Fog Of War Improvement

I really like the fog of war tool. It makes so much more sense than PCs having omniscient knowledge of the maps they are exploring. My suggestion for improvement would be to let us draw a polygon other than a rectangle as many of the maps I create have non-square elements. Line of sight through a doorway, for example, would only reveal a triangular section of the map.

I like the fog of war feature, my players accidently highlighted the map and overrode it and could see the whole map. An interesting feature would be to use the auras as a light source that could reveal the fog of war and also allow the GM to set up barrier designations so the aura wouldn't reveal the next troom through the wall. My players really enjoyed using this!

Dynamic lighting is in the works (look at the last preview).

I approve of reveal/hide having a polygon selection option

Stephen---Brilliant idea to use auras!

We actually set the player with a torch in my campaign with a aura. It didn't reveal the fog of war but it made my life way easier to just use the aura's edges when I used the reveal tool. I agree with comments above that actually having a separate light source aura that really did reveal automatically would help out a lot. As an added aspect having it temporarily remove the fog of war would be a great help as well. AKA as the torch bearer moves forward darkness follows behind. In the last game we played it came up more than once that the torch bearer would move too far and leave the tail end of the party in darkness. I had to do a lot of re-hiding of the map as they moved. It was a running battle so the fact of being in or out of light made big difference to the PCs.

Here's my take on it, to effectively incorporate fog of war you need a few other things to help it along to work properlly. First, a movement limit that prevents a player from moving beyond his max speed, and to prevent a player from moving more than once per round or how ever many times you want with an undo feature if a player makes a mistake , a barrier system so that players cannot see through solid objects , or move through solid objects. If you could incorporate these effectively it would solve allot of issues

Jeremy, that is a good solution if the system of game rules agrees. However, as a universal platform, R20 should be more general, and the dynamic lighting solution is just that.

Any option that effects gameplay should be able to be turned on and off at will by the GM. Dynamic lighting is great but can be ruined quickly if a player is able to move their token willy nilly

Indeed, I don't think that it is the role of VTTs to become a kind of video game enforcing rules. The GM and players are there to play by their own rpg rules and respecting those rules is their responsability, as it would be around a table. Roll20 is there to help displaying results and sharing info.

Dynamic lighting abuse (or accidents) could be avoided, too, if Roll20 had an optional way of the GM "approving" player's token movement. I mean, the player suggests a token's path of movement, and it if's viable the GM approves it, enabling then token's displacement.

What about an option to make "dynamic lighting" only update when the GM presses a "update lighting" button?

Actually chatting with the devs about it the FOW tool and Dynamic Lighting tool will both be available and work together. So you, as GM, can use FOW to reveal whole rooms/areas and then just deal with Dynamic Lighting for near-field vision. The table-wide FOW will prevent accidental reveals/peeking.

That sounds good. So Dm controls fog of war, but lighting limits view as well. So if a lighting range creeps over a un-revealed area, nothing is revealed?

Correct, with both FoW and Lighting enabled an area has to be revealed in FoW by the DM _and_ a players lighting has project into the area for the player to see it.

What if the fog of war was moved based on PC location?

Is it not what lighting from a PC reveals an area means? I am a little confused...

If I understand Eric correctly, this really is the best solution as it requires no additional management from GM while accomplishing the lighting solution.

I have an old Dragon mountain set from 2nd edition that comes with maps. The only way to make the dungeon work is in a similar fashion by covering up areas. So I think This fog of war, with some advanced features would make the game far more easier to work with.

Are there "reveal all" and "hide all" options yet, or am I missing them? I tried just highlighting all the squares, but it locks up when you move outside the map space (won't accept the highlighted area)