Measure Tool - 5e - Best Practice

I'm sorry in advance if this topic has been discussed before. I'm new to Roll20 and trying to understand the best practices for using the Measuring Tool with a 5e game. Is it proper to use the tool by setting it to center, setting it to corner, or not snapping it? My players and I are going back and forth on how to use the tool for our games, so I wanted to get other players' opinions.    

It's situational. I use snap from center when measuring distance for spells, ranged weapons, etc., snap to corner for drawing square areas of effect, and no snap for other miscellaneous measurements. It pretty much depends on how the game system that you're using determines distances. BKThomson said: I'm sorry in advance if this topic has been discussed before. I'm new to Roll20 and trying to understand the best practices for using the Measuring Tool with a 5e game. Is it proper to use the tool by setting it to center, setting it to corner, or not snapping it? My players and I are going back and forth on how to use the tool for our games, so I wanted to get other players' opinions.    

Interesting. I'm using D&D 5e. Rick A. said: It's situational. I use snap from center when measuring distance for spells, ranged weapons, etc., snap to corner for drawing square areas of effect, and no snap for other miscellaneous measurements. It pretty much depends on how the game system that you're using determines distances. BKThomson said: I'm sorry in advance if this topic has been discussed before. I'm new to Roll20 and trying to understand the best practices for using the Measuring Tool with a 5e game. Is it proper to use the tool by setting it to center, setting it to corner, or not snapping it? My players and I are going back and forth on how to use the tool for our games, so I wanted to get other players' opinions.    

Hi BKThomson, Using D&D 5e, when I measure distance I measure from center to center. When I am checking cover I use corner to corner. 

For 5e, when measuring spell area, you should start from a corner intersection.

keithcurtis said: For 5e, when measuring spell area, you should start from a corner intersection. Yup, I should clarify that I don't use the measurement tool for that, I have templates. 

Gauss said Using D&D 5e, when I measure distance I measure from center to center. When I am checking cover I use corner to corner.  Yup, I should clarify that I don't use the measurement tool for that, I have templates.  Same here, I also have created templates for various spell Areas of Effect (Let's not get into translating circular AOE's to a square grid-that's a whole different discussion). In reality about the only time that I use the measure tool is to verify ranges when firing weapons or casting spells. (In the group that I play with, it's assumed that characters proficient in distance weapons or spell casting know how to accurately estimate ranges) For movement, I hold down my right mouse button while moving a token so the distance moved is displayed and use the "Q" key to mark waypoints when changing direction. (I wish more of my players did that as well) As for cover, what Gauss stated is RAW for D&D 5e. Personally, since I use dynamic lighting in my games, I use CNTRL+L to inspect a tokens line of sight and assign 1/2, 3/4 or complete cover by how much of the target token is visible.

Gauss said: keithcurtis said: For 5e, when measuring spell area, you should start from a corner intersection. Yup, I should clarify that I don't use the measurement tool for that, I have templates.  That was a general usage measurement tool tip. It wasn't directed at anyone's practices, except to answer to BK's original question. I also use templates for spells.

Does anyone have a recommendation for templates to use?

For a very long time we used Owlbear Emporium Area of Effect template pack, all the templates in all the colours and all the sizes.  In practice we only really used red, orange or green, but YMMV.  Once we went Pro we started using SmartAoE and haven't looked back, this works perfectly to set up a template as a spell is cast etc but can also be very easily adapted to a script or Scriptcard (if you use them!) to generate templates on the fly. I prefer this now as it means I don't have to scroll through all the Owlbear templates when transmogging etc and I don't have all of those loaded in the journal, but like I said, Owlbear lasted us for many campaigns over several years

I was able to install the script and try to use it, but I think I'm just too dumb to understand how it works or why the tokens get buried under the AOE template. It looks great, and I'd love to use it, but even after looking through the Wiki, I don't think I understand enough. That is an excellent suggestion, though.  Simon G. said: For a very long time we used Owlbear Emporium Area of Effect template pack, all the templates in all the colours and all the sizes.  In practice we only really used red, orange or green, but YMMV.  Once we went Pro we started using SmartAoE and haven't looked back, this works perfectly to set up a template as a spell is cast etc but can also be very easily adapted to a script or Scriptcard (if you use them!) to generate templates on the fly. I prefer this now as it means I don't have to scroll through all the Owlbear templates when transmogging etc and I don't have all of those loaded in the journal, but like I said, Owlbear lasted us for many campaigns over several years

Once you have run the script you get a target sight token on the casting token, just drag it out where you want it and click the trigger token action button in the top left of your screen and it will activate, oh, and I nearly forgot, SmartAoE has a built in template generator too!

BKThomson said: I was able to install the script and try to use it, but I think I'm just too dumb to understand how it works or why the tokens get buried under the AOE template. It looks great, and I'd love to use it, but even after looking through the Wiki, I don't think I understand enough. I think the amazing Nick Olivo has an intro video that might help.