Play mode

Reference. Part of the GM reference. For the steps of a task, read the GM guide.

Play mode is where you run a session.

Play layout

On a window wider than about 1,090 pixels, Play mode fits the screen and the page does not scroll. The dock and the sidebar each scroll on their own, so the map, the party, the dice tray, and the open sheet stay in view together. On a short window, an open dice tray scrolls in its own box, and the Party card keeps room for four characters. A click on a row of the Party card selects that character and opens the Sheet tab. While Hide panels is on, the click selects the character and leaves the hidden sidebar on its tab.

Hide panels collapses the sidebar and gives the map the full width.

On a phone-width window, Play mode shows one area at a time. A bar at the bottom of the screen picks the area: Map shows the map with the Session tab under it, Party shows the Party card and the dice tray, and Sheet, Story, and Log show that sidebar tab. The bar takes the place of the sidebar tabs and the Hide panels button there. A click on a row of the Party card opens the Sheet view.

The World panel shows the node tree. A GM sees every node, and a player sees only the nodes that the party discovered. A discovered node has at least one revealed tile, or it is where the party stands.

A click on a row name in the World panel opens that map in a Player tab. In a GM tab, a click on the map where the party stands opens that map. A click on any other row asks what to do. View map opens the map and leaves the party where it is, as the breadcrumb does. Teleport party moves the party there.

Map controls

The map controls sit in a row over the map.

While a fog brush is picked up, a click paints fog instead of moving the party. A second click on the same brush button, or Escape, puts the brush down. A change of mode or of map also puts the brush down. A tile that you hide stays hidden after a reload and in every Player tab, until the party moves within sight of it again.

When a map opens in Build mode, the view fits the whole map, even when its tiles then draw small. In Play mode the view fits the revealed tiles. If they are too large to show at a readable size, the view centers on the party instead, and Fit map to view shows them all at a smaller size. In a Player tab, it centers on the bound character. The view then follows the party until you pan or zoom.

A switch to Play mode opens the node where the party stands.

Party movement

A click on a tile, or Enter on the keyboard cursor, moves the party there. Only one kind of tab moves anyone.

A click on a tile that links to a sub-map enters the sub-map. The party lands at the edge that it came from, and the travelogue logs the entry. A first entry is logged as a discovery.

The move needs a walk from the tile of the party. The walk steps to the four sides of each tile.

• A wall or an obstacle stops the walk. So a town wall, the walls of an interior, and furniture such as a table block it.
• Deep water stops the walk, so the party goes around a lake.
• A gate or a door lets the walk through.
• An empty cell lets the walk through, so a gap in a painted map does not block a move.
• A player walk goes through revealed tiles only, so an empty cell stops it.
• The walk goes around a tile that links to a sub-map, such as a shop in a town. It goes through such a tile only when no other way exists.

The party takes the shortest walk, and the fog clears around every tile of the walk, not only around the tile where the party stops.

If no walk leads to the tile, a GM tab asks before it moves the party there anyway. So you can still put the party past a wall or on a boat in deep water. A player tab does not move the token, and it shows a message. Nobody can stand on a wall or an obstacle, so a click on one moves nobody and shows a message, even in a GM tab.

A GM click on a fogged tile that links to a sub-map asks first, and names the sub-map. So a click that aims past a building in the fog does not take the party inside by mistake.

A walk of the whole party moves the in-game clock on. The time depends on the map.

The minutes add up across walks. The Time panel shows the minutes spent inside the current watch, and it shows the next watch once 4 hours have passed. When a walk moves the clock into a new watch, a message and a Travelogue entry name the length of the walk and the new time, for example “The walk took 4 hours. Now Day 2, Midday.” A split character’s walk spends no time. A teleport, a way out of a map, and a forced move from another map spend no time either.

Before a walk that reaches Night, a GM tab asks first. The dialog names the length of the walk and offers three buttons:

Tick Don’t ask again tonight to skip the question for later walks into the same Night. The tab forgets the choice when you reload it. A forced move and a click on a fogged link tile add the warning to their own confirm. A walk that starts in Night does not ask, and neither does a player tab or a split character, because they spend no time.

The walk check applies only to a move inside the map in view. The ways out, a teleport from the World panel, and the Place on map button do not check for a walk.

A player tab ignores clicks on a fogged tile. A player cannot move a token into the fog or open the sub-map behind it.

Ways out of a map

Inside a sub-map, the edges and tiles that lead back to the parent map show return arrows. A click on an arrow travels.

An exit arrow that the mini-map would cover moves along its side of the map until it is clear.

In Play mode, the mini-map floats over the top-left corner of the map, and the map fits the canvas as if it were not there. Coordinate digits and region names under the mini-map hide. Collapse the mini-map to see them. In Build mode, the mini-map floats over the bottom-right corner of the map, away from the coordinate digits, and the map again fits as if it were not there. Tiles can pass under the mini-map in either mode, and a click or a paint stroke there does nothing. Pan the map, or collapse the mini-map, to paint those tiles. On a narrow screen the mini-map starts collapsed.

When the tiles are small, the coordinate digits label every second column or row (1, 3, 5, and so on), so that the numbers do not overlap. Zoom in to see every number. On very small tiles the map shows no coordinate digits.

Party splitting

The Allow splitting the party checkbox in the Party card lets each character stand on its own tile. The switch is off by default, and it is GM-only.

Place on map opens a dialog with a map and a tile, or With the party. A placed character reveals fog around its tile.

When you clear the checkbox, a Regroup the party dialog asks where to gather everyone. The party then teleports to the position of the character that you pick. If you cancel, the party stays split.

Map markers and ranges

The sight of the party depends on the map and on the watch of the in-game clock. The detection range and the Nearby range stay the same at every hour.

A group sees in the dark when every character in it has darkvision from its race, or when one character in it carries an item with the Sheds light box ticked. The Torch and the Lantern presets tick the box. The group is the party, without the characters that stand apart from it. A character that moves alone sees with its own darkvision or light.

A room in a building, an inn, or a castle is lit, so when the party steps into it, the whole room comes out of the fog with its walls and doors. A party that stands in a doorway sees into the rooms on both sides. A room of more than 100 floor tiles, such as a great hall, shows only within the sight of the party. The rooms of a dungeon, a cave, or a cellar stay dark.

In a GM tab in Play mode, the fog is part see-through. The terrain draws dimmed under the fog, and the grid, the region outlines, and the region names draw over it, so the GM reads the way ahead without a switch to Build mode. Point of interest outlines and exit badges on fogged tiles stay hidden. Creature markers show within the detection range, as they do under solid fog, and the badge of a hidden handout shows at any range. A Player tab, and a GM tab switched to the Player view, draw solid fog. In Play mode the mini-map draws solid fog, in a GM tab too.

Inside a building, a fogged tile beside explored floor, a door, or stairs draws a lighter fog. The lighter band shows where the explored part ends, for example past a door that the party has not opened.

When the party is on a sub-map, the tiles that link to it on each map above are revealed too. So the world map shows the region where the party stands.

When a tile that links to a sub-map first comes out of the fog, the Travelogue logs “Sighted” and the name of the sub-map. A discoverable site that the party has not found stays out of the log.

A hover on a tile in Play mode names the point of interest and the NPCs on it. The keyboard cursor does the same. The hover uses the detection range, so a tile out of range says nothing.

The mini-map

Inside a sub-region, a small picture of the map one level up sits in the top-left corner of the map. On the world map, the mini-map is hidden.

The dot scales the position of the party in the sub-region onto the outlined tiles. So a party at the east edge of a town shows at the east side of the block of that town. While the party is split, a Player tab follows its bound character.

In Play mode, a tile of the mini-map that the party has not seen draws as solid fog, also in a GM tab. In Build mode, every tile shows.

A click on the mini-map does nothing, so it never moves the party to a tile hidden under it.

Encounters panel

The Encounters panel in the Session tab has two tabs.

A friendly or neutral creature never shows in the Active encounter tab. It stays in the NPCs panel.

Both tabs show one line for each group of foes that share a name, such as “Gray Wolf x4”. The line shows the HP of the group added up and the distance of the nearest one in tiles, or “Here” when it stands on the tile of the party. The nearest group comes first. Every defeated foe goes into one “Defeated (2)” line at the end. On a GM tab, click a line to open the full row of each of its foes. One line opens at a time in each tab. A Player tab shows each line as text, with the HP band instead of the bar.

A full row shows the name, the HP, and the column and row on its first line. The Amount field and the buttons of the row go on the line below. The Amount field sets how much the damage and heal buttons of that row apply. An empty field, or a number below 1, disables both buttons.

A GM tab also shows these controls:

The difficulty hint

Above the Active encounter rows, the GM sees one line that rates the foes of that tab. For example: “Hard: 1200 XP against party thresholds easy 300, medium 600, hard 900, deadly 1600”.

The adjusted total is the sum of the XP of each foe, times a multiplier for the number of foes.

A party of one or two characters moves one step up this ladder, and a party of six or more moves one step down. The ladder ends at x0.5 and x5.

A dead character adds no budget and does not count toward the party size. The line hides when no living character remains, because there is no budget to rate against.

The line is a hint only. It blocks nothing, it awards no XP, and players never see it.

A foe with no challenge rating is worth nothing in the sum, but it still counts toward the number of foes. The missing worth makes the total too low, and the higher multiplier on the rated foes can make it too high.

Creature fields

The creature dialog defines a foe or an NPC. The same dialog opens from Build mode, from Play mode, and from the tile menu.

The fields sit under the headings Basics, Combat, Proficiencies, Spellcasting, and Placement. The ability scores and AC open the Combat section. The damage and condition defenses sit in a collapsed Damage and condition defenses group, after Proficiencies. A field that depends on another field stays disabled until that field has a value: On hit: DC and On hit: condition on a fail need On hit: save, Surprise Attack: die needs a dice count, Multiattack: attack with disadvantage needs a Multiattack of 2 or more, and Caster level needs a caster class.

A line under Row warns when the tile is outside the map, has no terrain, is deep water, or is a wall or an obstacle. The warning does not stop the save, so a sea creature can still go on a water tile. The Add from bestiary dialog shows the same warning.

The caster class list also offers “Fighter (Eldritch Knight)” and “Rogue (Arcane Trickster)”. For these two, a caster level below 3 saves as 3, because these subclasses cast from level 3.

The six ability scores plus AC are the only stats that a creature has.

The Build chip for AC reads “Base AC”. This is the AC without armor: 10 plus the DEX modifier by default, or higher for natural armor or a shield. The Play chip and the combat card show the AC with armor. While the creature wears armor, the Build row also shows “AC in use” beside the Base AC chip, and the creature form captions its AC field “Base AC (no armor), AC in use 16” (for example) as you change the armor, AC, or DEX.

Worn armor replaces the 10 + DEX part with its own base AC and the part of the DEX modifier that its weight allows. See Armor class. For example, a DEX 16 creature in Plate has AC 18.

The Encounters and NPCs panels show each trained save and skill with its bonus, for example “Saves DEX +4 | Skills Stealth +6”. The app calculates each bonus from the ability score and the challenge rating, so there is no number to type.

An unrated creature takes its proficiency bonus from its level. With no level, the bonus is +2. A save that a spell calls for uses the same bonus, so the cast dialog asks only for the DC.

A defeated encounter shows as defeated in the lists. The app does not delete it.

Stat chips

In Play mode, a click on a stat chip of a creature applies a timed adjustment, for example +2 STR for 3 rounds. The chip then reads “STR 14->16 (3r)”.

The adjustment counts down as combat rounds pass, and combat math uses the adjusted value while it lasts. In Build mode, the same chips set base values.