I'll definitely upvote all of those requests, except that OP's character sheets are as horribly ugly as Roll20's. I would love to see DDB incorporate some of the great campaign management concepts that Obsidian does so well.
Eshuvenniel Kazander Ravid,Valor Bard and Acolyte of the Goddess of Luck Caradoc Langham, Halfling Rogue - Lost Magics - Epic of Pre-made Proportions! I'm not looking for heaven or hell... just someone to listen to stories I tell...
@Aramalian -- agree on the character sheets. Was definitely referencing more the beauty of how the campaign is presented. For me--DDB just about nailed the character sheet. I have tried so many different types and there was always something I really disliked. With DDB there are only minor tweaks. I am super excited they are asking questions about campaign management because Curse has a great track record for 'pretty' and functional software. Starting with suggestions from the users is also super great. I am pumped...still trying to decide exactly how to run my sessions now, though. I am sold on DDB for character sheet and items. However--when it comes to running a session it is better to have the monsters in the VTT. Dropping stuff from Volos and the MM onto the map in Roll20 is a great thing.
Would love to hear how other folks are approaching it--only thing I am certain of at this point is that DDB wins (for me) for character sheets + PHB and DMG. No idea how I want to handle official modules/adventures. My party is about ready to kick of Storm King's Thunder and I cant decide to get it on Roll20 or DDB!
I don't like Obsidian's campaign management system. As much work goes into building the sections as writing the actual story. I would like a simple notebook with tabs, then notes within that tab for easy switching between sections during creation. Kind of like OneNote (but without creating different text boxes wherever I click.) I do like the ability to link to things though.
A campaign management tool that would be incredible for the DM would be an encounter builder / tracker. Below are some features I would love to see in a tool like this:
Encounter Builder
Encounters should be able to built either ahead of time or on the fly.
The player characters that are tied to the campaign should be considered present by default, but it should be possible to select/deselect which characters are involved in the encounter.
When building the encounter, an "Add Monster" button would take you to the monster list to allow you to select monsters with the nice search features already implemented.
Once monsters have been added, it should be possible to specify the number of each type present.
Allow for monsters to be renamed. For example, rather than Bugbear and wolf, it's possible to rename them Klarg and Ripper.
Monsters that are built into the encounter should allow for easy access of their description / stats.
There should be a difficulty rating calculator based on monster CR/EXP, number of monsters, party size, and level.
Encounter Tracker
Once the encounter starts, it should allow for either automatic initiative rolling for combatants individually, or for manual entry. For example, players roll their physical dice for initiative which gets manually entered. DM presses button to auto-determine initiative for each individual NPC.
Allow for toggling condition & status effects
Incorporate spell options and effects - For example: Bard casts vicious mockery on Monster, tracker asks "Save success or failure," when selecting failure, tracker flags monster to have disadvantage on next attack, after next attack disadvantage gets removed by tracker.
Track spell concentration
Allow for easy HP adjustment
Track Death Saves if HP = 0
Character and Monsters should be shown as an expandable banner. When not expanded, the banner shows: Name, HP, AC, Movement, Conditions, Concentrating (if Yes) On [Spell], & the name of any buff / debuff. When expanding monster banner, it shows their stat block & actions.
A set of buttons to resolve the encounter once it's begun. To include: End Encounter Award XP, End Encounter - No XP. The Award XP option automatically divides the xp amoung the party and gives it to the characters who participated in the encounter.
It should be possible to add more monsters in the middle of the fight. For example, after the 3rd round of combat: "the sounds of fighting in the hall has alerted the group of bandits in the room ahead, they rush out and join the fight." This could be accomplished by the "Add Monster" button, or by merging prepared encounters mid-fight.
I currently use Kobold Fight Club on an iPad to prepare and track encounters while I DM. It does an adequate job, but it's far from being the comprehensive tool that WotC can create.
Wanted to get my two cents in and just say "yes" to all of the above. I recently purchased everything, but I'm not the happiest because of the lack of a campaign manager and the likes of the quotes above.
I don't mind OP's core system, but I definitely think it could be significantly improved. I actually think that having a better text editor (neither the old or new are great, but the new is just painful) and a consistent style sheet would go a long way toward easing the usability. OneNote is actually what I started with, for managing my PotA campaign. Then I decided that I could probably do just as well with an online wiki that allowed me to make certain things public to my players.
You comment about tabs reminded me, though, that one of my concerns/desires with the offline/mobile DDB app is that I want to be able to continue to have multiple tabs open to different monsters, etc. from the Compendium as well as different "pages" of my adventures and/or campaign manager. I haven't really tried it out, yet, but iOS tends to want to reload web pages when you switch between tabs. No bueno for ease of reference during the game.
A campaign management tool that would be incredible for the DM would be an encounter builder / tracker. Below are some features I would love to see in a tool like this:
Encounter Builder
Encounters should be able to built either ahead of time or on the fly.
The player characters that are tied to the campaign should be considered present by default, but it should be possible to select/deselect which characters are involved in the encounter.
When building the encounter, an "Add Monster" button would take you to the monster list to allow you to select monsters with the nice search features already implemented.
Once monsters have been added, it should be possible to specify the number of each type present.
Allow for monsters to be renamed. For example, rather than Bugbear and wolf, it's possible to rename them Klarg and Ripper.
Monsters that are built into the encounter should allow for easy access of their description / stats.
There should be a difficulty rating calculator based on monster CR/EXP, number of monsters, party size, and level.
Encounter Tracker
Once the encounter starts, it should allow for either automatic initiative rolling for combatants individually, or for manual entry. For example, players roll their physical dice for initiative which gets manually entered. DM presses button to auto-determine initiative for each individual NPC.
Allow for toggling condition & status effects
Incorporate spell options and effects - For example: Bard casts vicious mockery on Monster, tracker asks "Save success or failure," when selecting failure, tracker flags monster to have disadvantage on next attack, after next attack disadvantage gets removed by tracker.
Track spell concentration
Allow for easy HP adjustment
Track Death Saves if HP = 0
Character and Monsters should be shown as an expandable banner. When not expanded, the banner shows: Name, HP, AC, Movement, Conditions, Concentrating (if Yes) On [Spell], & the name of any buff / debuff. When expanding monster banner, it shows their stat block & actions.
A set of buttons to resolve the encounter once it's begun. To include: End Encounter Award XP, End Encounter - No XP. The Award XP option automatically divides the xp amoung the party and gives it to the characters who participated in the encounter.
It should be possible to add more monsters in the middle of the fight. For example, after the 3rd round of combat: "the sounds of fighting in the hall has alerted the group of bandits in the room ahead, they rush out and join the fight." This could be accomplished by the "Add Monster" button, or by merging prepared encounters mid-fight.
I currently use Kobold Fight Club on an iPad to prepare and track encounters while I DM. It does an adequate job, but it's far from being the comprehensive tool that WotC can create.
Wanted to get my two cents in and just say "yes" to all of the above. I recently purchased everything, but I'm not the happiest because of the lack of a campaign manager and the likes of the quotes above.
We have discussed and confirmed these two elements (at least at a high level) for the roadmap previously.
We have discussed and confirmed these two elements (at least at a high level) for the roadmap previously.
Yup. I don't know where the thread is, but the combat/encounter/initiative tracker was one of the first things I asked about, way back when. The answer then was (paraphrasing), "Plan to do it. Won't be available at launch, but hopefully reasonably quick thereafter." The impression I got, then, was that "reasonably soon" wasn't weeks, but a handful of months.
I may be reading things wrong, but everything I've seen looks pretty consistent on this point.
I think that is a great point Minja22. As long as you can logically and quickly put things in proper categories or folders I dig the approach. I think it needs to be beautiful as well--helps with some of the excitement of interacting with campaign content.
A campaign management tool that would be incredible for the DM would be an encounter builder / tracker. Below are some features I would love to see in a tool like this:
Encounter Builder
Encounters should be able to built either ahead of time or on the fly.
The player characters that are tied to the campaign should be considered present by default, but it should be possible to select/deselect which characters are involved in the encounter.
When building the encounter, an "Add Monster" button would take you to the monster list to allow you to select monsters with the nice search features already implemented.
Once monsters have been added, it should be possible to specify the number of each type present.
Allow for monsters to be renamed. For example, rather than Bugbear and wolf, it's possible to rename them Klarg and Ripper.
Monsters that are built into the encounter should allow for easy access of their description / stats.
There should be a difficulty rating calculator based on monster CR/EXP, number of monsters, party size, and level.
Encounter Tracker
Once the encounter starts, it should allow for either automatic initiative rolling for combatants individually, or for manual entry. For example, players roll their physical dice for initiative which gets manually entered. DM presses button to auto-determine initiative for each individual NPC.
Allow for toggling condition & status effects
Incorporate spell options and effects - For example: Bard casts vicious mockery on Monster, tracker asks "Save success or failure," when selecting failure, tracker flags monster to have disadvantage on next attack, after next attack disadvantage gets removed by tracker.
Track spell concentration
Allow for easy HP adjustment
Track Death Saves if HP = 0
Character and Monsters should be shown as an expandable banner. When not expanded, the banner shows: Name, HP, AC, Movement, Conditions, Concentrating (if Yes) On [Spell], & the name of any buff / debuff. When expanding monster banner, it shows their stat block & actions.
A set of buttons to resolve the encounter once it's begun. To include: End Encounter Award XP, End Encounter - No XP. The Award XP option automatically divides the xp amoung the party and gives it to the characters who participated in the encounter.
It should be possible to add more monsters in the middle of the fight. For example, after the 3rd round of combat: "the sounds of fighting in the hall has alerted the group of bandits in the room ahead, they rush out and join the fight." This could be accomplished by the "Add Monster" button, or by merging prepared encounters mid-fight.
I currently use Kobold Fight Club on an iPad to prepare and track encounters while I DM. It does an adequate job, but it's far from being the comprehensive tool that WotC can create.
Wanted to get my two cents in and just say "yes" to all of the above. I recently purchased everything, but I'm not the happiest because of the lack of a campaign manager and the likes of the quotes above.
We have discussed and confirmed these two elements (at least at a high level) for the roadmap previously.
Can you give an ETA?
This month? This year?
These will move D&DB into being an actual campaign manager instead of just a pdf reader/character holder.
A campaign management tool that would be incredible for the DM would be an encounter builder / tracker. Below are some features I would love to see in a tool like this:
Encounter Builder
Encounters should be able to built either ahead of time or on the fly.
The player characters that are tied to the campaign should be considered present by default, but it should be possible to select/deselect which characters are involved in the encounter.
When building the encounter, an "Add Monster" button would take you to the monster list to allow you to select monsters with the nice search features already implemented.
Once monsters have been added, it should be possible to specify the number of each type present.
Allow for monsters to be renamed. For example, rather than Bugbear and wolf, it's possible to rename them Klarg and Ripper.
Monsters that are built into the encounter should allow for easy access of their description / stats.
There should be a difficulty rating calculator based on monster CR/EXP, number of monsters, party size, and level.
Encounter Tracker
Once the encounter starts, it should allow for either automatic initiative rolling for combatants individually, or for manual entry. For example, players roll their physical dice for initiative which gets manually entered. DM presses button to auto-determine initiative for each individual NPC.
Allow for toggling condition & status effects
Incorporate spell options and effects - For example: Bard casts vicious mockery on Monster, tracker asks "Save success or failure," when selecting failure, tracker flags monster to have disadvantage on next attack, after next attack disadvantage gets removed by tracker.
Track spell concentration
Allow for easy HP adjustment
Track Death Saves if HP = 0
Character and Monsters should be shown as an expandable banner. When not expanded, the banner shows: Name, HP, AC, Movement, Conditions, Concentrating (if Yes) On [Spell], & the name of any buff / debuff. When expanding monster banner, it shows their stat block & actions.
A set of buttons to resolve the encounter once it's begun. To include: End Encounter Award XP, End Encounter - No XP. The Award XP option automatically divides the xp amoung the party and gives it to the characters who participated in the encounter.
It should be possible to add more monsters in the middle of the fight. For example, after the 3rd round of combat: "the sounds of fighting in the hall has alerted the group of bandits in the room ahead, they rush out and join the fight." This could be accomplished by the "Add Monster" button, or by merging prepared encounters mid-fight.
I currently use Kobold Fight Club on an iPad to prepare and track encounters while I DM. It does an adequate job, but it's far from being the comprehensive tool that WotC can create.
Wanted to get my two cents in and just say "yes" to all of the above. I recently purchased everything, but I'm not the happiest because of the lack of a campaign manager and the likes of the quotes above.
We have discussed and confirmed these two elements (at least at a high level) for the roadmap previously.
Can you give an ETA?
This month? This year?
These will move D&DB into being an actual campaign manager instead of just a pdf reader/character holder.
I can't give an ETA for such big and complex features - it would be a fool's game. I can confirm that these are high in priority on the roadmap.
While we certainly have plans to head in that direction, we've been fairly clear about what DDB is and what it isn't for launch.
As of now, I feel compelled to state it is a bit more than "just a pdf reader/ character holder," but it absolutely is focused on character management and being an electronic compendium. We're excited about offering more than that in the coming months and appreciate everyone's feedback and support that will get us there.
I would like to add an option to the list above. It would be nice to have the option to role group initiative in the combat tracker, e.g. initiative for all Gobilns, all Orks, all Ogers or just all selected monsters (custom groups).
Sorry, that sounded more harsh than I meant it. Its a fantastic compendium. I'm subscribed at master tier, and bought books and an adventure. My disappointment is that its not able to fully manage the campaign I can create. I didn't want to have to use multiple sites to run my game, but this means I have to.
I've been using DND Beyond now for the last few sessions. There are some features which would be nice for a DM -- especially with new players: a tab view of character sheets or another way of quickly switching from one character to the next.
I'm running a campaign and have anywhere from 4 - 9 players at a session. Questions often come up on how something works and I need to see what they are looking at it has bogged the game down a little navigating to each individual sheet.
Another possibility would be a condensed view of the character sheet similar to the hover feature in the adventure guides for monsters. Sometimes I forget my sheet with players ability scores or passive perceptions, I'm trying to transition to a full digital "binder." Having everything on DNDBeyond within easy reach has been phenomenal and the tweaks I have read about will keep moving me one step closer to full digital.
A quick links area would also be helpful separate of the notes section or possibly a way to archive the notes creating an on-going adventure log perhaps.
I'll definitely upvote all of those requests, except that OP's character sheets are as horribly ugly as Roll20's. I would love to see DDB incorporate some of the great campaign management concepts that Obsidian does so well.
Eshuvenniel Kazander Ravid, Valor Bard and Acolyte of the Goddess of Luck
Caradoc Langham, Halfling Rogue - Lost Magics - Epic of Pre-made Proportions!
I'm not looking for heaven or hell... just someone to listen to stories I tell...
@Aramalian -- agree on the character sheets. Was definitely referencing more the beauty of how the campaign is presented. For me--DDB just about nailed the character sheet. I have tried so many different types and there was always something I really disliked. With DDB there are only minor tweaks. I am super excited they are asking questions about campaign management because Curse has a great track record for 'pretty' and functional software. Starting with suggestions from the users is also super great. I am pumped...still trying to decide exactly how to run my sessions now, though. I am sold on DDB for character sheet and items. However--when it comes to running a session it is better to have the monsters in the VTT. Dropping stuff from Volos and the MM onto the map in Roll20 is a great thing.
Would love to hear how other folks are approaching it--only thing I am certain of at this point is that DDB wins (for me) for character sheets + PHB and DMG. No idea how I want to handle official modules/adventures. My party is about ready to kick of Storm King's Thunder and I cant decide to get it on Roll20 or DDB!
I don't like Obsidian's campaign management system. As much work goes into building the sections as writing the actual story. I would like a simple notebook with tabs, then notes within that tab for easy switching between sections during creation. Kind of like OneNote (but without creating different text boxes wherever I click.) I do like the ability to link to things though.
Rob Milligan
I don't mind OP's core system, but I definitely think it could be significantly improved. I actually think that having a better text editor (neither the old or new are great, but the new is just painful) and a consistent style sheet would go a long way toward easing the usability. OneNote is actually what I started with, for managing my PotA campaign. Then I decided that I could probably do just as well with an online wiki that allowed me to make certain things public to my players.
You comment about tabs reminded me, though, that one of my concerns/desires with the offline/mobile DDB app is that I want to be able to continue to have multiple tabs open to different monsters, etc. from the Compendium as well as different "pages" of my adventures and/or campaign manager. I haven't really tried it out, yet, but iOS tends to want to reload web pages when you switch between tabs. No bueno for ease of reference during the game.
I think that is a great point Minja22. As long as you can logically and quickly put things in proper categories or folders I dig the approach. I think it needs to be beautiful as well--helps with some of the excitement of interacting with campaign content.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Tooltips (Help/aid)
I would like to add an option to the list above. It would be nice to have the option to role group initiative in the combat tracker, e.g. initiative for all Gobilns, all Orks, all Ogers or just all selected monsters (custom groups).
Sorry, that sounded more harsh than I meant it. Its a fantastic compendium. I'm subscribed at master tier, and bought books and an adventure. My disappointment is that its not able to fully manage the campaign I can create. I didn't want to have to use multiple sites to run my game, but this means I have to.
I'll look forward to the features.
I've been using DND Beyond now for the last few sessions. There are some features which would be nice for a DM -- especially with new players: a tab view of character sheets or another way of quickly switching from one character to the next.
I'm running a campaign and have anywhere from 4 - 9 players at a session. Questions often come up on how something works and I need to see what they are looking at it has bogged the game down a little navigating to each individual sheet.
Another possibility would be a condensed view of the character sheet similar to the hover feature in the adventure guides for monsters. Sometimes I forget my sheet with players ability scores or passive perceptions, I'm trying to transition to a full digital "binder." Having everything on DNDBeyond within easy reach has been phenomenal and the tweaks I have read about will keep moving me one step closer to full digital.
A quick links area would also be helpful separate of the notes section or possibly a way to archive the notes creating an on-going adventure log perhaps.
Could Dungeon Masters get a notification when players edit or add a character in a campaign?
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Dungeon Master of Nerd Poker - a D&D podcast
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Just to add my +1 to certain features.
I think he means manage ownership of the PC.
My 5e Houserule Considerations. Please comment freely.