Encounters - ways to apply damage/heal andkeeping all monsters on the same initialive

[Cosmo.Caveman]

Hey!

So I bundled up and got Hero Labs and Realm works for my Pathfinder Campaign, pretty excited to put it to use. but I'm struggling on many fronts, nothing time and patience won't fix. But I'm trying to have a smooth encounter workflow and I'm hitting a few obstacles.

First of all, I like to keep all my monsters on the same initiative, for simplicity's sake. Is there a quick way to do that with the Tactical console (other than editing all the initiative scores manually)?

And second, if I want to apply damage to creatures, is there a easier way? I mean it's kind of ridiculous that I have to click on the eye icon on the tactical console, to put the damage/heal number on the pop-up that shows, then click on the damage or heal icon then go on the bottom of the needlessly big window to confirm... going back and forth on my keyboard and mouse during a game... I mean I'd have to do that on every single round. Seems very inefficient unless I'm missing something obvious.

I work on computers all the time and a good program will give you different ways to do the same thing. Ideally, I'd love keep track of my encounter solely using my keyboard by modifying the creatures' HP directly on the console simply by typing a number then hitting + or - and then hitting the up or down key to move on the the next creature. And then the eye would only be used to "special attacks" and such. Something I can do with one hand since the laptop is usually off on the side while I focus on the action in game.

Am I just being a dreamer or is there some manual that I missed? Or a third party extension I could add to HR?

Thanks! (and sorry for the long post, I know they're vague questions, I figured I'd elaborate a bit).

 

[Farling]

First of all, I like to keep all my monsters on the same initiative, for simplicity's sake. Is there a quick way to do that with the Tactical console (other than editing all the initiative scores manually)?

I'm not aware of a different way than you describe here.

One of the benefits of HeroLab is that the monster's initiatives are all mixed up with the PCs, so that the combat is less "all the PCs move, all the monsters move" (although it does mean you have to remember which figure is which numbered creature).

The rest of your wish list probably come under the heading of "we'd love to improve the tactical console, but we have limited resources so other things get priority" ;-)

 

[Azhrei]

The rest of your wish list probably come under the heading of "we'd love to improve the tactical console, but we have limited resources so other things get priority" ;-)

If that's true, then it would be to their benefit to unbundle the Tactical Console from the rest of the application so that it can be modified separately. Then the community could pitch in -- imagine how awesome the TC could be if the users were able to create "profiles" for the TC that mimicked the way those users ran their home games!

(I know, easier said than done. This is actually one of the reasons that MapTool is going full JavaScript in the future. All of the interactions are now done with a custom language called MTscript, but using JS to access the power of this fully operational battlestar (oops, I mean "virtual table top tool") will really make it break out from the pack.)

IMO. YMMV. And so on.

 

[Cosmo.Caveman]

I mean, I love the foundation of the program in how it works but I'd love to be able to customize things a lot more to my liking, like the esthetics for example, it's just too distracting. I just feel like there's tons of bells and whistle that gets in the way that to do something so elementary like adding and removing HP. Then again my way of playing is different than your way of playing.

It's awesome at its primary job of creating characters without the headache!

And if they'd allow plug-ins from the public, things would take off! I'd actually take up programming just to make my own tactical console!