Lancer "Must Have" Macros, APIs, addons, etc.

Hi, i am starting a Lancer campaign with my friend and i would like your suggestions about what Macros or APIs helped you run the game. I myself don´t have API access but i assume other people reading this might find your ideas helpfull.

A particular problem i currently have is trying to give the players a macro that shows their talents in a easy way.

For example i have a macro that shows the Skirmisher Talent Rank 1 and one that shows the Infiltrator Talent Rank 1:

• &{template:lancer} {{name=SKIRMISHER}} {{tags=Rank I - Integrated Chaff Launchers}} {{effect=At the start of your turn, you gain soft cover. You lose this cover if you attack or force another character to make a save.}}
• &{template:lancer} {{name=INFILTRATOR}} {{tags=Rank I - Prowl}} {{effect=During your turn, gain the following benefits:
  -   Entering line of sight of hostile characters or moving from cover does not stop you from being Hidden.
  -   You can pass freely through, but not end your turn in, enemy spaces.
  -   You can Hide even in plain sight of enemies.
  These effects immediately end when your turn ends (so you lose Hidden if you’re still in line of sight or out of cover at that time).}}

Is it possible to make a macro that lets the players choose one of the two talent macros and then display the template in chat?

Yes... though because you have query-control characters in each of the commands, you're either going to have to use HTML replacements, or you're going to have to use a Chat Menu.

Typically, you offer a choice to the player by presenting them with a roll query:

?{Pick one|Red,ff0000|Blue,0000ff}

The comma, vertical pipe, and right brace all tell the query parser that it's moving into a new portion of the query (the data is about to represent something new). So, if you *don't want* your commas, vertical pipes, and right braces to impact the query, you have to replace them with their HTML counterparts. The issue is that if you include a macro, attribute, or ability in a query, it gets expanded before the query resolves (as discussed in the wiki article Order of Operations). So your macro command of:

&{template:lancer} {{name=SKIRMISHER}} {{tags=Rank I - Integrated Chaff Launchers}} {{effect=At the start of your turn, you gain soft cover. You lose this cover if you attack or force another character to make a save.}}

...will become a part of the query, and all of the commas and right braces will doink with the query structure.

The downside of using HTML Replacement approach is that to make it work, you would replace the query control characters in your embedded macro, but that would make the embedded macro NOT WORK except for when it was processed through a query. You could no longer just click on it from the character sheet or reference it with its #MacroName or %{CharacterName|AbilityName}.

The benefit of using a chat menu approach is that you don't have to alter the source/sub commands, and you're still making the same number of clicks. If you were using Collection Tab macros, and if those macros were named:

• ShowSkirmisher1
• ShowInfiltrator1
• ShowBellyDancer1

...then a chat menu might look like:

&{template:default} {{name=Choose Talent}} {{Talents=[Skirmisher 1](!
#ShowSkirmisher1)%NEWLINE%[Infiltrator 1](!
#ShowInfiltrator1)%NEWLINE%[Belly Dancer 1](!
#ShowBellyDancer1) }}

Thank you very much. That methode works for me :)

You may also want to set this up to whisper the menu to the relevant character - the simplest way is, if the menu is stored on the character sheet of the character whose talents are contained within, to start the line with ^{/w "@{character_name}"}. Also, are you using the character sheets on Roll20 (I know a lot of people prefer to have their character sheets on COMP/CON)? If you are, there's a way to set this up dynamically, so that the buttons and their contents are loaded from the character sheet, without needing to set it up specifically for the character.

Thanks for the tip. Some of my players use their COMP/CON character sheets to keep track of of abilities and HP and such. Others like to mainly use their Roll20 sheet. Since we are all new, i set up a small companium on roll20 for tags, conditions and terms. I also use macros to manage my enemies abilities since i only have one monitor and hate shifting through multible notes and character sheets.