Edit 7/19/2010: Since I first wrote this post, I have learned more about MapTool macros, and you can find the improved information at this post.  However, I’ve left the original post below for posterity – and as an example of how to learn how to improve your macro writing, rather than just giving the finished product.

Building on my recent post in which I described how to create a rather complicated macro to accurately run a basic attack, it’s time to talk about a somewhat more complicated attack – one that targets multiple enemies.  Some characters in D&D Fourth Edition might only rarely have one of these attacks, but a controller like a Wizard or Druid or even a character like Barbara’s Swordmage with her close burst 1 attacks will run into these a lot.

If you have an attack that targets every enemy within a given burst, you could program the attack a few different ways.  The simple approach would be to click the button once per enemy, and only use the damage roll from either the first or the last click (since in D&D 4e multi-target attacks generally only have a single damage roll).  Alternatively, you could create separate macro buttons for the attack (which you would click once per enemy) and the damage roll (which you would only click one time at the end).  You might prefer this latter approach to begin with – separate attack rolls and damage rolls – even for single-target attacks, since lots of players do it that way in real life (only rolling damage if they hit).

My preferred approach is a little more elegant, I think.  It’s a macro that you click one time for the multi-target attack, which then asks you how many targets you’re attacking.  It then gives you an attack roll for each target and a single damage roll.  It also handles telling you the the max damage amount for any attack rolls that are critical hits.  The macro essentially starts with the basic attack macro from my earlier post and builds from there.

First, a recap of the basic attack macro:

[h: SkillMod=FLOOR((getProperty(“Strength”)-10)/2)]

[h: DamageDie=getProperty(“MeleeDamageDie”)]
[h: HalfLevel=FLOOR(getProperty(“Level”)/2)]
[h: Prof=getProperty(“MeleeProficiency”)]
[h: Enh=getProperty(“MeleeEnhancement”)]

[h: AttackBonus=SkillMod+HalfLevel+Prof+Enh]
[h: DamageBonus=SkillMod+Enh]

[h: d20roll=d20]
[h: DamageRoll=roll(1,DamageDie)]

[h: AttackRoll=d20roll+AttackBonus]
[h: MaxDamage=DamageDie+DamageBonus]
[h: RegularDamage=DamageRoll+DamageBonus]

<b>Melee Basic Attack</b><br>
Attack: [d20roll] + [AttackBonus] = <b>[AttackRoll]</b> versus AC<br>
[if(d20roll==20), CODE:
{<font color=Red>–CRITICAL HIT–</font><br>
Damage: [DamageDie] + [DamageBonus] = <b>[MaxDamage]</b> damage
};
{Damage: [DamageRoll] + [DamageBonus] = <b>[RegularDamage]</b> damage}
]

This macro figures out the attack bonus based on the appropriate skill modifier, weapon proficiency bonus, weapon enhancement and character level.  It gets the weapon damage die, and it calculates the damage bonus based on the skill modifier, weapon enhancement and character level.  It rolls the attack and the normal damage as well as calculating the max damage for a crit.  It tells you what the result of the attack roll was.  If it was a crit, it tells you so and gives the max damage amount.  If it wasn’t a crit, it just tells you the rolled damage amount.

The guts of the multi-attack macro will be the same.  It gets the appropriate skill modifier (which may be something other than Strength, of course), proficiency, enhancement, level and damage die.  It calculates regular and max damage in just the same way.  The difference only comes on the attack roll – it has to generate one attack roll per target.

To do this, we define a variable with no value – and MapTool will then ask the user to input a value.  Here’s what this part of the macro looks like (for the Sword Burst attack from Barbara’s Swordmage named Surina):

<b>Sword Burst</b><br>
[h: x=NumberOfTargets]
Attacking [x] adjacent
[if(x==1,”enemy.”,”enemies.”)]
<br>

When MapTool executes the line that reads [h: x=NumberOfTargets], it will pop up a box that looks like this:

The user then enters a number.  If you enter something else (like a word), you’ll get an error message.  Assuming you do enter a valid number – let’s say 4 – MapTool will store this as the value of x. It then confirms for the user the number that was entered for x and has a little extra piece of code to say that you’re attacking “5 enemies” but “1 enemy” (the first version I wrote could have you attacking “1 enemies,” which annoyed me).

It then moves on to the following bit of code:

[h: i=1]
[WHILE(i <= x, “<br>”), CODE:
{
…MORE CODE WILL GO HERE IN A MINUTE…
}
]

As you may have guessed, where you see “…MORE CODE WILL GO HERE IN A MINUTE…” we will soon be putting more code.  First, though, I wanted to show you the structure of this loop.  I begin by introducing a new variable, i (for “iteration”) and set its value to 1.  The first open bracket before the word “WHILE” is paired with the closed bracket at the very end of the code above.  The open curly bracket on the line below the WHILE statement is paired with the closed curly bracket two lines below it.  The expression [WHILE(i <= x, “<br>”, CODE: {…}] means:

• Check to see if i is less than or equal to x
• If i is indeed less than or equal to x, then do whatever is in the {…} section (note that you had better have something in the {…} section that increases the value of i!)
• Put in a line break (that’s the “<br>”)
• Come back to check and see if i is still less than or equal to x
• If so, repeat what’s in the {…} section, then insert another line break
• Do this process up until i is greater than x, then move on past the closed square bracket

This is what’s often known in other programming languages as a DO loop.  MapTool also has a FOR…NEXT loop function as well as a COUNT function that can also handle looping through lines multiple times, but this WHILE loop is the easiest to explain (the numbering on the other versions gets a little weird).

Now that we’ve set up the structure of the loop and we know it will keep repeating until we don’t want it to repeat any more, we need to put the guts of the attack roll and its result in between those curly brackets.  That means we need to roll an attack and print out the result of that attack roll first:

[h: d20roll=d20]
[h: AttackRoll=d20roll+AttackBonus]
Target [i]:   [d20roll] + [AttackBonus] = <b>[AttackRoll]</b> versus Reflex

Simple enough.  The only thing different here from our basic attack macro, aside from the fact that this particular power goes after Reflex instead of AC, is that we have it print “Target [i]” instead of just “Attack” before the attack roll.  The [i] in brackets will show whatever the value of i currently is – starting at 1, and going up from there (Target 1, then Target 2, and so on).

Next, we put in the same type of code that we saw in the basic attack to check for a critical hit, only this time we’ll put a line with the max damage right next to the attack result (no line break) since the crit will only apply to that particular attack roll:

[if(d20roll==20), CODE:
{<font color=Red>  –CRITICAL HIT–</font> [DamageDie] + [DamageBonus] = <b>[MaxDamage]</b> force damage};{}
]

Finally, we need to increase the value of i by 1 so that the loop will eventually end (otherwise it would repeat infinitely with i=1):

[h: i=i+1]

At this point, we’ve reached the end of the looping code, so we have the closed curly bracket and the closed square bracket to end the loop.  We then move on to printing out the regular damage roll, with a couple of line breaks before it:

<br><br>
Damage: [DamageRoll] +[DamageBonus] = <b>[RegularDamage]</b> force damage

Putting it all together, the macro looks like this:

[h: SkillMod=FLOOR((getProperty(“Intelligence”)-10)/2)]

[h: DamageDie=6]
[h: HalfLevel=FLOOR(getProperty(“Level”)/2)]
[h:Prof=getProperty(“MeleeProficiency”)]
[h: Enh=getProperty(“MeleeEnhancement”)]

[h: AttackBonus=SkillMod+HalfLevel+Enh]
[h: DamageBonus=SkillMod+Enh]

[h: d20roll=d20]
[h: DamageRoll=roll(1,DamageDie)]

[h: MaxDamage=DamageDie+DamageBonus]
[h: RegularDamage=DamageRoll+DamageBonus]

<b>Sword Burst</b><br>
[h: x=NumberOfTargets]
Attacking [x] adjacent
[if(x==1,”enemy.”,”enemies.”)]
<br>
[h: i=1]
[WHILE(i <= x, “<br>”), CODE:
{
[h: d20roll=d20]
[h: AttackRoll=d20roll+AttackBonus]
Target [i]:   [d20roll] + [AttackBonus] = <b>[AttackRoll]</b> versus Reflex
[if(d20roll==20), CODE:
{<font color=Red>  –CRITICAL HIT–</font> [DamageDie] + [DamageBonus] = <b>[MaxDamage]</b> force damage};{}
]
[h: i=i+1]
}
]
<br><br>
Damage: [DamageRoll] +[DamageBonus] = <b>[RegularDamage]</b> force damage

You’ll note that it’s a little different from the basic attack macro in that it doesn’t check the character sheet to get the size of the weapon damage die, since the damage die is defined in the power itself.  That’s typical for a lot of multi-target attacks in D&D 4e.  This particular macro can have pretty much any value you want for NumberOfTargets (it’s fun to run with 50 attacks, for instance), but for a number such as 4, the output will look something like this:

Sword Burst
Attacking 4 adjacent enemies.
Target 1: 20 + 4 = 24 versus Reflex –CRITICAL HIT– 6 + 3 = 9 force damage
Target 2: 3 + 4 = 7 versus Reflex
Target 3: 17 + 4 = 21 versus Reflex
Target 4: 1 + 4 = 5 versus Reflex

Damage: 5 +3 = 8 force damage

I hope this macro is helpful for you. You can use the same structure for monster multi-attacks, of course, though I wouldn’t bother with looking up attack and damage bonuses from the monster’s character sheet since there’s not much point in HAVING a monster character sheet!  Just hard-code those values in.

I’m always interested to hear about other people’s macros, and I’m also interesting in helping to program other MapTool macros that I haven’t thought of yet.  If you have macros of your own to share or would like some help in writing new macros, please leave a comment below or send me a message via email.

Edit 7/19/2010: Since I first wrote this post, I have learned more about MapTool macros, and you can find the improved information at this post.  However, I’ve left the original post below for posterity – and as an example of how to learn how to improve your macro writing, rather than just giving the finished product.

Warning: Though this post is about “basic” attacks, it’s rather epic in length.  I go through a detailed exercise of building a moderately complex macro from scratch here, which takes time to explain.  You have been warned! 🙂

Continuing my series on writing MapTool macros, it’s time to finally get to something more interesting – player attacks.  I’ve created macros for a player’s melee basic attack and ranged basic attack (very similar to one another), which can be used as the foundation for most attack powers that only target a single enemy.  I’ll talk about multi-enemy attacks in my next post.

In this post, I’ll walk you through the entire process of developing a basic attack macro, starting from a simple macro that rolls a d20, adds the hard-coded attack modifier, rolls the hard-coded damage die and adds the hard-coded damage modifier.  That macro would have to be different for every PC, and it would have to be manually changed every time the PC changes their weapon, goes up a level, etc.  We’ll end up with a generic macro that can be used for almost any PC and that will change with the character.

We’re going to write a Melee Basic Attack macro for Violet, a second-level Ranger who wields a non-magical longsword.  She has Strength of 17 (a +3 modifier) and a +3 proficiency bonus to hit with the longsword.  She’ll also get +1 to hit from half of her level.  Her total attack bonus is therefore +7.  The longsword does d8 damage (plus Violet’s +3 Strength bonus) on a hit.

To create a new macro for a Violet, we’ll click on Violet’s token on the MapTool map.  One of the windows we should see at the bottom of the screen is the Selection window (if you can’t see it, go to Window – Selected).  This window will show the token image and name, with a little bit of text below it that reads, “No Macros.”  We’ll right click where it says “No Macros” and choose Add New Macro.  This will create a new button in that window labeled (new).  Right click on the (new) button and choose Edit.

Now we’re editing the macro.  Start by changing the name from (new) to Melee Basic Attack.  Down in the Command box we’ll type the following:

Attack: [d20+7]
Hit: [d8+3]

When we then click the Melee Basic Attack button, we get:

Violet: Attack: 25 Hit: 11

Now, we could call it a day here.  This works.  If Violet’s player (or anyone else) hovers their mouse over the 25 for the attack roll, it will show a ToolTip that explains this comes from a d20+7 roll (18+7=25).  The same goes for the damage roll.  We can do better, though.

Let’s start with some basic formatting.  Having Violet spout off with a couple of numbers in the chat window works, but it might be nice for her to mention that this is a Melee Basic Attack, that it’s attacking Armor Class, and that it’s dealing regular damage.  It might also be nice to have some line breaks added between the attack roll and the damage roll.  Here is a “prettified version” of the macro:

<b>Melee Basic Attack</b><br>
Attack: <b>[d20+7]</b> versus AC<br>
Hit: <b>[d8+3]</b> damage

The <b> and </b> HTML tags put whatever is between them in bold face.  I’ve put the name of the attack and the numeric results of the rolls in bold face to make them stand out.  I’ve also added <br> tags at the end of each line (except the last one) to create line breaks.  I’ve also added the note that the attack is versus AC and that the hit roll is damage.  Now the output will look more like this:

Violet: Melee Basic Attack
Attack: 21 versus AC
Hit: 7 damage

So, this looks nice now and it works.  If you want to keep things simple, you can stop now.  But every time anything changes for Violet, we’ll have to manually edit the numbers within her attack macros individually.  In an ideal world, we would have Violet’s character sheet in MapTool and our macro could look to that sheet to figure out her Strength modifier, her weapon proficiency, her weapon damage die, any magical enhancement on the weapon and the half-level value.  That way whenever Violet gets new equipment or levels up, we only have to modify that character sheet, not every one of her attack macros.

Fortunately, MapTool does have Properties for tokens.  If you double click on a token and click on its Properties tab, you will see the default basic properties for a token in MapTool listed.  These might be great for some games, but for D&D Fourth Edition I’ve found a different set to be useful.  To change the available properties for your tokens, go to Edit – Campaign Properties.  Click on Basic on the left side of the window that pops up, delete the existing block of properties and replace them with the following:

@Level:1
*@HitPoints:10
*@ArmorClass:10
*@Fortitude:10
*@Reflex:10
*@Will:10
*@Speed:6
*@Initiative:0
*@Strength:10
*@Constitution:10
*@Dexterity:10
*@Intelligence:10
*@Wisdom:10
*@Charisma:10
@MeleeEnhancement:0
@RangedEnhancement:0
@MeleeProficiency:0
@RangedProficiency:0
@MeleeDamageDie:6
@RangedDamageDie:6
@MagicEnhancement:0

The @ symbol in front of each property means that only the owner of the token and the GM (that’s you, Sparky) will be able to see the property’s value.  The * in front of some properties means that the property and its value on the character’s stat sheet that will pop up when you mouse over the token (though they will only be visible to the token’s owner, of course).  The colon with a number after it sets the default value for the property (and as far as I can tell is the only way that you can make the values editable for any given token).  The reason that I’ve made the properties visible to the owner and GM only is that I will be using them for monsters as well as PCs, and I don’t want the PCs seeing the monsters’ defenses, hit points, etc.

Once you’ve saved these as your default properties, you can double click on your PC’s token (Violet in this case) and change the values.  The important ones for this macro are Strength (17), MeleeDamageDie (10), MeleeProficiency (3), MeleeEnhancement (0) and Level (2).  I’ve set the rest of them as well, as you can see in this image of Violet’s token properties.

Now that Violet has values for Strength and so on, we can use them in our macro and then just edit Violet’s properties when she levels up or gets a new sword.  This requires somewhat fancier programming in the MapTool macro – beginning with the idea of a variable.

To establish a variable in a MapTool macro, you can do something as simple as writing: [MyVariable=10].  This would establish a variable called MyVariable and assign it a value of 10, which you could then use later in your macro (such as [MyOtherVariable = MyVariable + 5], giving MyOtherVariable a value of 15).  If you write it just like that, though, MapTool with send a message to the chat window with the value of the variable.  So a random “Violet: 10” would pop up.  Since we don’t want to actually send anything to the chat window when we declare the variable, we will denote this line as being hidden from chat by putting h: at the beginning of the declaration:

[h: MyVariable=10]

Technically this h: is a “roll option” in the MapTool lingo.  Remember that these macros are fundamentally constructed to roll dice, though you can also send text to the chat window and do more complex things.  There are lots of roll options you can use at the beginning of your bracketed code, such as gm: or just g: to show the result of the roll in the chat window for the GM but to hide it from the players.  In any case, we’ll be using lots of hidden lines in our macros since we don’t want every calculation showing up in chat – just the results.

Next, we need to know how to get the value of the properties that we’ve set for Violet so we can use them in our macro.  Fortunately, MapTool has a function called getProperty that does exactly this.  To figure out Violet’s melee proficiency bonus (which goes into the calculation of the attack bonus), we use the following code:

[h: Prof=getProperty(“MeleeProficiency”)]

This creates a variable called Prof, which is equal to the value of the property called MeleeProficiency.  Yes, the quotes and the parentheses are required.

What about Violet’s strength modifier?  We need to get the value of the Strength property, subtract ten from it, divide that by two and then round down.  Here’s the code to do all that:

[h: SkillMod=FLOOR((getProperty(“Strength”)-10)/2)]

The FLOOR function does the rounding down (CEIL or CEILING would round up).  Note that I’m calling this SkillMod to make it easier to re-use this code for other attacks that might use other skills, such as the Ranged Basic Attack that would use Dexterity.  Using similar logic to get some other properties, we’re able to write code that will let us calculate the attack bonus and damage bonus for the melee basic attack:

[h: SkillMod=FLOOR((getProperty(“Strength”)-10)/2)]

[h: DamageDie=getProperty(“MeleeDamageDie”)]
[h: HalfLevel=FLOOR(getProperty(“Level”)/2)]
[h: Prof=getProperty(“MeleeProficiency”)]
[h: Enh=getProperty(“MeleeEnhancement”)]

[h: AttackBonus=SkillMod+HalfLevel+Prof+Enh]
[h: DamageBonus=SkillMod+Enh]

Now we can go back to our earlier prettified macro and substitute in the AttackBonus and DamageBonus variables.  We can also use the ROLL function to take advantage of the fact that the damage die is now a variable rather than hard coded.  With the ROLL function, you tell MapTool the number of dice and the number of sides on each die you want to roll, so a d20 would be [ROLL(1,20)].  Put the lines of code above first, followed by these:

<b>Melee Basic Attack</b><br>
Attack: <b>[d20+AttackBonus]</b> versus AC<br>
Hit: <b>[ROLL(1,DamageDie)+DamageBonus]</b> damage

The output will look exactly the same as before, but now we shouldn’t have to touch the macro when things change for Violet.

There’s still one little wrinkle in our plans here, though – what happens if the d20 for the attack roll comes up on a natural 20?  That, my friends, would be a critical hit and should result in maximum damage.  It’s entirely possible to roll a natural 20 with this macro and not notice, in which case you might just take the regular result of the damage roll rather than taking the maximum possible damage.  To fix this, we need to get a little fancier.

I’ll start by saying that I like the ToolTip mouse-over function that shows players the breakdown of the die roll.  It’s not just a 22, it’s a d20 that came up on 15 plus an attack bonus of 7.  We’re getting into some programming that is going to have to roll the attack one time and then store the result as a variable, which means that when we show that variable, we’ll lose the d20 ToolTip.  So, things are going to look a little different because I’m going to start explicitly printing out the breakdown of the attack and damage rolls.

We’re going to need to roll the d20 for the attack once and store the result.  While we’re at it, we might as well roll the damage die once and store the result, along with figuring out what the max damage would be in case of a crit.  Below the earlier lines where we were defining variables, we add these lines:

[h: d20roll=d20]
[h: DamageRoll=roll(1,DamageDie)]

[h: AttackRoll=d20roll+AttackBonus]
[h: MaxDamage=DamageDie+DamageBonus]
[h: RegularDamage=DamageRoll+DamageBonus]

Now we’ve defined the result of rolling a d20 for the attack as a variable called d20roll and the result of rolling the damage die as a variable called DamageRoll.  This means that we can output the result of the attack roll and then check to see if there was a critical hit.  If there was a crit, we want to call out this fact and make sure the damage is maxed.  If not, we want to print the normal damage roll output.  This means that we need to get into the IF function in MapTool.  I won’t go into all of it here – I’ll just show the final version.  The gory details of using IF statements in MapTool can be found in the excellent MapTool wiki, so I won’t rehash them.

<b>Melee Basic Attack</b><br>
Attack: [d20roll] + [AttackBonus] = <b>[AttackRoll]</b> versus AC<br>
[if(d20roll==20), CODE:
{<font color=Red>–CRITICAL HIT–</font><br>
Damage: [DamageDie] + [DamageBonus] = <b>[MaxDamage]</b> damage
};
{Damage: [DamageRoll] + [DamageBonus] = <b>[RegularDamage]</b> damage}
]

Yes, this is a little bit complicated.  Basically, I print the name of the attack and the result of the attack roll (broken down into the d20 and the attack bonus).  I then check to see if there was a crit.  If there was, I print –CRITICAL HIT– in red (that’s the <font folor=Red> and </font> HTML tags) and then print the max damage breakdown.  If there wasn’t a crit, I print the normal damage breakdown.  The square brackets, curly brackets, parentheses and colons all have to be handled just right, and the CODE statement is a little touchy, too.  The wiki can explain it all.

In the end, we’re left with a snazzy little macro that efficiently handles melee basic attacks with critical hits, getting all of its information from the character token’s properties.  I haven’t included code to check for extra damage from a magical weapon on a critical hit, but that would be easy enough.  It would require a new property that tells you what the bonus damage die from your weapon is and then some extra code in the MaxDamage calculation to account for it.  As they say in textbooks, this is left as an exercise for the reader. Similarly, making this into a macro for Ranged Basic Attack is as simple as replacing the word Strength with Dexterity and Melee with Ranged in the macro code.

I hope you find this macro construction process to be helpful.  In my next macro article, I’ll show you how I’ve programmed in multi-attack abilities.   The final version of the Melee Basic Attack macro is below.

[h: SkillMod=FLOOR((getProperty(“Strength”)-10)/2)]

[h: DamageDie=getProperty(“MeleeDamageDie”)]
[h: HalfLevel=FLOOR(getProperty(“Level”)/2)]
[h: Prof=getProperty(“MeleeProficiency”)]
[h: Enh=getProperty(“MeleeEnhancement”)]

[h: AttackBonus=SkillMod+HalfLevel+Prof+Enh]
[h: DamageBonus=SkillMod+Enh]

[h: d20roll=d20]
[h: DamageRoll=roll(1,DamageDie)]

[h: AttackRoll=d20roll+AttackBonus]
[h: MaxDamage=DamageDie+DamageBonus]
[h: RegularDamage=DamageRoll+DamageBonus]

<b>Melee Basic Attack</b><br>
Attack: [d20roll] + [AttackBonus] = <b>[AttackRoll]</b> versus AC<br>
[if(d20roll==20), CODE:
{<font color=Red>–CRITICAL HIT–</font><br>
Damage: [DamageDie] + [DamageBonus] = <b>[MaxDamage]</b> damage
};
{Damage: [DamageRoll] + [DamageBonus] = <b>[RegularDamage]</b> damage}
]

As promised, it’s time I share some of what I’ve learned in putting together MapTool macros for my D&D Fourth Edition campaign.  My characters are a dragonborn swordmage, a deva druid and an eladrin rogue adventuring through the Keep on the Shadowfell.  They’re second-level characters, so they don’t have too many powers yet, but they have enough powers to require me to write some interesting macros for their attacks.

Before I go farther, I should mention that the MapTool wiki has great macro writing resources.  That’s how I learned most of what I’ve figured out so far.  So, be sure to check that resource out as well.

I’ll start with some simple campaign macros – about as simple as MapTool macros can get.  Every macro in MapTool is tied either to a token (token macros), a campaign (campaign macros) or to your MapTool program itself (global macros).  I personally haven’t created any global macros yet, and most of the really interesting macros I’ve made so far are tied to tokens (mostly the player character tokens), but let’s start with a simple campaign macro – a button that will let anyone in the game roll a d20 with one click.

In order to create a Campaign macro, you have to be able to see the Campaign window (usually a skinny little window near the bottom of your MapTool screen).  If you can’t see it, go to the Window menu in MapTool and click Campaign.  The Campaign window starts off pretty much empty.  To create a new campaign macro, right click in the Campaign window and select Add New Macro.  This will cause a little button with the label (new) to appear in the window.  Go ahead and click that button.

Nothing happened?  Well, that’s because the macro starts off with no code to execute by default.  We’ll fix that.  Right click on the (new) button and select Edit.  The window below should pop up.

Now you’re writing a macro.  Begin by changing the label in the top box from (new) to something more descriptive – in this case, let’s call it “d20” (you don’t need the quotes).  You can leave the Group and Sort Prefix boxes blank for now (they’re optional).  The meat of the action is in the Command box below.  We want this macro to show the result of a d20 roll in the chat window for whoever presses the button.  If you want this to be dead simple, all you need to do is type [d20] (in square brackets, just like I’ve done) into the Command box and click OK.  This will change the name of the button to d20.  When you click it now, you’ll get something like this in the chat window:

OnlineDM: 7

If you mouse over the number in the chat window, you’ll see ToolTip text that reads:

<< d20 = 7 >>

This tells whoever is interested that the 7 in the text box is the result of a d20 roll.

This is all right, but we can do better.  The command [d20] in square brackets tells MapTool to randomly generate a number between 1 and 20 and output the result to the chat window (with a ToolTip that shows that it’s the result of a d20 roll) as a message from whoever hit the button.  Just looking at the result, though, you can’t really tell that it’s a d20 roll.  Let’s format it nice and prettily.

Right click on the d20 button and select Edit again.  This time, put the following text in the Command box:

d20 roll: <b>[d20]</b>

And then click OK.  Now when you click the button, you’ll get output that looks like this:

OnlineDM: d20 roll: 19

All we’ve done is add a little extra text that shows up in the window (“d20 roll:”) and put the result of the roll in bold face (using the <b> and </b> HTML tags to surround the text that we want to show up in bold).  It’s not absolutely necessary, but it’s a nice thing to have, especially if you’re rolling lots of dice and you want to see at a glance which number came from which die roll.

You can now create a whole set of simple dice macros for your campaign – d20, d12, d10, d8, d6 and d4 – following the same process.  (If you have a weird sense of humor, you could create d47 or whatever you like.)  You can enter something like “Basic Dice” into the Group box for each macro, which will group the buttons together in a little box within the Campaign window that’s labeled “Basic Dice”.  You can also specify the order in which the buttons will appear within that box by using the Sort Prefix box in each macro.  I’ve given the d20 button the Sort Prefix of 1, so it shows up first, and then gone in decreasing dice values from there (d12 is 2, d10 is 3, etc.).  Feel free to go from d4 to d6 and on up to d20 if you prefer.

It’s worth noting that all of these simple dice macros are totally optional.  You could just type “/roll d20” into the chat window, getting output that reads something like:

* OnlineDM rolls: d20 => 9

Personally, I prefer the buttons.  They’re way quicker.  The /roll command also lets you do things like /roll 2d8 + 2d6 + 5, getting output such as:

* OnlineDM rolls: 2d8+2d6+5 => 3 + 5 + 5 = 13

For that sort of thing, though, I’m going with fancy-schmancy attack macros.  Tune in for the next post!