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Initiative Rolling: Forgot to select a token? We'll help with that now.

Hey everyone, We just released an update to the way that Initiative Rolling works when rolling from a Character Sheet on the VTT. Previously, you might have seen the dreaded error: ...then been forced to have your player re-roll while selecting their token first, or had to find their token yourself to add it to the Turn Tracker manually and enter their Initiative value. Annoying and slows down gameplay for sure. Today, we're introducing a new feature where if you roll Initiative from a character sheet, and you forget to select the token first, we'll look for a token that represents that Character that you control on the current page. If we find one, we'll assume that you meant to select it first, and use that as your selected token for the roll. This should largely be transparent to your players, but should result in fewer "D'oh! I forgot to select my token!" moments during your games.  Note that this auto-selection behavior only works currently if you use the roll button on a sheet -- it won't work if you've placed the Initiative button for a character in your macro quick bar. You can still select the token yourself in that case and get the same behavior as before. Finally, if you do select a token before doing the roll, that will always take precedence. Let us know if this helps you and your players have a smoother game experience!
< Thunderous Applause >
1693253543
The Aaron
Roll20 Production Team
API Scripter
That's pretty neat!  Is that for any character sheet, or just specific character sheets?
It should in theory work for any sheet that uses roll buttons and the &{tracker} stuff in the roll. There might be something with sheet workers that doesn't work currently but if you find a sheet where it's not working just let me know and we'll take a look.
1693254292
The Aaron
Roll20 Production Team
API Scripter
Very cool!
1693262011

Edited 1693262113
vÍnce
Pro
Sheet Author
Nice addition.  I know this is aimed at player's that control only a single sheet/token, but there may be a bug when controlling multiple sheets/tokens; token A token B Roll Initiative from Token A's linked sheet while Token B is selected. Token B is added to the tracker, not Token A. (fyi: only checked on Pathfinder Community Sheet. YMMV)
1693262019
Gauss
Forum Champion
Excellent update!
1693263502
The Aaron
Roll20 Production Team
API Scripter
vÍnce said: Nice addition.  I know this is aimed at player's that control only a single sheet/token, but there may be a bug when controlling multiple sheets/tokens; token A token B Roll Initiative from Token A's linked sheet while Token B is selected. Token B is added to the tracker, not Token A. (fyi: only checked on Pathfinder Community Sheet. YMMV) I'm going to guess that's expected behavior.  You've always been able to select any graphic and roll it into the turn order with any character sheet (or &{tracker} macro) regardless of what character (if any) it represents.
1693265730
vÍnce
Pro
Sheet Author
The Aaron said: vÍnce said: Nice addition.  I know this is aimed at player's that control only a single sheet/token, but there may be a bug when controlling multiple sheets/tokens; token A token B Roll Initiative from Token A's linked sheet while Token B is selected. Token B is added to the tracker, not Token A. (fyi: only checked on Pathfinder Community Sheet. YMMV) I'm going to guess that's expected behavior.  You've always been able to select any graphic and roll it into the turn order with any character sheet (or &{tracker} macro) regardless of what character (if any) it represents. You're probably right Aaron (only 99.999% of the time)... ;-P Not disagreeing, just thinking out loud; the init macro on the PF sheet doesn't use "selected", so wouldn't the vtt need to use the sheet to determine the roll's origination and in turn use the sheet's linked token?
1693290100
Pat
Pro
API Scripter
...I'd shortcutted around this by putting the roll initiative as a token button for my players ... kind of requiring the behavior to roll, so it shouldn't negatively affect my games. 
1693330272
Peter B.
Pro
Sheet Author
vÍnce said: Nice addition.  I know this is aimed at player's that control only a single sheet/token, but there may be a bug when controlling multiple sheets/tokens; token A token B Roll Initiative from Token A's linked sheet while Token B is selected. Token B is added to the tracker, not Token A. (fyi: only checked on Pathfinder Community Sheet. YMMV) This is exactly how it has always worked. In my games I control two sheets and tokens. Sometimes if they both need to do a flat initiative with no modifiers I just use the same character sheet to do the roll instead of opening the other one.
1693330357
Peter B.
Pro
Sheet Author
Riley D. said: Hey everyone, We just released an update to the way that Initiative Rolling works when rolling from a Character Sheet on the VTT. Previously, you might have seen the dreaded error: ...then been forced to have your player re-roll while selecting their token first, or had to find their token yourself to add it to the Turn Tracker manually and enter their Initiative value. Annoying and slows down gameplay for sure. Today, we're introducing a new feature where if you roll Initiative from a character sheet, and you forget to select the token first, we'll look for a token that represents that Character that you control on the current page. If we find one, we'll assume that you meant to select it first, and use that as your selected token for the roll. This should largely be transparent to your players, but should result in fewer "D'oh! I forgot to select my token!" moments during your games.  Note that this auto-selection behavior only works currently if you use the roll button on a sheet -- it won't work if you've placed the Initiative button for a character in your macro quick bar. You can still select the token yourself in that case and get the same behavior as before. Finally, if you do select a token before doing the roll, that will always take precedence. Let us know if this helps you and your players have a smoother game experience! Absolutely freaking amazing! This is probably one of the best changes that have been missing for like... 3000 years! Good job on finally getting it into the sheet! The fact that we still need a token on the page is still a bit limiting but this change is still 1000x better than how it worked before! I am looking forward to my game tonight!
To be clear, this only will work with the initiative on a Roll20 character sheet itself, and not if players are using Beyond20, right?
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Edited 1693334526
Kaellie said: To be clear, this only will work with the initiative on a Roll20 character sheet itself, and not if players are using Beyond20, right? Correct. Beyond20 has no direct interaction with the buttons on Roll20 character sheets at all. (Though I believe it may reference some attributes.)
1693335428
vÍnce
Pro
Sheet Author
Peter B. said: vÍnce said: Nice addition.  I know this is aimed at player's that control only a single sheet/token, but there may be a bug when controlling multiple sheets/tokens; token A token B Roll Initiative from Token A's linked sheet while Token B is selected. Token B is added to the tracker, not Token A. (fyi: only checked on Pathfinder Community Sheet. YMMV) This is exactly how it has always worked. In my games I control two sheets and tokens. Sometimes if they both need to do a flat initiative with no modifiers I just use the same character sheet to do the roll instead of opening the other one. Thanks Peter... and The Aaron (improved to 99.9999%).  ;-P
alleluiah !!!! common sense decision !
Does this only work with certain sheets or need to be activated? I attempted in my game with the Fantasy AGE sheet but didn't work.