D&D General Your Thoughts on LoS, Dynamic Lighting on VTTs

[Don Durito]

Well scale is an issue. At 5ft squares a lot of dungeons need to be split up across multiple maps due to their sheer size.

 

[iserith]

Well scale is an issue. At 5ft squares a lot of dungeons need to be split up across multiple maps due to their sheer size.

I don't see this as much of an issue because most maps aren't going to be big enough to need to do it and, since many dungeons have levels on different pages anyway, it's no big deal in my view to split up a level if one needed to. In Foundry it's even easier since you can set up these little "teleport" areas if you have the right module so that when a token is placed in the boundary it takes them right to the next part of the map.

I just ran Tamoachan and one of the maps for that is 178 squares x 60 squares. Frequently the maps I set up for large adventure locations are 90 squares by 90 squares. There has been no trouble with this on Roll20.

 

[tetrasodium]

This is what puzzles me about the assumptions behind VTT - and even what I've seen at the table top. Why do you need individual tokens when you're not in combat? Wouldn't you be better of with a single token for the whole party that the whole party can see.? This would prevent people being in different places and make it easier for everyone to know what is going on.

It seems to me that the scale of the battlemap is just wrong for exploration. It seems to me there's a good reason the traditional exploration scale was in 10ft squares.

You're right, VTTs don't really need everyone to be exploring as if they were moving in combat the vast majority of the time while exploring any more than a battlemat or something. I usually just dump the pc tokens in a room with an extra torch token that has a big light attached to it when appropriate. With world map stuff I tend to do whatever seems fitting up to including just dragging the image of a map (jpg, pdf, whatever) over to the second screen & physically pointing like we would if we were using a world map printed on paper. Changing the grid size or the size of the map under the grid can generally be done trivially when creating the map. Changing it after the map is created is something that depends on your vtt

 

[embee]

Without the ability to see very far during exploration mode, twisting, curving cavern passages made it hard to drag and drop our minis. With just using fog of war (our usual method), we could have one PC token used as the front of the party, periodically moving the others up as needed. With dynamic lighting we couldn't do that, since we couldn't see where the front was. This meant the DM had to move our tokens on demand, or we had to move together. In those tight, curving passages, this meant we moved 1-2 spaces at a time, which meant the arrow keys were easier.

Sounds like a dungeon crawl to me.

How far are you all trying to move at any given time? Because I'm not seeing the problem here.

 

[Shiroiken]

Sounds like a dungeon crawl to me.

How far are you all trying to move at any given time? Because I'm not seeing the problem here.

Yeah, it was in a dungeon crawl at the beginning of Avernus. With dynamic lighting, we could't see more than 1-2 spaces, thus the need for the arrow keys, which is really slow. When we just use Fog of War, the DM reveals the area until we reach a decision point, then we just move ourselves to that point, which is really fast. The problem is the time required (plus the setup time) not being worth the benefit.

 

[iserith]

The only thing I can think of is that wasn't set up right somehow.

 

[embee]

The only thing I can think of is that wasn't set up right somehow.

In my experience, when you fiddle with something too much and break it, the best way to fix it is by fiddling with it some more.

 

[Asisreo]

I use FoW and DL when a fight is happening as it gives clear indication for what can be targeted by spells and how a character might want to hide.

But I generally don't show the dungeon map to my players. Like how many have said, it slows stuff down alot and any information that isn't visibly presented on the map is ignored by the players. Its also somewhat distracting and disengaging. I'll do it if something special is going on but otherwise, the map is for me and me alone as the DM.

 

[Retreater]

Well scale is an issue. At 5ft squares a lot of dungeons need to be split up across multiple m aps due to their sheer size.

I don't know. I managed to get all of Barrowmaze on a single map level on Roll20 in 5 ft squares. That has around 360 rooms on one map. (Though, granted it's too large for dynamic lighting and I can just use basic fog of war.)

 

[Retreater]

This is what puzzles me about the assumptions behind VTT - and even what I've seen at the table top. Why do you need individual tokens when you're not in combat? Wouldn't you be better of with a single token for the whole party that the whole party can see.? This would prevent people being in different places and make it easier for everyone to know what is going on.

It seems to me that the scale of the battlemap is just wrong for exploration. It seems to me there's a good reason the traditional exploration scale was in 10ft squares.

Individual tokens are necessary because the party doesn't explore at the same rate. Rogues go ahead to scout, barbarians charge down hallways, wizards teleport, etc.