D&D 4E Major iplay4e update! Manage campaigns, full text search, UI redesign, tablet view

[Ferghis]

Okay, I reproduced the bug, or at least when I enter the below (which is what I had entered previously) in the "Companions" tab, I get an exclamation mark in next to the die icon.

Onyx Dog
Medium natural animate
Initiative as conjurer
Perception +7; low-light vision
Bloodied 4; Max HP 9; HP 9+4 temp
AC 16; Fortitude 15, Reflex 14, Will 13
Speed 8
M Bite (standard; at-will)
+7 vs. AC; 1d6 + 3 damage.
Alignment Unaligned Languages —
Str 16 (+5) Dex 14 (+4) Wis 13 (+3)
Con 14 (+4) Int 2 (–2) Cha 10 (+2)

 

[jigsawsaint]

Okay, I reproduced the bug, or at least when I enter the below (which is what I had entered previously) in the "Companions" tab, I get an exclamation mark in next to the die icon.

I'm not entirely convinced this was the same issue, but it was certainly a bug, and it's now fixed. The problem was that my new note editing code wasn't properly handling Unicode characters, such as the elongated dash you were trying to enter

 

[Ferghis]

Thanks!

 

[Nikosandros]

Once the combat management functionality is implemented, will it allow just the DM to change someone else character or also other players? I'm asking because usually IMC, when a player is missing, some other player will run that PC during the session.

I think I already complimented you via mail and/or in another post, but let me restate how cool this application is right now and with all the improvements in the road map, it will be even better.

[Waves to Fergis, who is currently a "remote" player in one of my campaigns.]

 

[jigsawsaint]

Once the combat management functionality is implemented, will it allow just the DM to change someone else character or also other players? I'm asking because usually IMC, when a player is missing, some other player will run that PC during the session.

We're thinking it will be a player-controlled setting for each character they add to a campaign, with the following options for the "Who can edit the character" option:

• Me and the DM (default)
• Only me
• Anyone in the campaign

I think I already complimented you via mail and/or in another post, but let me restate how cool this application is right now and with all the improvements in the road map, it will be even better.

Cheers!

- Andrew

 

[whiter73]

I am really liking this app. I just found it today and it is easy to use and quick to upgrade/update characters via loading .dnd4e files.

-Rick

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

I also just had my first go at this today, and I'm impressed with how well this works. I'll need to tinker with it more to be sure, but I can see using this in the future, even if only to make centralizing my Character Builder files a little easier. That said, there are a few things that didn't quite click with me. The easy ones:

• Wizard powers are a bit clunky. Everything in their spell book shows up as an active power even though half of their stuff isn't actually available. You can use the "Use/Unuse" buttons to get rid of the spellbook'd powers, but short rests will restore any non-daily utility powers. Extended rests will of course restore everything.
• When I select a single-target power and press "Roll All", it rolls 1 damage roll and 8 attack rolls; I don't understand why the latter is happening. It'd be great if the app automatically rolled the maximum number of attack rolls possible for the power (ex: burst 1 rolls 9, blast 5 rolls 25, etc.), but right now I'm getting 7 more calculations than I need.

I guess my biggest question at this point is "How do you expect this program to actually be used?" It doesn't seem like it's quite at the point of being used by the players and the DM simultaneously; with my testing earlier (I had my current GMail account on Firefox and an old one on Chrome), it didn't look like changes that player A makes to his PC were visible to player B until B refreshed, which seems like a bit of an issue, especially for a DM trying to track everyone. And as an aside, refreshing is also a bit of a pain on a netbook, since the Campaign information and other images/header-y stuff/etc. takes up a lot of screen real estate at the top, forcing me to scroll back down after each refresh.

Do you picture this as something that the DM uses alone in real time, something to facilitate PbP games, something the group uses to "Save" their game if they have to end the session half-way through an adventuring day (and on that note, this is easily the best way to do exactly this that I've ever seen), or something that each DM and PC uses a computer to update in real time?

 

[jigsawsaint]

I also just had my first go at this today, and I'm impressed with how well this works. I'll need to tinker with it more to be sure, but I can see using this in the future, even if only to make centralizing my Character Builder files a little easier. That said, there are a few things that didn't quite click with me. The easy ones:

Thanks for the compliment - but even more for the feedback. Comments follow.

• Wizard powers are a bit clunky. Everything in their spell book shows up as an active power even though half of their stuff isn't actually available. You can use the "Use/Unuse" buttons to get rid of the spellbook'd powers, but short rests will restore any non-daily utility powers. Extended rests will of course restore everything.

This isn't quite as easy as you'd think - nor is it a problem just for wizards. Multi-use cleric powers like Healing Word aren't well-handled, psionic power points are absent, and so on. Basically, anything that breaks the mold.

In some cases, it's clear in the dnd4e file what should be happening. In others, not so much. We have a "power customization" feature that addresses all these issues pretty highly prioritized on the roadmap:

Issues - iplay4e - Project Hosting on Google Code

(Look for issue 90, a High priority Enhancement)

• When I select a single-target power and press "Roll All", it rolls 1 damage roll and 8 attack rolls; I don't understand why the latter is happening. It'd be great if the app automatically rolled the maximum number of attack rolls possible for the power (ex: burst 1 rolls 9, blast 5 rolls 25, etc.), but right now I'm getting 7 more calculations than I need.

The "Roll All" button is a recently added feature, and it's about the best we can do for the moment. Despite appearances, we don't actually have all of the information about each power; we are able to display compendium data, but are not able to read it. We're stuck with what is in the dnd4e file, which doesn't let us differentiate between single-target and multiple-target powers. The Roll All button provides what we believe is a sufficient number of rolls to cover 95% of power use scenarios - and it's awfully easy to ignore the rolls you don't need.

As we move forward into the web-based tabletop space, we'll of course roll the appropriate number of times based on the number of targets selected. We're just not there yet.

I guess my biggest question at this point is "How do you expect this program to actually be used?"

Well put. While the answer to this will expand over time, it is currently: "Use iPlay4e to have a character sheet that you can never lose, that you can access from any device connected to the web, and that automatically includes the most recent compendium data."

There are other answers (iplay4e is awesome for play-by-post, is a great way to share characters with your group, etc...) but that's the core of it.

It doesn't seem like it's quite at the point of being used by the players and the DM simultaneously; with my testing earlier (I had my current GMail account on Firefox and an old one on Chrome), it didn't look like changes that player A makes to his PC were visible to player B until B refreshed, which seems like a bit of an issue, especially for a DM trying to track everyone.

You're absolutely right about that. We're moving towards a networked combat manager, but we're not there yet. It's non-trivial to do so in a way that won't entirely swamp the server with requests. It's like a carful a kids all saying "did it change yet?" "did it change yet?" every couple seconds...

 

[Ferghis]

You're absolutely right about that. We're moving towards a networked combat manager, but we're not there yet. It's non-trivial to do so in a way that won't entirely swamp the server with requests. It's like a carful a kids all saying "did it change yet?" "did it change yet?" every couple seconds...

As much as I love the idea of seeing other folks sheets change live, I'd much rather a sheet update push a simple notification to the DM and other players, especially if this affords not having the servers buckle.

 

[jigsawsaint]

As much as I love the idea of seeing other folks sheets change live, I'd much rather a sheet update push a simple notification to the DM and other players, especially if this affords not having the servers buckle.

It was probably unwise of me to start waxing technical; y'all don't care what's under the hood as long as it works! But having opened the can of worms, I'll say that there's no such thing as "push" in web tech. A regular polling model is really the only approach that's reliable on all platforms. That being the case, there's not much difference between distributing a notification and distributing all the details.

I also didn't mean to give the impression it's a "dealbreaker" - we are so on this. It's too cool to not get implemented!

Cheers,
Andrew