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[Help] Using Abilities to affect Attributes

September 22 (9 years ago)
Hello everybody. I was wondering if it is possible to make an ability change an attribute. FOR EXAMPLE: I made a mage, and one of his shown attributes is mana. Is it possible to make an ability that drains 'X' amount of mana whenever the ability is rolled? Or do I have to always do it manually?
September 22 (9 years ago)
Natha
KS Backer
Sheet Author
API Scripter
You can do this by using the API
Not with a standard ability/macro.
September 22 (9 years ago)
Oh.. Well, thank you anyways! Guess I'll just have to go pro. :)
September 23 (9 years ago)
vÍnce
Pro
Sheet Author
Although not with a macro, you could link your mana to a token bar(1-3) and change it that way.
September 23 (9 years ago)

Edited September 23 (9 years ago)
Go Pro! Money for Roll20 means more awesome crap and considering how much time you spend on here, a few bucks is worth it.

Though my observation having run and played a few games, is that automating substraction of traits is actually really hard to do, not because of API calls, but because there are so many exceptions to certain rules. Each rule you try to add or subtract to an attribute of any kind adds a non-reducable level of complexity that can be hard to manage. At that point it's less like a tabletop rpg, and more like a video game.

If it's a quality of life improvement for players, i say make them track it. If it's to make your life easy, then you could have 'henchmen' npc's that have weak abilities that they always use and just ignore costs, and then have badass npc's that you actually track. I'm all for limiting cognitive overhead and letting computers do math, but it's tough to have a press a button ability macro that subtracts values from another thing without slowing the game down trying to troubleshoot macros, or undo ability button presses people did during testing for example. D@D is fundementally a game about communication. Anything making that fast is good, anything slowing that down is bad, and i see alot of badside in trying to force the system to track simple math without human input.
September 23 (9 years ago)
@Vince- That is what I am currently doing, I just find myself forgetting to reduce mana and such.

@Bryan W.- I plan on going pro sometime in the future, but right now I don't have much goof money. At this point, I think I will make the player do the numbers so that I can help with the other stuff.

Thank you all for the help!