Roll20 character sheets

[Mike]

How do I set up a character sheet in Roll20?

My kid is starting his own campaign, and really wants to use the sheets in Roll20, because his team is so spread out. He asked my advice, and I have no clue, since I've never tried. After a few minutes of research, I'm stumped. I'm assuming I'd need a Roll20 subscription (which he has), but he says it's not making sense to him, and I'm not much help. Any advice?

[El Jefe]

Pathfinder sheets?

If so, I know them...at a level that is probably unhealthy. I could easily set some time aside to help, even in channel. The box-child would just need to invite me to the game through roll20. Or I can easily answer questions here. In terms of getting them set up, it's literally just making sure the campaign itself is set as Pathfinder, and there is another drop-down for character sheets.

[Mike]

How about for me actually? I am currently in Pat's Runelords game. I know the campaign is set for Pathfinder. Other players already have their sheets working. I don't even know where to start to pull one up for myself.

[El Jefe]

The GM would generally need to create one first, and then assign it to you. Then it would show up in your lists. But I thought Pat already had characters enabled there (you know the thing under you list of handouts and such that has Dothan's picture and bio?) Click on that, and there should be a tab at the top for character sheet.

If you had GM rights, you would just to the folder where the rest of the characters are located (or in a blank new campaign, just go anywhere) and click to add a new character. Go through the process of naming the character and such by editing it, then pull up that sheet. At the top you'll see tabs that say Bio (and something), Character Sheet, and Attributes (attributes was the old macro based way of doing formulas, stay far clear of it).

[Mike]

Aha! In the Journal. Of course. Didn't even think of that.

Thank you, Jeff.

[Tahlvin]

Yes, if you click on Dothan's entry in the journal, the character sheet is one of the tabs along the top. I usually pull it up when I first log into Roll20, then click the button that allows it to be free-floating from the Roll20 window itself, so I can look at the map and then alt-tab to it when I need to make an attack or something like that.

Also, if you use Hero Lab, the character sheet has some instructions for how you can load your Hero Lab character sheet into the Roll20 character sheet. That helps make sure my skill ranks, attacks bonuses, AC, etc., are updated after each time I level up.

[Tahlvin]

Also, I have "buffs" setup for all of the common buffs that occur, so it's just a check of a box to apply Dothan's Inspire Courage or haste bonuses, or bull's strength, or my feats for ranged combat, etc.

[El Jefe]

I'd recommend clicking on the settings button at the top first. Depending on preference, I'd set the Encumbrance drop down to AC penalty only (Armor and Shield), as I don't believe you folks are using Encumbrance. I'd also recommend enabling separate tabs for traits, feats, and spell-like abilities. And click on the Uses Spells checkbox if it isn't already enabled. If you are using the Background skill rules (can't remember if we did), then hit that checkbox as well. That should cover most of the settings needed to get you going. Then just click on settings again to get it to go away.

You could also click on the new buffs checkbox, and hit the Import button. They've done a wonderful job with changing buffs to now actually check for stacking violations, if they are input correctly. They have also added a number of common buffs as default options you can select from a dropdown.

Edit: If you need to add a set damage roll for non-crit damage on weapons (like say a sneak attack), I can help with those formulas. Or most macro formulas, as I've spent way too much time on them. Also, remember that when you want to use character sheet init, you need to wait until Pat adds the turns on the counter, then click on your avatar on the map, THEN hit the button to roll init. Honestly, once you get the sheet up, you should be able to use the quick buttons on the top for just about everything.

Remember to set Dothan as a spontaneous caster. That does make a difference.

There are literally a thousand or more different things I'll probably remember later, as the options they've added in the last year are pretty much insane. Oh, dual-wielding is available now, if you need that as well.

[Tahlvin]

I'm finding some interesting things reading through the documentation for the Roll20 Pathfinder character sheets. I actually created my own "playground" game on Roll20, and am testing some of this out.

For example, if you go to Settings and check the box beside Display Advanced roll-time macro fields, then an 'Add-to-roll' Macros option appears within each of your attacks. I can then set the Attack Insert Macro to:

[[ ?{Bane?|No,0|yes,2} + ?{Target within 30 ft?|No, 0|Yes, 1} + ?{Favored Enemy?|None, 0|Giant, 6|Goblin, 2|Monstrous Humanoid, 2}} ]]

And the Damage Insert Macro to:

[[ ?{Bane?} + ?{Bane?}d6 + ?{Favored Enemy?|None, 0|Giant, 6|Goblin, 2|Monstrous Humanoid, 2}} ]]

Then when I click the dice button to roll that attack, it will display a series of prompts:
Bane? If I answer Yes, it will automatically add 2 to my attack roll and 2d6 to my damage roll for using a bane arrow or weapon that affects my target.
Target within 30 ft? If I answer Yes, it will automatically add 1 to my attack roll for my Point Blank Shot feat.
Favored Enemy? If I answer Giant, it will automatically add 6 to both my attack and damage rolls.

I'm gonna have to do a bit of work to clear out some of the junk from my existing character sheet for Eldthor, and get some of this interesting new stuff configured. But WOW, there's a lot of power available in these Roll20 character sheets!

[Zen]

And Dothan's sonic and thunderstaff and sneak attack... These conditional macros will be awesome!

[El Jefe]

[Tahlvin]

The other thing I'm looking at is how to configure the attacks in the first place. Right now, I have one "attack" for my bow and one for my sword. I then edit that attack based on the attack I'm actually doing for that turn. If it's a full attack, I edit it to check the multiple attacks that occur. If there's an extra attack because of haste, or because of Rapid Shot, then I add those additional attacks, adjust the bonuses, etc. Then I roll the attack. Instead, I'm probably going to just create separate attacks for the most common attacks I perform: ranged standard attack (just the one attack), ranged full attack, ranged full attack hasted, ranged full attack with rapid shot, melee standard attack, melee full attack. Then use the macros and buffs to handle things like favored enemy, point blank shot, intuitive shot (like focused shot, adding damage to ranged attacks w/in 30 feet), many shot (first attack for a full ranged attack with the bow fires 2 arrows instead of 1, doubling the damage), bane arrows, etc.

I also need to look at how to handle ammunition. Do I want to take it as far as setting up different versions of ranged attacks based on different types of arrows I have (one set for +1 arrows, one for normal arrows, etc.)? Or is there a better way to handle those? Hopefully some digging through the documentation of the character sheet, and messing around in the playground game I created, can help figure that out.

[Tahlvin]

Actually, following some examples on , it appears I can create one "attack" for the full ranged attack option, and use the macros to prompt whether the rapid shot and haste conditions apply. If either or both apply, it will automatically display the necessary additional attacks. So I can hit one button to do a full attack, answer a prompt as to whether rapid shot applies, and answer another prompt as to whether haste applies. It will then always roll at least the two standard attacks I get for a full attack; if rapid shot applies, it will roll automatically roll another rapid shot attack; if haste applies, it will automatically roll another haste attack. So that one hit on the attack button could roll anywhere between two and four attacks. And based on other prompts configured in the macros, the first attack could fire two arrows based on the Many Shot feat, it could apply the appropriate favored enemy bonuses to attack and damage rolls, could apply bonuses for point blank shot and intuitive shot if the target is within 30 feet, and add the hit and damage bonuses for using bane arrows.

They've done some pretty cool stuff with these character sheets!

[El Jefe]

[El Jefe]

Friendly notice - If you use the dual attack option (which is super-cool, hint-hint Illian), be aware that you DO NOT need to use the checkboxes to add on iterative attacks. It will auto-calculate these for you. In fact, after you build your dual attack, DO NOT mess with the options. You can change the name of it, but anything else is risky. To the point of utterly breaking your character sheet and needing a back-up to be used or a rollback. I say this from personal experience. On that note, I'd highly recommend having the GM create a back-up of your character sheets. That way, any issues are recoverable.

If you want to build a dual-attack, it's really simple. Under the settings, click the "use dual-attack" checkbox. Close settings, go back to your attacks screen. Right above where your attacks are, you'll see a new set of fields for dual-wield. You'll need to look up the IDs of your two individual weapon attacks (which is just one of those options you can open up at the bottom of each attack). Plug the relevant one into the main and off-hand. Set up the proper penalties for each hand, and what your Strength mod is for damage on the off-hand (0.5 normally, 1 with Double Slice). Then hit the create/calculate button, and you'll get a new attack added that handles all your dual attack needs (save for haste).

[Tahlvin]

Yep, under the of their site, they had a couple examples of some macro changes that proved useful for some of this config. Their example for Haste shows how you can edit the macro for one of the iterative attacks to only show that attack if you indicate Haste is enabled. There's probably a way you could have it automatically query to see if the Haste buff is enabled, but this works for now. I then adapted that same change with another iterative attack to handle the extra attack from Rapid Shot, plus a separate prompt following the 'Favored Enemy' example to handle the -2 to hit from using Rapid Shot. Having two separate prompts for Rapid Shot is not ideal, but I couldn't get it to work with just one, since it needs to return different values. But it's a heck of a lot more automated and much smoother than what I've been doing.

I also need to update the macros for a number of my skills to prompt for favored terrain or favored enemy adjustments.

[Tahlvin]

And I have actually founds that if I use the All Attacks Macros section, I can simplify some of the macros I have to build. So I can add the favored enemy prompt in the Global Attack/Damage Insert Macro fields, and it will add that prompt to ALL of my melee and ranged attacks, without me having to update each and every defined attack. I can add the "target within 30 feet" prompt in the Ranged Attack/Damage Insert Macros, and it will add that prompt to all of my ranged attacks, but not my melee attacks. Then the only thing I need to add to the individual attacks is the prompt for doing bane damage for the appropriate weapons, or the prompt for using many shot and rapid shot for my full attack using my bow.

[El Jefe]

While I don't think that any of your particular ranger needs will require this, don't forget that those pop-up menus you are utilizing can also take advantage of formula's on their own. An investigator (for example) would need studied combat (when used) to have attack and damage modifiers based off character level. So you can easily sub in @{level} or @{class-X-level} (where X is the appropriate class if multi-classed) to make that work. Some of your ranger ones may be able to use floor(@{class-0-level}/x), if you don't want to keep updating the numbers as you level up. I've found that the more I can automate formulas for my sheets, the better of I am, and the less players need to feel that updating their sheet is arduous.

[Mike]

I started this thread here because I was thinking that the Runelords group had experience with Roll20, but it's more appropriate to the general Gaming forum. So I'm moving it.

And even though a lot of this goes over my head yet, it's been extremely helpful.

[Tahlvin]

By the way, if anyone wants me to help setup their Runelords character sheet to automate some of their attacks, please let me know and we'll see if DMDarcs can give me access to make some updates for you.