Ipad first impressions

[Colen]

Originally Posted by ShadowChemosh

I agree with everything but this one as I want the exact opposite. Please just show ALL weapons on the list all the time. Its common for my group to carry multiple weapons which get used in combat and unless your TWF their is no reason to actually need to swap them.

For example:
Longsword.....
Heavy, Mace....
Greatsword...

Would all display the correct values without needing to be equipped. So now I would have to actually spend the time equipping the weapons which is takes time instead of just using them.

This is actually the way we modeled things for Shadowrun - the weapon equipped state really means "show me the stats for the weapon in this state", not "the weapon is actually equipped in this state".

Would you always want *all* of your weapons displayed, even a random dagger you just picked up? Or would you want many displayed but some hidden? Bear in mind that the list of weapons on the main sheet also shows any equipped armor and other items, so having a long list of weapons at the top makes the other items much less accessible.

[ShadowChemosh]

Originally Posted by Colen

Would you always want *all* of your weapons displayed, even a random dagger you just picked up?

A random item kept for loot would get recorded in the Journal or my players put a "Custom Gear Item" in and mark it as Dagger and set the weight. But that would only be for a special custom dagger that they think is plot related.

Originally Posted by Colen

Or would you want many displayed but some hidden?

Remember this is how my group does it but we would not want/need things hidden. If we really did for some strange reason I have an adjustment in my addon that allows me to do that. I have not tested it in the app but I assume it works. Hmm need to test adjustment that allows weapons to be re-sorted in the list to see if they work still on the iPad.

Originally Posted by Colen

Bear in mind that the list of weapons on the main sheet also shows any equipped armor and other items, so having a long list of weapons at the top makes the other items much less accessible.

True but usually on a paper sheet these are shown on a different/2nd page so its not that bad to scroll down as they don't seem to be referenced as much as weapons.

I will have in-game feedback after this weekend hopefully.

Originally Posted by Colen

2. Would it be OK if it always rolled damage, even if you missed or rolled a 1?

My thought is yes. This matches exactly how many players roll the dice. My group learned awhile go to do anything they can to speed up combat and one method is to roll attacks and damage at the same time. If the attack misses you just ignore the damage.

Now here is where a GUI interface can help and match the dice as you will need to get it eventually roll Multiple Attacks as this is very important for higher level play. Have each attack and damage be a different color. So say your first attack is always Red, 2nd is Green, 3rd is Blue, etc as this is the same method most gamers use at the table. Matching the color of the d20 with their damage dice so it can all be rolled at once.

One other note here for programmer/DM's like me is before I would allow this App to actually replace dice I would want to see a proof of 10,000 d20 rolls to make sure it really comes out to about 5%. Without this feature I don't let software dice at my table. My DM tool I use has this built in and I am happy to show players any time they want even show it roll 100 d20, 1,000 d20, 10,000 d20 and 100,000 d20.

Originally Posted by Colen

4. This is funny because incrementers used to work like this, but I switched to the spinning wheel view because it was a complete pain to adjust it by more than one. We probably need a button to go up one and a button to go down one, right?

Yea I am back and forth on which of these is nice. But most things are being done in a single increment. I could see "Adjustments" wanting the wheel but a spell you cast once a round. A special ability is mostly used once per round or per day. So a simple "+" makes more sense for those.

Again will see what its like at the game table.

Originally Posted by Colen

6. Any conditions are actually shown at the bottom of the screen right now, but it's not that visible. I'll try to find somewhere that's more prominent for this, I just don't want it being a huge thing, as many characters will have adjustments toggled semi-permanently.

See the adjustments/conditions is very important as its very easy to forget right now in HL. I have made a habit to remind players at the start of the game to Look and make sure all the adjustments/conditions are set correctly before we start or some spell or effect that ran out last session is left on.

[mxyzplk]

Originally Posted by Colen

This is actually the way we modeled things for Shadowrun - the weapon equipped state really means "show me the stats for the weapon in this state", not "the weapon is actually equipped in this state".

Would you always want *all* of your weapons displayed, even a random dagger you just picked up? Or would you want many displayed but some hidden? Bear in mind that the list of weapons on the main sheet also shows any equipped armor and other items, so having a long list of weapons at the top makes the other items much less accessible.

It would be perfect if

1. the overall area was constrained/scrollable, so there's no "long list penalty"
2. we could drag and drop to order-rank our weapons. I'd personally rank them favorite melee, favorite missile, favorite alternate melee, favorite one-hander for use in grapples, etc. Some of the problem is that right now the random picked up dagger is listed above our awesome artifact sword.

(now- there is a problem that many weapons, especially magical ones, do something to your character when wielded - that might be hard to model with "all equipped.")

[wurzel]

Had the first gaming session using the iPad today, went very well. Only one thing did I really miss: damage rolling for spells. My monsters bombarded the players with nasty magic, and I had to switch between the tablet and the real dice continuously.