template tool...

[trevor]

wait.. thats the original trevor!

*shhhhhh!*

[SDShannonS]

Trevor and/or Jay,

Has this yet been addressed? I PM'd Jay about it a month ago and haven't gotten a reply.


Shannon

[trevor]

Which part, the select/delete/move the templates ?

Jay had some family and health issues come up, so he's been out of hand for a bit.

[SDShannonS]

Mostly my issue has been that the 15-foot cone, the one most often used in low-level campaigns, is wrong. When it projects orthogonally instead of diagonally the shape of the template is incorrect.


Shannon

[morval]

Mostly my issue has been that the 15-foot cone, the one most often used in low-level campaigns, is wrong. When it projects orthogonally instead of diagonally the shape of the template is incorrect.


Shannon

Note: I'm going a bit overboard with this, but I like to. Really all each GM needs to do is decide a way of doing it and play consistantly with that. I just don't like things that dont look right.

I always thought there was something not quite right with the DMG templates. The 15' doesn't follow the rules of the rest of them. After drawing them all out in a CAD program (I know a little overboard ) I found out that the rest of the templates were not right either as per the rules on p28 of DMG.

First off the rules:
- AoE's start at the intersection of two lines on the grid
- if a majority of a grid square lies within the AoE, the square is part of the spell's area
- and lastly an assumtion. In this case majority means greater than 50%, but there are plenty of examples that show 50% is included. So I have defined an included square as >=50%

The first obvious problem is the 15' cone compared to the 30' cone example in the DMG. The 15' cone starts with only one square, but the 30' starts with two squares. The 15' cone looks to me like it is originating not at the intersection, but at the middle of one side? Now I can live with this since otherwise it makes the 15" cone bigger than probably ever was intended. I actually like the AoE starting from the middle of one side, but they chose to do it from an intersection since it had to fit on a grid nicely and they didn't have MapTool to help with AoE.

The second problem is with the 15' circle/cone and above. There are squares that are not included that the AoE take up >=50%.

The best way to show you what I'm talking about is a picture so here it is...

The tan part is the shape of the actual AoE

The second link shows an Alternative way of doing cones. When placing a cone on the North, East, South, and West squares, if you put it in the middle of a squares side, not at the intersection you get a more reasonable looking cone. The only difference in the second link are the cones that are shooting out southward.

morval

http://gallery.rptools.net/v/contrib/mo ... t.png.html
http://gallery.rptools.net/v/contrib/mo ... e.png.html

[mrobviousjosh]

The best way to show what I'm talking about is a picture, but I'm new here and I don't seem to see a way to upload a picture. I must be missing something.

I'll post a pdf if someone can fill me in on how to

morval

You could always just use a free picture hosting site like PhotoBucket, but you can also create a page for your RPTool contributions here. These are both for "images" not pdfs though, so you may want to take screen shots to give us some .bmp/.jpg/.png/whatever files to work with. I hope that helps and thanks for your work.

[morval]

The best way to show what I'm talking about is a picture, but I'm new here and I don't seem to see a way to upload a picture. I must be missing something.

I'll post a pdf if someone can fill me in on how to

morval

You could always just use a free picture hosting site like PhotoBucket, but you can also create a page for your RPTool contributions here. These are both for "images" not pdfs though, so you may want to take screen shots to give us some .bmp/.jpg/.png/whatever files to work with. I hope that helps and thanks for your work.

Thanks, I've signed up for the RPTools site. I'm just used to posting an image or file within the msg.

morval

[mrobviousjosh]

The best way to show what I'm talking about is a picture, but I'm new here and I don't seem to see a way to upload a picture. I must be missing something.

I'll post a pdf if someone can fill me in on how to

morval

You could always just use a free picture hosting site like PhotoBucket, but you can also create a page for your RPTool contributions here. These are both for "images" not pdfs though, so you may want to take screen shots to give us some .bmp/.jpg/.png/whatever files to work with. I hope that helps and thanks for your work.

Thanks, I've signed up for the RPTools site. I'm just used to posting an image or file within the msg.

morval

No problem. I'm looking forward to seeing exactly what you're talking about with the templates being "off." Would you post a link in here when you get them up? Thanks.

[morval]

You could always just use a free picture hosting site like PhotoBucket, but you can also create a page for your RPTool contributions here. These are both for "images" not pdfs though, so you may want to take screen shots to give us some .bmp/.jpg/.png/whatever files to work with. I hope that helps and thanks for your work.

Thanks, I've signed up for the RPTools site. I'm just used to posting an image or file within the msg.

morval

No problem. I'm looking forward to seeing exactly what you're talking about with the templates being "off." Would you post a link in here when you get them up? Thanks.

Done, I edited the original msg, hope thats OK.

[mrobviousjosh]

Thanks, I've signed up for the RPTools site. I'm just used to posting an image or file within the msg.

morval

No problem. I'm looking forward to seeing exactly what you're talking about with the templates being "off." Would you post a link in here when you get them up? Thanks.

Done, I edited the original msg, hope thats OK.

Those illustrations are VERY easy to follow. Hopefully now the guys who know the insides of map tool and make decisions about what is and isn't in the program will chime in and comment.

[morval]

Those illustrations are VERY easy to follow. Hopefully now the guys who know the insides of map tool and make decisions about what is and isn't in the program will chime in and comment.

I edited it one last time and added a second link. It shows an example of an alternative cone.

Now lines are a whole other question. I know there is a thread here on them. I'll have to have a look. I haven't thought about lines much since I haven't really used them much in D&D v3.5, but will start soon (Players now have lightning bolt!).

When using a virtual table top I am thinking I would prefer to do away with the square AoE's and go with the actual effects. If you are not within the effect 100% then you get a plus to your save or something like that. I just don't lke the feel of the square AoE. I think this would help lines make more sense. You simply position your line AoE up on as many opponents as possible in the best way possible. Of course the VTT must be able to place the AoEs (as templates, objects, etc.) at any angle then, not just lined up with the grid.

morval

[morval]

Is it possible that the results of drawing something on with a template could be selectable and thus movable and deleteable?

If I draw on a fireball area of effect with the template tool it goes onto the map as a part of the background (or whatever layer I select). I can undo it with Ctrl-Z but that is not always what you want to happen. I'd much rather be able to click on it, select it and then press delete. I seriously think the template tool should generate 'stamps' to all intents and purposes. Many spell templates are around for a considerable time and need to be movable as well (e.g. rolling fog effects etc), hence click to select and then drag would be very useful.

Also, I note that even if I have my template tool set up to have a lovely red outline and have it filled with a scorching fire texture, when I draw out my fireball effect the fill pattern is not used. Is there a good reason for this? I'd love to be able to mark down a proper firey fireball effect using this tool.

It seems almost there but not quite...

Meantime I guess it might be possible to build a selection of PNGs to cover the standard spell effects you might want like Fireball, Evards Black Tentacles and so on? Anyone have such stamps?

Thanks!
Blakey

I'm new to Matool, but learning fast.

The way Templates are done in Maptool are great and bad at the same time like you say above. Its so easy to just drag and drop an AoE. But it really needs to be moveable and easily deleted.

I had created some AoE templates for another VTT (BRPG) since I didn't like the way it did AoE's either.

I just tried them in Maptool and it works great as an object. Its not as quick and dirty as the templates, but it works. you have to choose the right size of the AoE and drop it as a token. Then you can rotate it till it lines up like you want using facing. Circles are easy of course, its cones and lines that give us the troubles.

morval

[jay]

I know that Trevor plans to rewrite how the templates work and it is supposed to be more like objects. I have no idea when he plans to make these changes. I beleive he said that you would be able to design any shaped templates that you wanted for that system when it is implemented.

The problems with the 15' template is that it doesn't follow the same rules as all of the other templates. That means I have to special case it and re-write it completely by hand. Since Trevor is planning on rewriting the templates completely this hasn't been a high priority for me to fix. I've been away from RPTools too long so I'll take another look at the template code and see if there is something I can do. But, I can't promise anything.

[mrobviousjosh]

When using a virtual table top I am thinking I would prefer to do away with the square AoE's and go with the actual effects. If you are not within the effect 100% then you get a plus to your save or something like that. I just don't lke the feel of the square AoE. I think this would help lines make more sense. You simply position your line AoE up on as many opponents as possible in the best way possible. Of course the VTT must be able to place the AoEs (as templates, objects, etc.) at any angle then, not just lined up with the grid.

morval

I agree except when I think about how slow the game could become. Some rules mechanics, while nice, really do make games slower. VTTs in general do make a lot of rules like that more manageable though so I'd like to play around with that.

[RPTroll]

One of the things I did with Savage Worlds (since its templates are not supported) is to request an image at the proper scale from the art guys here in the forums. You could then stamp your template vs. draw it. While this isn't optimal, it does work.