[extension] Spell Tokens Extension

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Originally Posted by SirMotte

I can't seem to get targeting working, could you elaborate in a little more detail on how to make this happen? Do you mean, that the caster is able to target affected tokens in the CT or is this purely of informative nature using tooltips?
Everything else works fine and is a true timesaver, thanks!

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Hi,

Sure I can go into a little more details, this is not about AUTO 'selecting' the targets under a spell token for a spell. Its a quality of life fix for when you have spell tokens over npc/player tokens.


To enable you need to use the option, as by default I do not want to 'break' or cause 'issues' when users are playing. ( ie, turn on if you are happy it might cause some issues, it should not but I can not test every combinations and with extensions this is a near impossible combination to deal with !! )

When this extra part of the extension is disabled, trying to 'select' by 'ctrl click' on a token on the map will normally try and select the big spell token, so you end up having to 'move' the spell token to select items under it, and put the spell token back. ( Or you can just use the combat tracker window to do your selections and avoid the 'ctrl click' on the map issue.. )

Attachment 43996

When you enable this part of the extension, I do a much more complex search under the cursor and make a combined tool tip showing multiple items..

Attachment 43997

And when you 'ctrl click', the system will apply the tokens that are not detected as spell tokens onto/off your selected targets as if the spell token was not 'blocking' your selection.

Attachment 43998

In the above 'ctrl click' image Ive added a big read arrow for the approx location the mouse cursor was not captured in the images !!

Hence while this part of the extension will not 'auto select' targets under a spell token, you can now quickly 'ctrl-click' the required targets that happen to be 'under' the spell token.

As I have also said, I'm going to look into been able to 'drag' the token(s) under the spell token, and allow the normal 'drag on attack/damage from character/chat etc' onto the tokens 'under' the spell token.

While this is a much more complex solution, because FG has not given us a priority api call for tokens to push spell tokens to the back, its the most user workable way to deal with spell tokens and interactions with tokens. It also depends if you are in FG Unity or FG Classic because the spell tokens layer priority changes between product causing even more pain. As talked about earlier in this thread FG are doing a bunch of work on their 'spell templates', and this is also blocking work on getting the layer priority for FGU and FGC to match and/or possible api additions.

So in reality, I'd prefer to get an api fix to allow my spell tokens to work correctly without having re-write all the target/selection/drop code for tokens.. While trying to 'push' the quality of my solution up, to also try and drive the quality of the FG 'spell templates' solution... ( Like letting players add 'spell templates' and bulk targeting selection of tokens under a 'spell template' etc... ) As I totally expect my extension to be 'replaced' by the new in development built in system of 'spell templates', but i'm not holding my breath on this....

Hope this helps

-Pete

Now I get it, thanks for the in depth reply. Looks like I misunderstood. With the ability to hotkey options entries now, quickly changing behavior is no big deal in case something weird is happening. Nice!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SirMotte

Now I get it, thanks for the in depth reply. Looks like I misunderstood. With the option to hotkey options entries now, quickly changing behavior is no big deal in case something weird is happening. Nice!

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Options exist to 'spell automate' and the 'select under spell tokens'.. like 5e_spell_automate and critically_awesome, the problem with these its they dont do a fantastic job. Most of the 'spell automation' will do a good job on the simple spells, which dont actually need automation. But the more complex spells are not supported and generally if automated roll a bunch of incorrect dice. As for 'token selection' under a spell token, this is normally limited to a radius check, does not support spell shapes line 'wall of fire' or 'cone' style etc... so again is only useful in a very limited situation.

This is not to say these extensions dont work for the limited use, they do. But the reality is that the information require to automate spells is way more complex than the ruleset has data, for example 'magic missile' and 'SRD' data of 5e, should pop-up multiple target option selection, one per missile.... but it does not, its spell normally only has the single 'damage' button and the user has to know they can use it multiple times... a lot of the automate spells, will multiple 'tick off' the spell cast because they think you used it 3 times... etc... And as for 'shapes' to select under, its near impossible to get UI support for selection options during the spell cast phase on the map and the required feedback of 'does this spell target friend+foe or just foe'.. and/or number of attacks it can do. Because this data is just not parsed from the spell description. To do this you would have to replace everything to do with 'spells' in the rule set, basically you may as well write a new rule set.. no extension is going to do that amount of work.

For me, and I hope this is clear, if I can not do a good job at doing something then I will not try and include it. Which is why on the Adv Spell damage forum multiple people have asked for automation and Ive rejected it etc..

-pete

Thanks for elaborating further. Let's see what the future holds in store for us.
I really do hope, that targeting masks will become a reality in the future, maybe even native support.
I am holding back in regard of automation too. Only very distinct features like sneak attack and the like have been automated in my games by using Kent McCulloughs extensions.
Anything further is prone to cause issues as there are too many unknowns in regard of spellcasting and stoytelling that could collide anytime, making reversing necessary and hampering the "flow" of my games.
I totally agree with your observations in this regard.

Now here's another request. I'm using metric measurements for the grid in my game. Therefore 5 ft are 1.5m on my maps. This causes most graphics to still be too large, even when scaling is set to 400. Would it be possible to increase the limit to accommodate this?

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Originally Posted by SirMotte

Thanks for elaborating further. Let's see what the future holds in store for us.
I really do hope, that targeting masks will become a reality in the future, maybe even native support.
I am holding back in regard of automation too. Only very distinct features like sneak attack and the like have been automated in my games by using Kent McCulloughs extensions.
Anything further is prone to cause issues as there are too many unknowns in regard of spellcasting and stoytelling that could collide anytime, making reversing necessary and hampering the "flow" of my games.
I totally agree with your observations in this regard.

Now here's another request. I'm using metric measurements for the grid in my game. Therefore 5 ft are 1.5m on my maps. This causes most graphics to still be too large, even when scaling is set to 400. Would it be possible to increase the limit to accommodate this?

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Can you screen shot me a map with the grid config open etc... so I can see your settings, if you are using custom graphics, maybe attach an image of the spell token ( if it will fit in the upload space, or upload at 50% or 25% and tell me which so I can just resize it back to the original.. then I can have a test. ) The limit is easy to change but the I might need to increase space in the gadget to have bigger numbers look ok.

-pete

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Originally Posted by bratch9

Can you screen shot me a map with the grid config open etc... so I can see your settings, if you are using custom graphics, maybe attach an image of the spell token ( if it will fit in the upload space, or upload at 50% or 25% and tell me which so I can just resize it back to the original.. then I can have a test. ) The limit is easy to change but the I might need to increase space in the gadget to have bigger numbers look ok.

-pete

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Alright, you find screenshots attached.
I'm using the high rez versions of G Jensens Spelltokens, no changes made. Some of them are larger or smaller than 1650x1650 px in size.
You won't have to widen the input field, as up to 4 digits fit in just fine.

Thanks mate, appreciate it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SirMotte

Alright, you find screenshots attached.
I'm using the high rez versions of G Jensens Spelltokens, no changes made. Some of them are larger or smaller than 1650x1650 px in size.
You won't have to widen the input field, as up to 4 digits fit in just fine.

Thanks mate, appreciate it.

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Thanks, I'll take a look in a bit... I want to check that a graphic of resolution when configured as 70 pixels 5ft, still needs 70 pixels when at 1.5m ( give or take.. ) as it should be working in 'squares' for the scale factor... Just in case its a bug that makes you need a much larger value like 230 pixels in the config..

-pete

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SirMotte

Alright, you find screenshots attached.
I'm using the high rez versions of G Jensens Spelltokens, no changes made. Some of them are larger or smaller than 1650x1650 px in size.
You won't have to widen the input field, as up to 4 digits fit in just fine.

Thanks mate, appreciate it.

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For me the question is why would we need 4 digits for the amount of pixels per 5ft typical grid...

At a 1000 setting, this is basically going to have a single grid square take up the vertical resolution of a 1080p monitor... who zooms that close to 1 square and expects a 1:1 texture resolution...

Also in the map under the spell token is only at 75 pixels per grid square.

While I think its nice to have higher resolutions available, hence the max 400 setting.

With your 1.5m per square you will,at the moment, have to set the values 3.33x bigger and hence you can support upto 120 pixels resolution per square of spell tokens. Which considering the resolutions of the textures this could be an issue.


What I'm thinking of is an extra table that you can configure a scale factor based on the per-map 'distance suffix'..

So you can set things like

'ft' 1
'm' 3.33

etc.. so this factor scale converts from 5ft/1.5m

Or I might just go with a single scale factor box at the top of the configuration window..


Do you have a preference ?

ie.. do you use map with grid scales set at 5ft and some set at 1.5m... I'm just thinking that using the 'distance suffix' to look up a table would allow a more consistent size setting in the table with different setting in the map etc..

Sorry for the late reply.
Ideally I'd like to have a per grid square / hex setting. Eg radius or diameter of 4. This would make it easy to set things up, no matter what measurements one is using.

Not sure how difficult this would be. I attached a picture of mattekure and diablobob discussing grids in regard of token scaling, but this stuff is way over my head, so I'm not sure if it's relevant at all.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SirMotte

Sorry for the late reply.
Ideally I'd like to have a per grid square / hex setting. Eg radius or diameter of 4. This would make it easy to set things up, no matter what measurements one is using.

Not sure how difficult this would be. I attached a picture of mattekure and diablobob discussing grids in regard of token scaling, but this stuff is way over my head, so I'm not sure if it's relevant at all.

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Not sure how the image relates to your radius/diameter concept...

(But yep that maths is simple relative to what I do in spell token, especially if you look at the token selection detection code that also has to deal with scale and rotation and different grids.. )

suffix.jpg show the same spell on different grid sizes for both feet and meters, I've added a table that is looked up on the map distance suffix.

Due to a busy work period, I only got to play a little yesterday with this and will take a look at the 4 grid type of the map to make sure the scale fit as expected, and I want to look at the 'tool tip' extra selection search as I want to get that showing in FGC aswell as FGU.

-pete