Shield AC

[Iceman]

Would love to see FG automatically adjust for rear attacks against a character with a shield. That is, when an effect named REAR or REAR ATTACK is applied to the character then FG automatically checks to see if that character has a shield equipped. If so it automatically subtracts the shield from the AC, otherwise it does not.

Also an EFFECTS line incorporated into the CRIT tables would allow any effect rendered by a crit to be automatically applied. :bandit:

[Leonal]

This would be very ruleset specific, of course, but could be beneficial for games that use facing. Add it to the FG suggestion page? (https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/)

[Moon Wizard]

Yes, it is highly specific to the RPG system you are using, specific situations.

Also, I find that these sort of features are very fiddly. (i.e. does not apply in some situations, defender has an ability that lets him add shield bonus to rear attacks, etc.)

A simple solution would be to add a custom modifier button for this situation. Similar to the way Combat Advantage button works in 4E or the Flat-Footed button works in 3.5E.

A more advanced solution would require significant coding:
* Every character/NPC token would need a facing (i.e. add facing widget, and controls to adjust)
* When making an attack, the ruleset would need to look up the attacker and defender to verify positioning (Do they have a token on a map?, are they on the same map?, What are their relative positions?, What are their facings?)
* What is the correct handling of the situation where combatants do not have tokens? Are not on same map?

Regards,
JPG

[Iceman]

I think you are overthinking it. I already have a REAR modifier but more often than not I forget and my player forgets, that the AC includes a shield. If REAR was applied and the program saw an equipped shield then it would subtract the ac specific to that shield. Thats it.

[Trenloe]

What ruleset are you thinking of? For rulesets like 3.5E/Pathfinder/4E this would be a house rule.

[Iceman]

What ruleset are you thinking of? For rulesets like 3.5E/Pathfinder/4E this would be a house rule.

I play 3.5 and apply a plus four bonus to rear attacks. There would be additional mods if the PC had a shield that I have to adjust for manually - if I remember that he has a shield.

[Trenloe]

As this is a 3.5e house rule that is quite specific to your game, I think it would be highly unlikely that this would be included in the core Fantasy Grounds ruleset functionality.

So, you'll either have to try to code this yourself or perhaps a friendly community member might be willing to make an extension for you...

I'd think that the best way would be to have a single effect called REARATTACK or some similar name - as the efffect would be specific to the attacker's attacks, not all attacks against the defender. So, the first part (+4 attack) is easy, just use an effect like this:

REARATTACK; ATK:4
Removing the shield portion requires a bit of coding to look up the shield portion of the defender's AC and remove it from the attack rolls - this would have to be done in modAttack function in scripts\manager_action_attack.lua - perhaps in the "-- Get other effect modifiers" section of that script. Perhaps just apply the defender's shield bonus as a + to the nAddMod value.

Care would have to be taken to make sure the shield bonus on the character sheet is just for their physical shield, and not "shield" bonuses from spells like shield. These all encompassing shield bonuses (applying from all angles) would be best covered as an effect themselves, e.g. "Shield;AC:4 shield" that wouldn't modify the base shield bonus to AC on the character sheet.

[Moon Wizard]

The character part is easy, it's the NPC part that is more difficult.

The real issue comes down to the fact that the NPC data from multiple data sources is very inconsistent about whether shield bonus information is included in the AC field. Most of the recent stuff does include the breakdowns, but the format and layout is not consistent across different books by different publishers. You would need to parse the NPC AC field text to determine whether an AC bonus was included, and subtract that amount as well for NPC targets.

Regards,
JPG