[Torg Eternity] Sheet redesign thread

I'm wary of the sheet getting too cluttered with this kind of stuff, is it really that hard to remember if an ability has been used already in this Scene or Act?

Zoula said: I'm wary of the sheet getting too cluttered with this kind of stuff, is it really that hard to remember if an ability has been used already in this Scene or Act? I understand that concern, and there was a time where I might have even shared it, but the 5E sheet has a proven track record and it includes a lot of minutiae that is tracked before long and short rests under the D&D rules. And it seems to work for players. If GiGs includes this, I think you'll see that he can make it work in a way that doesn't detract from the overall design.

Is there a single place where all the best practices for using Roll20 for Torg are gathered? Thanks, -Grant

There is the wiki page to look over how the sheet functions - a best practices section would be a great section to add, if it adds new information

Grant D. said: Is there a single place where all the best practices for using Roll20 for Torg are gathered? Thanks, -Grant Hi Grant. The short answer is "no," but it would probably be a good idea to have a game set up somewhere that is not really a game, but primarily dedicated to just supporting the Torg community on Roll20. There are some other RPG communities on Roll20 that are doing the same thing. Right now, this thread is kind-of doubling for both sheet-related discussions and TE tips and practices. - Matt

GM Matt said: Grant D. said: Is there a single place where all the best practices for using Roll20 for Torg are gathered? Thanks, -Grant Hi Grant. The short answer is "no," but it would probably be a good idea to have a game set up somewhere that is not really a game, but primarily dedicated to just supporting the Torg community on Roll20. There are some other RPG communities on Roll20 that are doing the same thing. Right now, this thread is kind-of doubling for both sheet-related discussions and TE tips and practices. - Matt Yes, I figured I would have more success posting here because the thread is active even though my question is off topic. Thanks. Back on topic: I noticed that you had a post earlier offering to direct-message a macro. Is that a point of etiquette not to do so on the forums? Because I am willing to share my macros pulled from the Torg character sheet. -Grant

If you're posting specific help on using this sheet, it can probably be posted here, but I worry about the thread's real purpose being swamped. It might be a good idea to start a thread in the  Specific Use Questions & Macros  forum, for more general stuff, maybe called Torg Eternity Macros and Tips, and link it here. That way this thread can keep its focus on help and suggestions for the sheet itself.

The TORG Eternity Sheet is great work! Thanks a lot! I hope you´ll find the time to work on the "Threat" Section.

Michael D. said: What would a Perks Section contain?  If you are going to turn it into a full function section, then the perk name needs to be a button that outputs to chat so we can get game effects.  Obviously "ammo" tracking as described above to track perks that are used 1/act or 1/scene.  And effect descriptions.  I'm not aware of any perks off the top of my head that require a skill roll (I am sure there is probably 1.  Would have to research to make absolutely sure), but as long as no rolling is necessary don't need all the other stats for powers.  Because perks don't typically generate success levels, etc.  Soo...what I'm getting at is I can't think of a need off the top of my head to create a "perks" section specifically other than if you do, then perks are perks tracked in the perks section. Helper and Pep Talk require a Persuasion test. Ingenious calls for a Mind test. There are a few more, but such perks aren't terribly common.

Wounds are not showing up when I select them for my token.  I want them to have the effect they're supposed to have on the record sheet when a character takes a wound, but when I select wounds they don't show up. Also, is there any way we can get Shock, Wounds, and Possibilities to show up at the top of the Drop-down for each one of the selectors in the token editor, please, so we can link them properly?  Thanks.

Thats weird, you should be able to add those attributes to the token bars. Make sure you look for the lower case names - it's shock , wound , possibilities . There's no way to get them at the top of the dropdown, you'll have scroll a long way. There's not exactly a bug, but a quirk of roll20, that values still at their default might not show up in the list. So if they aren't visible in the list, change each score by 1 to make it show up (then you can change it back). I just created a new character and the values were there, but there was some strange behaviour in setting one of the initial values. When trying to set the wound attribute through the token bar it didnt work properly until I had used the wound sidebar on the sheet and clicked the + button. After that it behaved. I'll have to investigate what was happening there. So, try changing the wounds through the sidebar on the sheet first, and see if the tokenbar works properly after that.

Shock, wound, and Possibilities are how they show up in the lists.  However, when I select wound nothing shows up in the box.  I've looked for Wounds and not found that reference, while Shock and Possibilities are easy to find.  When I select their boxes, I can start typing and the name shows up for me to select, so that's handy.  I can do the same for wound, but it does not connect the way it's supposed to until I actually enter what's supposed to be in the box, and then it does. Getting a list sorted might be a good feature for Roll 20 to work on, then... perhaps check boxes can be added to that Attributes & Abilities tab so those that are checked will show up in the choice list for linking sheets and tokens. "So, try changing the wounds through the sidebar..." ~ As I explained, above, if I put in 0 in the left box where I link the sheet and token, and 3 in the right box, it is then linked as appropriate.

Pauly da Leg-breaka said: Shock, wound, and Possibilities are how they show up in the lists.  However, when I select wound nothing shows up in the box.  I've looked for Wounds and not found that reference, while Shock and Possibilities are easy to find.  When I select their boxes, I can start typing and the name shows up for me to select, so that's handy.  I can do the same for wound, but it does not connect the way it's supposed to until I actually enter what's supposed to be in the box, and then it does. Getting a list sorted might be a good feature for Roll 20 to work on, then... perhaps check boxes can be added to that Attributes & Abilities tab so those that are checked will show up in the choice list for linking sheets and tokens. "So, try changing the wounds through the sidebar..." ~ As I explained, above, if I put in 0 in the left box where I link the sheet and token, and 3 in the right box, it is then linked as appropriate. It is  wound  and not  wounds  you should be linking in the token. Just in case I didnt explain well earlier: when I mentioned the sidebar, I meant the one on the character sheet, not the token settings. If you do the + there, it sets the wound attribute up properly, and you shouldnt need to manually enter it. So that's another way you can fix it and is quicker. I'm not sure why its needed - I only discovered that glitch tonight after your earlier post. I'll investigate it. While investigating this, I discovered that on new characters, shock is not appearing in the dropdown, but Shock is. This should not be happening. I've identified the cause of that and can fix it. I'll continue to investigate the wound issue.

GiGs said: It is  wound  and not  wounds  you should be linking in the token. Just in case I didnt explain well earlier: when I mentioned the sidebar, I meant the one on the character sheet, not the token settings. If you do the + there, it sets the wound attribute up properly, and you shouldnt need to manually enter it. So that's another way you can fix it and is quicker. I'm not sure why its needed - I only discovered that glitch tonight after your earlier post. I'll investigate it. While investigating this, I discovered that on new characters, shock is not appearing in the dropdown, but Shock is. This should not be happening. I've identified the cause of that and can fix it. I'll continue to investigate the wound issue. I know, there is no wounds to be had in the list.  My point was that it's not capitalized like the other two are and it's way down at the bottom of the list.  Regardless, it doesn't show up properly unless SOMETHING is done, whether your method or mine, to get Wounds to work.  Whether a method is quicker or easier is a matter of experience and choice, not better or worse in one or the other's eyes :D .  Thank you for investigating. As for Shock and shock, I've only ever seen the capitalized version of it and it's worked just fine every single time.  Were it up to me, and this is a suggestion to you, ensure Shock, Wounds, and Possibilities are all capitalized and all the other entries, of which there are 449 are lower-case.  Otherwise, there should be three for token-sheet linking, which are the ones I just listed.  I'm going to take this suggestion to the suggestion forums, though I seriously doubt it will even be seen.

I type the values in. The list auto-selects a case-insensitive match to what you are typing.  I use Red for Shock, Blue for Dodge and Green for Toughness. Typing the first three letters picks up what I want. -Grant

Pauly da Leg-breaka said: Were it up to me, and this is a suggestion to you, ensure Shock, Wounds, and Possibilities are all capitalized and all the other entries, of which there are 449 are lower-case.  Otherwise, there should be three for token-sheet linking, which are the ones I just listed.  I'm going to take this suggestion to the suggestion forums, though I seriously doubt it will even be seen. I doubt the suggestion forums idea will have an effect, but if you do it, post a link and I'll upvote it too. The suggestion about put shock, wounds, and possibilities capitalised, and make everything else lower case is a good one. I'll see about implementing that. 

Thank you.  I've had a very rough week so I've not had time to go to the suggestion forums and put everything down.  I'm about to get off this computer for the night, as well, so not tonight, either.

I fell off this thread for a month, so these are some belated responses, but: GiGs said: Jason S. said: I'm in the "looking forward to this" camp. My one suggestion so far is about skills: Right now under the Abilities tab, you can set up a skill with adds and the attribute, but you can't set the skill value directly. For Threats, I'm hoping it's possible to drop total values directly in, You're in luck because thats exactly what I was intending. I found when copying some enemies from a supplement that it was irritating to have to calculate their adds, instead of just being able to enter the value listed in the supplement. That's awesome. Thanks for planning that out and thanks in advance for the feature! GiGs said: Jason S. said: Roll20 noob question: Since a GM can show a character sheet to their players, will we be able to show the Threat tab to players as sort of an ad hoc thread card, so players know what a given foe's defenses are? I'd assume so, but there might also be more info on there than a GM would want to make public. There's a roll20 problem here: what we call Character Sheets are actually called Journals. A Journal has 3 tabs - Bio, Character Sheet, and Attributes and Abilities. Here's why that terminology matters: Players cannot see anything on the Character Sheet tab, unless they are added as a controller to that character. So there's no way of showing the threat tab to players directly. I plan to have a button which prints to chat a "threat card" - a summary of their key combat stats with a portrait, so GMs can show the basics of a threat to players. There's no way to do a popup from a character sheet - it has to be sent to chat. It's not ideal, but it's the best we can do with the limits of roll20. Got it. Thanks for the explanation! I figured that was the case, but I'm learning little bits here and there about Roll20 that I wouldn't have thought to even investigate, so now I'm at the "I don't know what I don't know, but I'm aware there are things I don't know" stage. GM Matt said: Another option is to use the threat card art assets that already exist and display them on the tabletop as a token or a map element. Definitely. That's where I'm at now, with a more compact version of the threat card I created from the original. With only two or three foe types in any given combat so far, it hasn't been a problem having their cards right out on the grid.

Just an update: I'm not getting much done at the moment. I'm in the process of moving house. For part of the coming move, I wont have my pc. I'll do little bits here and there when i can, but likely wont have time for a big change to the sheet (like adding the new tabs) till things get settled, in a week or two. 

Jason S. said: I fell off this thread for a month, so these are some belated responses, but: GiGs said: Jason S. said: I'm in the "looking forward to this" camp. My one suggestion so far is about skills: Right now under the Abilities tab, you can set up a skill with adds and the attribute, but you can't set the skill value directly. For Threats, I'm hoping it's possible to drop total values directly in, You're in luck because thats exactly what I was intending. I found when copying some enemies from a supplement that it was irritating to have to calculate their adds, instead of just being able to enter the value listed in the supplement. That's awesome. Thanks for planning that out and thanks in advance for the feature! GiGs said: Jason S. said: Roll20 noob question: Since a GM can show a character sheet to their players, will we be able to show the Threat tab to players as sort of an ad hoc thread card, so players know what a given foe's defenses are? I'd assume so, but there might also be more info on there than a GM would want to make public. There's a roll20 problem here: what we call Character Sheets are actually called Journals. A Journal has 3 tabs - Bio, Character Sheet, and Attributes and Abilities. Here's why that terminology matters: Players cannot see anything on the Character Sheet tab, unless they are added as a controller to that character. So there's no way of showing the threat tab to players directly. I plan to have a button which prints to chat a "threat card" - a summary of their key combat stats with a portrait, so GMs can show the basics of a threat to players. There's no way to do a popup from a character sheet - it has to be sent to chat. It's not ideal, but it's the best we can do with the limits of roll20. Got it. Thanks for the explanation! I figured that was the case, but I'm learning little bits here and there about Roll20 that I wouldn't have thought to even investigate, so now I'm at the "I don't know what I don't know, but I'm aware there are things I don't know" stage. GM Matt said: Another option is to use the threat card art assets that already exist and display them on the tabletop as a token or a map element. Definitely. That's where I'm at now, with a more compact version of the threat card I created from the original. With only two or three foe types in any given combat so far, it hasn't been a problem having their cards right out on the grid. I wrote a Threat macro which I print on demand from the players. When not too lazy possible, I also use the actual Threat card as the image for that character. -Grant

This is a fantastic resource. Thank you for all the work you've put into it! On the subject of the threat card, I've made handouts of them that I will reveal to players as and when they enounter them. Can you increase the number of wounds on the sheet? I've just made a Mosasaurs token using the sheet and noticed I can't change the default 3 wounds to the Mosasaurus' 4. Thanks again for a superb resource!

Yes, click on the Derived Values header.  You'll have a separate little box pop up to the right and above that box, and you can enter a number.  If you want fewer Wounds, and we all know 3 is the base, so say you wanted a creature to have only one Wound, you would type in -2.  For adding Wounds, I believe you can go without a plus symbol in front.

For wound bonuses, you shouldnt need to add a plus, just put the number. And thank you for the nice words Geeks :)

That worked, thanks folks :)

Question: If I put a Mod onto an untrained skill and use that (rather than the base skill) to do a die roll, does the character sheet treat that as skilled or unskilled? My character has Fake It Till You Make it, which gives me a temporary add that also counts as training, and I've been putting that into the Mod field, but I can see how the usual case might be that mods don't count as training.

GiGs said: For wound bonuses, you shouldnt need to add a plus, just put the number. And thank you for the nice words Geeks :) Hi GiGs, As always, thank you for your hard work. I just tried it and do have to use -2 to give my important Ords one wound. If I type in a 1, they get 4 wounds. -Grant

Grant D. said: GiGs said: For wound bonuses, you shouldnt need to add a plus, just put the number. And thank you for the nice words Geeks :) Hi GiGs, As always, thank you for your hard work. I just tried it and do have to use -2 to give my important Ords one wound. If I type in a 1, they get 4 wounds. -Grant That's because you;re reducing the wounds. My comment quoted was for adding  to the wounds, to take it to 4, which is what Geeks for the Geek God wanted.

Nik G. said: Question: If I put a Mod onto an untrained skill and use that (rather than the base skill) to do a die roll, does the character sheet treat that as skilled or unskilled? My character has Fake It Till You Make it, which gives me a temporary add that also counts as training, and I've been putting that into the Mod field, but I can see how the usual case might be that mods don't count as training. That's a good question. I think I coded it so that it uses just the skill adds and not the mod, but I'll have to check the code tonight to be certain. Question for the community: What should the normal behaviour be for Mods? Should a mod make you count as trained? Nik, you might have to add the temporary add to the actual Add column to get the trained behaviour, for the moment at least.

GiGs said: Nik G. said: Question: If I put a Mod onto an untrained skill and use that (rather than the base skill) to do a die roll, does the character sheet treat that as skilled or unskilled? My character has Fake It Till You Make it, which gives me a temporary add that also counts as training, and I've been putting that into the Mod field, but I can see how the usual case might be that mods don't count as training. That's a good question. I think I coded it so that it uses just the skill adds and not the mod, but I'll have to check the code tonight to be certain. Question for the community: What should the normal behaviour be for Mods? Should a mod make you count as trained? Nik, you might have to add the temporary add to the actual Add column to get the trained behaviour, for the moment at least. Thanks for looking into this! FYI, the Copycat psionic power (p. 208) says adds gained that way mean the character using it is no longer considered unskilled. That's one precedent for a mod making you count as trained.  I don't know offhand of other things that grant temporary skill adds, actually.

Nik G. said: Thanks for looking into this! FYI, the Copycat psionic power (p. 208) says adds gained that way mean the character using it is no longer considered unskilled. That's one precedent for a mod making you count as trained.  I don't know offhand of other things that grant temporary skill adds, actually. Well, It's ADDs you gain, so I would put them temporarily onto adds, not mods, This would make the skills trained, which is exactly what you need, and mods can still be used to modify unskilled use.

Any thoughts on allowing Run to be altered independently of Move? The Quick perk (from Beta Primer) changes Move to 2x Speed and Run to 5x Speed.

Interesting, is that a Perk players can get? How does Move x2 work with things which add a flat bonus to move? Say you have a move of 4, have a perk which gives +1 Move, and the Quick Perk to make Move x2. does that make your final Move 9 or 10? (Reminder: I'm in the process of moving house, which turned into a bit of a nightmare, but will finally be finished next weekend *crossing fingers*. So dont expect any sheet changes till August.)

"• Prereqs: Beta Clearance, Dexterity 8+ The Storm Knight is extremely quick on her feet. She may move up to her Dexterity x2 meters each turn, or up to Dexterity x5 meters per turn if using an Action to run."      In this case, with a minimum Dexterity of 8, that means walking movement would become 16 meters/10 seconds and running would become 40.      Let's modify your example a bit... move of 8 with a Perk for +1, so that would become 19 and 45.  I don't think I'll be allowing that Perk in my game, LOL, without modification, anyway.      It doesn't sound like all is going swimmingly with getting into the new place, but may be over soon enough, yes?  Well, here's a prayer for rest and recovery from whatever you're going through, right now.  Take care.

I'd be tempted to do any additive changes after multiplication, since even a difference of 2 points can be fairly significant.

Is there a way to disable Wound penalties for characters with an activated adrenal booster or the Survivor perk or the like?

Not yet! Having the ability to ignore wound penalties is a good idea. It'll probably be a checkbox, so the sheet doesnt need to know why wound penalties are being ignored, players just check the box if they should ignore it. Once I'm able to work on the sheet I'll do that. I'm going to be offline starting tomorrow, hopefully not for long. The month or so of hell should soon be over, hehe.

I ran into something that could probably be improved. I turned on the token macro thing so it stores your roll (it's kind of a pain making sure you have the token selected, but that's a standard Roll20 thing and I'm not sure if there's an easy fix). The thing that is sort of a hindrance for me is the pop-up box for entering a modifier every time you click to roll a skill test. A good amount of the time there aren't going to be any modifiers applied before rolling. Furthermore, modifiers such as the +3 Destiny cards aren't going to happen until after the roll. And off the top of my head, I can't think of any situation where the modifier needs to be applied before the roll anyway, since it affects the bonus, not the roll. What I think might be better would be to have another button on the roll results, right there with the Possibility and Up button, that you can click after seeing the results of the roll to bring up that modifier pop-up if you need it. I can't think of any downside of making this sort of setup an option. Are there any potential problems with that sort of setup?

Ooh!!!  That is a fantastic analysis and potential fixes.  I like it.  My Players and I are dealing with the same issue concerning that modifier button.  Putting it AFTER the roll and making it a button where you can add things like card bonuses would be perfect.

I'm back online, but wont be doing any work on the sheet until next week at the earlier. Sword of Spirit, that's an interesting idea. I was initially going to say there's no need to a button to add modifiers, because you can just declare it aloud, as you would in a face-to-face game. But then I realised you might apply those modifiers before using the Possibility and Up buttons, so it makes sense to have the option.

As ridiculous as the Quick perk is (and it will probably not survive in its current state when the Core Earth Sourcebook starts being made) there is also the Sprinter perk in the Living Land Sourcebook which just changes run speed from x3 to x4. Also on thing I've noticed is that the intimidation  skill is listed as intimidate  on the sheet, is that just to save space? GiGs said: Interesting, is that a Perk players can get? How does Move x2 work with things which add a flat bonus to move? Say you have a move of 4, have a perk which gives +1 Move, and the Quick Perk to make Move x2. does that make your final Move 9 or 10? (Reminder: I'm in the process of moving house, which turned into a bit of a nightmare, but will finally be finished next weekend *crossing fingers*. So dont expect any sheet changes till August.)

I thought the skill was called Intimidate :)

Intimidate works just fine... it's the singular of intimidation. And, yes, I will not allow the Perk Quick to be used in my game.  That's a disaster in the making.  It should be a Pulp Power and nothing more.

The Diminish spell, on an Outstanding result, says "the target cannot roll again on 20s when using the affected attribute and all its related skills". How would you handle that here on the character sheet?

You'd currently have to roll with no skill adds, maybe create a custom skill and put your skill level in the mods column not the adds column. I should maybe add a custom roll button which allows you to configure several things like whether to treat as skilled or unskilled. Things like these are edge cases that dont fit the standard roll, but having some more elegant way to handle it would be nice.

Or roll using the "ATTRIBUTES" button which allows you to roll skilled, unskilled, and disfavored and will provide you a bonus number.  Select the unskilled option (no re-roll on 20's).  You will have to add the bonus number to your skill value once complete.   It's manual, but I like it better than having to create a custom skill when affected by Diminish.  

If you could just make a single roll panel with all the relevant options, rather than having to serially click through Modifier & Last Roll and such, that would be nice and streamlined. (Anybody with Fake It Till You Make It would still have to remember to check a "skilled" box when using the modified skill, but that would be better than having to keep track of which skill I added a 1 to in the Adds field, or adding a special column for all skills.) This reminds me more generally: When somebody else makes a roll, the info frame in chat shows Possbility and Up buttons, and of course if I click them it doesn't work and a cryptic error message appears in the chat log. Would it be possible to only show those buttons for the person who made the roll, or at least disable them for others? Also regarding those buttons, is there no way clicking the Possibility and Up buttons could just suck the info they need out of the frame containing the roll info, instead of requiring the user to manually enter them?

Nik G. said: This reminds me more generally: When somebody else makes a roll, the info frame in chat shows Possbility and Up buttons, and of course if I click them it doesn't work and a cryptic error message appears in the chat log. Would it be possible to only show those buttons for the person who made the roll, or at least disable them for others? Also regarding those buttons, is there no way clicking the Possibility and Up buttons could just suck the info they need out of the frame containing the roll info, instead of requiring the user to manually enter them? Regarding the first point, those are limitations of the roll20 interface. There's nothing we sheet designers can do about that. Regarding the second point: there are settings options which reduce how much info you have to enter. Have you used those?

GiGs, I don't know how busy you remain with moving and getting settled and all the other stuff you've had to do, but would you please add back the success level to the actions?  Standard, Good, or Outstanding, please?  I use all sorts of math throughout my game all the time, as does every GM in the world, but I'm finding this one tiny little thing to be an extraordinary annoyance, so can you still fix it, please?

Didnt I explain earlier in the thread why thats not possible, Pauly? The old sheet showed you a success level, but it couldnt simultaneously show you a margin of success - so if you had, say a +2 bonus, you had a real confusing struggle to figure out if that actually increased the success level or not, because there was no easy way to tell what the actual (score - target) was. It was a decent sheet but this was its one serious failing. The new sheet tells you the total, and doesnt need to know the target number. Different success levels are always exact multiples of 5 above the target number so should be pretty easy to sort out. If you can do it at the game table, you can do it with this sheet.

It's still a major pain in the ass.  Not everyone uses the system the same way.  When you're trying to do things rapidly in a game because it's already too slow, a simple change like this would make all the difference.  It was done, before and it worked.  How about separating non-combat rolls from combat rolls, give a margin of success -for whatever reason- for non-combat and the descriptive for the combat.  Why do we need a margin of success -a number-, anyway?  The standard, good, and outstanding are enough, as that's what the game runs on, anyway. You did tell us all why, in the past, but now the system on your current sheet is more of a pain in the ass than it is helpful.  You also told us if it turned out to be that way, you would change it. Anyone else agree with me and just not normally willing to voice an opinion?