Ipad first impressions
 

It looks clean and easy to understand where everything on the main page is. So far, I think this is a great start. I want to write the things I would suggest adjusting, although please do not think I am not very happy with this app. So far, I love the work you guys do and own 100% of the pathfinder data packages.

I think it would be great if the community added to this as well.

1. Changing weapons is difficult and slow. A quick select would be great. I don't think it is necessary to have multiple weapons equipped at the same time, so selecting a weapon could auto deselect another weapon.

2. The dice rollers are great (although I get an unusual amount of 20's when I roll). Could we combine the attack and damage rolls? That speeds it up greatly. So, when I hit the dice roller for my longsword, the dice roller shows my hit and damage in the same screen, in stead of me having to back out and then go into damage.

3. Can we have a section that details the class as well? This might seem redundant, but I would be great to be able to press the class at the top of the page and have a pop-up detailing the information, like you can with all the other attributes and feats.

4. For the consumables, and daily use powers, could we had a + symbol next to the value adjustment? Then we can just this the + and move it forward once instead of hitting the value adjustment, scrolling to the next number and then closing the window. Having the window is great to make larger adjustments, or back adjustments, but usually they move in increments of 1 (or for arrows more), and I think that would be faster.

5. Can you add a reach section to the weapons? Then when you are enlarged, the correct threatened area is shown.

6. A status window would be great too. So when you add a condition, you remember you added it. Maybe as simple as the condition button showing how many status effects are in [conditions (1)]. You could do the same things for adjustment to remind you that you have X amount of spell effects in place. - sometimes we forget such things

That's all that I can think about now. I know shadowchemosh mentioned the saving wait times, and a response already addressed you are working on it. of course, everyone has commented on being able to delete in the app.

I don't know how to sync this with my desktop yet, but I haven't read the instructions yet either.

I am looking forward to using this at my next session. I will have more comments after that. I really like all the information that is included; i don't even need to have my books at the table with this!!

Very happy so far.

**Lead off with these of course all my opinion and just another take on how groups use HL***

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.

Worse for my monk player who currently has 9+ different weapons and like to flurry with different ones at different times. Now you equip more than one weapon and get the wrong values as HL thinks your TWF with them. (Note: if you equip both in the "Main" hand it seems ok other than showing a red warning message). Also none of the "Flurry of Blow" info shows in the front screen. But at least you can go to the "change" screen and see all the values.

Another note playing around for monks is that you have to actually "equip" "Unarmed Strike" to make it display on the main page. Again not something that can't be worked around but another of "show" all weapons on the main page would fix this.

Last note about weapons is that I currently have higher level Mythic characters and this means big magical weapons. The text for weapons is not shrinking itself and its becoming unreadable in places:
Attachment 2138

Shadow, I think I agree with you. Having the weapons section scrollable with all weapons equipped would be nice. How would you adjust for wielding one-handed, off-hand or two-handed? That would be troublesome.

I don't like the over-text that you have displayed as well. Forgot about that one.

I have the same issue with the text for my weapons as well.

The text overwriting issue is a bug. Please report bugs the same way you'd report any other Pathfinder bug (just make sure to flag it as iPad specific).

This one's already been reported through the bug reporting mechanism.

Yep no problem. I figured to wait until this weekend as I have a game Saturday and this will get put through its paces I hoping. So may as well report them all at the same time. :)

So far, I like it a lot. My biggest initial complaint is that they should have added toggles for some common buffs. Especially Haste, as I have it on every Melee guy I use about half the time. I also beleive that some feats (like furious focus), while included on the sheet, are not factored in to the sheet.

Right, I agree with Shadow.

I was hoping this forum to be a brainstorm of additions to the program. Maybe it gives ideas or maybe just a fun place to wax.

I'd like to be able to delete the characters from the app without having to connect the tool to iTunes. Apple specifically broke the link with iTunes, the tool should follow that mind-set. I'd suggest a delete and play button on the line with the character name in the selection window, or maybe "It's dead, Jim" (delete) and "Let's kick butt" (play) buttons. :-)

Aside from that I am very happy with what you all created. Looking forward to some day being able to create a character from scratch in the tool.

You should be able to add Haste as a spell adjustment, by tapping the "Adjust" button at the bottom of the sheet.

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.

1. Having multiple weapons equipped at once is a critical requirement for characters that use two-weapon fighting. Have you tried using the "Quick Equip" button at the bottom of the screen?

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

3. Can you tell me more about what sort of information you'd want to see here? Class abilities are already listed under the "All Special Abilities" button at the bottom of the screen, if that helps.

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?

5. This would just be "reach of character" + "reach of weapon" for each weapon, right?

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.

Thanks for your feedback!

I have yet to figure out how to update. Granted, I haven't played with it much, but it wasn't addressed in the help pages.

So, when I play with the character, use equipment, buy equipment, etc.... how to I get these modifications back to my desktop? Do I have to just manually do the adjustments?

Do the files move back and forth using itunes (which I don't like to use - sounds like others don't as well - is this a restriction that Apple forced?)?

It would be great to have the option to email or export the porfolio, then you can just email it back, or use dropbox, and have the desktop app open the same portfolio to level up and do other between game adjustments.

tl;dr.... Once it is on the ipad... is the portfolio stuck there?

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.

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.

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.

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. :D

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.

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. :o

For now you have to use iTunes but I am sure this is something they are going to add in the future. They wanted to get what they had out and why iTunes file sharing is sucky it does work and for a initial release of software is more important than not getting the software out.

AC: its pretty important to show the AC, Touch and Flatfooted AC always. I know you can click on AC, but i think its important to always show all three. The less clicks the better. I would rather scroll than click.

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.

Yes. You could have the damage appear under the attack roll so it's not confusing. For crits, you can just roll again. It would be great if it took account for threat ranges and auto rolled, but that might be too difficult to pull off.

I think this is probably a minor thing since most people will just roll their dice anyway. Like I think i said earlier, I get a high amount of 20's rolling on the app than in real life. Maybe I am a terrible roller, but it seems to not be completely random.

One thing I really like about hero lab is I can go to the class tab and select the attack button at the top and it will show my progression. Same with saves and abilities. I really love being able to see what I can do later, and sometimes people ask me. It would be great to have a class tap that mimicked this. Sometimes the GM asked me if I have a power, and I would like to be able to say, not until two levels later. I do have all the books on my ipad, so it's also not a big deal, but it was one of the first things I went looking for, lol.

Yes, a button would be great. I think there is enough space, you could through a - to the left and a + to the right.

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.

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?

Thank you!!!

At least there is a way. I will fire up my itunes and start using it until there is a better way.

I am thinking they could add the option in the character screen. They have options for emailing, copying and view stat blocks. Adding email portfolio should be pretty easy... at least from a non-programming perspective.

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 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. :(

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.

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?


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.



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.

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.

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.

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 :)

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.

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!"

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.

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.

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 :D

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!

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...

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.")

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.

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.

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. :(

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.