Ipad first impressions

[Colen]

I had a similar AC issue with my paladin.

When I activate the smite evil class feature it increases my AC, however, this is a situational increase. Following how hero lab normally operations, situational increases should not show, but maybe an astrict appears.

This is the same level of frustration I have with the furious focus feat, I have to either make an adjustment and forget I have the adjustment and use it on AoO, or remove it and forget I have the + to hit.

6 of one, half dozen of another.

The intent behind having Smite Evil be an activated ability is that you turn it on, see what your stats are against the specific enemy, then turn it off again, rather than leaving it enabled for a long time. We could change it to add a situational modifier like the other abilities, but that doesn't really help - we've just changed it from being "you're less likely to forget the bonus" to "you're less likely to remember the bonus".

The only way I can see to make it significantly better would be to show the base score for a stat (or weapon damage, or whatever), then show the modified score for Smite Evil under it. Unfortunately this has two problems:

1) It uses a lot of space - if you have two or three different abilities that modify each stat, now everything takes twice as much height as it used to

2) If you have two or three different abilities that modify a stat, you can no longer turn them all on at once to see what the total value is - you'd have to add them up yourself.

If you have other ideas for how we can display this appropriately I'm interested in hearing them, but I couldn't think of anything that would work well.

 

[Colen]

Another AC issue - if im in a condition that requires me to be in one of the three AC conditions, then it should make that very clear. For example, in the main hero lab, if i check the "Running" Condition, then flatfooted is the primary AC condition, and it greys out the other two. In the iPad, it still shows you your primary AC, but if you click on the AC, it shows you your three AC conditions and places a note that you are flatfooted. My point is the quick view is wrong, or confusing, and you have to know to click on the Armor Class text to see what your armor class is. This is confusing, and users will forget this.

I'll see how it looks to display touch and flat-footed AC in the space where the dice would be for armor class - that should make them more visible without having to hide them at the bottom of the table or something similar.

 

[Colen]

The quick equip screen is helpful, but not easy to use. Let me try to illustrate, something I am terribly at... I click on quick equip, select the weapon I have equipped, select not equipped. Select the weapon I now want equipped, selected both hands. For me and my uncoordinated hands, that is about 6 seconds to change a weapon. This goes up longer if I am fighting Two-weapon because I have to either deselect two different weapons to select my bow, or god forbid I am changing to two other weapons for DR bypass. That goes up to 10-15 seconds of people at the table just watching me play a mini-game to find out what my bonuses are to hit.

Maybe a small time, but if I am doing it often, it gets irritating.

I see what you're saying. Are you usually changing from weapon 1 to weapon 2, or changing how you have a particular weapon equipped?

I.e. are you switching from using your bow to two swords, or are you switching from using a Longsword in both hands, to using that same longsword in one hand?

Right, so if I am using a long sword, under the weapon it would show 10' reach when enlarged. This is a nice reminder to new players who don't know or forget. I have a bunch at the table I play at.

I can add this to show the reach if it's not the same as the default for the hero; that way it'll stand out more that a specific weapon has a longer reach.

Wow, I didn't even see that. The font is small and kind of hidden, like you said. Can you add the spell adjustments to this?

They should be there already; the fact that they aren't is a bug. I've added this to our fix list, and I'll find somewhere better to put it as well.


I've added the other items to our to-do list.

 

[Unseelie]

Any die rolling app that is allowed at my table needs to have a die roll log. I prefer an audible cue for die rolls as well.

 

[Colen]

Any die rolling app that is allowed at my table needs to have a die roll log. I prefer an audible cue for die rolls as well.

Ooh, that's a good idea! We may not be able to do a 3d animation of dice bouncing across the table, though.

A roll log is one of the items on our to-do list - I actually had one in a previous version of the dice roller I implemented, but it was way too clunky, so it got scrapped in favor of the simpler dice roller we have now. It should find its way back in at some point.

 

[Globetrotter]

The intent behind having Smite Evil be an activated ability is that you turn it on, see what your stats are against the specific enemy, then turn it off again, rather than leaving it enabled for a long time. We could change it to add a situational modifier like the other abilities, but that doesn't really help - we've just changed it from being "you're less likely to forget the bonus" to "you're less likely to remember the bonus".

Yes.. I can see that.

The only way I can see to make it significantly better would be to show the base score for a stat (or weapon damage, or whatever), then show the modified score for Smite Evil under it. Unfortunately this has two problems:

1) It uses a lot of space - if you have two or three different abilities that modify each stat, now everything takes twice as much height as it used to

2) If you have two or three different abilities that modify a stat, you can no longer turn them all on at once to see what the total value is - you'd have to add them up yourself.

If you have other ideas for how we can display this appropriately I'm interested in hearing them, but I couldn't think of anything that would work well. [/QUOTE]

This might sound silly, but what if you put a die roller next to these situational abilities? So next to my smite evil power, I can hit the die roller since I am smiting this this attack and hit the weapon when I am not smiting for my other attack. The smite, since it already knows how to calculate all the modifiers can roll the modified hit and damage roll.

From what I've seen the weapon description pop up has the calculated totals here as well, so you could add that to the smite evil. When you touch the words smite evil (just like touching +1 bastard sword) the smite description appears with the modified weapon damage based on what is equipped.

You could use this for other abilities as well, for example the lay on hands line. Then I could roll the xd6 since it's pre-calculated. Same with other abilities like bloodline powers or domain powers.

 

[Globetrotter]

I see what you're saying. Are you usually changing from weapon 1 to weapon 2, or changing how you have a particular weapon equipped?

This is what happened during our last session:

I use a bardiche for my primary weapon. I have power attack and furious focus to eliminate my attack penalty. This lets me hit hard.

I had to switch to my longbow to hit an enemy across the battlefield. If I was using the app, I quick equip, unequip bardiche and equip longbow both hands.

one round later I move forward and forgot to pick up my bardiche. So i drop the longbow and grab my backup flail. Quick equip, unequip longbow and select flail as both hands. Back into action.

What if I now needed to bump my ac and pull out my shield? quick equip, change flail from both hands to one hand, equip shield.

The pain in all of this is I cannot do it during another player's turn, because you cannot move unless it's your turn. If I do it preemptively, and my DM tells me no - could be a reason like an immediate action or something - I have to switch it back quickly. This takes time....

Oh my.. I just had a thought - Weapon presets.

Can you have saved configurations? I go to quick equip and hit preset 1 and it changes my weapon and shield config? Go back and hit preset 2 and not I am wielding my longbow... hit preset 1 again and I am back into action?

That would address my issues... but wouldn't address what Shadow was talking about regarding needing to know multiple weapons unless in one of the presets you could select "all equipped".

This wouldn't work with my smite evil die roller that I have above... but you guys are the experts

 

[wurzel]

A roll log is one of the items on our to-do list.

For me it would be absolutely sufficient to know something about the pseudo random number generating algorithm used. There are a few that generate equally distributed pseudo random numbers so it is almost the same as really rolling dice.

 

[Jamz]

The intent behind having Smite Evil be an activated ability is that you turn it on, see what your stats are against the specific enemy, then turn it off again, rather than leaving it enabled for a long time. We could change it to add a situational modifier like the other abilities, but that doesn't really help - we've just changed it from being "you're less likely to forget the bonus" to "you're less likely to remember the bonus".

The only way I can see to make it significantly better would be to show the base score for a stat (or weapon damage, or whatever), then show the modified score for Smite Evil under it. Unfortunately this has two problems:

1) It uses a lot of space - if you have two or three different abilities that modify each stat, now everything takes twice as much height as it used to

2) If you have two or three different abilities that modify a stat, you can no longer turn them all on at once to see what the total value is - you'd have to add them up yourself.

If you have other ideas for how we can display this appropriately I'm interested in hearing them, but I couldn't think of anything that would work well.

Real estate is always a problem. Would it be feasible or make sense to add a timer in? (This goes for the full version as well). Of course it would be optional, but something like either a popup "Smite is still on, would you like to turn off? [Off] [Snooze 5 mins]"

Or maybe a flag(s) that temporary abilities or conditions that are turned on? Maybe a icon just at the top with number of abilities on, or a flag next to what's changes, or a color/highlight of changed stats?

Actually, for Hero Labs, I'd love to see everything highlighted on the dashboard that was changed when I clicked on Rage/Smite/Rapid Shot/Pinned/Prone/Etc! That alone would make me say, "Why is my AC red? Oh ya, I left Prone clicked, durr!"

 

[ShadowChemosh]

Actually, for Hero Labs, I'd love to see everything highlighted on the dashboard that was changed when I clicked on Rage/Smite/Rapid Shot/Pinned/Prone/Etc! That alone would make me say, "Why is my AC red? Oh ya, I left Prone clicked, durr!"

Oh I like this idea. Colors don't take up room and would be easy to spot. I am not sure I like red as that is too associated with errors. Maybe a nice blue or green.

 

[mirtos]

in my opinion the key to this is determining whats the best way to show the data, is it making a user click, or scroll? im of the scroll camp. i think on an ipad app, scrolling is perfectly reasonable, and expected to get to the portion of the sheet we want, but clicking, on the other hand isnt.

 

[wurzel]

Coloring really seems to be a good idea, but timing in my opinion is not. Almost always the pizza service arrives in the middle of a heated battle

 

[Eru the One]

I played my level 10 cleric in a PFS module (tier 7-11) last night only using my iPad app. I'm very pleased with how the app functioned, swapping spells, etc. Great job guys, keep it coming!

 

[Jamz]

Oh I like this idea. Colors don't take up room and would be easy to spot. I am not sure I like red as that is too associated with errors. Maybe a nice blue or green.

How about a nice green for positive change, red for negative, blue for both? Maybe a highlight or brighter color for a few seconds when you first apply the condition so you can scan quickly to see what is affected, then fades to the above red/green/blue?

Although i see what you mean for red = error, so maybe orange or something...

 

[mxyzplk]

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.

 

[Globetrotter]

My first play session is tomorrow night.

I don't think I'll use the die roller, my group wouldn't approve yet - I think.
I'm eager to really test it out.

 

[mirtos]

personally, i LIKE rolling dice. i only use dice rollers when there is no other option. I like it for being a character sheet, not so much managing dice.

 

[Colen]

personally, i LIKE rolling dice. i only use dice rollers when there is no other option. I like it for being a character sheet, not so much managing dice.

I have to admit, this is me as well. I like rolling physical dice! Even if we made an app that had the world's best dice roller, I probably wouldn't use it, as I like rolling my dice too much.

 

[Globetrotter]

personally, i LIKE rolling dice. i only use dice rollers when there is no other option. I like it for being a character sheet, not so much managing dice.

I agree with you. Loosing total connection means I am one step away from virtual tabletop games. I like the social interaction, so the dice will stay.

The die roller is nice when I am reviewing character builds and seeing what it really does. I could do the average math, but it's fun to have the die roller simulate what is going on.

On another note, it looks like I am not playing tonight, so I can't test out the sheet... very bummed.