Post by ironfang01 on May 6, 2015 21:38:54 GMT -7
Ok, so since i always recieve comments and whispers asking about my macros during sessions i thought i would put down some information for everyone who was interested. The secret behind my macros is the default template, it keeps everything in a tidy little box and prevents line breaks in the middle of your macro, overall it just makes it nicer looking and easier to figure out whats going on. So, to start with we put this line..
&{template:default}
that gets us started, this is followed by the title bar for the box
&{template:default} {{name=Attack Name}}
Make sure you use the double curly brackets, these designate each new line in our box, also make sure to leave "name" all lowercase or it wont display properly. Next comes our first line in the box, now depending on the complexity of our macro we may want to set these up as one line for attack rolls and one for damage, or possibly if you have a lot of attacks in your full attack you may want each line to list each attack (attack, confirmation, and damage). We will do a simple single attack for this example.
&{template:default} {{name=Attack Name}} {{attack: [[1d20+1]] | [[1d20+1]] conf}}
So our fist line will show our attack roll, then a vertical line, then our confirmation roll. Everything inside the square brackets will show as an inline roll (a single boxed number that will show what was rolled on a mouseover). Ok, so what about critical threats? Well all inline rolls will highlight green if the max possible number was rolled (in this case a 20). If you have an increased crit range this can be designated by putting a cs# after your 1d20, where the # is the lowest number you threaten on. For example, if you have a 19-20 crit range we would list it like this
&{template:default} {{name=Attack Name}} {{attack: [[1d20cs19+1]] | [[1d20+1]] conf}}
Now it will highlight our attack roll if a 19 or 20 is rolled. Now on to our next line, the damage. I list mine exactly how i listed my attacks, and the double curly brackets will place these rolls on a seperate line.
&{template:default} {{name=Attack Name}} {{attack: [[1d20cs19+1]] | [[1d20+1]] conf}} {{damage: [[1d6+1]] | [[1d6+1]]}}
This shows our initial damage roll followed by a vertical line, then our critical damage. If you have a higher crit multiplier on your weapon i suggest listing a seperate dice roll for each multiple to simulate rolling proper critical damage (if you just multiply it, then you'll be kicking yourself if it rolls a one on that awesome crit). These are really the basics behind setting up a macro with a template.
Ok, now we move on to the tricky parts. How do you handle buffs? charges? power attack? Simple, we get our macro to ask for any modifiers, this is a lot easier than figuring out the math afterwards or making a seperate macro for every eventuality. To do this we add this to our roll in place of a number
?{Modfier|0}
What this does is pops up a box asking you to input the modifer. The number listed after the vertical line will be the default value if you just enter through, so i leave mine as 0. The one thing to keep in mind is that all of these functions that have identical names will use the same entry, so if we had the above example listed twice in our macro it would take whatever we entered and apply it to both spots in our macro. In most of my macros i will use this function twice, once for attack modifiers and once for damage modifiers, so what we end up with is this.
&{template:default} {{name=Attack Name}} {{attack: [[1d20cs19+1+?{Attack Modifier|0}]] | [[1d20+1+?{Attack Modifier|0}]] conf}} {{damage: [[1d6+1+?{Damage Modifier|0}]] | [[1d6+1+?{Damage Modifier|0}]]}}
Remember to keep your macro as one long string without any line breaks or it will mess up the formatting and not work properly. This can lead to some very long macros, but once they are clicked they look nice and clean. In the example the macro will ask for an attack modifier, and then for a damage modifier, applying each number in all appropriate places. I find this setup works in almost all cases. If you get lost on how something should be listed, i find it helpfull to just remember exactly how you would be rolling it with dice at the table, and that helps me figure out how it should be listed.
Other useful things about the template are that since you can set up your lines however you like using the curly brackets, you could list notes such as damage types, a seperate line for precision damage, or as i do with nym add a grab roll.
Well, thats a bit about my macros and thoughts behind them, if you have more detailed questions, or need specific examples let me know and i will help as best i can.
&{template:default}
that gets us started, this is followed by the title bar for the box
&{template:default} {{name=Attack Name}}
Make sure you use the double curly brackets, these designate each new line in our box, also make sure to leave "name" all lowercase or it wont display properly. Next comes our first line in the box, now depending on the complexity of our macro we may want to set these up as one line for attack rolls and one for damage, or possibly if you have a lot of attacks in your full attack you may want each line to list each attack (attack, confirmation, and damage). We will do a simple single attack for this example.
&{template:default} {{name=Attack Name}} {{attack: [[1d20+1]] | [[1d20+1]] conf}}
So our fist line will show our attack roll, then a vertical line, then our confirmation roll. Everything inside the square brackets will show as an inline roll (a single boxed number that will show what was rolled on a mouseover). Ok, so what about critical threats? Well all inline rolls will highlight green if the max possible number was rolled (in this case a 20). If you have an increased crit range this can be designated by putting a cs# after your 1d20, where the # is the lowest number you threaten on. For example, if you have a 19-20 crit range we would list it like this
&{template:default} {{name=Attack Name}} {{attack: [[1d20cs19+1]] | [[1d20+1]] conf}}
Now it will highlight our attack roll if a 19 or 20 is rolled. Now on to our next line, the damage. I list mine exactly how i listed my attacks, and the double curly brackets will place these rolls on a seperate line.
&{template:default} {{name=Attack Name}} {{attack: [[1d20cs19+1]] | [[1d20+1]] conf}} {{damage: [[1d6+1]] | [[1d6+1]]}}
This shows our initial damage roll followed by a vertical line, then our critical damage. If you have a higher crit multiplier on your weapon i suggest listing a seperate dice roll for each multiple to simulate rolling proper critical damage (if you just multiply it, then you'll be kicking yourself if it rolls a one on that awesome crit). These are really the basics behind setting up a macro with a template.
Ok, now we move on to the tricky parts. How do you handle buffs? charges? power attack? Simple, we get our macro to ask for any modifiers, this is a lot easier than figuring out the math afterwards or making a seperate macro for every eventuality. To do this we add this to our roll in place of a number
?{Modfier|0}
What this does is pops up a box asking you to input the modifer. The number listed after the vertical line will be the default value if you just enter through, so i leave mine as 0. The one thing to keep in mind is that all of these functions that have identical names will use the same entry, so if we had the above example listed twice in our macro it would take whatever we entered and apply it to both spots in our macro. In most of my macros i will use this function twice, once for attack modifiers and once for damage modifiers, so what we end up with is this.
&{template:default} {{name=Attack Name}} {{attack: [[1d20cs19+1+?{Attack Modifier|0}]] | [[1d20+1+?{Attack Modifier|0}]] conf}} {{damage: [[1d6+1+?{Damage Modifier|0}]] | [[1d6+1+?{Damage Modifier|0}]]}}
Remember to keep your macro as one long string without any line breaks or it will mess up the formatting and not work properly. This can lead to some very long macros, but once they are clicked they look nice and clean. In the example the macro will ask for an attack modifier, and then for a damage modifier, applying each number in all appropriate places. I find this setup works in almost all cases. If you get lost on how something should be listed, i find it helpfull to just remember exactly how you would be rolling it with dice at the table, and that helps me figure out how it should be listed.
Other useful things about the template are that since you can set up your lines however you like using the curly brackets, you could list notes such as damage types, a seperate line for precision damage, or as i do with nym add a grab roll.
Well, thats a bit about my macros and thoughts behind them, if you have more detailed questions, or need specific examples let me know and i will help as best i can.
