Noob Question: Hiding Hostiles From the Player's CT

[Dar Kreader]

Helo All,

I've been in a campaign for over a year on FGU. In all this time my Combat tracker never showed us the Initiative order for the hostile/enemy NPCs. I mean enemy NPCs never showed up at all, unless it was a mistake by the DM. I purchased the full License and am building a Pre-Phandelver campaign and every time i load up an encounter the enemies show on the Player's CT. I've talked to my DM about it and his options menu and mine are the same.

How do i toggle this to hide the NPCs from PC view? Or make your arguments for letting my PCs know how many diseased rats are coming down the tunnel because they decided to cover themselves in blood and walk through a sewer.... But i digress.

Looking forward to hearing your answers. Thanks in advance for your wisdom and apologies for my ignorance.

[Moon Wizard]

The visibility of the NPCs is controlled via the GM combat tracker. There's an eye button that can be pressed for each creature, as well as a global toggle for all NPCs in the combat tracker.

Maybe the GM accidentally pressed the button to show all creatures for that fight?

Regards,
JPG

[Zacchaeus]

How are you loading up the encounter? When you place an NPC on the combat tracker (either by dragging directly from the NPC list; or by adding them via the add encounter button on a pre configured encounter) the NPCs are invisible to the players (and on the map - if they have been pre-placed). Only after the DM makes the NPC visible on the CT will it show on the players CT. So it sounds like you are not placing the encounter onto the combat tracker properly if they are showing up as visible.

The not showing initiative order is one of the options in options.

[Dar Kreader]

Hello Zachhaeus And Moon Wizard,

BTW Big Z Love your "How do I ????? in Unity" tutorials. They've been saving my bacon.

Okay onto what i see as a player and a DM. As a player I don't see an npc on the combat tracker "ever." i don't know if he's adding the NPCs improperly or if he has a module to keep the NPCs hidden—he doesn't know either to be honest. SMH. NPCs will populate the map and be visible on the map and still not appear on the tracker.

As a DM, to add the NPC i drag and drop the token that is next to the word placement and it gives me checkmark when it's placed. I assume this is the best/right way to use the tokens with the "Add encounter to combat tracker" button. I may have to ask him how he sets up his encounters.

I guess at this point i wondering if NPCs in the combat tracker is the CT working as intended. If there is any way to remove NPCs from the CT during combat or even limit visibility to a certain distance? i would love that feature as an auto-effect. What i mean by limit the distance. If i have an NPC rat behind a pillar in a dark room, even if there's light and LOS i want to automatically hide the rat until they are 10 feet from the PC. Would that be a stealth module that someone on forge might have? time to go looking.

Anyway thanks for taking the time to read and help me out. Links to any other noob tutorials y'all have would be greatly appreciated.

[Zacchaeus]

Your DM is doing something wrong if you don't see NPCs on the Combat Tracker. Either that or he is deliberately keeping them hidden. However If they are visible on the map then they should also be visible on the CT. I suspect that your DM is using an extension and he doesn't know how the extension works; probably because he's added in the extension before he knew how things are supposed to work.

You set up an encounter by dragging NPCs from the NPC list and dropping them onto the encounter window. Then (as you say I think) drag each token from under the NPC name and drop it onto the map where you want the token to appear. Then close the encounter. During play open the encounter again and click on the 'Add encounter to combat tracker' button on the bottom left of the window. This places the tokens onto the CT and also places them onto the map where you previously dragged them. At this point all of the NPCs are invisible to the players both on the CT and on the map. The DM can then make all the tokens visible (on the CT and on the map) by clicking the large eye icon top left of the CT; or make individual tokens visible (again on both the CT and the map) by clicking the eye icon next to the NPC name on the CT.

Any play who has a light source or special vision will now see any NPC tokens on the map that are within their light or vision range. All of the tokens (whether or not the player can see them on the map) will also be visible on the CT.

If you want to simulate the rat hiding then keep it invisible on the CT until the player is within 10 feet and then make it visible. Unless of course the player can only see 10 ft in which case they won't see the rat until they are 10ft away even if the rat is visible on the map. There may be extensions which change this behaviour to do what you want but I'd suggest learning how to do it without extensions first. Many of the big extensions I see being touted to new players do an awful lot of stuff and change the way FG works. So it is very easy to get lost unless you know what is supposed to happen.

[Egheal]

I love the fact that a player token can discover an enemy token when it enter is LoS. The problem is that the player can see the token in the CT before seeing it on the map. I wish there could be a way to make the token appear in the CT only when discovered on the map.

[Dar Kreader]

Thanks for the Detailed walk-thru Zacchaeus. That is my process. i'm going to have a talk with my DM to see what he's doing. and a lot of the functionality of the modules is lost if you can't see how they are changing your gameplay. like today i just learned that you can't add

I love the fact that a player token can discover an enemy token when it enter is LoS. The problem is that the player can see the token in the CT before seeing it on the map. I wish there could be a way to make the token appear in the CT only when discovered on the map.

I have to agree with you Egheal. The combat tracker gives too many clues, sometimes.

[Sterno]

What ruleset are you using (and what was your GM using), Dar Kreader?

[Dar Kreader]

What ruleset are you using (and what was your GM using), Dar Kreader?

Using 5e. same for my DM. I think he's just doing encounters weird and finding a glitch. We're still parsing it out as we go through extensions and modules.

[Tooting Dog]

Are you, as the player, able to grab the tokens your DM places on the map and move them around? I have a suspicion that your DM is placing the token images on the map but they are not linked to and are not derived from the combat tracker. If you can grab the token and move it, this would indicate my thinking.