RPTools.net

Looking pretty good!

Why is it that some of the Custom Properties columns in the lookup table are wider than others? The first four are sized about right for stats but the rest are all about 4 times that size whether the content is numeric or string.

What about having the notes field automatically filled in if there is a corresponding notes property in the lookup file?

Can Combatant Category get picked up from the Lookup file? Or assign a default Category?

I'm not sure how the various initiative settings and fields are interacting when Phases are enabled. With Manual Initiative set for both PC/NPC, any combatants that are added seem to pick up the last initiative assigned to an existing combatant. Values put in for Modifier are ignored though they are displayed which is confusing.

Ideally under the Manual Initiative setting with Phases I would like to directly enter the Initiative Value from the Add Combatants dialog. If the value in the Mod column was added to the 0 in the Initiative that would work or if an entry was included for Initiative.

Originally I had a performance problem with the startup of the lookup file. Since it takes a full table scan to size a column I limited the number of columns being sized to help. It turns out that the performance problem was something else so I will go back and make all of the columns size themselves for the next build.

Note that if there are only a small number of columns being displayed the table will spread them out over the available space. This can also cause the columns on the right side of the table to be rather large.


It is using the group combatant data structure, and I haven't added a notes property to it yet. There is a tracker for this, and since I forgot it originally I'll try to get it in the next build.

Yes, place the category name in a property called 'inittoolType'. Hmmm... maybe I should change the name to make it a little more intuitive. Originally it was called type, but that was a common value in RPGs and I wanted to add something that didn't conflict. I probably should go and standardize all of the property names used in the lookup file to populate a combatant.

The initiative values are calculated the same way whether phases are enabled or not. If you have set manual initiative then the value entered is used and it is unmodified. Otherwise IT rolls the initiative and it uses the die roll defined in the game settings and adds the modifier to that value. If that is not happening it is a bug.

If you just want to use the modifier as the initiatvie go to game settings' miscellaneous tab and clear the 'Initiative Die Roll' field. What should happen then is that the modifier becomes the player's initiative if it isn't entered manualy. It just so happens that there is a bug that keeps this from working right now. But I will fix it for the next build.

The other thing that you can do since you are using phases is just set a different property for sorting in the Game Setting's Phases tab.

Prefacing all of the special case properties with 'IT' or 'it' should be enough. It would be good to get a list somewhere (readme in the zip?) of the property names that IT specifically understands like "name" and inittoolType".

What I would like to see is that any combatant loaded from the default lookup use properties from that data to determine:

* Name - does this
* Category - sounds like it does this
* Player - doesn't do this? Really ought to default to GM.


I'd say there is a bug then as it is behaving as I described it.



My main reason for using Modifier was because it is on the Add Combatant dialog automatically and is always displayed in the Index Card view where Initiative is shown as 0 (0 + 0). Figured since I was going to have to look at it I might as well make use of it.

Initiative in DQ is actually three values added together (Modified Agility, Perception & Rank w/Weapon) but I know that you have calculated fields in the plans for the future.

Now don't laugh too hard, but this should go in the documentation

Combatant fields --> lookup property names now --> in build 15
I thought it best to leave player blank and just assume that a null value is the GM which is how it works in the index cards. I could be pursuaded to change my mind though...


I misunderstood what you were saying, so my response is incorrect. When you add combatants to any encounter they are given the initiative of the selected item and placed directly above it. If no item is selected they go above the current item instead. Otherwise they go at the end. It was done this way because that is how I wanted the timers to work and I thought the combatants should work the same way. If the encounter hasn't started the initiative value is unimportant because all items will get a new initiative when it does start. If the encounter is already running I was thinking it would be like a summon spell and you would want the new combatant to be right in front of the caster. If that isn't where it is needed then it can be dragged from there to where it is needed.

I hope to get the calculated fields in right after the user supplied index cards and better custom property support which will be the first things I work on in version 1.1.

Turns out I lied, and it is still a performance problem on the SRD monsters. It was also messing up the saved table settings which include order, size and sorting of the columns. So I took it out completely. You can resize them by double clicking on the header between the columns. It will work anywhere you get the <--> cursor. The next time you do a lookup the table structure should look exactly as it did unless you have loaded a different data file with a different structure. You can even turn off columns by pressing the little button in the upper right corner and it remembers that as well.

Seems like the only combatants likely to be added in that fashion will be GM run but having null taken as GM accomplishes the same thing as setting them explicitly to GM so I guess it doesn't matter. Might be a little more clear to the user if it was defaulted to GM.


And that all makes sense for DnD and non-phased initiative I believe.


Probably a bad assumption under manual initiative for DQ and maybe is fine for Hero. The initiative value for a PC/NPC is "fixed". When adding the creature combatants I would want them to take the value I put in to the Init or InitMod fields and use that value to position them within the selected phase.


Which all makes sense for DnD style initiative but summoned critters in DQ (dunno about Hero) would have their own initiative and might end up in a different phase altogether. Dragging the combatant in Manual/Phased Initiative shouldn't modify their Init values.

In the end my needs are pretty straightforward. When adding a combatant from the Add Combatants dialog I need to be able to enter their Initiative value directly and have that value applied. I was trying to use Mod just because it was there.


Cool!

I think you're right, I'll change it.

That is why we (or at least I thought you were the one to ask for it) added the ability for the items to be sorted w/i the phase. Set up a custom property to contain their DQ initiative and then go to the phases tab and make that the sort property. It will be used to order your combatants. The IT initiative will still be generated and it will be used to break ties in the sorting, but otherwise you can ignore it.

The phase sort property would do this as well.

You would enter the value in your phase sort property and it would work just like I think your asking. I know it was a long time ago (and I'm old ). but I'm pretty sure this is why we added the phase sort property. I think it does exactly what you are asking. If I were to rewrite IT I would probably just make the initiative value another custom property and then allow the GM to select the proper one. I can't go back and change it, but that would probably have been the best design. You should probably just hide the fields. You can do that everywhere but the index card. In my first build of IT 1.1 you will be able to change this too.

If I didn't ask for it that would only be because someone else asked first. Both DQ & Hero need a sort within phases. For DQ it's IV and for Hero it is Dex IIRC.

Specifying a Custom Property for IV and making that the Phase Sort property accomplishes most of the goals but the visual ones.

Combatants are shown with the Init in parenthesis instead of the sort property that is being used.



I can? I know that you can hide Custom Properties but Init and InitMod aren't in that list of course.

Which all comes back to why I was working so hard at trying to make Init and/or InitMod work for me. They are already visible in the right places.

Once the user can customize what is shown where with 1.1 then the issue becomes moot.

I see what you mean abut the display.
There are items in the view menu to hide the initiative rolls in the lists and tables. It's probably a bug that it doesn't extend to the actual index cards as well as the list next to the cards. I'll fix this in the next build.

I can show the phase sort property value in front of the initiative value fairly easily. Wouldn't be hard to do in the tables and lists as well. Might get a little complicated to figure out what is going on though. Maybe I should just replace the initiative value w/ the phase sort property value when phases are enabled. That does seem like it would be the expected behavior when the phase sort properties exist. Would that get what you wanted?

That's exactly the behavior I would want.

Did I ever ask for the ability to reorder phases?

In DQ you have three "phases". In any given melee round the order might be:

Engaged, PC Unengaged, NPC Unengaged

or

Engaged, NPC Unengaged, PC Unengaged

So the ability to move a phase up and down would be handy.

Not that I remember. I 'll have to add a tracker for this one, it is too big of a change for the 1.0 release.

I just love the new build.
Except a few bugs (for example, when you add a combatant categorie, you get a big ugly bug that blocks the whole panel), it's growing fast on me and I definitely intend to use it for my next session (I'll use DM genie for the combats, HP... but init tool for the actual initiative keeping).
Y=Thanks for that great tool (and the others too)

I'm glad you like it. Did you see the DMGenie script that will help you create a IT group file from a DMGenie group? There is a thread about it somewhere on the IT forum.

I'd like to hear more about the bug you saw. I've not ben able to re-create it by just adding a combatant category. Was there an exception on the console or an error message displayed? Any help you can give me would be appreciated.

I add the GM as the player to everything and it was a mistake. Now you see the player GM listend everywhere, and it makes it harder to find the actual players. I'm going to leave it blank and the index card will display GM, but all other tables and lists will not. It is much less confusing that way.

Works for me.