Mounts, familiars, and more
Creature Companions are now supported on the Shard character sheet. As you can see in the screen shot, the new section supports multiple companions and different types.
Character Visibility
Shard Game Masters have asked for a way to set the visibility and edit-ability of character sheets and now they can. This option is now one of several that you can select on the new Campaign Settings dialog.
The campaign menu (accessed by clicking on the campaign name in the main adventure screen) now has a new Settings entry that consolidated some of the old menu options and added a few new ones. The Campaign Settings dialog is shown here and each option is explained below.
All the pretty dice
Players and game masters alike often add a little personality to their game with the dice they choose. Some players have a separate set for each character they play. I personally have a collection of dice I use to GM and a separate collection I use when I play. Never shall they meet.
Wild Shape
Today, I’m writing about a feature that’s been in the product for several months, but consistently generates a wow response when users discover it. One of the defining features of the druid class is wild shape. It’s a lengthy and complex feature by comparison to many others.
Visual Indicators and More Tokens
The latest release includes some new eye candy in the form of visual indicators for various health states and conditions. Each one is shown in this picture.
Conditions and Hero Abilities
Today’s update to Shard brings new tools to the table top.
Conditions: We expanded the modeling of conditions and now allow players or GMs to set them directly on the character sheet. Conditions have always allowed built in things like unconscious, prone, and stunned to be set from the initiative tracker and have a duration. Now you can set them directly on the character sheet by clicking the character name and selecting Add Condition.
More magic…
Spells are a huge part of playing the game. Game Masters have had the ability to add tokens to the map representing spell areas of effect almost from the beginning of Shard and now players can too.
As part of this change, we created a token type called Spell Token. Spell Tokens come in all the standard shapes (cone, cube, cylinder, line, rectangle, and sphere). They can be created on the fly by selecting a shape, size, and color or by uploading an image and sizing it. You can give your token a name that will be remembered and associated with your character. Once it’s on the map, you can move it or rotate it to represent the area of effect of your spell.
Dice, dice baby
Digital dice have arrived on Shard Tabletop. As with all things Shard, they are fully integrated and understand 5E rules like advantage, disadvantage, and criticals. Any time you roll a d20, the result window has the ability to add advantage or disadvantage to the roll. Any time you roll damage, the result window has a button to make it a critical.
Names, spells, and more
We just released enhancements to our built-in 5E character sheets.
Encounters
Encounters are the core mechanic of a tabletop roleplaying game, whether they are friendly encounters, exploration of room, or full on combat. So it’s not surprising that we spend a lot of design energy in making sure that its easy to start, run, and finish an encounter.
There are three distinct ways to start an encounter in Shard: on the fly, random, and planned.