Some Thoughts on Roll20

We continue to have problems with the video and audio. It seems random. Everyone can hear everyone and then a lot of I can't hear Mike, Mike are you there. The new kid in the group says people use Discord at the same time to handle these problems. I've heard about Discord servers but never paid much attention so I'm gonna let him figure it out for all of us.

Roll20 has a problem with NPCs. If I try to roll Initiative for the NPC Cleric and then try to roll Initiative for the enemy Goblins it will often over-write the Clerics initiative with the new roll. Closing and opening the Goblin Character sheet right before I roll their initiative seems to work but it shouldn't require that.  I also not sure I like that all Goblins share the same initiative in the Initiative tracker, I'd at least like the option to split the goblins into two groups and have each roll initiative. 

I really don't like that all Goblins share the same sheet (and all the ruffians share, and all the Orcs share) and have the same weapons, armor, and HP. This is really an issue with 5E and the way Lost Mines was literally translated exactly as written and it would have been nice to mix up the weapons and armor and hit points. 

The group went into Cragma castle, while it was still daylight out, hoping to catch some Orcs asleep. The Dynamic Lighting for Roll20 isn't really set up to handle light on the outside coming in. Or I simply don't know how to do it which is very likely. So I have a Dwarf NPC with a light that I moved around outside to make light come through windows and such. Hardly ideal but serviceable.

We found out that if you roll a critical hit the result shows in green which is really nice. Also we figured out how to turn on automatically roll damage and critical hit damage which is also very nice.

A few years ago I read a blog post called Dungeon Brawls about having encounters pile on instead of waiting in their rooms for the players. I really liked this and Roll20 makes this super easy for a GM to manage. The GM just has to be careful to not overwhelm the players. That means prep them, if necessary, about tactical consideration like choke points and difficult terrain and such so they can use it to their advantage. Also keeping an eye on HPs so they don't get wiped out without a chance. It really makes for a funner, and more believable combat when enemy reinforcements start arriving.