HERO Support

[mudpyr8]

You guys seem really receptive to input so I'm gonna make a pitch for Hero support. This has been very difficult to find - some tools handle it better than others. I've been trying out MapTool and I can tell you, honestly, that I really want to use this product.

I have used Klooge, WebRPG, OpenRPG, GameTable, Battlegrounds, and ScreenMonkey. I have written scripts for Hero support in ScreenMonkey, and written PHP & Python Dice rollers that support Hero. I have been running my weekly game in Klooge now for over 3 years, so I have had a lot of experience using tools like yours on a regular basis.

MapTool is clean, simple, and does its job well. All software has bugs, but I didn't encounter anything that I thought was an issue. This is the exact product I have been looking for for years, minus the Hero support.

Now, by adding Hero support you are directly/indirectly adding support for GURPS as well. Something to think about.

Main Features Needed, in order of priority:
1. Hex Grid Support. Even a staggered square grid would help, but a true hex. I know this is a more complex grid algorithm, but this is the main piece.
2. User specified grid units. Hero uses 2m per Hex. GURPS 1m per Hex. I can certainly deal with 5' per Hex, and know if the software says I've moved 35' I have moved 7 hexes, but it would be nice if the software reported whatever scale I require.
3. Dice Rolling (really for the DiceTool but I'll include it here): counting BODY. In Hero, if you roll 8d6 normal damage the total on the dice is the amount of STUN the target suffers, but the amount of BODY is determined by "counting" the pips: 1s are worth 0 BODY, 2-5 is worth 1 BODY, and 6s are worth 2 BODY. So a roll of 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6 would equal 8 BODY, 28 STUN. Obviously the Dice Tool currently reports the breakdown of the roll, but having the software autocalc the BODY would be helpful.
4. Your area templates are really slick. If you added support for Hero area of effects that would be awesome. Obviously they are hex based and include line, cone, radius. If you could cover explosion, with color coded banding (Hero explosions lose damage classes over distance from the center).
5. Variable size scaling for tokens. The drag and drop nature of these rock. I dragged a 300x300 pixel token from the Fiery Dragon Counter Collection and your software made it a medium creature. If a preferences panel would allow me to set various size labels/token templates that would be extremely helpful.

So, really, items 1 & 2 are the key features we Hero/GURPS players would need. 3-5 are added value.

If there is anything I can do, let me know. Thank you for creating such a useful tool.[/list]

[trevor]

You guys seem really receptive to input

Forum posts make me want to code

Let's take a look at the features:

1. Hex Grid Support. Even a staggered square grid would help, but a true hex. I know this is a more complex grid algorithm, but this is the main piece.

This has been requested quite often. I'm planning to take a solid look at it after we get 1.0 out (very, very soon now, down to a couple trackers left).

2. User specified grid units. Hero uses 2m per Hex. GURPS 1m per Hex. I can certainly deal with 5' per Hex, and know if the software says I've moved 35' I have moved 7 hexes, but it would be nice if the software reported whatever scale I require.

You can change the unit count when you create a new map (Map->New Map), you can type in the unit count for each cell. There is a tracker to make it possible to change the actual unit, say from feet to meters. Look for that very soon. I'll push up the priority from your interest.

3. Dice Rolling (really for the DiceTool but I'll include it here): counting BODY. In Hero, if you roll 8d6 normal damage the total on the dice is the amount of STUN the target suffers, but the amount of BODY is determined by "counting" the pips: 1s are worth 0 BODY, 2-5 is worth 1 BODY, and 6s are worth 2 BODY. So a roll of 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6 would equal 8 BODY, 28 STUN. Obviously the Dice Tool currently reports the breakdown of the roll, but having the software autocalc the BODY would be helpful.

I don't know much about the dice rolling, to be honest, giliath wrote DiceTool, so you might let him respond. Generally speaking though, we have started building a new internal command processor that would let you write all your functionality as a plugin. You can then interact with token properties and dice rolling in any way you want. It kinda stinks for you to have to write yet another HERO plugin, but we don't know it well enough, so we'll provide the hooks and you can build it in

4. Your area templates are really slick. If you added support for Hero area of effects that would be awesome. Obviously they are hex based and include line, cone, radius. If you could cover explosion, with color coded banding (Hero explosions lose damage classes over distance from the center).

Do you have a pointer to how Hero aoe works ? With a new template design that we're working on, presumably the same plugin that defines rolls could also define template construction. No promises on that But I can easily imagine it.

5. Variable size scaling for tokens. The drag and drop nature of these rock. I dragged a 300x300 pixel token from the Fiery Dragon Counter Collection and your software made it a medium creature. If a preferences panel would allow me to set various size labels/token templates that would be extremely helpful.

You can actually change the scale right now, just right click->Size. The sizes are d&d specific (I believe), but roughly equate to grid sizes. Eventually we'll also support a free-size option.

As the new features are released, let us know how we can genericize them such that you can use them.

[mudpyr8]

You can change the unit count when you create a new map (Map->New Map), you can type in the unit count for each cell. There is a tracker to make it possible to change the actual unit, say from feet to meters. Look for that very soon. I'll push up the priority from your interest.

That rocks. Definitely this will work in the short term.

I don't know much about the dice rolling, to be honest, giliath wrote DiceTool, so you might let him respond. Generally speaking though, we have started building a new internal command processor that would let you write all your functionality as a plugin. You can then interact with token properties and dice rolling in any way you want. It kinda stinks for you to have to write yet another HERO plugin, but we don't know it well enough, so we'll provide the hooks and you can build it in

It's worth it. If you write the hook to hand the text of the dice code off to a plug-in, I'll write it. I've written it in VB, Python, and PHP, so I don't think I'll have a problem with that.

Do you have a pointer to how Hero aoe works ? With a new template design that we're working on, presumably the same plugin that defines rolls could also define template construction. No promises on that But I can easily imagine it.

Check out

There is one other type which is "Any Area" - if you had a way to allow the GM to, say, shift-click on hexes with an AoE tool that would tie them all together when done that would work.

Explosions can be any of these areas but lose a damage class for each hex. This damage loss can be adjusted on a per power basis, so some powers might lose damage every 2 hexes instead of 1, or even -1 damage class per 3 hexes. If you had a checkbox for "explosion" that would alternate the shading between light and dark every hex that would work, and ideally you could specify whether it should alternate every 1, 2, 3 or more hexes.

Also, is there an easy way to remove AoE templates or individual drawn items. I only see a way to clear all drawn items or undo the last one.

Thanks so much, and keep up the good work. I think my next session I will try this instead of Klooge and see how it goes.

Oh, one other thing. I don't know how preferences are stored, but when I launch two instances of the software (1 for the players on the player screen, 1 for me as GM) they seem to share some settings and this did cause a little hiccup. Is it okay to run two copies like this? If not, this is another feature that I need. Either that, or a way to display a "player view" of the map from the GM instance on a different window.

[trevor]

Thanks for the info.

Running two instances is very supported, in fact I use it all the time for development. What was the hiccup you experienced ?

Templates are currently implemented as drawn elements, which mean they are erased like the other drawables. This is going to be changing, instead they will be objects all by themselves, which will be selectable and movable.

[giliath]

Thanks for the post mudpyr8.

DiceTool currently supports scripting (although it is hidden and poorly implemented) that would allow you to do a pip-count system like you have specified.

Download the zip implementation of DiceTool and put a functions.js into the directory that contains the jar file with the following code in it:

Code: Select all

function registerFunctions() {
	var map = new java.util.HashMap();
	map.put("herodamage", herodamage);
	map.put("hd", herodamage);
	return map;
}

function herodamage(times) {
    var total = 0;
    var pips = 0;

    for (var i = 0; i < times; i++) {
        var value = rand.nextInt(6) + 1; // 1d6
        switch (value) {
            case 1:
                pips += 0;
                break;
            case 2: case 3: case 4: case 5:
                pips += 1;
                break;
            case 6:
                pips += 2;
                break;
        }

        total += value;
    }

    row.setLabel("Hero damage for " + times + "d6");

	//row.setForegroundColor(255, 0, 0);
	//row.setBackgroundColor(0, 255, 0);

    row.setTotal(pips);

    return total;
}

Then to call it, simple do a hd(2) for 2d6. The total column will be the number of BODY damage the the result column will be the number of STUN.

Once we get MapTool 1.0 out we are going to give DiceTool and TokenTool a little TLC which includes making this easier, and hopefully integrate some of this functionality into MapTool's chat.