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  1. #1

    Quick way to find a creature in the initiative tracker? (for entering wounds, etc.)

    I've gotten pretty practiced at using FG as a VTT in person over the last 6 months. We actually don't really use the rule set - we actually roll physical dice in person and the players track their own hit points.

    Parts of FG I use:

    • Show maps on a TV.
    • Tokens for the players and monsters (players tell me where I want to move and I move them).
    • The initiative tracker (I track monster hit points in the tracker and that's where the problem starts - combat gets bogged down as I try to find the right monster to update Wounds in the tracker).



    Here's the scenario: an encounter between the players and 12 Goblins that FG numbers as Goblin 1 to Goblin 12.

    1. Player says they attack a specific goblin
    2. Player rolls physical dice for their attack roll and tells me the result
    3. I tell them they hit
    4. Player rolls physical dice and tells me the damage
    5. I look for the right goblin in the initiative tracker to add wounds.


    The problem is the time it sometimes take to find the right monster (I should mention I have the setting on to roll each goblin's initiative individually, so that means they are basically in random order in the tracker).

    Is there a quicker way to do this than to scroll down the list manually? Double clicking the token doesn't seem to bring up a specific goblin (unless I'm missing an indicator that that is the case).

    This is the one annoying issue we have in combat - I had one pretty large combat with goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears and it felt like things got really slow and irritating as I tried to find the right monster a player was attacking. Otherwise, the initiative tracker makes encounters FAR easier than tracking manually.

    I'm considering no longer tracking hit points in the initiative tracker and just doing it on paper, but then we lose the ability for the players to see the health bar on the icon which is actually really nice.

    Am I missing a shortcut to getting to the monster I want?

  2. #2
    Zacchaeus's Avatar
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    The only way I can think of is using the manual dice roller. You would need target and to make an attack roll against the goblin and when you do so the manual dice pop up will appear. You can then enter the dice rolled by the player and FG will take care of the rest.
    If there is something that you would like to see in Fantasy Grounds that isn't currently part of the software or if there is something you think would improve a ruleset then add your idea here https://www.fantasygrounds.com/featu...rerequests.php

  3. #3
    My answer is same as Zacchaeus, here's how I do it:

    First of all I use an extension by Celestian that let's me hold ctrl when I want to turn on the manual dice roller or not. Secondly, I have the player's sheet up to date on FG. Even if they're holding a physical sheet, I have that on FG too.

    When I attack the players, I just quickly use the npcs to attack them as usual. They don't neet to keep track of their HP, since FG does it for me.
    When players attack, I quickly open their sheet on FG and roll that attack while holding CTRL to enter manual dice mode. Then I ask what number the dice rolled and input it on FG. Sometimes I just do that for damage.

  4. #4

  5. #5
    Thanks for the replies. I was not aware of the manual dice function, this sounds like it would do it though!

  6. #6
    Here's that extension that was mentioned above:
    https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...Dice-(DM-only)

  7. #7
    One of my groups plays in-person and we all use FG, but it wasn't always that way. I've always used FG to manage the campaign, but the players have gone from paper sheets, to managing their characters in D&D Beyond, to now using FG fully. What brought them over in the end was seeing the automation at work, specifically for things like area-of-effect spells. They can target several enemies with fireball (or whatever), very quickly see who saved and who didn't, and trust that FG would apply damage properly for all.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by notrealdan View Post
    One of my groups plays in-person and we all use FG, but it wasn't always that way. I've always used FG to manage the campaign, but the players have gone from paper sheets, to managing their characters in D&D Beyond, to now using FG fully. What brought them over in the end was seeing the automation at work, specifically for things like area-of-effect spells. They can target several enemies with fireball (or whatever), very quickly see who saved and who didn't, and trust that FG would apply damage properly for all.
    Was kind of the opposite for us - we used the rule set and functions in FG for a while but didn’t feel like playing a TTRPG for us. I use it to automate some of my DM tasks - very handy for setting up encounters and such - but the players don’t interact with it anymore. (Half of us are UX Designers which... doesn’t help the feeling of using Fantasy Grounds unfortunately.)

    I’d HATE to go back to tracking initiative manually and much prefer digital maps tho.

  9. #9
    I ran a couple of test cases by putting a random weapon on the hot key bar and turning on the manual dice rolling option and this should dramatically streamline things in combat.

    Thanks very much for the suggestion!

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Romidar View Post
    Was kind of the opposite for us - we used the rule set and functions in FG for a while but didn’t feel like playing a TTRPG for us. I use it to automate some of my DM tasks - very handy for setting up encounters and such - but the players don’t interact with it anymore. (Half of us are UX Designers which... doesn’t help the feeling of using Fantasy Grounds unfortunately.)

    I’d HATE to go back to tracking initiative manually and much prefer digital maps tho.
    Slighly off-topic, but how do you manage the player interactions for in-person gaming if not in FG? All our players use DNDBeyond and we settled on players doing all their rolls using physical dice and it's up to me as DM to use the manual dice roll input in FG to track HP and effects on NPCs in combat tracker. One player has a PC with FG client connected to the server session and manages map/zoom and token movemement in FG based on the other players input, but they do no targeting nor manage PC HP/effects in FG. That's up to me as a DM. My players aren't UX people per se, but they all work in IT and they too have strong opinions about the FG GUI. Not in a good way, unfortunately.

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