5E OGL vs Shaped Sheet

Folks, I need your viewpoint.  (hopefully from those who have used both sheets if possible) If I tend to play purchased modules in 5E, which already come set up for the OGL Sheet, should I just play my games with that sheet in order to cut down on a lot of setup time?  What would I be losing out on by using the OGL sheet instead of the Shaped sheet?  I ask because I don't have lots of time for prep, so having to fix all the tokens and character sheets to work with Shaped does not appeal to me, but I wonder if the OGL is lacking something I am really going to miss if I leave the Shaped sheet.  Your pertinent thoughts would be appreciated.

Shaped converts the OGL format. The only thing you should have to do is open the sheet once. If you want token macros you can set those up via !shaped-config and then run !shaped-apply-defaults for each creature. I'll leave the experiences up to others, but thought that should be clarified.

The biggest reason for me to use the Shaped sheet is the ability to easily import monsters from a statblock.  That makes my setup time as a DM a whole lot easier.  If you do use Shaped, though, since you're a Pro, I would follow Kryx's advice and NOT use the one-click option, but rather get the latest stable version from Github and set it up as a custom sheet.  Kryx is always developing and upgrading the sheet, which is great, but if you have some breaking changes that happen the day of a game, it can mess up your day.  When you use it as a custom sheet, you get to decide when to upgrade.

yes, I use the custom version.  I just was thinking that perhaps I would be better off using OGL since I wouldn't have to worry about conversions working.  Everything would already be set up for me.  I'm just looking for what I may be giving up by going for the easy road.  Since I purchased the Monster Manual and Volos Guide I have not actually needed any importing.  I use pre set adventures mostly and they all seem to have monsters and tokens and such all ready to go so I have never needed to import any monsters.

Gozer the Gozerian said: Kryx is always developing and upgrading the sheet, which is great, but if you have some breaking changes that happen the day of a game, it can mess up your day.  When you use it as a custom sheet, you get to decide when to upgrade. I never push an untested version to Roll20. I usually wait about 2 weeks to 2 months depending on the severity of the changes and how much users are testing the new versions. That said I'd recommend running it yourself. @Omega: If you don't want to use Shaped then that's a fine choice.

Another huge advantage to using Shaped if you are a Pro subscriber, is the ability to expand spells on a sheet. If you drag a creature from the compendium, or are using a module, they come in with only a list of spells, not the actual functioning spells. The Shaped Companion allows you to expand that list into full-featured spells. If you are worried about campaign overhead, then you can remove them all with another command when you know you won't be using the creature. AFAIK, this is not a feature of the OGL sheet, although there has been talk of it.

The only issue I have with Shaped and purchased modules is the tokens on the maps. The sheet converts just fine, but I use different token bars for HP, AC, etc than the default, and I also number them so there is the extra step of token adjustment and replacing the existing tokens on the map. If you want all the features of the Shaped sheet but low prep time, just use the default token bars and you're golden.

> The only issue I have with Shaped and purchased modules is the tokens on the maps. Yeah same here, but I've decided to not fight that. Going forward, I'm Bar1 for HP, Bar2 for AC, and Bar3 empty (temp hp on PCs). I want less prep, and I don't need to fight the OGL defaults. My players adjusted in minutes to HP being green instead of red. I like Shaped because of the additional features it gives me, particularly with API support. It makes my prep faster, my games easier to run. The new mouseover on spells is my favorite feature in a year. Oh, and it supports common houserules. For me, Shaped all the way. That said, OGL is just fine.

Yeah, I just decided not to fight the default token bars as well.  Okay, so how do you get it to convert the attacks of tokens from Princes of the Apoc OGL?  When I open the NPCs the attacks are NOT attacks.  They are just set dmg.  I have to open each character and click the ATTACK box and set it up for each one.  That's just too crazy for me.

@Omegaman, PoC creature attack import is fixed in Shaped 17.0.6. See&nbsp;<a href="https://github.com/mlenser/roll20-character-sheets/blob/master/5eShaped/changelog.md" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/mlenser/roll20-character-sheets/blob/master/5eShaped/changelog.md</a> . So if you're on that or anything after, they should convert just fine.

Thorsten B. said: Yeah same here, but I've decided to not fight that. Going forward, I'm Bar1 for HP, Bar2 for AC, and Bar3 empty (temp hp on PCs). I want less prep, and I don't need to fight the OGL defaults. My players adjusted in minutes to HP being green instead of red. Not to derail the thread, but you can also change the colors of the default bars and make bar 1 red, if you want.&nbsp; That's what I did in my game.&nbsp; Bar 1 is HP, and it's red.

Guys, thank you very much for your input.&nbsp; I really appreciate it.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Thorsten B. said: &gt;&nbsp;The only issue I have with Shaped and purchased modules is the tokens on the maps. Yeah same here, but I've decided to not fight that. Going forward, I'm Bar1 for HP, Bar2 for AC, and Bar3 empty (temp hp on PCs). I want less prep, and I don't need to fight the OGL defaults. My players adjusted in minutes to HP being green instead of red. I like Shaped because of the additional features it gives me, particularly with API support. It makes my prep faster, my games easier to run. The new mouseover on spells is my favorite feature in a year. Oh, and it supports common houserules. For me, Shaped all the way. That said, OGL is just fine. You can change the color of the bars as game creator

Ahh, change the bar colors?&nbsp; How would we go about doing that?&nbsp; Also, can you change the BUBBLE color as well or just the BARS?&nbsp; I tend to not show bars to my PCs but we all see the BUBBLE colors.&nbsp; Can we alter that?

Omegaman said: Ahh, change the bar colors?&nbsp; How would we go about doing that?&nbsp; Also, can you change the BUBBLE color as well or just the BARS?&nbsp; I tend to not show bars to my PCs but we all see the BUBBLE colors.&nbsp; Can we alter that? AFAIK Bars/Bubbles share their colors. from the sidebar

Found it thanks.&nbsp; Can't believe I never paid attention to that before.

The shaped sheet is great for the DM for all the reasons people listed above. However, your spell casters are going to be very irritated with how much time it takes to just open their character sheet. I have been running a high level game and the wizards character takes well over a minute to load. The more spells, the longer it takes. Also, in my experience, new players have a harder time learning how to use the shaped sheet compared to the OGL.

I made a macro for my player's wizard to keep their spell list as just a list. They can run the macro and load only the spells they have memorized. It's a little rough, but I plan to share the spreadsheet that parses it all when I'm done. It makes the sheet much zippier.

I'm waitin', I'm waitin'.............&nbsp; :-)

Huh, I'd forget me own 'ead.&nbsp; I already did post it .

Bodie said: I have been running a high level game and the wizards character takes well over a minute to load. Do you have LastPass installed?