Difficult Terrain Tool - please vote if you'd like this

I saw a post from a year ago that didn't get an traction and to be honest while I've had an account here I have not used Roll20 until now. What I would like to have on the map is a tool that you could use to select certain areas of a map as difficult terrain.  I envision this to be much like the dynamic lighting tool.  Draw around the area that is considered difficult terrain and everything within that space is considered difficult terrain.  The purpose for allocating the space as difficult would mean that when you use the measuring tool it would take into account that terrain and adjust the measurement. If you'd like this to be considered please vote. Cheers V

This is great! It's possible to just calculate this yourself, but it's definitely a pain. The only problem I see here is that the measuring tool would need to discern somehow between moving over that terrain and measuring agnostic of movement (for spell range, etc.) The only foreseeable problem with a dynamic lighting-like system might be that if the area was just slightly off you would end up with weird decimal measurements. I think it might make more sense to be able to paint tiles as "difficult", and to have some indication of this on the player-side.

Thanks for your thoughts  :)    The other option I can see is having the character/npc tokens having a movement field.  Which when they're selected shows how far their normal movement is by shading the tiles.  That shading could detect the difficult terrain and adjust the shaded area based on that.  I have no idea how hard that might be to implement, but just another idea.  I would have it just as a visual aid, so the tokens could still be moved beyond what is displayed.   Cheers V

This would be very useful. I can see it painting tiles associated to the grid to ensure proper line ups. Maybe also only affecting the actually movement measurement tool rather then the measurement tool itself as well. When moving over said squares those particular squares could light up with a light red aura to indicate and remind a player that it is difficult terrain. I +1 this suggestion eagerly. I also saw the old posts that didnt get any attention..

Thanks the support Wakushka :)  I've now been in two long sessions using Roll20.  One as a player and the last one DMing, decided to sub as like the dynamic lighting.  It has worked well so far and helped hugely with everyone having to be remote.  Thanks for your thoughts. Cheers V

I went to post a similar suggestion, and found this one already existed.  Hitching on to yours to consolidate the effort.  I'd really love to have this tool!  keeping track of spells that create patches of difficult terrain can be a handful sometimes, and this would be a fantastic quality of life change.

+1

Excellent idea! 

Please please please! I always forget something is difficulty terrain :( 

+1

One way you could do this is to use the drawing tools, draw the area you'd like to have marked as difficult terrain.  To prevent blocking the map you can make the art object transparent.  Example: If I use the code #ff0000 for the border of a square and #ff000025 for the inside color of the square the result is a red bordered square with a faint red transparency inside the square. I can see the map through that transparency.  Note: at this time the new UI toolbar does not accept transparency codes, but the old UI toolbar does. 

please do this!

+1, I'd missed this previously, but with the VTT changes going on and the token-movement measurement feature, perhaps its a good time for it now anyway I both play and DM on maps that offten have "difficult terrain", and there's a lot of "is that ground difficult or not?" questions asked that slow play.  If you could just drag a token and see the limit of your movement, it would be so much easier. I'd want both the token-move measure and some kind of visual texture (translucent cross-hatching or similar) on the marked terrain. You might also want to have some kind of extra-cost featue (eg, climbing a 10' wall costs X times the normal one-square movement, so draw a line at the edge of the wall, and it applies that one-time cost to pass it). For the ruler, you'd need a slider for "ground movement" and "measurement" (spell range, flying movement, etc) and some kind of cost field (is difficult terrain 2x movement cost, or something else? And, since many sheets have a move field, although its often just a number, you'd need some way to link a token to that variable and set a units  (feet, meters, squares, miles, km, parsecs etc) for interpreting the number, which could be used in conjunction with the map units For the painting, you might be able to leverage the light barrier system. Paint a closed region as difficult using the usual painting (lines, shapes) tools, and when the token crosses the border line it toggles from normal to difficult cost, or vice versa.

+1

Ken S. said: And, since many sheets have a move field, although its often just a number, you'd need some way to link a token to that variable and set a units  (feet, meters, squares, miles, km, parsecs etc) for interpreting the number, which could be used in conjunction with the map units Note that map pages have a selector for how rule sets handle counting diagonal movement, which alters the measuring tool to reflect the specific rule sets selected (D&D 3.5/Pathfinder or D&D 4e/5e). This could be the foot-in-the-door for other related mechanics. 

+1