correctly. I acatually do it on my games.

Yes that is one option that would be fantastic having preset templates at the appropriate sizes. &nbsp;The other option would be to have a template per shape that you can drag to the desired length in the direction you are casting and it "spreads out" in the shape of the template, ie cone. &nbsp;What I really like are the wire templates for tabletop that you can drop on top of a battle to see who is hit. &nbsp;I guess those wire templates are ultimately what I would like to see recreated because they are so fast and easy. &nbsp;I wouldn't want it to have an effect on it, just a defined outline, and I would want it to follow the grid shapes like the tabletop ones do. &nbsp;Something like these: The lines would probably be unnecessary because the current ruler feature pretty much can do that one effectively.

Thanks for the picture and additional description, Wulfgaar. Compared to the current Marketplace offerings, the graphic shoiuld conform to the shape of the square grid,&nbsp; the wireframe shape should be grey or black with transparency, or one-color rather than a visual colorful spell effect. This is a good, interesting suggestion for Roll20 core Tools. My next question is, what if someone makes this in the Marketplace? Would a one-time purchase be an ok solution? Asking because it might be a fast route to recruit/suggest/request this from a Market artist.

Actually going to a marketplace artist might be a good solution for static "wireframe" style because depending on how its done it can be rather specific to one game. &nbsp;I was just hoping it could be something that could be grabbed from the toolbar just for speed reasons. &nbsp;Ultimately it would be cool if it was something that could be dragged from spell origin to target/range of the spell and it forms that shape, this is what made me mention using a variation of the ruler feature earlier. If a marketplace artist does do it, I personally would prefer a different color than black or grey because my grids are those colors.

I think a way to do this that would be great is: Hold shift down while dragging artwork over onto the map, and when you do that popup a textbox asking what radius the token should appear as. this could be the same exact popup as the Set Dimensions uses For instance in Pathfinder or d20: if I drag art for a 15' cone, instead of having to make fake characters like Leonardo says, just search "cone 15" under tokens. Then grab one, hold shift as I drag it onto the map, and before placing it pops up the set dimensions dialog. &nbsp;I put "3 units" as the diameter, and then the token is placed on the map, 3x3 units in size, instead of 1x1. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wulfgaar:&nbsp;like Leonardo said, the way to do it now is you drop the area effect on the map, size it correctly hit&nbsp;"new character" on the Journal tab Click on the area effect you created and on the character click on "use current selection" for token. Set it to be usable by All Players and name it "20' rad circle" or something and hit save Now any player can drag that onto the map and bam it is instantly sized. You have to do this even for the marketplace art, if you want it to be instant when you drag it onto the map. But once it's done it's done. Of course this takes awhile to setup for all possible circles and cones esp if you want different colors. I use PNGs I created that are semi transparent. Lots of the marketplace ones are full opacity which doesn't work well. (edit: I just realized if I put a token To Back before making it default, it will appear in the back when I drag it out) The only problem for one size fits all in roll20 is different games use slightly different templates.&nbsp;

+1 for this from me! I NEEEEED TEMPLATES!!!! D: D: D:&nbsp;

+1 from me, would love to see this gain traction

Similarly, I think this would be a great feature.

+1 from me also

You've got my vote. &nbsp;I do use tokens for this but on grid-enabled maps they snap and I have to resize them so it's not as grab-n-go as I would like.

I actually would like the ability to save something drawn with Roll20's drawing tools as a token. That way you could draw out whatever effect area and shape you want, using whatever colours you want, save it as a token and then drag it back onto the screen as needed.

Any update here? This would be an great feature for roll20 community.

The tool should highlight grid squares that have &gt;=50% coverage by the spell. &nbsp;Circles are simple and are always the same pattern for a given radius but cones are tricky and have a huge variety if not limited to being fired on the 8 45-degree angle directions - I'd love a tool for that.

Has there been any progress on this? This would be like, the number one feature to make Roll20 the perfect app for me.&nbsp;

christopher b. said: Has there been any progress on this? This would be like, the number one feature to make Roll20 the perfect app for me.&nbsp; You can use dungeon painter Studio to make your own templates for this. I have 6 I made for these. If you make your own, use a right color so it shows up well. I used Line Draw and object heptagon for the center point.

Adding my upvote, it would speed spell and explosion resolution in play. It would also be nice to have other area templates for other game systems like Hero and GURPS too.

I absolutely upvote this, really needed! Leonardo Raele I said: You can actually do it by creating a sample character for the spell, with a visible aura. When the player casts that spell, you just put it on the table and ask him to position the AoE correctly. I acatually do it on my games. this is doable only with circle/sphere template spell and it's not even correct, as the token is counted as a dot in the radius, so the radius increases by 1.

This would be perfect, I need this so much!

This would be 100% more effective than the "shoot poor gfx all over your screen" tool that already exists. :^)

Any progress here? Right now use spell effects bought from the marketplace, give them the correct size and create a character for them. While this is ok for one game, it gets quite time consuming to transfer all those characters between multiple games using the character vault. Some kind of private compendium would be nice where you can create such characters for all your games.

for everyone just search word fire in game the free assets has all the shapes. just make permanent character sheets for them or a token page u can steal from after u size them

Here's an example of what I did for templates... these are based off the Star Wars d20 Saga Edition (and I think DnD 3.5 as well) cones. You just drop them as tokens and resize/rotate as needed (note the actual size is larger than what you see here so that they snap to grid when you resize them). If I re-invented the wheel here, apologies. Feel free to steal in any event.

+1. Absolutely need this.

+1 for this!

+1 here, would be great if this was actually done.

I think this would be best implemented as a toolbox tool. 1. Click at the origin point and drag in the desired direction. Distance would be displayed as it is with the ruler tool. 2. While holding the drag at the desired distance, tap a key to toggle between line, cone, circle. The targeted squares would highlight. Here's a mockup of what I imagine:

@Jay R. that is a great idea, maybe this is something you should email the devs about to see if they could add it to the next update.

+1

+1

Jay R. said: I think this would be best implemented as a toolbox tool. 1. Click at the origin point and drag in the desired direction. Distance would be displayed as it is with the ruler tool. 2. While holding the drag at the desired distance, tap a key to toggle between line, cone, circle. The targeted squares would highlight. Here's a mockup of what I imagine: That is exactly we all want, i prefer submenu on the magic wand to choose the type of form

+1 Puhleeaaase! (and thank-you! :))

I would add a square as well. The excellent example Jay provided has a line, a cone, and a circle (sphere). I'd ask to add a square as well.&nbsp; Long term the ability to then also add a marker to the effect that is a counter for how many rounds it is in effect would be nice. Tie that into the round tracker in some way so that it ticks down as the rounds go by. You'd need to have the ability to make the marker visible or invisible to the players so that they can see their spells lengths, but not necessarily the others.&nbsp;

Jay R. said: I think this would be best implemented as a toolbox tool. 1. Click at the origin point and drag in the desired direction. Distance would be displayed as it is with the ruler tool. 2. While holding the drag at the desired distance, tap a key to toggle between line, cone, circle. The targeted squares would highlight. Here's a mockup of what I imagine: +1 This is exactly how I imagined it would be!

+1&nbsp; Great idea.&nbsp; &nbsp; Jay R. said: I think this would be best implemented as a toolbox tool. 1. Click at the origin point and drag in the desired direction. Distance would be displayed as it is with the ruler tool. 2. While holding the drag at the desired distance, tap a key to toggle between line, cone, circle. The targeted squares would highlight. Here's a mockup of what I imagine:

For this to be truely useful if added, and I hope they do, the devs would have to set these templates to center on a grid intersection. PF spell effects are always start on a grid intersection. The current programming for ranges are based upon the token's center.

I would think to maintain Roll20's broad support of many games, there would be an option (like with the Ruler) to snap to corners, snap to the center, or not snap at all. When you talk about ranges snapping to center, are you talking the Ruler? If so, you can change that to snap to corners.

yes please

OMG, This would make so many of my games easier, not just as a player, but as a DM, with so many things to keep track of, this would be soooooo nice. +1

Rabulias said: I would think to maintain Roll20's broad support of many games, there would be an option (like with the Ruler) to snap to corners, snap to the center, or not snap at all. When you talk about ranges snapping to center, are you talking the Ruler? If so, you can change that to snap to corners. And it would need to work with the hex grid as well.

Jay R. said: I think this would be best implemented as a toolbox tool. 1. Click at the origin point and drag in the desired direction. Distance would be displayed as it is with the ruler tool. 2. While holding the drag at the desired distance, tap a key to toggle between line, cone, circle. The targeted squares would highlight. Here's a mockup of what I imagine: +1 YES, please!!!

This gets my vote, would love to have something like this built in! That said... here's a work-around I use when using the D&amp;D 5e OGL sheet: Create a new character sheet Name it the relevant spell Create a token (I use something that looks like the spell - e.g. a sphere of fire for a fireball) Size the token correctly for the spell Set it as both the Default Token and Avatar for the spell Give "journal" and "controlled by" permissions to characters that can cast the spell Profit The end result is that characters that can cast the spell are able to drag it from the journal to the map as needed and position it appropriately.

That seems like a clunky workaround.&nbsp; &nbsp;I hate trying to access character sheets sometimes because they sometimes have a 30+sec load time.

It works really well, just make sure you do this bit: Francesco said: Give "journal" and "controlled by" permissions to characters that can cast the spell It's less work for the DM, as the player just drags it out themselves. They don't even need to open the character sheet. Throw them in a subfolder and you never even have to look at them as DM. Players have so little going on in between combat turns, and very little going on in the Journal (compared to the DM) that it works very well. Players can also delete the token afterwards. It's also saved as a character, so you can export to all your other games, once per spell effect. Really excellent workaround IMO!

+1 I need this ASAP

Kraynic said: Rabulias said: I would think to maintain Roll20's broad support of many games, there would be an option (like with the Ruler) to snap to corners, snap to the center, or not snap at all. When you talk about ranges snapping to center, are you talking the Ruler? If so, you can change that to snap to corners. And it would need to work with the hex grid as well. Yes - +1 overall, but also +1 for Hex Grid support not getting forgotten