Token Overlays

Hi Roll20 team! I first of all would like to thank you for the great tool you have here, as it has allowed me to pursue my D&D wishes across great distances with people I have met all over the world. Me sitting at my PC in the USA and playing with people from Australia and places far on the other side of the US has made this a great tool at my disposal. These things being said I wanted to ask a minor question about tokens. I love to use overlays to represent status effects, and my favorites are hennebeck's token overlays which can be found at RPTools.net. The way these work is that they are a transparent overlay that sits above the token effected by the status. For example if the target is bloodied, I use an overlay called "Bloodied" that adds a red tint to the player token and has a blood drop in the lower right quadrant. Here is where my one gripe with Roll20 comes into play. I can drag this overlay onto the token layer, but I have no way to merge/group it with the token without the token losing all of it's properties, or without me having to move all my overlays myself each time a player/npc/monster moves. So my suggestion is this, create a way to group tokens without them losing their token properties in the group, or add a category to the tokens called overlays, which would allow us to set a token as an overlay which we could toggle on and off with either a check mark or box. This would allow people like me to use the overlay with minimal hassle, and each DM could essentially create his own overlays/statuses/marks and label them as such at his own disposal. These overlays would automatically size themselves to match the token size and follow the token around, as they would be bound to the token. I think this also kind of goes with other players need to have tokens that represent multiple things. as if this could begin, we could also have changeable tokens that could represent a shapeshifter or lycanthrope. As it could be represented by overlay with no transparency, and would just fall right on top of the token that is already there. Thanks for reading the long post, I will wait around a bit to see what other think of this idea, and once again, thank you Roll20 Team!

Alt+clicking on the token will allow you to access the topmost token properties normally. - Gauss

I understand that Alt+clicking shows the topmost tokens properties, but that doesn't apply to overlays, as they should be shown on the topmost layer anyhow, i.e the player token gets buried under the tokens showing statuses. plus, the overlay tokens are transparent, and won't show up if set behind the player token, which is not transparent at all. Thanks for pointing that out though Gauss.

BTW, thank you for the suggestion. :) You can make the overlay have the same stats as the players other token. Link it to the Character sheet and it will have the same hps etc as the player's main token. It would be a bit of work but it is doable. - Gauss

Ahh, I see, but if I 5 players I would essentially have to create 5 different tokens for each status, I think this is what you are getting at. I could use this as a work around in the meantime but is a lot of work considering the multitude of statuses in my chosen P&P format. Plus, it would be pretty difficult to find these particular tokens on the fly and quickly, as I would have to name each token as "Playername Dazed" for example, then drag the token onto the field then merge them, then when the effect ends unmerge to delete the token. not quite as clean as the example I stated in the OP, but it could work with minor hassles.

Agreed, it wouldnt be easy for something like that. Have you tried tinting? - Gauss

Tinting is something I just recently found and I have been using it to some extent. For example, I use the red integrated mark for bloodied, blue for slowed/prone, and orange for ongoing damage. The tint is very much like the overlays I use, minus the small graphics like a blooddrop, or blue foot that shows you are slowed. For the most part I would say 85% of the time, the integrated marks are ok, but I find that sometimes as a DM these marks are easy to overlook, and I have forgotten about combat penalties, missed saves, and things like that. I think that overlays make it much easier to track exactly which statuses are in effect on the fly. I will definately play with tinting a bit more, as it essentially gives me one more "mark" to work with.

Hmmm, you could try bonus cards. Make up a deck of cards to list bonuses. You can create your own in Paint. - Gauss

Like that idea, I'm going to try it out.

I do miss the status effect graphics I created for use in MapTool. It would be nice to have a way to show these somehow. Maybe a right click option to add/remove an effect that only shows up when you mouseover or select a token.