As announced in an earlier newsletter, a major upgrade to DM's Familiar is in the works. This newsletter features another sneak peek at a feature in that upcoming upgrade.
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Upgrade Sneak Peek: Variables and Buffs
Last time I showed you the new combat board and we saw that Buffs can now be tracked for a creature. For this to be really handy, the idea of "variables" has also been added to DM's Familiar. Let me explain.

A variable in DM's Familiar can be any mathmatically expression. You enclose that expression in variables for DMF to evalulate it. You can use a variable in the Frequency, Attack, or Damage portions of an attack. As a silly example, you could enter the attack of a +1 sword as:

3+{1)

More interestingly, if your ranger has a +1 sword and +1 damage Vs. orcs you could enter the damage field as:

1d6+{1}, Vs Orcs 1d6+{1+1}

Now all of that is minorly interesting. The really cool thing is that DMF can use actual "variables" in these expressions. An example would be that "STR" is now a variable. "STR" to DMF means, go take my base STR score, add in the Buff (or the nerf), and give me the ability modifer for that result. So you can enter the damage field of a one-handed weapon as:

1d6+{STR}

If you have an 18 STR and a Bull Strength for +2, the "{STR}" part of that translates to +5. If this was a +2 sword you could enter:

1d6+{STR+2}

DMF supports a varaible for every ability score, STR.5 (for 1/2 of your STR), and STR1.5 (for 2-handed weapons).

DMF also has variables for BAB (base attack bonus), MAB (melee attack bonus), RAB (range attack bonus) and the unfortunately named GAB (grapple attack bonus). These will calculate iterative attacks as approriate. So an attack entry for a +1 sword is now:

Sword {MAB+1} instead of "Sword +12/+7/+2" (though this still works).

In short, it's much easier to enter attacks into DM's Familiar now and the attack system is much more powerful in supporting Buffs/Nerfs.

(Hmmm, Todd didn't include any screenshots with this newsletter? Why not? Could the attack screen have been totally reworked to be much easier to use while at the same time being incredible more powerful than they are now? Might that be the topic of the next newsletter?)