Abilities and Character Names

Abilities have the bullet option to “Show in Macro bar?”. I love this feature but would it be possible to implement a second bullet that I could click to turn off the character name prefix as they appear on the Macro Bar? I can see the value to having the name if you have a similar Ability for several characters you’re managing as a GM. However, if I’m a player, I know the name of my character and having each ability prefaced takes up a lot of screen real estate.

If you only have one character, you could make macros instead of abilities (check the settings tab of the right-hand pane).

I could, true. However, there's a little more work involved with macros because I'd have to reference the character as well as the attribute for ever piece of every macro, where with abilities it know's you're referencing yourself. Also I can have a character traded through campaigns but not macros. I also like the idea of having them there inside the sheet. Perhaps this is just the fuzzy nature of macros vs abilities presenting themselves. Macros can do everything I want but require a little more work and I can't easily attach them to a character or move them from game to game.

If you don't mind one extra click while playing, set up the macros to use the @{selected|whatever}. Actually, as GM of one campaign, I've set up character sheets and attack/damage/initiative abilites for each monster. I have then created macros that just call the appropriate abilities of the selected token. eg: Attribute: @dmg = 3d6+4 Ability: %damage = @{token_name} hits for [[@{dmg}]] damage! <- which can be copied to different monsters easily, changing just the attribute Macro: #damage = %{selected|damage}

@David A. - You're right about writing macros that way for NPCs. However, there are two issues I'm concerned with here. I'm talking about players who only have themselves to worry about. This means for their roll macros would only work if the GM has put their token in that scene and they have to have clicked on it. Also I'm not able to package and copy those macros for them to another game, like I can do when copying their character.

I see what you mean. I think your issues would be resolved if the transmogrifier allowed you to transfer macros as well, then, right? I mean, it wouldn't be as _easy_ as just another ticky box next to the abilities in the character sheet, but the end goal would still be possible.

Yes. If the transmogrifier could move macros then, with more work, I could move the macros to a new game and assign them one at a time to the right character. I would work but lacks the ease of having them bundled with the character. Like I said earlier I think this is just a symptom of them not having the distinction between abilities and macros figured out. I think they need to figure out a unified vision for this user created functions and how to implement them intelligently.

I've copied paste my macros into a word document that is named for the character or for what i want. Then when i use the transmogifiers to pull page, i can just copy those macros from it

For that matter, you could copy the macros into the "notes" portion of the Character sheets, along with simple (ish) instructions for your players on how to set them up. Again, though, we're talking about workarounds :)

That's a fair idea. That would work for 2 out of my 3 players. The last is about as tech savvy as a wet ball of yarn. Up till now I've gotten her and the game up and running quickly by having everything ready to go, labeled, and as user friendly as possible. It's for this type of player I'm thinking of. And the truth is I can manually set up the macros and grant them to the player so all they have to do is add them to the macro bar. However, it's more work than I want to do at the start of a similarly themed game.

Stephen K., I have a suggested workaround for your non-tech savvy player. 1) Make a character sheet for her including Ability macros. 2) Create a series of short-name Macros in the settings tab. In those macros place the Ability macro names Example: Macro name: Attack Macro body: %{Character name|character ability} 3) Assign the short-name Macros to your non-tech savvy player. 4) Have her go through the Macros and checkmark them to add them to her macro bar. Now she has short name Macros referencing long name Ability macros. - Gauss

Yeah. It's a repeat of work for the first pass but then it's the lowest amount of work after the first copy.