Roll20 Update - Character Sheets

[Hywaywolf]

There are some BFRPG people on roll20 that have some nice character sheets they are using. Maybe you can pull in a few to help with design considerations. For example, I would love to have a weapons table that has a field for weapon/damage/range/etc and a button to add another row for your next weapon.

Could do the same thing with armor that has fields for armor type/shield/dex bonus/magic bonus/etc

[Solomoriah]

I'm fighting a hell of a learning curve here. According to the site, I'm not supposed to use Javascript; instead, I have to learn to use their macro system, which I haven't actually found the docs for yet. I can't figure out for the life of me why the site doesn't apply my CSS, and yeah, I've read that part of their wiki three times so far. Obviously I'm missing something but I have no idea what it is.

I wrote PCMatic from scratch, as well as the entire Dungeoneer suite, four custom intranet systems, and half a dozen websites. I'm no artist, but I can build things that work... and this is kicking my butt.

Gah.

Like any system, it makes far more sense to the people who wrote it than it does to the outsider coming in.

[Solomoriah]

Okay, that cost me some sanity. Here's another cut at it:



Comments?

[-1warrior]

It would work well for me. Sorry it comes at such a high price.

[Solomoriah]

Gold, if you want to try it out, here it is. I've zipped it to bypass the security on the forum. Unpack the files, then open each one with Notepad and copy and paste the contents to your Custom template.

Then tell me how I got it all wrong...

[Gold]

Alright. Well, I think I have to buy myself the Mentor subscription to try a Custom sheet. Right now I'm just a peasant user of the site, which I actually kind of like, for having the "basic" experience, but apparently you need Mentor status to be effective with character sheets. I will go ahead and upgrade myself to Mentor for a month so I can use the Custom version for now & help you test it out. That should let me use the sheet in my game for this coming weekend, which will be a good opportunity to playtest it live.

It does have a fine appearance in the screenshots. Appears to have just about all the fields you'd need.

Like Hyawolf implied, there are probably some cool helpful features that have been developed for other sheets on Roll20, that might help improve this sheet --- from a GUI perspective, usability. Some of these are fancy features that aren't needed, especially at first.

When it comes to Roll20 Macros, I can help with that if needed. I understand the macros. You will learn it easily. The macros just means their dice-roller, how to type the dice requests in the chatbox. It just rolls dice with certain codes, a language you will pick up in 15 minutes study or less. BFRPG is so straight-forward with dice rolling, the macros for BFRPG are relatively simple to create. Let me give quick examples.

Attack roll is one of the best macros to put on a character sheet. Some other useful ones would be Saving Throws, Initiative, Thief ability roll.

You can put an "Attack" macro on the sheet. This could be a button next to Attack Bonus, or it could better be placed as a button next to each weapon.

[[1d20]] rolls a d20

You just need to add the proper macro code that would pull the Attack Bonus field, and the Strength Modifer field, adding to that [[1d20]] code. Obviously this would be for Melee weapons, and you'd have a separate section (or check-mark, or radio button) to signal when it's a Missile weapon so you can add Dex modifer instead of Str modifier.

Then you could have it say (and this is not 100% proper code because I'm not totally sure how to write the code that pulls the Strength Modifier field),
EXAMPLE
I attack with my [[Melee Weapon Name]], rolling [[1d20 + Strength Modifier + Attack Bonus]]! If it's a hit the damage is [[This Weapon's Damage Dice]].

EXAMPLE 2,
I roll my Save Vs Death Ray! I rolled a [[1d20 + Modifers]] and I'm trying to roll under a [[My Save Vs Death Ray field]]. What happens?

EXAMPLE 3,
I try to Hide In Shadows! I rolled a [[1d100]] and I'm trying to roll under a [[My HS Percentage field]].

That's the kind of thing you can do with Macros on a character sheet, that allows rolling the weapon's attack directly from the Character Sheet & possibly adding some descriptive verbiage to name the weapon, or other kinds of rolls that vary depending on some modifiers or fields of your character sheet.

But you know what? This is not required.

We can have a character sheet with no macros, to start. It would be absolutely fine. The DM will just be asking the players, "So what's your Attack Bonus? +1? Ok what's your Strength mod? You say +1? Ok now roll a d20 +2 to see if you hit." Just like regular tabletop.

This is a basic game & it can have a basic character sheet.

People can still type 1d20+1+1 in the chat. We don't require Attack as a macro on the character sheet to get by & play. Don't get me wrong, it would be nice to ask you for some feature upgrades like this in the future life of the character sheet. Or recruit other volunteers to help re-code and upgrade the sheet you started here (because that's how BFRPG has worked all along, with Chris starting things & letting other people contribute to the open source).

It would be fine to have a more purely textual-reference character sheet at first.

I will reply again after I start testing the Custom sheet, if I am able to get Mentor status and get that to load up (first time trying something like that for me).

GM Gold

[Gold]

What is your intent or thoughts on the various AB sections?

You've got Attack Bonus at the top-right, and under that Missile and Melee.

Then you've got AB under each weapon.

My view of the attack roll is:

For Melee,
1d20 + Attack Bonus (based on class and level) + Strength Modifier + Magic Bonuses (from a magic weapon or a spell that's buffing you).

For Missile,
1d20 + Attack Bonus (based on class and level) + Dex Modifier + Magic Bonuses.

I don't think there is a reason for the Player to fill those fields out multiple times, unless I'm missing something. They just need to know Attack Bonus, Strength Mod, and Dex Mod. If any of those numbers need to repeat on the sheet, it would ideally be a "repeating field" that mirrors what's typed in another field automatically. Also in an ideal situation, we'll develop a Melee Attack Roll macro, and a Missile Attack Roll macro, that takes the appropriate modifiers into account.

It does strike me that you could have a magic weapon, say Dagger +2, and you'd need a field for that +2 if it is to be figured into any attack roll macro ever.

I wondered if you intend for the player to add up all relevant bonuses, such as Strength + Magic bonuses, and tally that under "AB" for each weapon on each line, rather than having, say, a macro pull from the various fields (AB, Str Mod, Dex Mod, Magic Bonus). Is that how you'd do it?

Subtle differences arise between how paper sheets work, and what can be done in a programmed sheet! Good start so far!

[Hywaywolf]

I like the sheet that someone (pat s?) posted on the BFRPG page that had the attack roll next to the weapon.

I set up macros for all my weapons (including 3 macros for each range weapon -short/medium/long) and have the damage rolls included so that when I click on my token all my attacks pop up at the top of the screen.

[Solomoriah]

The sheet mirrors my regular paper sheet. We precalculate melee and missile attack bonuses, so there are separate fields for each on the form; then, those players who use a weapons chart add the relevant bonuses together for each weapon to save time.

With a Roll20 sheet, why would you need to ask a player what his or her bonus is? Wouldn't you just look for yourself? Or am I missing something here?

[Solomoriah]

Here's an update to the HTML and CSS (the CSS didn't actually change) with some of the roll buttons added and a macro for the Missile and Melee AB fields. Weapon rolls yet to come.