[Azhrei]

Apparently, in your situation the GM is keeping track of all of the data for all heroes. You're going to have extra work if you do that. (You're essentially now responsible for all NPCs and all PCs! And the PCs will change every session while the NPCs rarely do.)

HL is great at managing a hero by a single player. It's not to good for GMs to use to manage all of the heroes in their game.

I filed a bug report for how I think the Tactical Console should work. Here's the content of that bug report. It doesn't cover loot distribution, although I think that's a great idea... Some way to select multiple heroes and then "roll a saving throw" or "distribute gp" or similar. Each group will likely handle this differently, but our GM wants the players to manage their own heroes which he imports a few days before a game session. He never exports them so loot distribution isn't an issue for us; players track that stuff themselves.

My GM and I had a “playtest” session with the tactical console (“TC”) and wanted to report some feedback in addition to my previous notes, included below. Here are the show stopping issues we had, followed by some “need to have” and “would be nice to have” features. Note that these are game play problems, not application crashes or lockups (which I’m sure you’re glad to hear!).

Showstoppers:

All “Take Action” buttons for creatures below the current creature should not be active!! The GM accidentally clicked on that button and the creature was moved to the next round and placed at the bottom of the window. It is now impossible to put the creature back where it belongs! If clicking that button is going to be allowed, we suggest adding an “Are you sure?” prompt to safeguard against accidents.

That last paragraph brings up another point — if a creature is moved into the next round accidentally, how should it be corrected? We believe that there should be a “Restore to active position” button that decrements the round number and puts the creature back at the initiative point it was at previously. If the “Are you sure” prompt mentioned in the previous paragraph is more difficult than I expect, then this suggestion is a very high priority. Even with the prompt, there could still be a need to put a creature back into its place in the active list. The TC window can be wider so adding a button on the left or right isn’t space-constrained, but the “move to top position” button could provide double duty: click it once and the creature moves to the top of its section, but if it’s at the top of its section already then clicking it again could make it active again and put it at the top of the active list. (That way a separate button isn’t needed.)

Need to have:

If a creature drops below 0 hp and is healed, we need some easy way to put them back into initiative at the proper point. Ideally by using drag/drop to place them (instead of the up/down buttons, which are too small and cumbersome to be useful).

Scrolling the TC window with the mouse fails at random times (Windows 10). No discernible pattern that we found as to when it happens.

There’s no way to handle a surprise round using the TC!! When the GM clicks New Combat, prompt for setting a checkbox that says “Surprise round”. During that round, let’s call it “round 0”, allow any creatures to take action in any order (although they should still sort in initiative order as randomly rolled). When the GM clicks Next Round, put all of the initiatives back the way they were originally rolled and play progresses to Round 1, with the surprise checkbox turned off. (The checkbox isn’t really needed except for visual confirmation for the GM.) Using this approach allows the GM to account for heroes that have the Pathfinder Forewarned ability, allowing them to take action in the surprise round (even though they’re still flat-footed up until it’s their turn to act). Other abilities can easily be handled “manually” using this technique as well, such as the rogue and ninja abilities that allow actions in the surprise round.

In addition to handling surprise rounds as described above, it should be possible to add new combatants to the encounter that is already running. The PF rules say such creatures come in at the top of the round at which they arrive on the scene, but the TC can play it more simply. We suggest allowing the GM to specify a round number when importing creatures into the encounter. Those creatures then sit idly at the bottom of the TC (with an “X” to indicate they’re not active) until the GM clicks Next Round and it matches their pre-programmed round number. Now they're set to Delayed and placed at the top of the init sequence. (I think rolling initiative should be an option. If the GM wants to play by the rules, they’ll leave all newcomers at the top of the init window and can take their actions whenever they want. My GM thinks they should have init rolled for them and be inserted into the proper place, but since that isn’t rules-as-written, it should be an option and not forced.)

In addition to adding new combatants, my GM doesn't want to roll initiative separately for animal companions or familiars (or similar), so PCs with such minions should import into the TC as just themselves. Could we have a checkbox for this when the TC is initially opened and init is rolled? We suggest a checkbox in front of every creature with two buttons at the top: Toggle All (which toggles all checkboxes on/off), and Toggle Minions (which only toggles all minions on/off). Then only the creatures with a checkbox are added to the TC and have their init rolled. This lets GMs tweak how it works and only adds a single extra mouse click to GMs who don't want this feature. (If you want to avoid even that mouse click, make it a preference setting whether the checkboxes even appear at all and GMs could them opt-in to this process.)

I’m not sure how useful this last one would be. When I run a game, I would love to have it, but my GM for this campaign isn’t that concerned: when a player casts a spell, add an entry for it at the current point in the initiative with a number that counts upward every time the “Next Round” button is clicked. This doesn’t need to be a creature, just a one-line entry that defaults to “Spell” with a Source field that has the name of the creature that was active when this entry was created. The GM can then click and rename it from Spell to Summoned Monster. This is needed as spell tracking is the biggest PITN when playing mid-level to high-level 3e/3.5e/PF. It’s important to add it to the TC because heroes can Delay or Ready and change their position in initiative, so it’s not appropriate to say “on your next turn” when they can Delay and give everyone else an extra round of the spell effect!

Would like to have:

There’s needs to be a visual differentiation between Delay and Ready. I suggest that when the GM clicks one of those buttons, it should stay active (and yellow) when the creature is placed above the active creature. The other button should have it’s yellow changed to gray. This provides simple visual feedback and doesn’t change the UI layout much.

And if the button stays active, then clicking it again can simply turn it off, putting the creature back into its original init position. (This is for use when a creature below the current one starts delaying out of turn. For example, a player needs to take a bathroom break and yells out, “I’m going to Delay. I’ll jump back in when I get back.” The GM might Delay them immediately so they don’t forget to do it later. )

Don’t scroll to the bottom of the TC window at startup! That’s insane! There’s nothing important at the bottom of the window!

Some kind of spell duration tracker for PLAYERS would be nice, but I’m not sure how it would be implemented. Basically, whenever the player clicks the “I’ve taken my action” button, the counter would decrement. Some actions would automatically prompt afterward to remind the player. For example, a spell that takes 1 round to cast should prompt, as should a full round action (like a full attack). So should drinking a potion. But the player needs to be able to activate it manually in case the hero does nothing but move during their turn. I don’t believe this is a worthwhile goal to pursue at this point in the evolution of HL. This would be a HUGE project!