Druid Wild Shapes (for 5E)

[Minty23185Fresh]

#1, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS AWESOMENESS!

You're welcome. I'm glad you may be finding it useful.

- I believe ... Could I create "NPCs" for the Circle of Stars druid for each of his star forms? ...

Reading through the description in Tasha's, I believe you might be over-complicating this. I would simply create powers on the Actions tab of the character sheet for each Form and add the appropriate power: save, damage, check, etc.

- Any plans to automate tracking wild shape uses? ...

Nope. I handle it exactly as you do.

- for the Starry Form Dragon I have found another useful extension...

No I'm not planning to duplicate Stv's work. Since there are no conflicts, use both extensions.

- completely unrelated to this extension: any thoughts ...

Sorry, but I can't really guess as to how to effect that without a lot more dedication of thought, and I have other things to do.

- do you have a Patreon or other way to kick back to you for this ...?

No I don't. And thanks for offering. Others have offered too and I always say "Thank you but no."
Money complicates things. I have an outdated ethic that I live by, "when you accept money from someone, you've essentially bound yourself to perform a certain task in return," to deliver the goods, so to speak. I share my extensions as is, and maintain control of them as I see fit, unbeholding to anyone. If it takes me a month, a year or maybe never to get around to something, that's just the way it is.

[RedPanda3946]

I will be playing a Half Elf Circle of the Moons Druid in an upcoming Tomb of Annihilation campaign. After searching the Fantasy Grounds Forums it became apparent that the current methodology of effecting Wild Shapes was less than appealing to me. It seems as though most players take the beast's stat block and modify it to have the appropriate Druid stats. Rather than having to modify dozens of monster stat blocks in preparation for what I might want my Druid to Wild Shape into I decided an extension was needed to allow on the fly Wild Shaping. This extension rather than relying on premodified monster stat blocks allows the user to drag the link from the monster's stat block or from the NPC library on to the character sheet. It modifies the appropriate Druid's statistics to reflect those of the adopted Wild Shape. Using a context menu the user can revert back to the Druid's normal statistics. One in-play advantage of this methodology is character tokens don't have to be swapped on the map nor Wild Shape (monsters) need to be ad-hoc added and removed from the Combat Tracker.

In each of the following three screenshot panels I have captured three subwindows from Fantasy Grounds. In the left-most portion of each screenshot is the Druid's character sheet prior to using Wild Shape. The center portion of each has an example beast that the Druid is assuming the shape of. And the right-most portion of each screenshot has the resultant Druid's character sheet depicted after assuming the beast's form. (Note that some statistics in the Giant Weasel stat block have been modified for illustrative purposes, e.g. the Giant Weasel does not usually have a Dex +5 Saving Throw.)


Attachment 25501
As indicated in red drag the link from the desired beast's NPC stat block on to the upper portion of the character sheet to cause the Druid to assume the beast's statistics. The link can instead be dragged from the NPC Library if desired. (Do not drop the NPC on the portrait, this causes an error to be thrown by Fantasy Grounds!) Note the Druid's name change - the text is taken from the Non-identified NPC name field if it is present, otherwise the Name of the beast. This indicates to the player that his/her Druid is in Wild Shape form. To revert back right-click in the same area and a context menu comes up. Choose the Revert option (at the 5:00 position).

As circled in blue note the adoption of the beast's Armor Class (AC).

The Hit Points (HP) have been circled in green. The extension places the Beast's hit points in the TMP HP portion of the Druid's character sheet. This provides for an auto-revert capability. When the TMP HP go to zero the extension will automatically revert your Wild Shaped Druid. Any TMP HP that the Druid might have prior to Wild Shaping (in this example, 3) are not lost, they are just held in reserve and restored upon revert.
(I learned this cute trick, of using the TMP HP, on the forums, I can't find it right now, but I plan to properly credit it when I come across it again.)

The Beast's Speed, circled in tan, is added, verbatim, to the Special Move field on the Druid's character sheet. (If the beast had a fly, swim, etc., move they would be shown here.) The Speed field on the character sheet has been reduced to zero using a negative speed bonus adjustment - another indicator that the Druid is currently Wild Shaped.

The ability scores, circled in dark red are appropriately rolled over from the monster's stat block to the character sheet. Per the Wild Shape description in the Player's Handbook (PHB), the Druid adopts the strength, dexterity and constitution abilities, but retains it own intelligence, wisdom and charisma ability scores. The ability bonuses are recalculated and display appropriately, affecting the Ability Checks and Saving Throws. Proficiencies are also handled per the Wild Shapes' specification in the PHB. (I'll discuss these in more detail below, related to the Skills.) Note the Saving Throw Values for strength (unchanged), dexterity (now +5) and constitution (highly reduced).

Any Senses other than "passive Perception" are placed in the Special Senses field (circled in orange). The passive Perception field on the Wild Shaped character sheet appears as though it is in error because it does not match the value stated in the Giant Weasel's stat block, but it is actually correct. This will become apparent with the discussion of proficiencies below.

Circled in purple are two characteristics that are not specifically depicted on the character sheet, the Beast's size which is reflected on the Notes tab of the character sheet and Languages, shown on the Abilities tab.


Attachment 25503
Circled in red on this screen shot are the Beast's Traits and Actions. Both are added to a special "Actions - Wild Shape" Power Group on the character sheet's Actions Tab. I purposely did this because some Traits have parsable actions within their description and it is handy to have all the ad-hoc NPC abilities in one place, rather than having to remember to flip back and forth between the Abilities and Actions tabs for NPC characteristics that I might not remember exist. When the Wild Shaped Druid reverts the powers are removed from the group but an empty "Actions - Wild Shape" Group remains in place.


In the next post to this thread I'll cover Skills.

Hey so far I have tried and tried to make this extension work but cannot seem to get it to work at all any advice? Thanks

[zelannii]

Hey so far I have tried and tried to make this extension work but cannot seem to get it to work at all any advice? Thanks

So, you put the downloaded extension in toys Fantasy Grounds extension folder, then launched FG, then before loading a campaign chose to include the extension from the right side, then when you loaded the campaign you saw "Druid Wild Shapes Implementor Extension (v0.0.14)" appear in the chat window? If not, you don't have it loaded at all yet and that's why it's not working because if you do what the instructions say after it's loaded it works beautifully. If you're seeing it load but it's not working also check and remove other extensions you might be using until you find one that could be conflicting.

[RedPanda3946]

Yeah I have it all downloaded and installed correctly selected before I launch the game on the bottom right selector and it says it’s ready in the chat bar when I load up but it just doesn’t wanna work 😅

[zelannii]

Thanks and I completely understand your position. I don't think it's outdated either. I think my position of insisting people be compensated may be more outdated. I'll have to compensate you with thanks alone.
I have been using a "wild shapes" ability to track uses manually and did already create all the starry shapes abilities I could (and found Stv's extension for the one that could not use native features. This works.
Honestly the more I dig into it, I realized creating NPCs to use for these forms would not work with your existing module as they do not gain temp/alt hit points. We'd need changes not only to handle not changing the core stats on form change but also to add current HP to temp, then on reversion from temp replace current HP with temp HP (and render unconscious as needed). way more work than it's worth. I can look to others who have created pre-generated characters that contain all the abilities pre-created to drag-drop to characters to make this easier for others. that was always my aim, not to make my life easier but to help other DMs handle dries simpler.
Thanks again!

[zelannii]

Yeah I have it all downloaded and installed correctly selected before I launch the game on the bottom right selector and it says it’s ready in the chat bar when I load up but it just doesn’t wanna work ��

what other extensions are also loaded? have you tried removing them one by one reloading until only the druid implementer remains to confirm there are no conflicts?

what npc are you dragging to what level of a druid and what druid circle are they?
You're running as the GM, right?

[RedPanda3946]

what other extensions are also loaded? have you tried removing them one by one reloading until only the druid implementer remains to confirm there are no conflicts?

what npc are you dragging to what level of a druid and what druid circle are they?
You're running as the GM, right?

Hey I’ll try removing extensions but atm I have advanced spell effects, coin flip, and spell automation, I am the GM yeah and lvl 5 circle of moons Druid with a brown bear

[Minty23185Fresh]

Hey I’ll try removing extensions but atm I have advanced spell effects, coin flip, and spell automation, I am the GM yeah and lvl 5 circle of moons Druid with a brown bear

To help get this resolved.
1) use only my extension, no others.
2) attach a screen shot of Fantasy Ground's chat box
3) what exactly are you dragging on to the character sheet and where exactly are you dropping it?

[RedPanda3946]

Yeah I’ll take all others off and I’m dragging the top left brown icon on the NPCs over to the top of the character sheet, like stated in the instructions but I’ll try taking the others off and see how I get on if not I’ll come back and posts screenshots

[Minty23185Fresh]

Yeah I’ll take all others off and I’m dragging the top left brown icon on the NPCs over to the top of the character sheet, like stated in the instructions but I’ll try taking the others off and see how I get on if not I’ll come back and posts screenshots

Drop it on the character’s Name (field).