Decision branching in Macro/new roll mechanic for DSA/The dark eye

Hello, I was asked to repost so here it is ;) I am currently new and checking out the possibilities of ROLL20 for me and my group as we are playing for quite some time over the net now and we need something more professional. We are playing a DSA /The dark eye a very popular system in germany (it's the german D&D so to say) ;). As it is a very popular system I included it in the subject so any player of that system could give his input if he sees this post. I took a look at the macro dice roll possibilities but it seems to me to be insufficient to generate the dice rolls this specific system needs (as there is no recursion or better said decision making possibility). Does the API for mentor give you these possibilities? To make an example of what would be needed: Ability rolls are allways made on 3 attributes (1-20 range) with 3d20. If a roll is higher than the attribute you can use your ability score to lower the die roll to get a success. Your remaining ability score drops by the amount of used points. If you score 3 successes your ability roll was a success and you also potentially want to know how much of your ability score remains. Example: Attribute: Strenght 14, Agility 12 Ability: Climbing 6 Ability Roll for climbing Strength, Strength, Agility You Roll 12, 15, 15 so you use up 0+1+3 of your ability score of 6 for a reminder of 2. Your ability roll was a success and you also have 2 points left over. If your DM would have put a penalty of 3 points on your ability roll then your climbing score would have been reduced by 3 before your roll and the ability roll would have been a failure because your last roll would have failed. As I said I am new but it seems to me the currently implemented roll mechanics would not allow for this as I am not able to make a IF decision during execution of a macro. Am I wrong or going in the wrong direction? Also what would be needed to implement this? Thanks! Added as information about the system: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Eye" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Eye</a>

The API can probably do this. I would ask the API forum.

I was not sure to point him in that direction as he is at the free account level and did not indicate an interest in purchasing a subscription level yet so I just asked him to repost here in this forum.

This question came up not long ago; you might be able to find the topic with some clever searching. In any case, the net result is to just formulate the roll exactly as you describe it: subtract the rolls from the ability (just do it all at once). The missing piece is that you'll want to use the "kh" dice syntax to make sure that what you're subtracting from the ability isn't less than zero. In general, it'll look like: /r @{ability} - {1d20 - @{attr_1}, 0d1}kh1 - {1d20 - @{attr_2}, 0d1}kh1 - {1d20 - @{attr_3}, 0d1}kh1 If any roll is less than or equal to the associated attribute, (roll-attr) will be less than or equal to zero, and the whole term will be reduced to zero. Otherwise, the term will reduce to (roll-attr), which will subtract the margin of failure from the ability. The result of the whole roll is your margin of success (or failure, if it's zero or less).

Hi Gauss, hi Pat, thank you very much. As the API seems to be a JS derivate and fully fledged programming language indeed it seems possible to implement it that way - but ist is a mentor only thing and also cannot be shared with non mentors and that so far is a minus. I and my group are indeed still evaluating Roll20 - so far it looks nice, it is fast enough and supporter status seems interesting enough. Mentor so far seems to be the only possibility I see to get the roll mechanic which we need but it would involve a pretty steep price tag and some programming which I do not know if I have time for. So far Roll20 seems far easier and stable to use than maptool. Browser support is a plus as it is easier to come by than installing a separate programm even if not all big browser are supported. Plus is also potential tablet support. But at the price tag of Mentor and the effort probably necessary we will also check out some of the stand alone solutions out there. The possibilities as free user are nevertheless very good and will give us a feel in the next few weeks if Roll20 will fit our needs and enhance our gameplay - which of the later I would allready concede even though it also has a few annoying things. I think we will then get into the ring with our characters and dice it out with sword and spells what solution we are going to favor :) Thanks again so far for the fast response and help.

Wow great thanks manveti! Sorry if I did not find the topic yet. I am still getting to get used to Roll20 and it's forums an structures. I will check your solution - this is definitly a plus! So thanks again this would make a step to use Roll20 much more feasible.

As Manveti said, this came up and was discussed in two forums. this one was actually a discussion of someone who was working on a DSA character sheet for Roll20. I believe the plan was to eventually release the character sheet for the general users of Roll20, but I don't know where he stands on that. Here's the other forum where this was discussed. Armando H. said: Hi Gauss, hi Pat, As the API seems to be a JS derivate and fully fledged programming language indeed it seems possible to implement it that way - but ist is a mentor only thing and also cannot be shared with non mentors and that so far is a minus. One point of clarification, as long as the GM is a Mentor, then all the players in the campaign get the benefits while they are playing. If any of the players decided to host a campaign, then that new campaign would not have the benefits unless the player upgraded to Mentor, or the existing Mentor player hosted the game on his/her account.

To add to what G V. is saying, your group can also contribute to the GM by gifting a membership. You can get to the gift page by either going to the GM's profile or you can go to <a href="https://app.roll20.net/gift/" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/gift/</a> and put in the GM's email address. Finally, you can try it for a month and if you don't like it you can end the membership before the next renewal.

@Gauss Thanks - luckily I am able to see my group from time to time. Also money transfers in germany are pretty easy and relativly cheap compared to the US. *Snicker* You are absolutly right concerning the one month subscription - we have been allready considering the grand one year (supporter) subscription of course ... so I was blind on that side. Still one the other hand once I would loose mentor status I also would loose any self designed API enhancements and as they cannot be shared with a lesser status they would become pointless. Reading the forum for the last few hours I think the suggestion that mentors are able to share enhancements without source code would be a nice idea to implement and another incentive for supporter status if this would be implemented as an usable option for supporters. Thast way supporters who would not be able to develop but at least able to use API enhancements . if need be for your buisness you could restrict the number of "libraries" a supporter is able to install/use. I think we will need get to used a bit more to Roll20 and before we are comfortable to decide if and when going supporter makes sense for us. @G.V Thank you very much for the links, *snicker* funny that you used climbing as your example .... It's allready late so finding things sometimes is not so easy anymore. The character sheet looked nice I was considering to make one also but for DSAv3 which would probably be easier to implement as far as I understand - will take a detailled look tomorrow. Question to that one - non "standard" sheets are also only possible for mentor or can you adjust a character sheet for your own campaign to adjust for house rules? We are using a modified DSA3 system based on QVAT so if Roll20 is only accepting "standard" sheets in the GIT repository I would need to make a standard DSA3 sheet and then be able to modify it in my own campaign.

Custom Character sheets are only available to Mentor status members. However, anyone can contribute a character sheet to the repository (just gets difficult to test/troubleshoot if you aren't a Mentor). However, I have seen some people subscribe as a mentor for a month so they could create a character sheet and contribute it to the repository for everyone. Then, once the character sheet is complete, end their Mentor status. It was the customer character sheets that actually was the deciding factor in me becoming Mentor status. :)

Also be aware that you don't necessarily need to use the character sheet feature to make something like character sheets. You can set up all your macros in one template character (or two: one for PCs which rolls in public and one for NPCs which rolls in private), then create all your other character handouts by copying the template.

Armando , I am just a Moderator and not a Developer so I do not make any of kinds of decisions you are talking about. :)