Adding dudes to the combat tracker during combat

[mattcolville]

Not sure if this is a 4E question or a general question.

I have a Black Pudding encounter. The Black Pudding spawns babies every time it's hit.

Once combat has started, how do I add new baby puddings to the tracker? I don't seem able to just grab them from the encounter or from the NPC sheet.

[Trenloe]

Once combat has started, how do I add new baby puddings to the tracker? I don't seem able to just grab them from the encounter or from the NPC sheet.
Drag the link from the right side of the creature name from the encounter or NPC entry to the CT - this works for me, just tested it.

[Mgrancey]

Really, thats weird. Are you sure your grabbing the right spot, you need to grab the link on the right side of the entry. Failing that, I would setup a 2nd encounter that only has a Black pudding baby in it then just add that encounter to the tracker as necessary.

If you have a pudding baby on the tracker, you can also grab the link on the right side of them to drag and drop on the Combat tracker as well to add more.

[mattcolville]

Drag the link from the right side of the creature name from the encounter or NPC entry to the CT - this works for me, just tested it.

That doesn't work. I get an Ankheg instead of a Black Pudding. There's some kind of bug.

[Trenloe]

That doesn't work. I get an Ankheg instead of a Black Pudding. There's some kind of bug.
Sounds like the id-#### reference in your campaign is referencing a different NPC entry. This happened with older encounter entries when an encounter has been removed/replaced or is stored in a module.

When you click on the link icon to the right of the creature (just click, don't drag), what NPC comes up in the window?

[mattcolville]

I'll check it out with an unborked encounter.

But in general, if I have 3 spawns on the Encounter and in the Tracker, and another spawn shows up, I can just grab the link and drag it into the tracker and it should create another spawn in the tracker? A 4th one?

[Trenloe]

But in general, if I have 3 spawns on the Encounter and in the Tracker, and another spawn shows up, I can just grab the link and drag it into the tracker and it should create another spawn in the tracker? A 4th one?
That's exactly what will happen. And if you have the "auto NPC initiative" option enabled it will even roll it's initiative for you! :-)

[Mgrancey]

And for extra fun, set the NPC numbering for Random, so PC's can't meta game about how many there are and get freaked out if you have a nice high but believable number too.

[mattcolville]

Ok yeah the problem was my encounter was borked. When I made a new encounter with the puddings, everything worked as described. Thanks!