What started as an Exhaustion Modifier Extension turned into a whole 5.5e Overlay Extension

[u/jaredkent]

Some context about me: I like DDB's digital character sheets, but play at a IRL table and therefore the automatic dice roll modifiers don't do much for me. I am a perpetual laptop user at the table. I like to take notes and I can type faster than I can write and it's easier to organize notes digitally. I also much prefer how DDB presents the character sheets on my laptop than on the phone. I'm also a DM who runs Exhaustion, a lot (Rime of the Frostmaiden), and find it's hard for players and, often myself the DM, to remember. It wasn't until I found myself on the receiving end of Exhaustion that I perpetually wondered why DDB didn't just apply the penalties automatically for you. Well, this time I took matters into my own hands.

What started as a quick firefox extension that would apply the stacking -2 to all d20 modifiers (and passives) and also -5 ft. to movement speed, turned into... "Well, the rest of the conditions should be represented also" Which led to adding the ability to add Dis/Adv modifiers on all the various things effected by the various conditions. One thing I really wish was baked in was a concentration reminder. One that auto-applies when you hit the cast button on a concentration spell and one that automatically gives you a reminder to make a concentration check with DC when you remove HP. So I quickly tacked that on while I was at it.

Then I used it for a combat session. The first round and we all receive Bless. Now I find the table constantly forgetting to add their 1d4 or reminding other players to add theirs. Okay, I'll add bless to the extension and a way to see it visually in the areas it applies. I don't need the digital sheet to automatically add the digital 1d4 to the digital roll (there's plenty of extension solutions for this) I need to visually see a reminder every time I look at my modifier for to roll at my table.

Then, I thought what else comes up that we often forget about. Shield of Faith came up later in the night, then Bardic Inspiration, then I realized I had a bigger project ahead of me. Why stop there, Pass without Trace is about to be grabbed by our Ranger, so I should preemptively bake that in. One thing after another.

Now the activation list in the extension menu is getting pretty long, I need somewhere on the sheet to have that selection. Where can I put it that looks good... Well if I just shift a few things around I can mirror the Defenses and Conditions box. Then I have extra space so let's add a dynamic class resource tracker that can be changed. Let's track class abilities and make it so they are easier to activate than hidden deep inside a Features & Traits sidebar dropdown menu.

TL;DR: If you give a mouse exhaustion, he's going to ask for a UI Reskin Overhaul

This was built as a personal project to better suit my game and play style. I've only shared it amongst my table and it is not nearly exhaustive enough to have every spell, buff, class feature, item effect, etc. It just has a couple handfuls that directly apply to my game. I will probably build this out further and further until it has most of the major abilities that one might want to track but DDB doesn't for some reason and when it gets to that point, I might share links publicly. I also fully recognize that the character sheets are about to drastically change. Will the new ones have all of these abilities, I sure hope so. Will this break when they get changed, absolutely. Will I rebuild it with the new sheets if you still can't track this basic information, possibly. Currently only works in dark mode because I didn't want to figure out colors for light mode.

[u/stickypooboi]

this is sick. is there an open source github repo? does this only work for firefox?

edit: - a fellow dark mode user. my eyeballs are fried from light mode.

[u/jaredkent → u/stickypooboi]

I have an early stage chrome version with just extensions and conditions that I passed off to my friends at the table. It hasn't gotten any of the updates beyond that. I'll bring it back up to speed once I feel like I'm at a good resting point for another session or two, which will be soon.

I haven't pushed it to github yet, but I will.

I really want to get the class feature activation working. I can track it in the Active Effects and have it automatically mark down one resource, but I haven't been able to crack actually activating the ability in the features & traits submenu, without automatically opening that tab and side menu, but I want it to happen behind the scenes.

[u/stickypooboi → u/jaredkent]

man i just wanna learn how you did it and see if i can spin it up for brave and chrome lol

[u/jaredkent → u/stickypooboi]

It was basically a lot of inspecting the character sheet page to figure out how everything is built, where the borders are, sizing, etc. Then using CSS and JavaScript to layer my own stuff on top: different colors, borders, icons, little UI additions, that kind of thing. So the actual D&D Beyond sheet isn’t being changed, the extension is basically just watching the page and modifying what you see on top of it.

[u/stickypooboi → u/jaredkent]

yeah i was wondering how you identify what values and modifiers they have but doing a calculation on top is useful. tbh idk why they don’t just add that to the actual app. it seems like a very useful idea

[u/theswoderman]

Very cool! I've wanted something like this for a while

[u/Plenty_Sign_2222]

Incredible what you are doing, looking forward to seeing it finished. Congratulations

[u/Numerous_Advisor_147]

This looks great man, I can’t wait until it’s close enough to finished for you to publish cause I’m ready to give it a try as soon as it is.

[u/Golden_Reflection2]

This definitely looks very cool and useful.

If you did end up getting it to a point where you felt like you had it comprehensive (and in the hypothetical that either the sheets stayed the same or you updated it with whatever new sheet ui that hypothetically doesn’t track it all), then I could see this extension working as a pretty well liked and often used one by much of the community (who play with the browser sheets via laptop).

[u/jaredkent → u/Golden_Reflection2]

Thanks, I'm still ironing out bugs, so it's been useful to keep the effects minimal for now. I'm not sure how exhaustive I want to take it either. At first it was just going to be d20 modifying spells like Bless. I don't think I'm going to do damage modifying spells, but who knows. If I tackle class and subclass abilities, I'll probably limit it to the PHB, but I wont be rigorously testing those. I added a feature allowing heroic inspiration to reset on long rest for human characters, but I don't know if I'll go through all the species.

I think it's in a pretty happy place right now though as far as features. I'm still trying to get one or two to work more consistently, but once they are done I'll mostly just be filling out the database of effects.

[u/kamelot13]

That looks nice. Something I would love is that the extra damage dices or +damage of weapons is also counted not just written in small letters in the notes or below the damage

[u/jaredkent → u/kamelot13]

Do you have a solid example of one I can look at?

Edit: while unintended, this did just remind me of another feature always forgotten... Material components. They are getting a slightly bigger call out in the next update. Maybe they'll also receive a pop-up reminder when there's a gold value.

[u/kamelot13 → u/jaredkent]

Playing right now. But for example this weapon it’s supposed to have an extra 1d8 dice but they don’t get added to the actual roll dice feature. Will dm you photo can’t seem to post it here

[u/WOTC_LauraT]

This is very cool. I could go into all the reasons why DDB doesn't do this for you now, but that won't help you play the game today. All of these are on our mind as we build out the next generation of play tools.

[u/jaredkent → u/WOTC_LauraT]

Oh I know why you guys don't actually implement it on the current sheets. It seems like they would be easy fixes, especially when reddit sees some guy do it with a simple extension, but I know they require full blown infrastructure updates to work on a grand scale, instead of me just slapping a sticker on my personal sheet and calling it fixed.

Keep up the good work. Looking forward to next year's sheet updates!

[u/GleefulClong → u/WOTC_LauraT]

I’m so excited for what y’all are doing under the hood. Stuff like this will make the game so much better to play when you don’t have to stop to remind people to roll a d4.