First timer: Walking through walls, movement, and initiative

[cirrob]

First of all awesome program! While I haven't actually run it yet in one of my games (Just stumbled on to it), I am currently building my game around it right now; the potential is plainly obvious!

I do have three questions. I did search for them and didn't really find anything that answered them.

1. How do I make objects impassable to the tokens(such as walls, trees, doors, etc)? When I run this in player's view, it seems the tokens can be moved through anything.

2. How do I limit a tokens movement? I put in an arbitrary number in the properties of the token (Say 20), but I could move the token as far as I wanted without any indication I was over stepping my bounds (pun intended). Also, in referrncing Q1, if an object is impassable, the path should show the amount of least resistance, and thus eat up more of the tokens available movement.

3. Lastly, I currently use a program (turnwatcher) to keep track of the combat round: Its simple, robust, customizable, and fast. However, it obviously doesn't integrate with maptool which would be ideal. The built in initiative tool is a simple ordering protocol but is user friendly for MT and the players. It doesn't seem to re roll initiative each round (our style), and doesn't keep track of spell events or ongoing damage (or any damage for that matter). Is there a way to turn these features on (they seem like they should be in there based on the separately promoted initiative tool from RPtools.net)

Thank you for any and all help.

[Rumble]

First of all awesome program! While I haven't actually run it yet in one of my games (Just stumbled on to it), I am currently building my game around it right now; the potential is plainly obvious!

I do have three questions. I did search for them and didn't really find anything that answered them.

1. How do I make objects impassable to the tokens(such as walls, trees, doors, etc)? When I run this in player's view, it seems the tokens can be moved through anything.

You can't, unfortunately - maptool doesn't offer movement-blocking at this time.

2. How do I limit a tokens movement? I put in an arbitrary number in the properties of the token (Say 20), but I could move the token as far as I wanted without any indication I was over stepping my bounds (pun intended). Also, in referrncing Q1, if an object is impassable, the path should show the amount of least resistance, and thus eat up more of the tokens available movement.

Again, you can't at this point - MapTool doesn't have any built-in movement limiters, etc. (part of that is probably because it didn't want to have any move system that was specific to or "better for" a particular game system).

3. Lastly, I currently use a program (turnwatcher) to keep track of the combat round: Its simple, robust, customizable, and fast. However, it obviously doesn't integrate with maptool which would be ideal. The built in initiative tool is a simple ordering protocol but is user friendly for MT and the players. It doesn't seem to re roll initiative each round (our style), and doesn't keep track of spell events or ongoing damage (or any damage for that matter). Is there a way to turn these features on (they seem like they should be in there based on the separately promoted initiative tool from RPtools.net)

You would have to write macros (scripting) to handle these things - the initiative panel is, as you say, a simple ordering tool. There are ways to work with it, but you would need to script it to be specific to the game system.

Thank you for any and all help.

No problem; sorry it's not better news! The core of MapTool is managing the encounter map and the tokens thereon; if you want to automate things, there is a scripting system to do so but there are no built-in automations that are game-specific, because MapTool doesn't want to support any particular RPG over another (granting that the "default" campaign has D&D-like properties and support for movement like that in the D&D games; I figure that's because they had to pick somethin and D&D is probably the most well-known in the US, at least).

[Hawke]

Depending on what you want to do with initiative... you could definitely write a macro to reroll everybody and reorder. I also went a step and created a StarTurn and EndTurn property on the tokens that was output to the channel (or to a frame if the monster is an NPC and the GM wants to keep his notes secret) for simple notes like ongoing damage, reminders to do saving throws or remove effects.

[Brigand]

You can't, unfortunately - maptool doesn't offer movement-blocking at this time.

Actually it does, if the width of the token is less than the width of the VBL and the width of the VBL is greater than the square the token is trying to move into.

[Full Bleed]

1. How do I make objects impassable to the tokens(such as walls, trees, doors, etc)? When I run this in player's view, it seems the tokens can be moved through anything.

While, as mentioned, there are no inherent movement blocking tools or a way to make object block movement, when/if you lay in VBL/Topology you'll notice that players can't move into it... so you can use it to stop players from moving through walls and certain objects.

[Rumble]

You can't, unfortunately - maptool doesn't offer movement-blocking at this time.

Actually it does, if the width of the token is less than the width of the VBL and the width of the VBL is greater than the square the token is trying to move into.

Well how about that. If I understand right, basically, tokens can't move into solid blocks of VBL that are a) bigger than them, and b) bigger than the square they want to enter, but they could move across a line of VBL?

Interesting.

Edit: Actually, it's not VBL - it's solid fog, or so it seems.

[Brigand]

Yeah, solid fog, which turns into VBL once you've explored enough. The problem, is that it only works for medium size and smaller tokens. Once a token bounding box is bigger than the grid, it will enter the VBL regardless. This is because everything is based off medium size (which happens to be the default grid size).

[palmer]

You can't, unfortunately - maptool doesn't offer movement-blocking at this time.

Actually it does, if the width of the token is less than the width of the VBL and the width of the VBL is greater than the square the token is trying to move into.

Wrong.

A: It's unexposed FOG that affects this, not VBL.

B: It only stops a token from being DROPPED into the fog.

If you have a 5x5 square of fog, you can't drop a token into the fog, but you can drag it straight THROUGH the fog and drop it on the other side with no issues.

If the player has Auto-expose fog turned on, it will expose everything they pass through as well, which could include secret rooms and the like.

[Lost in Khyber]

Hello there,

I found this topic because we are looking at the moment for solution for the following problem as seen in the picture (hope this works) which is attached.

The moving through walls in particular: thin walls. Are there any changes concerning this topic?

We have also the problem with wider-space areas (one grid-cell and more). If the player can get a line between explored points (by him), then he can use shortcuts or even found secret rooms between the start- and the end-moving point.

I've seen the post about the Move blocking for grid maps - a solution? and there was written, that the DEFINE EVENT ARENA (who is in the bag of tricks) could be used to avoid this.
I will try it and would be glad if anyone knows about a good tutorial for this special use and can give me a hint.

Thanks for now

[Lost in Khyber]

Sorry for the doublepost

I've seen a very interesting feature in the bag of tricks - the option in the 'Settings' -> Tab 'Toggles' -> activate 'VBL Move check' works fine for our purpose.

At the moment, the movement rate is subtracted by trying to move through VBL-Elements, but this is not very dramatically. But for now I have to watch the Video-Tut for the BoT further - thanks a lot for this.