A Fine How do You Do this....objects/furniture

You can indeed manipulate objects with the built-in drawing tools. I don't, because on too many occasions my mouse has decided that I need to move the entire base map, or fill the entire screen with a table.

Never-The-Less you can accomplish what you ask in at least 3 ways.

You can use use the drawing tools to insert an object, adjust it's size, copy/rotate/delete the object. When the drawing tools are closed, the object become unmodifiable. However if you reopen the tools you can modify objects on the fly.

You can use the library tools to create items. While I believe this approach has few object manipulation options, it won't ever destroy your map. Just like using the drawing tools, once you close the "library item page" your objects can no longer be manipulated; but reopening the library / item page will allow you to modify any item you have placed on your map.

Finally, you can indeed male a creature (named table) for example; and give it an image of a table. Place it wherever you will, and move it whenever you want. Of the three choices, this has the least amount of options for picture manipulation but provides the greatest ease in the moving of objects (you could even assign the table to be owned by the players and allow them to move it where they please). D20pro defaults to a state of all creatures are passive - ie the table would never be in the initiative order unless you told the game you wanted it to place the table into initiative.

I use "custom creatures" for all types of uses - most of which are hidden to the player.

In every area, I have a hidden creature that provides my notes about the area and reminds me what handouts to provide to the players (it also includes a note aobut the maximum available xp for the encounter).

Next to every secret door/trap/etc I have a hidden token that describes the DC of finding/opening/disarming/etc.

Where appropriate I have "Loot Keys" filled with the items the players find. I specifically like this one, as you can make the "loot key" drop items (which the players then have to pick up).


Finally, since I never play off of my "finished map" but use a duplicate; as my players complete an area - I delete all of my hidden markers. This makes it quite clear to me that an area is "finished". If for some reason they missed an objective or two, i edit the markers to cover the missed objectives.

 

Try the Image scaler function
http://help.mindgene.com/tools/map-tools/image-scaler

 

First you do not have to have all creatures in initiative. They are either active (in init) or passive (not in init)

Two solutions for having tables, chairs, rugs that can be moved around and broken.

1. Make creatures that look like tables and chairs. You can give them hit points and DR 10/- for metal objects, or whatever hardness they would be. So PCs can attack and break them. Leave them out of initiative and then the DM can move them if a PC says I slide table X over to the door.

2. The other solution is to use tiles. In the draw tools you can place tiles onthe floor. You can move them around, resize them, move them to the top or bottom. For instance you have the rug over the hole in the floor. First place the hole tile, then a rug tile. When the rug is pulled away you can delete that tile, or move it to the back and no the hole tile will be there.
With tiles they can be rotated, moved, and resized. If you have a 20X5 foot long table you cannot make that out of a creature since creatures are square, but a tile can be rectangles. Then you can rotate them (90 degrees at a time).

 

Wow a triple posting...

Three of us answering the question all at the same time.

hahahaha

Talk about response!

 

If you decide to use creatures as your objects, remember that you can change the Team they are on, which changes the border color. One option for the color is No Border. Perfect!