Pre-setting up encounters with Allies

I'm trying to set up encounters use use allies for the first time. We are doing Blood Drive Part 1. They are heading out with 14 Lazy S ranch hands plus 4 named NPCs. The Named Npcs I'm going to keep under my control as GM, but I want my party to have control of the 14 Lazy S hands. (background: this is our first savage lands. we come from 20+ years of various D&D)

I have the encounters set up, which include the Lazy S ranch hands. So the question is, how do I easily pre-set up the map, pre-set up the allies on the character sheets, and then have it all merge properly into the combat tracker? It seems, with the encounter set up in teh encounters tab, it drops them on the map as it does with the 5E setup, but then those ranch hands aren't allies. If I put them in the allies section of the party sheet and then let the players choose thier allies, they aren't part of the encounter?

I would rather not have to place all the NPC allies and Players after the combat tracker is loaded while playing, but that appears to be the only answer I can find.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Beerbelly

I'm trying to set up encounters use use allies for the first time. We are doing Blood Drive Part 1. They are heading out with 14 Lazy S ranch hands plus 4 named NPCs. The Named Npcs I'm going to keep under my control as GM, but I want my party to have control of the 14 Lazy S hands. (background: this is our first savage lands. we come from 20+ years of various D&D)

I have the encounters set up, which include the Lazy S ranch hands. So the question is, how do I easily pre-set up the map, pre-set up the allies on the character sheets, and then have it all merge properly into the combat tracker? It seems, with the encounter set up in teh encounters tab, it drops them on the map as it does with the 5E setup, but then those ranch hands aren't allies. If I put them in the allies section of the party sheet and then let the players choose thier allies, they aren't part of the encounter?

I would rather not have to place all the NPC allies and Players after the combat tracker is loaded while playing, but that appears to be the only answer I can find.

---

Adding NPCs to PC allies is one way but like you said, they would not be populated into map. You could use alternative #2 which is alternative #1 for AD-HOC situation like this: After you have populated NPCs into map from encounter start, you can drag their combat tracker entries into PC group box to make them that player's allies. After that the player can control them, like move and make trait, attack and damage rolls. GM must share the NPC sheet to that player beforehand. You can do that with right clicking the NPC sheet and selecting Share.

I would recommend you to use this method to split allies AD-HOC to each player.


https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...hoc_allies.gif

Ok, that was kind of the route I was thinking. Wish there was a way to do it where you could make the encounter guys automatically populate as allies, but I'll take what I can get. Thanks for the reply.

l