What's The Difference Between Abilities Macros and Macros Under the Macros Header? I'm Confused.

The title sums it up.  I don't understand the difference and why you'd choose one location over the other.  I saw a video saying the macros in the attributes and abilites are where you do token linked marcros, but I'm so new with this business that I'm having trouble sorting it all out.  Thanks!

This gets complicated... Macros appear in the Macro Quick Bar, shown below the player icons. Macros can come from either the Collections section (Macros) or the Abilities section of a character sheet. Token Actions are something else; they appear at the top of the screen when a token with Token Actions is selected. They generally come from the Abilities section of a character sheet, but can come from the Collections section. Either one can use any code. It is the use of them that determines what you will use. For example: I have a "Ready" check button set as a macro. This outputs a request into chat for my players to indicate they're ready to start the game. This is used regardless of whatever else I might be doing as a GM, so it's always visible. However, as GM, I have dozens if not hundreds of monsters, NPC, and other things, each with their own abilities specific to them. For this, I set up Token Actions, which only appear when that particular token is selected. Either one can be 'linked' to a specific character sheet, or can simply have text. It depends on the specific use for a certain macro where I have it. Hope that helps? -Phnord

Some differences: Scope: Collections macros are campaign wide. Depending on the specifics, many characters can use them. A Collections macro saved with the Token Action toggle will create a token action button for any token on the board when it is selected. Abilities are character-specific. They can be used by anyone who has edit control over the character, and by default reference the character upon whom they are built. However, they can be written so that they will affect a wide variety of tokens and characters, using calls like @{selected} and @{target}. However, token actions created on a character will only show up for tokens that represent that character. Portability: Without some strong API help, a macro built in a collection is tied to the campaign. You need to re-write it into any other campaign. Abilities travel with the character. If you have the character vault or the transmogrifier, you can move the macros with the character. Ease of coding: Collections macros have frequent difficulties with html entities, replacing certain characters whenever they are saved, which can make them difficult to edit. This may or may not be a problem depending upon what you actually do with them. Generally, html replacements are only a problem with macros that rely heavily on roll templates or queries, particularly in conjunction. Ability Macros have fewer problems with html replacements, and are simpler to write and do calls for. That is a very light overview of some of the major differences and why you would use one over the other. I reserve the right to be subsequently corrected then go back and edit my post and pretend that's what I meant all along. :)

Here is a simple explanation: A macro is universal, and can apply to or be used by any character. An ability is just a macro, but it's limited to the character it's attached to. To illustrate how macros and abilities are the same thing, you could create one of each, and put the following text in both: /roll 1d20+5 When you click the macro button, or the ability button, the same thing will happen. However, macros are most useful when you use a stat from a character. Say you wanted to make an attack roll using characters STR attribute. Your first attempt at creating that macro would probably look something like /roll 1d20+@{STR} If you put that in the Ability of a character, it will work fine.  If you put it in a universal macro, it will fail, because you probably have multiple characters in your campaign, and the macro needs to know which one it applies to. You can put the name of a character in the call, like /roll 1d20+@{Frodo|STR} and that will work, it will always use Frodo's STR attribute. But its pretty pointless making that macro, because it only works for one character. You are better off making that an Ability on Frodo's character sheet, and then you don't need the Frodo| part, the original macro works. However, you can also use selected  or target  identifiers. Like so /roll 1d20+@{selected|STR} For this to work, you must have a token selected, and that token must be linked to a character sheet. Then when you run the macro, it will automatically use the STR attribute of the current character. This is a perfect macro for the Universal macros section. Using selected or target, you can set up generic macros that work for any character. Note: Target works the same way, except it will prompt you to pick a target token after you run it.  So in summary, macros and abilities are basically the same thing . But Abilities allow you to make macros tailored to a specific character without cluttering the universal macro list, and universal macros allow you to make general purpose macros you can use, well, generally. Now there are some technical differences between them that others have covered, but this should help you grasp the conceptual differences between them.