Effect Visibility

If the player double clicks on a creature they 'own' then the mini window pops up. One of the tabs is effects, which lists all the effects currently on the creature. Also if you go to the stats tab you will see the creatures stats modified by all effects on the creature.

 

We are looking at doing a icon overlay of different effects on creatuers.

Currently we put the big red cross or skull for at 0 hit points, or less then 0 then dead. Also we have the held chains.

How about smaller icons that would be overlayed at teh bottom of a creature of different effects. When a user creates an effect they pick an image to overlay and so you can set up an status with any pic.

At a glance you could see which creatures are on fire, which are poisoned, which are held, ect.

What do you think is the average number of effects, and the maximum you would ever see on a creature?

Let's discuss this, what all effects do you guys think should be visible? If we can come up with a list that would help us in planning a design.

Thanks

 

i like the idea of having more little icons. but i also like the players not knowing. Because honestly most effect will not be noticed until the person is looked over.
espeical like poison. Poison and disease from just looking the effects could look the same a creature is sick. Curses could also look like illness. it up to players to figure out the effects via magic or skills. The DM can see all effect and that all that really necessary. you can always re-describe the creature if the players ask. if the player does not ask what effects on the creature. they don't need to know. because they are not paying that much attention. I say have a toggle for each type of effect to make it visible or not. 3 to 6 secs on not long enough to give some one a good looking over and be able to tell what effects they have one them.

Any effect that should be noticeable in a 3-6 second time frame. can be marked with the chains for now until a we get more icons.The player knows something wrong with said character and can ask what effect is. I use 3-6 because that the average time for a round of combat. older games the time was a full min for a round. so i would say in a min you could look some one over and do a skill check , spell craft to determine effect and still move and maybe attack.


can we get a toggle to hide the current effect icon from players for now.

 

Another idea might be instead of the little icons on the figure on the game board .... you create icons that appear on the character in the active list on the side.... unless that is what u mean
this way u could toggle them off so players cant see them as Kainpen is suggesting but they remain for the DM to see.

This would be a great reminder instead of going through a list of creatures on the effect list if you have 7 or 8 effects going at the same time.

Just my 2 cents.

 

I like the idea of an overlay similar to the chains or red cross for dying tokens. If you allowed a user defined text box as a simple overlay that would be awesome. That way it works for any game system. The GM could easiy just type "Posion 5" or "Dazed" and it could overlay on the token. Recommend that it be centered top or bottom so it doesn't cover the entire picture.

 

Ongoing effects and even annotations show up in the creature tooltip when you hover over them. The limitation right now is that if you don't own the creature, you don't see the effects in the tooltip. That's something that should be optional to the user. Perhaps annotations are always visible (you set them in the notes tab) and each effect could have a PUBLIC checkbox to make it visible to all in the tooltip.

Note the annotation (she's a badass) is above the effects (rage, prayer).

We use the Teams option to mark creatures or indicate some general status. For example, I use the cyan or teal team color to indicate weakened foes.

 

4E explicitly states that effects are known to both the NPC and PC. So unless you houserule, it needs to be visible to players. However, in almost all other RPG's certain effects the player would not know, so there should be an explicit box that the GM can click to accomplish this. As for the effect icons, we use them in MapTools, and they are great until you get to more than 9 effects. In 4E, this can be done very quickly and easily.

 

Noted, thanks!

 

Yes, I agree. I currently use the "team" feature to highlight a color outline around the portraits to indicate effects. Black=dazed Red=Cursed Blue =Marked Purple=Quarry etc..

Unfortunately, my players can never remember which is which and it would be nice to have a layer image over the profile. Like the chains for "hold or immbolized." Except instead of the 'chains' image you have a user defined text box. You could then type Stunned, Dazed, Blind, Dominated, etc Have it centered above the portrait or something?