Battles and Me

So I'm co-GMing, and so far I've been learning fairly quickly, heck about a week ago I didn't even know how to play Dungeons and Dragons! But one thing has remained stagnant in difficulty, and as much as I looked online, I couldn't really find a direct answer. As it stands, how I fight with monsters, and even characters, I have to bring up the character sheet window and scan through whatever I need to find the appropriate skill or attribute so that I might roll it. Since then, I have learned a bit about macros, and have some for basic, and/or commonly used ones. But making a macro for every single creature and character seems insane, especially when characters - sometimes even creatures - level up, thus forcing me to change the macro. Basically, what I'm asking is, how do I make things easier on myself and my friends, concerning rolling for common attacks? I suppose an example would be some frequent spells, or melee attacks, whether it's using a macro or whatever else. It's fairly common for me to have several monsters fighting at once, differing in types. It's a real pain to have several windows up, then whatever course of action it may take to get to the roll button for what I'm looking for. I hope you guys have an answer to this tedious issue!

As you didn't mention what edition of D&D, I will just guess 5E. Our  Wiki has lots of information about roll20 and how to maximize the use of the site. There are some specific guides and this one is for  5E . This page is one of  useful macros that you can look over and learn from. If you are curious about  macros in general this page will handle that. Now that I expressed macros is the way you are probably wanting to go, it is time to lead you to how to set them up. Take a look at your character sheet journal and go to the Attributes and Ability tab. You will want to place your macros in the Abilities entries and checkmark them token actions. Now you go to the token you want to represent your monster and open it in edit then select from "represents as" menu the sheet you want to use. If this is going to be used for mass number of monsters, you will want to read about linking  tokens to journals , mook style. Good luck and I'm sure more people will drop by and offer suggestions.

Pat S. said: As you didn't mention what edition of D&D, I will just guess 5E. Our  Wiki has lots of information about roll20 and how to maximize the use of the site. There are some specific guides and this one is for  5E . This page is one of  useful macros that you can look over and learn from. If you are curious about  macros in general this page will handle that. Now that I expressed macros is the way you are probably wanting to go, it is time to lead you to how to set them up. Take a look at your character sheet journal and go to the Attributes and Ability tab. You will want to place your macros in the Abilities entries and checkmark them token actions. Now you go to the token you want to represent your monster and open it in edit then select from "represents as" menu the sheet you want to use. If this is going to be used for mass number of monsters, you will want to read about linking  tokens to journals , mook style. Good luck and I'm sure more people will drop by and offer suggestions. Thanks a lot for the information - and yes it is 5E! I'm sorry I failed to mention that. Currently I'm going over all the information you've listed, as it is quite a bit. I'm very well aware of macros, and have tried several times making them, but have had difficulties mostly due to them having modifiers. I'll post again after I've read all the links you've shown me, for better or worse.

The key ones to focus on is the token actions and token to journals . The token actions will allow you to have your macro buttons show up when you select a token instead of having all the sheets open. The token to journals, mook style, solves you needing a sheet for each individual monsters as you can drag 15 goblins on to the map and have them prepped. If you look into some more advance information,  rollable tables token , you can create a table of multiple tokens (say 4 goblins with different weapons) and have them keyed to a single sheet.

Pat S. said: The key ones to focus on is the token actions and token to journals . The token actions will allow you to have your macro buttons show up when you select a token instead of having all the sheets open. The token to journals, mook style, solves you needing a sheet for each individual monsters as you can drag 15 goblins on to the map and have them prepped. If you look into some more advance information,  rollable tables token , you can create a table of multiple tokens (say 4 goblins with different weapons) and have them keyed to a single sheet. That's amazing, that's exactly what I'm into! But I have to admit, making one from complete scratch is something I've yet to do, normally I had a reference. But I'm still looking through the information you've sent me. Is there a way for it to consider modifiers, as well? Without the need for me to go out of my way to determine it if they get stronger, etc?

And then there is the world of the API for pro level users. If the creator of the game is pro level they can install the script to create token action macros; The shaped sheet has a companion script that creates token actions and I think the OGL sheet does as well. But again, only available to pro subscirbers.

ATNicholas said: Pat S. said: The key ones to focus on is the token actions ... .... Is there a way for it to consider modifiers, as well? Without the need for me to go out of my way to determine it if they get stronger, etc? Yes, you can call an "Attribute" (which is a stat or score field from the character sheet), in a Macro. Some examples are here, <a href="https://wiki.roll20.net/Macros#Using_a_Selected_To" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.roll20.net/Macros#Using_a_Selected_To</a>... For example if you want to make a Macro that rolls 1d20 + Strength Modifier, you can write that macro with the instructions from link above. Since you said it is 5E like Pat guessed, look first directly on the link he gave for 5E tips specifically, as they already wrote-out some useful macros, and see if this covers your uses: <a href="https://wiki.roll20.net/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Next#" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.roll20.net/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Next#</a>...

Gold said: ATNicholas said: Pat S. said: The key ones to focus on is the token actions ... .... Is there a way for it to consider modifiers, as well? Without the need for me to go out of my way to determine it if they get stronger, etc? Yes, you can call an "Attribute" (which is a stat or score field from the character sheet), in a Macro. Some examples are here, <a href="https://wiki.roll20.net/Macros#Using_a_Selected_To" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.roll20.net/Macros#Using_a_Selected_To</a>... For example if you want to make a Macro that rolls 1d20 + Strength Modifier, you can write that macro with the instructions from link above. Since you said it is 5E like Pat guessed, look first directly on the link he gave for 5E tips specifically, as they already wrote-out some useful macros, and see if this covers your uses: <a href="https://wiki.roll20.net/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Next#" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.roll20.net/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Next#</a>... I've been at this for quite awhile now, and I just can't seem to get it to work in the way I want. Within a single macro, I want it to consider all modifiers, the creature's weapon damage roll dice, and have it all compressed so it doesn't take up too much real estate in the chat when I roll it. I may be asking too much, but I've been really working hard at this ever since my last post, considering both Pat's and your advice, along with the links provided. Overall I want it to also be easy to fix up to make other creatures work with it as well, and even players if at all possible. Just a basic attack, without the need to type in modifiers or any of the hassles. But I'll keep at it of course, I feel as if I'm so close... so close to figuring out what I'm doing wrong. Edit: I believe I have found a bit of a work around, and more-or-less solved the issue. Thanks a lot guys, you've been a great help, I couldn't ever repay the debt!

ATNicholas said: I've been at this for quite awhile now, and I just can't seem to get it to work in the way I want. Within a single macro, I want it to consider all modifiers, the creature's weapon damage roll dice, and have it all compressed so it doesn't take up too much real estate in the chat when I roll it . I may be asking too much, but I've been really working hard at this ever since my last post, considering both Pat's and your advice, along with the links provided. Edit: I believe I have found a bit of a work around, and more-or-less solved the issue. Thanks a lot guys, you've been a great help, I couldn't ever repay the debt! I bolded the section I'm replying to in case you did not find it in the wiki but you are wanting inline rolls . With that nice little feature, your roll will take up almost nothing in the chat. If all the modifiers are not going to be changing like a pc's sheet, you can get away with just hard coded the modifiers into the roll itself. If the modifiers are variable then you can just use the +@{ability} with your inline dice roll which is covered in the 5e link that I provided above. This link goes to the specific&nbsp; 5E macros. If you need help with specific macros, give us a post with your macro and we can get eyes on it to figure it out what problem you are having.