New Combat Tool

[bcwhite]

I recently started running a Hero campaign for the first time in maybe 20 years.  I picked up the 6e books, Hero Designer and Hero Combat Manager.

 

But...  I find HCM hard to use.  I get that it does a lot but it requires a lot of clicks for every action and doesn't automate things like actually determining if an attack hits.  This makes it very hard to use to simulate combat, like testing in advance if the party's opponents are too powerful or too weak.

 

So I decided to try my hand at this and would like to get feedback on it.  I've created a proof-of-concept here:

 

https://deity-online.com/app/combat-tool

 

To try it out:

• Click the "+" button at the top-left to add some pre-built combatants.
• Select the 3 "available" combatants and click the "↓" button to move them to "active".
• Click "Begin".

 

Now you can see the currently active combatant and choose one of several actions by clicking on that button.  If you're happy with the result, click "Confirm".  That'll commit the result and advance to the next combatant.  Only the "Attack" action requires selecting one or more targets and you'll notice that the right-panel fills with all the steps of the attack.  But you don't have to do anything!  If you're okay with the computer rolling all the dice, you can confirm the results immediately.  Or you can alter any value: for each line, the value on the left is generated and the value on the right is your override.  All following steps update immediately with every change you make.

 

All the values entered (including the selected targets) are remembered between phases for each combatant/action combination.  That means that if you do want to change a default, it only has to be done once and those same choices will be automatically filled the next time through.  This allows (read: will allow) creating new actions just by adding a new name and setting the values; no need to pre-create them.

 

As I said, this is only a proof-of-concept so there are likely bugs.  Also:

• It doesn't look all that pretty.  CSS is still minimal.
• There is no way to add/remove new actions (the "+" and "-" buttons do nothing) so you're limited to the "unarmed" action for now.
• Endurance is not tracked/adjusted.
• There's no way to edit the combatants.

 

I wanted to get a feel for this and see what ideas others have about it before I proceed further.  Do others find this paradigm useful?  How could it be improved?

 

I've set up a Discord channel for discussion here: https://discord.gg/cBHnvUSX

 

-- Brian

 

 

 

[bluesguy]

As the creator of HCM, I appreciate that you purchased the product.  I have to agree with you on the 'click problems'.  I should ask one of my UI/UX friends/experts on how to change it.

 

I will say to you, good luck with your approach.

 

BTW: It doesn't appear to work with Firefox.

 

 

[bcwhite]

Odd.  I just tried it with FireFox (v119.0 64-bit) on my Win10 machine and didn't have any troubles.

 

What are you seeing?

[bcwhite]

Anybody else having trouble?

 

I pushed a new version.  Still PoC (use the "+" at the top-left to add test characters) but with some new features:

• Character editing: double-click on a character in the "available" or "active" lists (the two at the top of the left column) to open a dialog that allows changing values.
• Support for hit-locations, including general locations like "high shot".
• Support for damage-negation.
• Able to set final defender state (e.g. stunned, dead, etc.)
• More info in the result description.
• Some better CSS styling.

Don't forget the Discord channel for discussion.

-- Brian

 

[bcwhite]

Released v0.50 with:

• endurance tracking
• abort-to dodge and block
• better tracking of "recovery" phases
• combat-log

[bcwhite]

v0.51 supports export and import, including import from Hero Designer!

 

The import from HD isn't perfect because (a) it's incomplete and (b) some things just can't be figured out from its data.  However, setting/fixing the values on the "steps" display will be remembered so the next time that action is used, the updated values will be used.

 

Feel free to ask any questions here on on the Discord channel.

 

-- Brian

 

[Chris Goodwin]

If there were any feature I could ask for from a combat manager, it would be outputting every result in text format to stdout, so that any other program could process it and, for instance, move a 3d miniature on a rendered map.