Combat tracker problems

[Shaun]

Hi folks, I'm a newcomer to Fantasy Grounds so I'm hoping there are some more knowledgeable people out there who use this ruleset or understand the programming behind it who can shed some light on this apparent glitch:

The hit location armor points for NPCs and creatures don't show up in the Combat Tracker. It makes no diifference whether I drag the creature to the Tracker from the BRP rules in the library, or add it to an encounter or as a personality first. The only way I can get the AP to show up is to either enter them individually on each creature in the Tracker or each creature in an encounter, which is obviously too time consuming to be practical. I found a way around it by creating a list of creatures as a story item and entering the AP there, and I can then drag instances of them onto encounters or straight onto the combat tracker. If I do this, the AP show up, but then I get simply duplicate copies of each creature, with the same stats and HP.

I also found that the custom hit locations option for creatures doesn't work at all - no hit location table shows up at all in the Combat Tracker if I select this.

I've tried this issue with and without the Myquest extension and it makes no difference.

Does anybody have any idea what I'm doing wrong or whether this is a known bug?

[ddavison]

Check the Prefs button on the upper right corner of the GM screen and then select Rules | Use Hit Locations. This will show you the hit locations. Also, for players, you can toggle the "Show Vitruvian Man" option to change how it renders on character sheets.

Many of the creatures will have HP assigned by Hit Location but just a general AP value. Each hit location will show up as 0 for AP and left open to interpretation as to how to apply it for the creature. As a GM, you'll want to edit that in the combat tracker. For instance, a centaur says hide is 1 AP but they can also wear armor. If you'd rather spend more time on prep in advance so that you can simply drag to the combat encounter, then you can change the Hit Location for the NPC to Custom and specify AP and HP per location as desired.

There is a fairly good user manual that comes with it but is somewhat hidden. When you launch FG, click on the document folder icon in the upper right of the launch window and browse to the "docs" folder. You'll find a BRP user manual there.

-Doug

[Shaun]

Thanks Doug, I hadn't spotted the manual; it does clarify that dragging the NPC/Creatures from an encounter entry to the Combat Tracker is the intended way to do it.

Is the only way to get the AP for each hit location to show up in the combat tracker to create a separate encounter entry for each creature and enter its AP individually in each hit location?

Is there any way to create a standard list of creatures with the location AP info already entered that will appear in the Combat Tracker? (perhaps like a customised version of the list in the GMs guide section)

I also still can't figure out why, if I select "custom hit location" (either in an encounter entry or personality entry) nothing at all shows up in the Combat Tracker other than the column headers, no HP, AP or location table - am I missing something here?

[damned]

Hey Shaun - welcome aboard. I dont use BRP but this works for me in C&C and it might address your issue...

If Im running a campaign where there are lots of (for example) Hobgoblins and Hell Hounds and separately a bunch of Human Slavers I can create 2 Encounters that contain:
Encounter 1
1 Hobgoblin
1 Hell Hound

Encounter 2
1 Slaver Leader
1 Slaver

Set them up completely but dont link to a map. For set encounters link them to a map - its such a nice feature to keep things moving along (check videos 4, 5 and 6 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...r6UcaaLvD7YlJd).

When your party runs into 4 Hobgoblins and a Hell Hound adjust the numbers in Encounter 1 to 4 and 1 and click the arrow to add to the Combat Tracker and I think you might have what you needed. Not flexible enough? Say the party run into a group of Human Slavers who are fighting a group of Hobgoblins and it suddenly becomes a three way melee! Adjust the numbers of each (eg 1 Slaver Leader, 6 Slavers, 5 Hobgoblins, 0 Hell Hounds) and click the arrow to add both encounters. Then those fully prepped encounters are loaded into the CT. You still have to drag them from there onto the map but thats ok. This should still help speed things along (providing of course that this translates to BRP which I think it does).

[Trenloe]

Is the only way to get the AP for each hit location to show up in the combat tracker to create a separate encounter entry for each creature and enter its AP individually in each hit location?

From the testing I've done, yes - I believe the only way to do AP for each location outside of the combat tracker is as an encounter entry.

Is there any way to create a standard list of creatures with the location AP info already entered that will appear in the Combat Tracker? (perhaps like a customised version of the list in the GMs guide section)

Create a list of encounters - one for each creature in which you want to pre-populate the AP. Then use the chat command /export to open up the "module export" window. Give the module a name and a filename, select "encounters" in the exported data section and right-click and select "Export". This will create a module of the encounters in the campaign that can be activated just like normal modules and will create a separate tab at the bottom of the encounter window list that will contain all of these exported encounters.

I also still can't figure out why, if I select "custom hit location" (either in an encounter entry or personality entry) nothing at all shows up in the Combat Tracker other than the column headers, no HP, AP or location table - am I missing something here?

This works OK for me if I set the custom hit location once the personality is in the encounter entry, not before.

So, essentially, do everything in the "encounter" entry.

[ddavison]

Before we move too far along, I want to make sure that you have the preferences set and working properly. The comment about dragging multiple copies of the same creature to the combat tracker makes me think it may not be set properly. Does your combat tracker look similar to this attached image? The hit locations showed up automatically and I just replaced the AP value of 0 with each entry's proper AP.

[Shaun]

Hey Shaun - welcome aboard. I dont use BRP but this works for me in C&C and it might address your issue...

Thanks for the tips, Damned, this approach would certainly help for any NPCs there are likely to be a lot of, and thanks for the video links, I also have the C&C ruleset so these are particularly useful

[Shaun]

Create a list of encounters - one for each creature in which you want to pre-populate the AP. Then use the chat command /export to open up the "module export" window.....

So, essentially, do everything in the "encounter" entry.

Brilliant - that's doing exactly what I needed, cheers Trenloe

[Shaun]

Does your combat tracker look similar to this attached image? The hit locations showed up automatically and I just replaced the AP value of 0 with each entry's proper AP.

Attachment 6989

Attachment 6990

Doug – see attached screenshots of the Combat Tracker and a Personality entry for an example of what happens if I select custom hit locations for a personality. The problem doesn’t seem to happen with an encounter entry.

[Shaun]

Update on the problem, having played around with the options and suggestions…..

Just to clarify what the problem is:

What I need to be able to do in order to run an encounter properly is to be able to place creatures into the combat tracker with their stats and hp individually calculated and the armor points for each location entered. Entering the AP directly for each individual creature in the Combat Tracker is too time-consuming to be practical to do this in real time during a game (eg: if the party is attacked by ten wolves, each of which has 7 hit locations, that’s 70 AP entries I’d have to put in before the combat can even start).

If I create the creatures as encounters (either to export as a module or use as a generic list of creatures), they all have the same stats and hp.

If I create them as Personalities, an apparent glitch with the AP occurs – If I select one of the standard hit location tables on the combat page (eg: “humanoid”), as soon as I select “race” on the creatures main page (in order to get the randomly generated stats) the armor and hp locations disappear from the creatures combat page and AP don’t appear in the combat tracker.

If I select “custom” hit locations, it gets worse – only the column headers for hp & ap appear, with no location table at all (see previous screenshot)

The same problems occur regardless of whether I create a new Personality or drag a standard one from the GM guide.