Virtual Combat Cards User Guide

This is the Virtual Combat Cards online manual, we hope it will keep improving, and help on this is always welcome.

We strive to make VCC clear and simple to use, but as it increases in features and complexity the manual is designed to help explore the most of the tracker.

Concepts and Conventions

In Virtual Combat Cards screen and documentation there are some terms and concept used. Understanding them will make it easier to explore the tool and also to request support.

Combatant: Combatant include: monster, PC, and traps. Any combatant in a battle has his own object in VCC. They can be in the initiative sequence or in reserve, but if you are tracking information it's a combatant.
Combat Sequence: This is the combatant order in the battle. In VCC this is implemented as a round robin (i.e. once the first combatant ends its round it goes to the very last position). Combatant that have not yet joined the initiative order are in reserve and are always on the very bottom of the table.
Target Combatant: This is the combatant that is currently selected in the combat sequence an to which all effects or damage will be applied. You can switch targets be selecting a different row in the combat sequence table.
Source Combatant: This is normally the first combatant, but you can select other ones using the Alt-A on the Combat Sequence (making the selected combatant both the target and source), or using the drop box on the Effect Creation panel.
Combatant ID: This is a small string or number that is used to identify a combatant. Think of it as the number on an athlete’s shirt. Altough large strings can be used, some panels expect short string, and in the future we want to use them for keyboard activated commands.
Alias: This is a way to identify a combatant by something else then it’s name or ID. You can use this field to indicate the miniatures, the NPC name, or some other thing that you wish to distinguish.
Effect: This represents both conditions and effect that affect a combatant. The tracker will expire time bound effects automatically.
VCC Compendium: This is a VCC specific database that is used to collect your monsters, players and traps in order to assemble encounter or parties.

Keyboard Shortcuts

To improve control Virtual Combat Cards has some short cuts for common tasks.

These are the currently available shortcuts:

Ctrl+F: Select the first combatant on the combat sequence.
Ctrl+Z: Undo last operation
Ctrl+Y: Redo last undo
Alt+S and Alt+E: Start and end round
Alt+T: Set Temporary HP to currently selected combatant on the sequence table.
Alt+H: Heal currently selected combatant on the sequence table.
Alt+D: Damage currently selected combatant on the sequence table.
Alt+A: Set the Active Combatant on the effect panel as the currently selected combatant on the combat sequence
Alt+M: Mark the current combatant using the combatant on the effect panel.

License

This software is licensed under GNU General Public License Version 3.

Managing your Parties and Encounters

Creating a party is a simple activity once you have the compendium entries (the combatant definitions).
When building encounters VCC will show how many XP of your budget you have spent.

To create a party or encounter you do the following:

Open the party editor window (Compendium > Edit Party...);
You will see all the compendium entries you have (Monster and Characters) on the left. Double clicking on a entry will move it into the party;
Once on the encounter table you can change the quantity and edit the alias and ID. To change ID the quantity has to be one (you can not check or uncheck the Collapse similar entries to see individual entries).
Once you have all the entries you want in the encounter, you can save it using the File > Save ....
Alternatively you can add them directly to the current combat using File > Add to combat.

Saved party/encounters can be loaded at any time. We recommend you separate the character party and monster encounters into separate files to make it easier to choose your battles. You can load previously saved party/encounters to change their build up.

When building encounters, here is a suggested way of handling some combatants that are not basic type:

Traps: Traps should be created as monsters, if can not suffer damage to be disabled, give them a huge amount of HP. Otherwise use the HP to track the damage to it. If they don't have initiative, keep them in reserve when starting the combat.
Hazards: These normally define a area of threat and react to entry or beginning a round in them. Create them as monsters, and keep them in reserve.
Companions: Rangers may have companion, their health works just like the Players, but they don't have their own initiative. So create a player, and when running combat's leave the in reserve.

Running a Combat

In this section we assume you have the sample data (shipped with 1.1.0). If you don’t have that you will have to create a party yourself (see Managing your Parties and Encounters). With the encounter files ready running a battle is a simple task.

Select File > Load party... then select the party file (the sample-enc.peml in case you use the sample data).
Note: If the file is invalid or not all entries exist in your compendium you will get a confirmation window. Check the party files in the Party Editor to verify what is wrong
All loaded combatant will appear in the Combat Sequence in not particular order. You can load other files if necessary, not need with the sample data.
To begin the battle you must select Combat > Start Combat. The Roll Initiative windows will appear.
- You can adjust the initiative score for the combatants (on the Init column);
- Place the dice roll for player or monster (on the Roll column), leaving them in blank will make VCC roll for you;
- Set them to reserve, meaning they are not take part of the battle for now (use this for companions);
- You can also group monsters with the same name (this will make groups of creature initially are placed together)
Pressing OK and VCC will sort and place the combatants in the correct sequence.
From there on you can use the Initiative Actions, Health Change and Effect Creation panels to start and end round, apply damage and healing, add effects, etc.

In addition to the basic running of the battle you can:

Combat > End Combat to end the battle and place all combatant in reserve;
Combat > Rest to clear all the effects and temporary HP;
Combat > Extended Rest to recover all the HP
Combat > Clear Monster to remove any combatant that is note a Player Character from the roster.
History > Undo to undo the last action (you can redo them again). This is the way to move back in time.

Tracking Effects

The effect tracker is available from Virtual Combat Cards 0.90 onwards. It will allow easy tracking of individual effects and includes expiring effects that end at the end or start of a combatants round.

In order to create an effect you use the Effect Creation pane. Active effect will be visible on the Active Effects pane. Starting and ending rounds will automatically expire effects as needed.

Creating Effects

Effect Creation pane is used to create and add an effect to a combatant. The pane contains two identical areas that can be used to create distinct effects. Notice that VCC handles effects not conditions. Effect may include a set of conditions like: “Slowed and Dazed”; Duration: “Save Ends”.

The pane looks like this (without the black and white numbers):

The meaning of the numbers in the black circles:

1 - Source: Since some durations are bound to the sources' round, selection the source is important. When a new combatant starts the round, it will be assigned as the source. You can change this if you want add an effect for some other combatant (as a result of immediate actions or opportunity attacks)
2 - Condition type selection: Any: There are two type of effect as of version 0.90, the first is the Any type. This type should be used for all effect except mark (see below). The text field besides the combo box should be used to specify the description of the effect and/or conditions. Once the effect has been added it can be edited in the Active Effects table.
3 - Beneficial check box: This check box should be used to mark effect that are beneficial to the target (such as: +2 on all attacks). This is relevant only for effect that end an the end of a turn and when a Delay happens.
4 - Condition type selection: Mark: The second type of effects that can be created is the mark. Since the target can only be marked by one combatant this type should be used when adding a mark. VCC will automatically remove the previous mark. The cant be superseded check box is used to indicate that the mark can’t is definitive. Some powers in the Martial Powers book have this property.

Tips on creating effects

In line with VCC general design goals tracking effects and condition was done in a simple and generic way. While there are all types of condition and effects, some the most common ones should work well. Designing a compact and effective interface was complex, and not all cases may be easy to track. In this section we present some tips and trick that may make you life easier.

Paladin Divine Challenge

This is obviously a mark, but since the Paladin does not have to attack to sustain the mark, you can select the duration “End of source’s turn, sustain”. This way you can easily sustain the effect.

Sustainable that affect other combatant

Some powers will give a penalty or a special condition on the target and can be sustained by the source (such as Warlord’s Break the Tempo). In the current version these are challenging effect to keep track. Since the effect can be sustained only when the source is action, and you may forget to look at the target (and sustain the effect). It may be safer to place two effects:

On the source of the effect add a sustainable effect with the power name;
On the target put an effect with duration Other, indicating that it is linked to the source power

Warlock power that have Save End and Sustain

Warlocks have a set of powers that have both save end and sustain (such as Curse of the Bloody Fangs). This discussion on EN World describes a way to track these effects. The idea is to break them into:

On the warlock add an effect that can be sustained, and point to the target and the condition it must have (in the forum discussion: “Curse of Bloody Fangs on Target”);
Add an effect on the target with duration End of source’s next turn (in the forum: “Nibbled”);
If the warlock sustains, add a new effect with duration Save end (in the forum: “Chewed”).

This should provide the correct way to handle this. Of course you can ask for the warlock to track this, and just put the Save End portion of the effect on the tracker.

Viewing Effects

All effects currently active on a combatant are displayed on the Active Effects pane. This will provide a quick view of the effect description, duration, and source. This pane also allows you to sustain effect and cancel effects.

As shown below:

The colors have a special meaning:

Blue: The effect is beneficial to the target, this is relevant only when the source delays a round and the effect end at the end of it's turn
Orange: The duration box column may have an orange color, this indicates that the duration has something special. Either it's sustainable, or it's a effect were failing a save will cause additional effects (like in the Sleep power)

At the bottom of this pane are two buttons:

Sustain: Clicking this button will sustain an effect, however this will only cause effect if the effect is bound to end at the End of the current Turn (duration is EoT)
Cancel Effect: Will remove the effect from the list.

As will all tracked object, you can undo actions in case an invalid command was executed.

Editing

All effect descriptions (except Mark effects) can be edited by double clicking on the description on the table in the Active Effects pane. Place the new text and press Enter. This is not supported for mark, in this case simply add a new mark.

History and Motivation

Virtual Combat Cards (VCC) was created to replace my real combat cards. These were blank business cards that I used to register HP and other information to run my D&D 4th Edition battles. This is a method recommended in the Dungeon Master guide. I also use numbered chips made of Cold Porcelain. This option is much cheaper than miniatures (though not as pretty), and the number allow for quick reference of each combatant. These two aspects are key to the current VCC design.

You can see my old setup in the picture below.

Numbered tokens and combat cards

While effective the cards have some short comings:

You have to write and erase conditions;
You have to do all the math, which takes a lot of time: "let's see how much is 173 minus 27...";
You sometimes skip a card, or remove the wrong one;
Tracking effects that last until the next turn can be hard;

All in all, this quote from a friend has made it clear that a computerized version was needed: "I like playing RPG, but computer should take care of all book keeping." As time to play becomes scarcer, having something to help run the game really helps.

VCC is not the first attempt to do something like this. However keeping the design simple and loosely following Agile Development made it a reality. The design is simple, yet effective. And with experience and more time new features can be included. Help will sure be welcome.