Want To Buy: a D&D 5e Rolling App

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While pacing the living room this morning, I was thinking about how much 5th edition simplified D&D. Almost every single roll boils down to:

  • d20 (maybe with advantage or disadvantage)
  • stat bonus
  • maybe proficiency

That's it! Attacks, skills, saving throws, they're all the exact same set-up. This is great, as it makes both the players' and the DM's lives easier.

This got me to thinking about a simplified rolling app, taking advantage of this regular structure. Here's how I envision it:

Taking up the lower 2/3 of the screen or so, close to your thumb, is a hexagon with your six stats in each corner. Clicking on one of these does a straight stat roll - d20 + stat - and displays it.

In the center of the hexagon are a number of bonus bubbles, representing common bonuses. To use these, you fling a bubble towards one of the stats, and it does an appropriate roll.

One bonus bubble is always there, labeled "P" for proficiency bonus. You use this for most things: attacks with weapons or spells you're proficient in, and skills or saving throws you're proficient in. Several others can be turned on in settings to represent additional possible bonuses:

  • If you have players make defense rolls (rather than monsters doing attack rolls against the player's AC), a shield bubble, set up with their armor bonus.
  • If the player has the "half proficiency on all skills" bard bonus, a "1/2 P" bubble.
  • If the player has Expertise (double prof on some skills), an "E" bubble.
  • If the player has a magic weapon, or some other attack with a persistent bonus, a sword bubble, set up with their special bonus. (Proficiency is assumed here.)
  • Probably something customizable for misc bonuses the character commonly makes because of a magic item or something.

On the top of the screen are two representations of 2d20, one colored yellow/orange and happy, one purple/black and unhappy. If you click one of these before making a roll, it'll make it with advantage or disadvantage.

In the settings screen, you can input your six stats and your current level (required), and optionally set up the additional bonus bubbles as described above.

There's also a log of the last hundred rolls or so, so recent rolls can be checked if the player makes a mistake or accidentally dismisses the roll results too quickly.

Writing this would be a fun exercise in learning Pointer Events, I think. I might get around to it at some point. If anyone else decides to make it first, please let me know. ^_^

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Hey there, did you make it yet? I'd love to git a crack at it :)

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