Ctrl and hotbars

[EugeneZ]

Hi folks. I searched for an answer to my problem because it seems like it's impossible for someone else to not notice it. I can't find anything so either I'm totally missing something obvious or... well, no, that's what it must be. :D

I'm using the 4e JPG ruleset, which is excellent in all respects, but might be related to these issues. Can someone please shed some light on why whenever me or a player uses either the Ctrl hotbar, the CtrlShift hotbar, or the CtrlShiftAlt hotbar, the roll is negated? I understand that when you make a regular roll and hold ctrl, it negates the roll, so does this make all three of these hotbars "negation" hotbars? If so, seems kind of like a waste of three hotbars to me...

Also, for some reason when players (but not me, the DM) type /act message, it doesn't work quite like it does if you hold Ctrl when hitting Enter. It changes the color fo the text appropriately but still uses the colon (":") to seperate the character name and message.

These are the only two problems I've had with FGII/4eJPG so far, so I'm still very pleased overall with both products even if both of these problems are "working as designed."

Thanks in advance for the time.

[Griogre]

It's not just the JPG ruleset. It's a bug in FG. The bug is if you drag a the dice from the to-hit dice cup on to a hot key that has Cntrl in it it will negate the modifier.

This only happens with to hit dice from the dice cup. Normal Dice codes work fine as do damage dice cups.

The work around is don't put these shortcuts on any hotbar that uses the Cntrl key. With the JPG 4e ruleset they should normally be attacking by double clicking on the powers tab of the mini sheet anyway. The only attacks on the combat tab should be the basic attacks - so just move those to a different bar.

[EugeneZ]

Thank you very much Griogre. However, your answer has created another question, if you don't mind... I'm still very new to FGII.

What is a dice cup? What's the difference between the "to-hit" dice cup and the "damage" dice cup?

And you're right, the players can just double-click the powers, but for some players its nicer to use the hotbars for very common powers, etc. It's just a "nice to have." Plus, I just want to be able to understand what's going on, what are the limitations, etc.

Thanks again.

[Griogre]

FG2 introducted a dice cup. This is a control that holds multiple dice and more importantly mutiple dice that can be different sizes. You can really see this in the default d20 ruleset. Thus for 3.5 an 11th level fighter on a full attack makes three attacks so the to hit dice cup has a 3 in it and holds 3d20s. Likewise if he had a +1 Flaming Longsword in the damage section you could drop both a d8 and a d6 into the damage die cup.

Fourth Edition mostly got rid of multiple attacks so it is not nearly as obvious the to hit die is using a die cup because there is only one die - however the underlying to hit code is there and that's why the to hit d20 shows the same bug as the default d20 ruleset. The damage section of powers still does hold multiple dice so it is move obvious this control is a dice cup.

[EugeneZ]

Ah, that does clarify it somewhat. Still, you said that damage dice cups and normal dice (presumably this means when I type a /die command) are unaffected by the Ctrl Hotbar bug, but I am able to replicate it with any and all dice rolls that have a modifier. One thing I did notice is that if I am only holding Ctrl for a very short amount of time, it doesn't negate it. So if you just quickly tap Ctrl+LeftClick, it works. Weird.

Thanks for the help.

[Griogre]

Ah, good catch on the /die on the ctrl bar. I checked this out and the d20 default ruleset works as I said. The d20_JPG, 4e_JPG and Savage Worlds rulesets are apparently more supceptible to the bug and even a dice code on the Ctrl is negated on these rulesets.

I did note an interesting thing though related to your "quick clicking" observation. If you have dragged a die cup to a Hotkey it works like a dice cup itself. This means that you can drag the dice out of the cup and throw them manually. If you do this *from* a dice cup on one of the Ctrl hotkeys and while the dice are still on the curser let go of the Ctrl key the dice throw normally with the correct mod - giving another work around with die cups.

[Moon Wizard]

Unfortunately, the CTRL key on FG2 has 2 different functions which can conflict with each other.

1. Allows you to access alternate hotbars. (C-, S-C-)
2. Negates numerical values

While the negation can be great for applying a negative value, I find that it creates more confusion than it is worth

The only solutions I can see are to have SmiteWorks change the CTRL key behavior, or modify the rulesets to flip the number back on all die rolls. (Hmm, might look into that for 4E ruleset....)

Cheers,
JPG