2020-02-26 Update: Build 4661D49

[Joe]

Client changes and improvements

• PCs that are owned by players now have a menu option to transfer ownership to the campaign in campaigns where Patron content sharing has been enabled
• Member-Controlled PCs now include a menu option for the GM to assign ownership of the PC to the player (such PCs will no longer participate in Patron content sharing)
• Adds a badge to unique NPCs on the cast view and related edit forms, to differentiate them from non-unique NPCs
• Removed an unnecessary link to the Select Character view from within the select character from personal folder dialog
• Tweaked the spacing and alignment of text input fields throughout the app
• Added portrait and Improved layout when importing characters from personal folders
• Displays all character types when in demo mode, disabling those that can't be used rather than hiding them

Client bug fixes

• While viewing the stage in the main panel with the side panel overlaid but not pinned open, clicking on a character (or any character side panel quick links) will keep the side panel overlaid, and go to that character/section in the side panel. Previously, it would close the overlaid side panel, which would need to be reopened.
• Fixes demo limits being incorrectly imposed on creation of PCs by apprentice and demo accounts in campaigns owned by someone else
• Fixed the choose form detail view back arrow (when using a narrow display) closing the choose form instead of returning to the list view if the previous selection was removed from the list due to only being able to be selected once
• Fixes the Characters/Campaigns tab saying "Not Found!" when that section was narrow enough for the tabs to become a dropdown menu

Game mechanics

• PF2/SF - on a character with a long skill list and a portrait, the Skill Modifiers list could be cut off.
• SR6 - Weapons that were switched to a firing mode other than Semi-Auto were not showing the correct Attack Rating in most of the tables where they were displayed.
• PF2 - For conditions that use a value, the Play tab's effects section now shows a control to change that value.
• SR6 - For status effects that use a value, the Play tab's effects section now shows a control to change that value.
• SF - The Checkbox for whether a boon was slotted or not is now visible on the Profile tab as well as that boon's details page.
• PF2 & SF - Factions now display their reputation tier and reputation on the Profile tab.
• PF2 & SF - The boon table now lists the number of boons from each category that you have slotted and the number you may slot.

 

[Dragnmoon]

One step close to what I have been waiting for for PF2... Being able to see my total Fame..

 

[Koro76]

What does HLO recognize as being a "unique" NPC?

 

[Shadowfoot]

What does HLO recognize as being a "unique" NPC?

Without searching for it, I think I read something to the effect of: Unique NPCs retain their damage between encounters. Non-unique NPCs are cloned for each encounter.

 

[Joe]

"Unique" NPCs are typically for named individuals that are characters in your story: Gandalf, Bruce Wayne, Godzilla. They can only be added to the stage once as an individual. They have a property we call "Persistence" that determines whether things HP/spells remaining stay with them after they leave the stage, or whether they are reset. I forget what the default is set to right now (we don't let you modify it yet, but we hope to make that available soon).

Non-unique NPCs are reusable/recurring grunts/mooks, e.g. "Town Guard", "Orc Raider", "Corporate Security", etc. They can be added to the stage multiple times to form ad-hoc encounters, if the players do something unexpected that you don't have a Scene Script prepared for. Non-unique NPCs can never be persisted, so changes you make to them while they are on stage do not get retained on the cast member long-term.

 

[Koro76]

So then, is the "unique NPC" tag (or something) generated by the system when you edit a name, or do they have to be part of the campaign cast?

 

[Joe]

So then, is the "unique NPC" tag (or something) generated by the system when you edit a name, or do they have to be part of the campaign cast?

It's one of the options you can configure on campaign cast when you edit their options (the "sliders" button on the right of each cast member on the cast members view)

 

[nightpanda2810]

It's one of the options you can configure on campaign cast when you edit their options (the "sliders" button on the right of each cast member on the cast members view)

Can we change the default to NOT unique? Find it a bit tedious needing to edit everything I add. Better yet, a checkbox next to the "create character" button to enable unique if that's what you need.

 

[rob]

Can we change the default to NOT unique? Find it a bit tedious needing to edit everything I add. Better yet, a checkbox next to the "create character" button to enable unique if that's what you need.

Your request is a bit worrisome, since either we've completely overlooked an important use-case scenario or there's some confusion with how things are assumed to be used. Whichever way it is, we need to make some changes.

So...

The assumption is that "global" cast members are primarily going to be individual NPCs that the party runs into on a recurring basis. For example, the BBEG, his lieutenants, the people that run the world (e.g. nobles), the local merchants (if you opt to spec them all out), etc. Each of those is assumed to a "unique" individual.

There are also generic townsfolk that you might want to prepare for re-use, such as bar patrons, beggars, guards, bandits, and the like. Those would NOT be unique, but our assumption is that those are much less frequent than the unique NPCs.

Cast members that only appear within a single scene are assumed to be created solely within the context of the appropriate script - as "local" NPCs. They're only used once, so they don't need to clutter up the reusable "global" pool.

Now that I've hopefully clarified what our assumptions were, please explain how you're actually striving to use CT. Either we need to better explain the above model or we need to better understand what you're doing so we can make appropriate changes to accommodate the unexpected usage pattern. Or both.

Thanks!

 

[dacoobob]

The assumption is that "global" cast members are primarily going to be individual NPCs that the party runs into on a recurring basis. For example, the BBEG, his lieutenants, the people that run the world (e.g. nobles), the local merchants (if you opt to spec them all out), etc. Each of those is assumed to a "unique" individual.

There are also generic townsfolk that you might want to prepare for re-use, such as bar patrons, beggars, guards, bandits, and the like. Those would NOT be unique, but our assumption is that those are much less frequent than the unique NPCs.

Really? I'm very curious why you would assume that.

Say the PCs are walking down the street in a town-- who are they more likely to bump into: the Mayor, or a common merchant or beggar? Or, say the party is delving into an evil necromancer's dungeon-- who will they likely spend more time fighting: the Necromancer himself, or his hordes of undead minions?

If you're prepping an encounter with a goblin raiding party, would you really spec out unique statblocks for every individual goblin? I certainly wouldn't... I'd make most of them generic "goblin warriors" and call it good. The leader of the band might be more powerful-- and he might even have a name and a backstory-- but even then he probably wouldn't need unique stats, just a generic "goblin lieutenant" statblock. Surely those kind of encounters are more common than ones involving unique monsters or NPCs, no?

 

[nightpanda2810]

Your request is a bit worrisome, since either we've completely overlooked an important use-case scenario or there's some confusion with how things are assumed to be used. Whichever way it is, we need to make some changes.

So...

The assumption is that "global" cast members are primarily going to be individual NPCs that the party runs into on a recurring basis. For example, the BBEG, his lieutenants, the people that run the world (e.g. nobles), the local merchants (if you opt to spec them all out), etc. Each of those is assumed to a "unique" individual.

There are also generic townsfolk that you might want to prepare for re-use, such as bar patrons, beggars, guards, bandits, and the like. Those would NOT be unique, but our assumption is that those are much less frequent than the unique NPCs.

Cast members that only appear within a single scene are assumed to be created solely within the context of the appropriate script - as "local" NPCs. They're only used once, so they don't need to clutter up the reusable "global" pool.

Now that I've hopefully clarified what our assumptions were, please explain how you're actually striving to use CT. Either we need to better explain the above model or we need to better understand what you're doing so we can make appropriate changes to accommodate the unexpected usage pattern. Or both.

Thanks!

Thanks for the response Rob!

After reading your explanation of your vision, it makes WAY more sense now.

Cast Members tab is meant for recurring NPCs, while each individual Scene is meant for planned encounters that won't be happening again. Then the parties friendly wizard ally would be a cast member, but the group of orcs he just saved the PCs from (or vice versa) would just be in the scene.

You would start a scene, then import the cast member into it. Are things like used abilities/HP supposed to save when a scene is ended? It didn't in my testing right now.

Am I understanding this right? If so, I actually like it and will likely use it this way instead of how I envisioned it.

All that said, I do think a checkbox to untick unique when adding to the Cast Members, and the hostility options to be a good idea, rather than having to edit each one after you add them.

 

[Jamz]

Ahh, well see ya. I was adding everyone to the Cast members, like goblins, ghouls, etc. I could have just added those to the scene script instead.

So I only need to add named characters (or maybe a single NPC that I had to customize) to the cast of characters.

Is there a reason to force us to use scenes? FWIW, say you have an impromptu scene, a PC punches the man in the bar and you didn't expect it. You already have the PC's on stage, it would be nice if we ad a + button right on the stage page to add a generic PC and start tactical mode? Or am I missing something?

 

[rob]

Really? I'm very curious why you would assume that.

Say the PCs are walking down the street in a town-- who are they more likely to bump into: the Mayor, or a common merchant or beggar? Or, say the party is delving into an evil necromancer's dungeon-- who will they likely spend more time fighting: the Necromancer himself, or his hordes of undead minions?

If you're prepping an encounter with a goblin raiding party, would you really spec out unique statblocks for every individual goblin? I certainly wouldn't... I'd make most of them generic "goblin warriors" and call it good. The leader of the band might be more powerful-- and he might even have a name and a backstory-- but even then he probably wouldn't need unique stats, just a generic "goblin lieutenant" statblock. Surely those kind of encounters are more common than ones involving unique monsters or NPCs, no?

When walking down the street, the party is most likely to randomly bump into a commoner of some sort. How many different generic commoners do you plan on specing out in advance? Probably a handful is my guess. Over the life of a campaign, that number will be far exceeded by all the unique and recurring NPCs that you put together.

If you are preparing an encounter, you can add all those generic goblins and orcs directly into the scene script. You pull the goblin from the Vault and set the quantity to 6 (or whatever). The goblin leader might be special and have his own entry in the script.

Let's say the goblin leader is a recurring foe that the PCs will have to deal with. So he gets created as a global cast member outside the scene and merely linked to it. Then you can link him to multiple scripts where he appears. Each of those scripts would also directly include his disposable goblin minions (instead of being linked).

If you decided that you want all your goblin minions to be "special", you could also do that. You create a single "goblin minion" as a global cast member and customize it as desired. Then you link that one minion to each script where you want it to appear and set its quantity to the number appearing. Voila! You now have a scene with a custom goblin leader and his custom goblin minions. All for the low, low price of creating each of them a single time and then re-using them across multiple scenes.

I hope those examples make more sense now!

 

[rob]

Cast Members tab is meant for recurring NPCs, while each individual Scene is meant for planned encounters that won't be happening again. Then the parties friendly wizard ally would be a cast member, but the group of orcs he just saved the PCs from (or vice versa) would just be in the scene.

Exactly!

You would start a scene, then import the cast member into it. Are things like used abilities/HP supposed to save when a scene is ended? It didn't in my testing right now.

Yes and no. I say that because there's a lot of functionality already in place under that covers that we still need to surface within the interface.

The backend has the concept of persistence, which controls whether a character's actions on stage during a scene are folded back into the underlying character. All PCs are inherently persistent, since what happens to the party "sticks". All NPCs created directly within a script are inherently NON-persistent, since the assumption is that (a) saving the effects serves no useful purpose and (b) you probably have plenty of scripts that you want to re-use (e.g. random encounters).

Then there are the global cast members. Depending on the GM and the nature the NPC, you may or may not want the effects of a scene to be persistent on a given NPC. So that's something that is customizable on an individual NPC within the backend, but it's not something yet available to control in the UI. For now, all NPCs behave a non-persistent, but that control will be exposed reasonably soon.

All that said, I do think a checkbox to untick unique when adding to the Cast Members, and the hostility options to be a good idea, rather than having to edit each one after you add them.

Yep. That would be nice. I've added it to the punch list. Or what I have come to refer to as my "Book of Infinite Tasks".

 

[rob]

Is there a reason to force us to use scenes? FWIW, say you have an impromptu scene, a PC punches the man in the bar and you didn't expect it. You already have the PC's on stage, it would be nice if we ad a + button right on the stage page to add a generic PC and start tactical mode? Or am I missing something?

As I mentioned in a post above, there's a lot of stuff already supported in the backend that we haven't yet exposed in the UI. This is one of those many items. We're getting stuff added to the UI on a steady basis, so look for that ability to make its appearance in the weeks ahead.

 

[Jamz]

As I mentioned in a post above, there's a lot of stuff already supported in the backend that we haven't yet exposed in the UI. This is one of those many items. We're getting stuff added to the UI on a steady basis, so look for that ability to make its appearance in the weeks ahead.

Cool cool. last week had some major changes that I'm loving, like the new NPC options. Building that custom NPC will be SO much easier now, thanks for that BTW!

I was going to ask about PC's (i'm still sad I can't view my players sheets) but I saw the text in HLO that it's coming soon, so, woot!

 

[nightpanda2810]

Yep. That would be nice. I've added it to the punch list. Or what I have come to refer to as my "Book of Infinite Tasks".

Everyone has one of those