Custom Battle Manager Program

[soulofwolf]

So lately i've been working on a digital battlemap / combat manager style program to work with herolab .por files or xml exports, just for me and my wife to use but she recommended since it's turning out to be pretty great for us i see if there would be interest from other people.

would any of you want to use a program like this?
if so what features would you want to see in something like this?

feel free to respond here or use this link to a suggestions form: suggestion submission form

Note: this is not a character builder at all, it uses hero lab files, and all content gets imported with the characters, as of right now, it's just an interactive battle map that tracks initiative turns, health, enemies / ally's of the party, lets you color tokens, highlights reach spaces to track when moving through threatened areas, and provides quick roll features to quickly roll attacks, saves, skills, etc.

 

[Sphynx]

I think it looks awesome, but I've learned to never have a computer at a game... if it were for a tablet, I'd be all over this, but trying to use a laptop/macbook while also trying to set a mood/environment, tell a story, and keep a table-map setup just doesn't work for me. I use the ipad HeroLab to quickly see what my NPCs do, and what to roll (players like to see the die, so I don't use it to roll), but that's about it.... I even dock XP if anyone else is caught 'looking something up' during a game.

 

[Exmortis]

Looks really cool, actually.

For me though? I would only want the table top, I use Realm Works, Hero Lab at the game table along with using Hero Labs init tracker and encounter builders, so always have full .pors laded in.

My ultimate battle table top or VTT would be one that uses HL's init tracker. But Im not sure if that's even possible.

 

[soulofwolf]

When i finish with the desktop version i could probably make a tablet version of it. and no exmortis i really don't think that is possible

 

[Silveras]

Looks very nice indeed.

Suggestions:
1) HeroLab's Tactical Console does not manage flat-footed conditions to my satisfaction. That's an area where another tool could be competitive (specifcally, you cannot manually override the default flat-footed everyone starts with.. if one side gains surprise over the other, so they can act in the "surprise round", you need to cycle through all combatants and manually re-add the flat-footed condition to those who could not act... then remember to remove it again when they do act.)

2) Group operations.
By this, I mean rolling Perception for all allies in one click operation, and similar "everyone roll X" activities.

3) Multi-targeting conditions and damage
This is an often-requested feature of the Tactical Console, and would make an alternative tool more attractive, I think.

4) Round-tripping the updates
This is probably not feasible, but the missing piece of integrations right now is round-tripping the updates.. meaning that the other program imports the PCs/monsters from HeroLab, and updates the por file with damage accrued, conditions, and so on.

 

[soulofwolf]

Looks very nice indeed.

Suggestions:
1) HeroLab's Tactical Console does not manage flat-footed conditions to my satisfaction. That's an area where another tool could be competitive (specifcally, you cannot manually override the default flat-footed everyone starts with.. if one side gains surprise over the other, so they can act in the "surprise round", you need to cycle through all combatants and manually re-add the flat-footed condition to those who could not act... then remember to remove it again when they do act.)

By default with my tool no one starts suprised, but you can add suprise to one or the other. It's just a toggle to set enemy suprised or set ally suprised. i believe this is what you mean?

2) Group operations.
By this, I mean rolling Perception for all allies in one click operation, and similar "everyone roll X" activities.

quick rolls has sections for all allies, all enemies, and all combatants, so that's already in there

3) Multi-targeting conditions and damage
This is an often-requested feature of the Tactical Console, and would make an alternative tool more attractive, I think.

The spell system that is being worked on for it has plans to have a visual display of where a spell would hit and if your settings have auto damage targetted area selected it would auto roll saves and apply damage. (however for this feature you have to manually put in what the spell damage is since there's no way to read that from the .por files)
example Fireball
Range long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level)
Area 20-ft.-radius spread
shows a circle that is 20ft radius that you can drag up to 400ft + 40 per level
when you place it it pops up with a window asking for damage, you type in 6d6
everyone in the circle auto rolls the save and takes damage afterwards.
If this is what you mean it's already being worked on. if not please clarify.

4) Round-tripping the updates
This is probably not feasible, but the missing piece of integrations right now is round-tripping the updates.. meaning that the other program imports the PCs/monsters from HeroLab, and updates the por file with damage accrued, conditions, and so on.

I do not believe herolab supports files being edited like that. but i'm more than willing to mess around with it and see if i can save in the same .por format hero lab uses, but i think you would need to re import the characters every time. this is something i was quazi planning on working on anyway cause i want to be able to create a fake "loot chest" character after combat is done to be imported into hero lab with randomly generated treasure based on the enemies that are killed that could then be distributed via the container control inside hero lab, but like i said i don't think it will be possible with the way hero lab works so no garauntee on that.

 

[soulofwolf]

An interesting question was brought up to.. do you believe a program like this would be better networked with a gm / player version? so it could be online sessions?

 

[AndrewD2]

A VTT that could take a hero lab por and make automatic macros and easy to make macros would be awesome.

 

[Exmortis]

Looks very nice indeed.

Suggestions:
1) HeroLab's Tactical Console does not manage flat-footed conditions to my satisfaction. That's an area where another tool could be competitive (specifcally, you cannot manually override the default flat-footed everyone starts with.. if one side gains surprise over the other, so they can act in the "surprise round", you need to cycle through all combatants and manually re-add the flat-footed condition to those who could not act... then remember to remove it again when they do act.)

Interesting, something my group never encountered, but every player at the game table was using HL to run their character, so they themselves took care of the "flat footed" or any other conditions locally.

2) Group operations.
By this, I mean rolling Perception for all allies in one click operation, and similar "everyone roll X" activities.

One thing I will never do is give up my dice rolling, there is something about the feel and sound of dice clattering across the table that is so satisfying....even if it ends up a 1!!!!

4) Round-tripping the updates
This is probably not feasible, but the missing piece of integrations right now is round-tripping the updates.. meaning that the other program imports the PCs/monsters from HeroLab, and updates the por file with damage accrued, conditions, and so on.

Again we as a group handle this with HL on our own. However I would love the TC to have the ability to "add-in" a effect with a rounds in affect setting and it count it down for you.

 

[Exmortis]

An interesting question was brought up to.. do you believe a program like this would be better networked with a gm / player version? so it could be online sessions?

Yes that's the big benefit of a VTT.

 

[Silveras]

By default with my tool no one starts suprised, but you can add suprise to one or the other. It's just a toggle to set enemy suprised or set ally suprised. i believe this is what you mean?

Somewhat. In HeroLab's tactical console, all participants begin as Flat-Footed automatically. That's somewhat correct.. in that all participants are considered Flat-Footed until they act in combat. The problem is that there is no way to selectively clear some of them, except by cycling through the initiative. There is no checkmark to remove from the checkbox of the condition.

In the "surprise round", some of the participants may be able to act (because they were not surprised, or because they have a special ability that allows it). These participants.. and *only* these participants, should lose the Flat-Footed condition before round 1 begins with the initiative in order.

The work-around to do that in the Tactical Console is to cycle through *all* participants initiative and manually re-add the Flat-Footed condition to the appropriate participants.

It would be nice if your combat manager had a more elegant way to manage surprise situations.

quick rolls has sections for all allies, all enemies, and all combatants, so that's already in there

Great !

The spell system that is being worked on for it has plans to have a visual display of where a spell would hit and if your settings have auto damage targetted area selected it would auto roll saves and apply damage. (however for this feature you have to manually put in what the spell damage is since there's no way to read that from the .por files)
example Fireball
Range long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level)
Area 20-ft.-radius spread
shows a circle that is 20ft radius that you can drag up to 400ft + 40 per level
when you place it it pops up with a window asking for damage, you type in 6d6
everyone in the circle auto rolls the save and takes damage afterwards.
If this is what you mean it's already being worked on. if not please clarify.

Partially, yes. That's one example. But there are others, such as spells that allow selection of a number of targets... hold person, for example.

There's also the issue of spells that affect only allies or only enemies (bless, doom) or even only certain types of enemies (channeled energy) ... so in the end, it may be better to allow the user to click on a number of "tokens" to be selected for damage/healing/conditions to be applied.

Auto-rolling will not sit well with some GMs.. you would need a way to over-rule the results, as well, especially if you wanted to sell the application at some point.

I do not believe herolab supports files being edited like that. but i'm more than willing to mess around with it and see if i can save in the same .por format hero lab uses, but i think you would need to re import the characters every time. this is something i was quazi planning on working on anyway cause i want to be able to create a fake "loot chest" character after combat is done to be imported into hero lab with randomly generated treasure based on the enemies that are killed that could then be distributed via the container control inside hero lab, but like i said i don't think it will be possible with the way hero lab works so no garauntee on that.

Yes, that's why I started with it probably not being possible. Still, it doesn't hurt to mention it in case someone wants to prove me wrong.


In the end, some of these are things even commercial VTTs with full-time paid development staff find it difficult to implement. Being focused on Pathfinder gives you an edge ... as they must try to build a core that supports multiple rule sets. So my suggestions are just that.. things I'd like to see in a tool, even if only some are feasible.

 

[soulofwolf]

In the end, some of these are things even commercial VTTs with full-time paid development staff find it difficult to implement. Being focused on Pathfinder gives you an edge ... as they must try to build a core that supports multiple rule sets. So my suggestions are just that.. things I'd like to see in a tool, even if only some are feasible.

They are great suggestions, i doubt i ever plan to sell it and will probably put it up on an open source repository, i hate how many game tools you have to pay for so don't plan on having this be one. At the most i would possibly set up a server to host game sessions that people could rent server space off of, but it would be easier honestly just to have the gm host it on his machine, so i don't know that that would even be needed / useful.

as far as the target selection, how would you feel about when you place the spell it brings up a pop up menu with all valid targets, and you have check boxes for which to apply it to? and a space in that pop up window to overwrite the damage value in case you want to roll it yourself?

 

[Tharmiones]

Somewhat. In HeroLab's tactical console, all participants begin as Flat-Footed automatically. That's somewhat correct.. in that all participants are considered Flat-Footed until they act in combat. The problem is that there is no way to selectively clear some of them, except by cycling through the initiative. There is no checkmark to remove from the checkbox of the condition.

In the "surprise round", some of the participants may be able to act (because they were not surprised, or because they have a special ability that allows it). These participants.. and *only* these participants, should lose the Flat-Footed condition before round 1 begins with the initiative in order.

I'm not sure if that is incorrect.
As the Rules read:

Flat-Footed: At the start of a battle, before you have had a chance to act (specifically, before your first regular turn in the initiative order), you are flat-footed. You can't use your Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) while flat-footed. Barbarians and rogues of high enough level have the uncanny dodge extraordinary ability, which means that they cannot be caught flat-footed. Characters with uncanny dodge retain their Dexterity bonus to their AC and can make attacks of opportunity before they have acted in the first round of combat. A flat-footed character can't make attacks of opportunity, unless he has the Combat Reflexes feat.

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/combat.html

 

[Togainu]

I'm not sure if that is incorrect.
As the Rules read:

You might have missed what is under the "Surprise" heading:

When a combat starts, if you are not aware of your opponents and they are aware of you, you're surprised.

Sometimes all the combatants on a side are aware of their opponents, sometimes none are, and sometimes only some of them are. Sometimes a few combatants on each side are aware and the other combatants on each side are unaware.

Determining awareness may call for Perception checks or other checks.

The Surprise Round: If some but not all of the combatants are aware of their opponents, a surprise round happens before regular rounds begin. In initiative order (highest to lowest), combatants who started the battle aware of their opponents each take a standard or move action during the surprise round. You can also take free actions during the surprise round. If no one or everyone is surprised, no surprise round occurs.

Unaware Combatants: Combatants who are unaware at the start of battle don't get to act in the surprise round. Unaware combatants are flat-footed because they have not acted yet, so they lose any Dexterity bonus to AC.

 

[Aaron]

Somewhat. In HeroLab's tactical console, all participants begin as Flat-Footed automatically. That's somewhat correct.. in that all participants are considered Flat-Footed until they act in combat. The problem is that there is no way to selectively clear some of them, except by cycling through the initiative. There is no checkmark to remove from the checkbox of the condition.

In the "surprise round", some of the participants may be able to act (because they were not surprised, or because they have a special ability that allows it). These participants.. and *only* these participants, should lose the Flat-Footed condition before round 1 begins with the initiative in order.

The work-around to do that in the Tactical Console is to cycle through *all* participants initiative and manually re-add the Flat-Footed condition to the appropriate participants.

It would be nice if your combat manager had a more elegant way to manage surprise situations.

Silveras, what I do when I have a surprise round is hit the "Remove From Combat" button for each surprised combatant, which sorts them to the bottom of the initiative order and excludes them from needing to go before entering the next round. Run through the order of the remaining people, hit next round, and then re-include the surprised folks for round 2. They return to their original initiative order, and remain flat footed until their turn comes up this round.

 

[Silveras]

as far as the target selection, how would you feel about when you place the spell it brings up a pop up menu with all valid targets, and you have check boxes for which to apply it to? and a space in that pop up window to overwrite the damage value in case you want to roll it yourself?

Yes, that would be good .. that should work smoothly with multiple kinds of target selections.

Maybe a general preference could be "Auto-roll saves Y/N" and "Auto-roll damage Y/N" so people who don't want to have it roll for them can turn that off.. otherwise, the display could show pre-rolled damage for each target (including halved by saving when appropriate).

GMs who like to "fudge" the results may want to be able to over-ride on a per-creature basis, though.

 

[Silveras]

You might have missed what is under the "Surprise" heading:

Yeah, the TC is fine for the cases of "everyone's surprised" and "no one is surprised".. it is the cases where "some are surprised and some are not" that it doesn't fit as well.

 

[Silveras]

Silveras, what I do when I have a surprise round is hit the "Remove From Combat" button for each surprised combatant, which sorts them to the bottom of the initiative order and excludes them from needing to go before entering the next round. Run through the order of the remaining people, hit next round, and then re-include the surprised folks for round 2. They return to their original initiative order, and remain flat footed until their turn comes up this round.

Thanks, Aaron, I will have to give that a try and see how well it works for me.

Honestly, I am just surprised that the auto-setting of Flat-Footed cannot be removed manually. There is no check-mark in the check-box to remove; if we could do that, neither work-around would be necessary.

 

[soulofwolf]

Yes, that would be good .. that should work smoothly with multiple kinds of target selections.

Maybe a general preference could be "Auto-roll saves Y/N" and "Auto-roll damage Y/N" so people who don't want to have it roll for them can turn that off.. otherwise, the display could show pre-rolled damage for each target (including halved by saving when appropriate).

GMs who like to "fudge" the results may want to be able to over-ride on a per-creature basis, though.

Definitely easy enough to implement that way. Thanks for all the valuable feedback so far

 

[Silveras]

I just thought I'd throw a somewhat complex scenario in for consideration, to illustrate why being able to change the damage to individual targets could be important.

A party of PCs is fighting a red dragon, which uses its breath weapon on them.

The Rogue is behind a piece of broken wall that provides cover (+4 to Reflex saves) and has Evasion. (Full or no damage, depending on the saving throw).

The Wizard has a Fire Shield going, chill version (1/2 or no damage, depending on the saving throw).

The Cleric has Protection from Elements (Fire) going, 34 points left. (Full or 1/2 damage , depending on the saving throw, - up to 34 points, which will deplete the spell, perhaps fully)

The Fighter is a Tiefling and has Resist Fire (10). (Full or 1/2 damage depending on the saving throw, -10 points).