Best Practices and Tips For FGU Combat

[deer_buster]

If not using extensions and using raw FGU:

I'd make an NPC goblin and call it (5 goblins) where I increased the HP to 5x a goblin's and say it got a multiattack of 5 times at different directions - and also make it Huge or Gargantuan in size.

For unforeseen combat I'd simply have an encounter made for it that had them already defined in your alternate map. Then you just place them when the encounter happens and drag the CT friendlies into that map and start placing them where they really should go.

I use extensions though to handle large scale combats, NPC inventories, and pre set encounter groups etc. But that is a whole other thing.

Downside to 5->1 is that tactical combat is not possible with only 1 vs 5.

Interested in knowing what extensions you use for large scale combat, et.al.

[Booker Grimm]

I ran quite a large battle the other night with six PCs and their 6 retainers vs about 15 NPCs.

What I do is make sure everyone is grouped in the combat tracker (you can do this through the options).
I have the PCs tell me what they are doing and plug in their initiative.
Then I roll for all the NPCs initiatives from the menu button.
On the retainers turn I select target all enemies.
Then roll an attack.
And a damage if I need to.
Same for the NPCs.
The PCs have their own turns.

It speeds things up because you need not go through every NPCs attacks directly if they are of the same type (say guards swinging swords - spellcasters are obviously handled separately).
Works good for generic retainers too, like archers or spearmen.

Add a bit of flavour like, 'Arrows fire back and forth and a few of your men and the enemy are hit. Johnson goes down, an arrow embedded in his throat!'.

That large battle took about an hour to complete and lasted maybe 10 rounds.

[LordEntrails]

Oh, Auto Center is a good thing to turn on too if you have a lot of NPCs. Esp. if they are all of the same time. It will center the map on the NPC at the start of their turn so you know who's turn it is. Makes selecting, targeting, etc much easier.

I think the largest combat I've done is 6 PCs and 49 NPCs. But it's possible I've done more. I just did one with somewhere approaching 100 NPCs or more, but only about 5-10 were active on the CT at any turn. (It was a kruthik hive for 14th level PCs. Effectively and endless swarm of easy adversaries that slowly eat away resources if you don't find a way to win other than attrition.)

[Booker Grimm]

I added a quick video to show people how I do one round for fairly large groups. After the round is complete, I move the tokens to where I need them and update the PCs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQk-RupQ1_E