5E - AoE Spells Auto-Targeting & Upcast (FREE BETA)

[bwatford]

Can we make things a bit more consistent across all spells? if the spell doesn't produce a popup then players still have to do it the old way and check off a spell slot manually, with the popups it does it for them. They are a bit confused when to do what.

Perhaps if all spells triggered the popup to activate and confirm then they are always doing it that way?

Or perhaps make the "Use Power" icon different for those that trigger the popup so they know when to use the "Use Power" button and when to do it manually?

Just trying to offer some consistency for casting spells this way.

[Henix]

Can confirm, load times are an order of magnitude shorter now
I'm testing it with one of my players together with the new Sorcerer automation, everything looks great so far

The loading time was my absolute primary concern, so knowing it is significantly shorter now is a huge relief. I am still going to keep looking under the hood to see if I can reduce it even further, but I'm glad it's at a great playing state for you and your player alongside the Sorcerer automation! Thank you for testing it.

Can we make things a bit more consistent across all spells? if the spell doesn't produce a popup then players still have to do it the old way and check off a spell slot manually, with the popups it does it for them. They are a bit confused when to do what.

Perhaps if all spells triggered the popup to activate and confirm then they are always doing it that way?

Or perhaps make the "Use Power" icon different for those that trigger the popup so they know when to use the "Use Power" button and when to do it manually?

Just trying to offer some consistency for casting spells this way.

Regarding consistency across spells: right now, only cantrips do not trigger the popup interface. As mentioned earlier, I am already planning to add cantrips to the popup system too, which will give players that exact 100% routine consistency across everything they cast.

Because of how the extension is built, if your players are encountering a leveled spell (Level 1+) that does not open the popup when they click "Use Power", it means one of two things:

1. The spell is not properly prepared/active in the spell list, meaning the "Use Power" button shouldn't normally be appearing or clicked.
2. It is a bug.

If it turns out to be the second case, please let me know which specific spells or actions are failing to trigger the window so I can jump on it and see what's causing the issue.

[Lo Zeno]

The lack of popup for cantrips is basically the main feedback I got from my players during the tests I did, so I'm happy to read that it's in the plan already.
Other than that, one player noted that it would be convenient to have the Area of Effect token disappear on turn change for the spells that are instantaneous (e.g. Fireball); but, I'd rather leave that as a "nice to have" in the future, as deleting tokens is no big deal, plus there are situations where the DM would actually like to keep it around.

[Henix]

The lack of popup for cantrips is basically the main feedback I got from my players during the tests I did, so I'm happy to read that it's in the plan already.
Other than that, one player noted that it would be convenient to have the Area of Effect token disappear on turn change for the spells that are instantaneous (e.g. Fireball); but, I'd rather leave that as a "nice to have" in the future, as deleting tokens is no big deal, plus there are situations where the DM would actually like to keep it around.

Glad to hear the cantrip alignment will solve that main point of feedback for your players!

Regarding the instantaneous AoE templates (like Fireball): right now, they are actually designed to disappear automatically the moment the spell is cast and damage is rolled. If the templates are staying on your map after the spell resolves (and its not a permanent spell), that might actually be a bug!

Just so I can make sure I understand the suggestion correctly, are you proposing to intentionally leave instantaneous templates on the map until the end of the turn? I'm just curious to know if there are specific or useful use cases you have in mind for that? I'd love to hear them so I can evaluate the idea properly.

[metaldm007]

Any chance you might implement the ability to use custom spell tokens for the targeting areas like b9's old Spell Tokens extension? IIRC there was another extension that did the same thing but actually let you use the token for targeting purposes.

[GKEnialb]

Ran a session with this yesterday - it was a big hit. Good job on this!

[GKEnialb]

Is there any possibility custom effects could be handled? For instance, Aid as written doesn't really match the spell, as it adds temp hp instead of max hp. So I use Life Ledger to have the effect be "Aid; MAXHP: 5". This extension will do that okay, but the upcasting doesn't do anything different (so raises the max hp by 5 no matter what level of upcasting you do).

[Henix]

Any chance you might implement the ability to use custom spell tokens for the targeting areas like b9's old Spell Tokens extension? IIRC there was another extension that did the same thing but actually let you use the token for targeting purposes.

As mentioned just a little bit earlier in the thread, I agree that supporting custom spell tokens would be a really cool implementation! However, for the time being, my absolute main focus is entirely on ensuring the core functionality of this extension is stable and working perfectly. I will definitely look into compatibility options once the foundation is rock-solid!

Ran a session with this yesterday - it was a big hit. Good job on this!

Is there any possibility custom effects could be handled? For instance, Aid as written doesn't really match the spell, as it adds temp hp instead of max hp. So I use Life Ledger to have the effect be "Aid; MAXHP: 5". This extension will do that okay, but the upcasting doesn't do anything different (so raises the max hp by 5 no matter what level of upcasting you do).

Thank you so much! I really appreciate the kind words, and I'm thrilled to hear the extension was a big hit during your live session!

Regarding the management of custom effects and spells that aren't currently fully automated or scalable with upcasting under the hood, I am already working on a major update addressing exactly this.

If everything goes smoothly with testing, that update should be ready to roll out in about a week or so. Stay tuned!

[GKEnialb]

Great to hear! Looking forward to trying that out.

[Lo Zeno]

In the last game we found an edge case that the extension doesn't manage properly:

when a cantrip has multiple choice of damage, for example Toll the Dead, it only applies the increased damage due to level according to the FIRST type of damage; moreover, the parsing is incorrectly applying the total number of dice as the "extra dice".

Explanation follows:
this is the text of the spell:

You point at one creature you can see within range, and the single chime of a dolorous bell is audible within 10 feet of the target. The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or take 1d8 Necrotic damage. If the target is missing any of its Hit Points, it instead takes 1d12 Necrotic damage.

Cantrip Upgrade.
The damage increases by one die when you reach levels 5 (2d8 or 2d12), 11 (3d8 or 3d12), and 17 (4d8 or 4d12).

When clicking the "use power" icon, the extension writes this in the chat for an 8th level character:

[Toll the Dead] Cast as a cantrip [+2d8 due to 8° Character Level].

And it indeed adds +2d8 to the damage, for a total of 3d8; this is, as you can read in the description of the spell that 2d8 is the TOTAL damage, not the damage to add ("the damage increases by one die when you reach level 5").
Additionally, if the target is missing hit points and the character clicks the second damage action (the one with 1d12), it should roll 2d12, instead it rolls 1d12 + 2d8 (because the extension applies a +2d8 to all the damage actions of the spell).