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Pulling secret skill checks from Players as Judge

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Lifer4700, Aug 16, 2011.

  1. Lifer4700

    Lifer4700 New Member

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    As DM in P&P role playing, I have everyone provide me with a copy of their character sheet so I can have all their skills available to me. Especially things like Perception (spot, listen, etc in 3.5).

    I like to roll secretly on occasion, so that if they miss their roll, they're none-the-wiser that something's up. I cannot figure out how to do this in d20Pro.

    I can "Turn off the Judge's dice rolls", select the character, hit "K" for skills, and double-click, and the skill is rolled. However, the owning player still gets a message that their character just did a Perception check. Granted, they don't know if they succeeded or failed, or even what they rolled, but they still know it was done.

    I suppose I could roll dice from the digital cup, or even 'real' dice, but then I still have to go to each character to look up their skill.


    I suppose if I could request a feature, it would be to multi-select objects (players, monsters, etc) hit "K", pick the skill, and get back the results for each in a window.


    Perhaps there's just something I missed? I love the software so far, but I've only just finished installing it recently.
     
    #1 Lifer4700, Aug 16, 2011
  2. thraxxis

    thraxxis Member

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    Hail and well met Lifer4700,

    Glad that you are enjoying d20Pro! As for secretly rolling for your PCs, there's not a quick-and-easy way in the software (yet). I have an idea for a workaround, that you may find of use. When a creature is hidden, the Players won't see its rolls (such as skill checks). So you could create a duplicate (clone feature) of each PC, make sure they're Judge owned and hidden. Then you could use the dupes to make hidden skill checks or saving throws with and your players will be none the wiser.

    You could also accomplish the same thing by temporarily recalling ownership of the PC, make it invisible, and do the skill roll. But that's a number of steps that would quickly become tedious if you need to do it a lot.

    A quick note that you can run a Player from your computer and connect locally (127.0.0.1) to see exactly what your players will see to test out this behavior.

    Lastly, your feedback is being captured to make this use case natively supported without having to jump through hoops. :geek: hope that helps!
     
    #2 thraxxis, Aug 17, 2011
  3. Vision9000

    Vision9000 Member

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    Hyper-cool! :cool:
     
    #3 Vision9000, Aug 18, 2011
  4. Lifer4700

    Lifer4700 New Member

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    Great idea for a workaround! Thank you.

    I have been using my laptop as a player account to test. I haven't started using d20Pro for real gaming yet, I just downloaded it a day ago, but I've been very impressed so far. I run Pathfinder, so I've got some tweaking and major data entry to do, but once I'm set up, I should be good. I also happen to own HeroLabs Pathfinder, so importing is a HUGE boon!

    As for selecting a group of PCs and/or monsters, and getting a skill roll from everyone (like you can with damage using effects), should I add that on the Feature Request section of the forums?
     
    #4 Lifer4700, Aug 18, 2011
  5. Daeruin

    Daeruin New Member

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    Hey, Lifer. There are Pathfinder files here on the site that you can download, so you don't have to do all that data entry on your own. I'm too lazy to post the direct link here, but you will find it in the Pathfinder subforum.
     
    #5 Daeruin, Aug 18, 2011
  6. Lifer4700

    Lifer4700 New Member

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    Excellent, I have located some of them. Thank you!

    PF Monsters? Check!
    PF Spell list? Check!
    PF Feat list? Check!
    PF Skill list? Check!

    Now, I just need to find someone that has entered all the "effects" for spells already...
     
    #6 Lifer4700, Aug 18, 2011
  7. shango

    shango New Member

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    You could always pull a duplicate set of party members and dump them in the staging area. Each time you have to roll a skill check, roll it using the duplicate character rather than the one the player is using. You can use the same method for secret saving throws as well. At the end of each session, just make a copy of each player on the map and put it in the stagin area, deleting the ones you have been using as duplicates. That way you always have the latest information for each player.
     
    #7 shango, Aug 18, 2011
  8. neofax

    neofax New Member

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    I now use Kyle Olson's Combat Manager for these types of things. Yes, it is another piece of software running, but it is great! It has most of the rules, conditions, spells, monsters, treasure all at your fingertips. You can even import your party from PC-Gen or HeroLabs directly into it. Or better yet have each encounter generated in PC-Gen or HeroLabs and save them out and import the encounter as it happens so you have all of the stats right there at your fingertips.
     
    #8 neofax, Aug 19, 2011
  9. edwardcd

    edwardcd Administrator
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    I like it! I'll start using this for my live games :)
     
    #9 edwardcd, Aug 21, 2011
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