[PF] Dummies' Guide to Macros and Sheets?

So im new to the roll20 system and trying to set up characters for a Pathfinder game. Obviously we want sheets within the app, that the DM and player can both see and change and have that reflected to Sheets are the clearly way to go.

But by god, don;t they get complex in a hurry? The straight forward element (as far as im concerned) of inputting variables is fine, as are the essentially 'hidden' formula being used to call those variables and add them to things for the auto-updating segments. That's all fine, so far so much excel.

The problem im having is with the copious amounts of what I think are macro's in the local terminology and the difficulty in finding the formula components they're using.

For example, I add the Stunning Fist class ability to a character sheet of a Monk character. I want to set the maximum uses of it per day, and I can see a field for the formula to do this. But I have no guidance on what that formula will need to look like - what the attributes I need to call are, the order of operations, anything.

The tutorials sort of gesture vaguely in the direction of the wiki, but the wiki page on macros only really discusses turning dice rolls into buttons (which is very useful and all, but not remotely what im trying to find out).

The whole system seems predicated on a familiarity that im sure everyone actually working on the sheets has (sort of a pre-requisite) but to an outsider is arcane and impenetrable.

So is there an idiot's guide to this, that explains what's going on and how to do the things I want to do using small words?

There really isn't an idiots guide..
there is a special pathfinder page for macros:
   https://wiki.roll20.net/Pathfinder_Character_Sheet...
the whole page is somewhat out of date..but not horribly.

Here is an old post that can be helpful to read through: https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/1747672/post-you...
 
Hovering over each entry (including shaded entries) will tell you the internal name of each attribute.
"Floor" will round down, and "Ceil" will round up.

Let's say you have monk in the class row 0 (the first one).
You would then reference your monk levels as :  @{class-0-level}
and your total character levels as @{level}
(in case you are multiclassed or someday decide to become multiclass)

In the feat uses area (to the right of each row), you can write pretty much anything that does not have a roll or query. This evaluates to a number which would be max uses / day (or really whatever  you want)

A normal character that is not a monk gets it 1 for every 4 levels attained, and  
Put this in the max eval field:  floor(@{level}/4)

You can also add that DC text to your attack row in the macro text area.

But for a monk, your uses per day is a lot more complicated: 1 per level plus 1 for every 4 levels in another class: So it's the same floor of the levels divided by 4, but this time levels in another class is total levels minus monk levels:

@{class-0-level} +  (floor((@{level}-@{class-0-level})/4)

 

DC:
  
So for the stunning fist, the DC is  10 + 1/2 your character level + your Wis modifier
If we want to print the DC to the chat when you press your attack button, go to the Attacks tab, and to the stunning fist entry in your attacks
(Assuming you made one already, you'd just go down there and click "add" on the bottom left of that section)


Hover over the wisdom modifier, you see it is @{WIS-mod}
You already know the character level is @{level}
combine them to make: 10+ floor(@{level}/2) + @{WIS-mod}

You can add text and actually add any macro text to the Notes entry, since it gets sent to the chat it will be parsed by the chat window.
So you can add the following:
DC = Fort DC [[10+ floor(@{level}/2) + @{WIS-mod}]]

Then when you press the attack button the DC will also get printed at the bottom.
There are more complicated ways of adding things, but adding to the notes is easiest to begin with, before customizing the macro text.
 
Also Magik, one of the sheet authors, plays a monk so he will have tons of advice!