Experienced Pathfinder Maptooler with a couple questions

Hi Observer and welcome to the forums. No problem at all with this post and honestly, I'd like more people to come over here to compare d20Pro with other virtual tabletops because I feel we stack up pretty well against anything out there.

Right now items in d20Pro do not affect the character sheet. This is something we wanted to put into an update in the near future but after some discussion sessions we decided to actually make a more comprehensive system than we had initially planned so this feature set will be delayed some.

You can create effects like this in d20Pro, or cast spells that apply effects like this, and it will adjust various stats on the character sheet like you're looking for. You can also choose how long the effect or spell with last to remove the headache of trying to remember if that Hast was cast 3 or 5 rounds ago.

d20Pro will automate your attacks for you and help decide whether an attack hits or not. Right now an attack will not apply a 'status' (e.g. marking a token as prone after a trip attack) but you can quickly add a status to a token which will then show up as a small icon overlaid on the token's portrait.

d20Pro does not support dynamic fog of war that would take into account these attributes. This feature is right around the corner for us now though.

d20Pro will allow you to give various kinds of DR and ER to monsters and will automatically apply it to damage taken from these sources.

You can create an effect for a character that allows them to channel energy, though you will have to manually set the amount it works for when creating it. You can create all sorts of effects like this to speed up or automate game play (e.g. a Bard's Inspire Courage or a Barbarian's Rage).

It looks to me like you are looking to speed up your sessions by automating some of the 'remembering' and record keeping and I think that this is one of the aspects of virtual tabletop gaming that d20Pro excels at. Please let me know if you have any more questions or if I can expand upon anything here.

Good Gaming!

 

@Daggeth: Thanks for doing pretty much all of my work for me!

With that being said, the one thing d20Pro has on MapTools is the HeroLab support that is only going to get better as they have from what looks to me as a solid working relationship. Also, the commercial presence to make deals with companies to add capability such as INFRNO support and from what I hear Paizo Adventure Path/PFS Module direct downloads. Most of the other stuff like automation, either MapTools does better or they both are quite capable at. The community here is top notch just like on MapTools forums(and IMHO on most other RPG boards excluding WotC). The only gripes I have with d20Pro is the small annoyances like no CMB/CMD block on the CS, no ability to auto apply states/conditions, no automatic FOW...but you don't have this capability in a F2F game either. So, here is my $0.02 if you like MapTools and are comfortable with it's flaws and features, stay with it; if you get the opportunity to use d20Pro and like it's flaws and features, stick with it. Basically both are good VTT's that are only going to get better. I for one use both pieces of software and try to stay current on the nuances of both as it allows me the most capability on playing a game.

Let me directly answer your couple questions directly as well:

Have a player take off their armor and have it adjust the AC values
If this can be done, I am not aware of how to do it. Currently the DM has to do all of these adjustments for each player. The only items I think a player can adjust on their CS during play is their spells.

Have buffs like Bears Endurance and Enlarge, that adjusts the tokens when applied and removed
I have not done this or seen it done, but I do know that their is the capability to do it. I am not positive on whether the DM has to apply the effect or not though.

Make special attacks like trip and grapple
I am pretty positive this cannot be done except for fudging it(i.e. 1d20+17, whereas I am anal and would like the ability to draw on 1d20+StrBonus+Feat. This way you can see exactly where that 17 comes from. Just me though!)

Use Darkvision, Lowlight Vision, and normal vision
Can not be done as their is no true FOW. Also, the FOW in d20Pro is group FOW and not individual FOW and has to be erased away by the DM.

Remind me of DR on Monsters
I have not DM'd d20Pro in a long time, but I am pretty positive it works like MapTools and when you go to apply damage, it pops up a window saying remember the DR/ColdIron/5. Now, what I am not positive about is whether it spits out the adjusted damage to chat for the players to see, doesn't spit anything to chat or spits out the total damage to chat and the DM can then explain that not all the damage went thru thus obfuscating how much and what type of DR the creature actually has.

Handle Channel energy for me
Doesn't work the way MapTools does it. The roll will spit to chat and the DM(or players? not sure if players can handle their damage and health(I think you can, but not sure)) then applies the healing.

Some things I wish it had were teleport pads, trap tokens that automatically rolled the perception and damage, sound tokens that played sound effects when a player approached and when casting a spell it spit out all of the info like DC, what save, damage if required, spell failure if wearing armor, concentration check...

 

I will address your list of things you would like to do.

Have a player take off their armor and have it adjust the AC values
Currently there is no direct connection between items and in game modifiers.
though you could make an effect using the effects system called <character name, no armor> then apply the effect while they are not wearing the armor and remove the effect once they put on armor. Or vice versa and create an effect called <character name, light armor> <character name, fully armored> with the appropriate armor modifiers and you should get what you desire.


Have buffs like Bears Endurance and Enlarge, that adjusts the tokens when applied and removed
Just create effects for the spells and apply them to the creatures. Set the duration and as time passes the effects will go away at the set duration for the spell (set in rounds, minutes, hours, days, infinite)
Effects do not currently do auto size change but the DM can make that change with one click and a hot key press.


Make special attacks like trip and grapple
For 3.5 grapple is built into the system.
If you want to do trip (3.5, pathfinder, etc.) just create an attack named trip (modify the attack based on weapon enhacements, feat bonuses, size, etc.). Set the target to CMD. You can have attacks for trip, disarm, bullrush, steal, etc.
(To get CMD use the 3 custom ACs the system allows and set the to CMD, CMDF and SR)
You can add an attack called Caster Level check for spell casters that attacks SR.


Use Darkvision, Lowlight Vision, and normal vision
Currently the system only has a Fog of War where the DM shows the square or it is not shown. We are actually working on dynamic lighting now, and the beta tests so far are impressive.


Remind me of DR on Monsters
Creatures can be assigned DR and ER. Examples: 5/-, 34/slashing, 10/magic and silver, 15/epic, 7/adamantine, 10/cold iron or good, etc.
ERs can be: Resist fire 20, Immunity to cold, Vulnerable to sonic, etc.

Attacks have types. For instance in pathfinder a +4 longsword will overcome DRs for magic, silver, adamantine, and cold iron. When you create the attack your attack damage woudl look like: 1d8 slashing, magic, silver, adamantine, cold iron.
When that attack is used against DR 10/ magic and silver the DR is ignored, but if the attack is against 5/- then 5 will be subtracted from the damage.
You can even have an attack that does 5d6 fire, so DR does not apply but ER of 10 fire will subtract 10 from the damage deal 5d6-10.

When the DM confirms the attack he will be given the natural damage of the attack, and the modified damage due to DR or ER. The DM can change these numbers if he wishes and is presented details as to the attack type.


Handle Channel energy for me
Create an ability on your cleric that has Channel energy (healing), Channel Energy (harming) Then you can use teh ability which generates the effect of channel energy, on the healing you would have no save healing dice. On the harming you will input the will save and the DC list the damage has damage then when you apply it to creatures the DM gets a window about if the creature failed or passed the save and how much damage will be applied. The DM can override as needed.

d20Pro does A LOT for the DM. So it takes a lot of the math and boring headaches off the DM so he can conentrate on the world, and tactics and not worry about adding up all the dice when a +5 flaming burst acidic keen greatsword crits against the mummy bararian that has resist acid 10 going. The DM makes a click if it hits or misses and all is calculated on the spot in a blink of the eye, done next attack.

Here are some links that will help you understand the system better.
Effects: http://help.mindgene.com/judging/effects
Creating attacks: http://help.mindgene.com/basics/creatures/character-sheet
Using attacks: http://help.mindgene.com/judging/combat/attacks

 

It seems to me that the difference between all the other VTT's that I have seen is that D20Pro does the math 4 u. The biggest issue I have is doing the math quickly in combat. As an example please take ability damage in D&D 3.5. Four damage to Dex would effect Ranged combat, Reflex saves, certain skills, not to mention AC. I can't factor these changes quickly enough in a pen and paper game or any VTT that I know of. As far as I know these can be factored in with D20Pro when using effects. It doesn't appear to me that any other VTT can do this. Please let me known if this assumtion for D20Pro or other systems is incorrect. I am a noob to VTT, not gaming. I have not made a choice of VTT yet but a leaning to D20Pro. Please advise. Thx. :geek:

 

I am not sure if other VTT have caught up and gotten effects in their system, but when we implemented it we were the only one.

One of the reasons was for just that issue, if you get a bulls strength, then hit by a shadow for -5 str, lose 2 levels to a specter and lose 3 con due to poison. You add those effects and all attack, saves, hitpoints, skill checks get modified!

 

The other thing that I see that is different is that u can target by using templates for spells or area of effects. Other systems are able to lay out templates but don't auto target in the area of effect. On the other hand Maptooler does a better job doing lines of site automatically. I like this feature. It is somewhat cumbersome to do a manual reveal for my players. That being said, I still think D20Pro is going to be the best option pricewise and options available for my players and I.

 

Actually, MapTool does this if the framework handles it. As for 3.5/Pathfinder, 4E and Savage Worlds I can personally vouch that they all do this and very easily. Also, in the 3.5/Pathfinder framework if using the spell manager and you have the spell setup, this can be done.