View Full Version : Combat tracker problems
Shaun
July 7th, 2014, 14:19
Hi folks, I'm a newcomer to Fantasy Grounds so I'm hoping there are some more knowledgeable people out there who use this ruleset or understand the programming behind it who can shed some light on this apparent glitch:
The hit location armor points for NPCs and creatures don't show up in the Combat Tracker. It makes no diifference whether I drag the creature to the Tracker from the BRP rules in the library, or add it to an encounter or as a personality first. The only way I can get the AP to show up is to either enter them individually on each creature in the Tracker or each creature in an encounter, which is obviously too time consuming to be practical. I found a way around it by creating a list of creatures as a story item and entering the AP there, and I can then drag instances of them onto encounters or straight onto the combat tracker. If I do this, the AP show up, but then I get simply duplicate copies of each creature, with the same stats and HP.
I also found that the custom hit locations option for creatures doesn't work at all - no hit location table shows up at all in the Combat Tracker if I select this.
I've tried this issue with and without the Myquest extension and it makes no difference.
Does anybody have any idea what I'm doing wrong or whether this is a known bug?
ddavison
July 9th, 2014, 19:14
Check the Prefs button on the upper right corner of the GM screen and then select Rules | Use Hit Locations. This will show you the hit locations. Also, for players, you can toggle the "Show Vitruvian Man" option to change how it renders on character sheets.
Many of the creatures will have HP assigned by Hit Location but just a general AP value. Each hit location will show up as 0 for AP and left open to interpretation as to how to apply it for the creature. As a GM, you'll want to edit that in the combat tracker. For instance, a centaur says hide is 1 AP but they can also wear armor. If you'd rather spend more time on prep in advance so that you can simply drag to the combat encounter, then you can change the Hit Location for the NPC to Custom and specify AP and HP per location as desired.
There is a fairly good user manual that comes with it but is somewhat hidden. When you launch FG, click on the document folder icon in the upper right of the launch window and browse to the "docs" folder. You'll find a BRP user manual there.
-Doug
Shaun
July 12th, 2014, 18:58
Thanks Doug, I hadn't spotted the manual; it does clarify that dragging the NPC/Creatures from an encounter entry to the Combat Tracker is the intended way to do it.
Is the only way to get the AP for each hit location to show up in the combat tracker to create a separate encounter entry for each creature and enter its AP individually in each hit location?
Is there any way to create a standard list of creatures with the location AP info already entered that will appear in the Combat Tracker? (perhaps like a customised version of the list in the GMs guide section)
I also still can't figure out why, if I select "custom hit location" (either in an encounter entry or personality entry) nothing at all shows up in the Combat Tracker other than the column headers, no HP, AP or location table - am I missing something here?
damned
July 13th, 2014, 01:32
Hey Shaun - welcome aboard. I dont use BRP but this works for me in C&C and it might address your issue...
If Im running a campaign where there are lots of (for example) Hobgoblins and Hell Hounds and separately a bunch of Human Slavers I can create 2 Encounters that contain:
Encounter 1
1 Hobgoblin
1 Hell Hound
Encounter 2
1 Slaver Leader
1 Slaver
Set them up completely but dont link to a map. For set encounters link them to a map - its such a nice feature to keep things moving along (check videos 4, 5 and 6 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsgd1zJLdiKUrEd85Dqr6UcaaLvD7YlJd).
When your party runs into 4 Hobgoblins and a Hell Hound adjust the numbers in Encounter 1 to 4 and 1 and click the arrow to add to the Combat Tracker and I think you might have what you needed. Not flexible enough? Say the party run into a group of Human Slavers who are fighting a group of Hobgoblins and it suddenly becomes a three way melee! Adjust the numbers of each (eg 1 Slaver Leader, 6 Slavers, 5 Hobgoblins, 0 Hell Hounds) and click the arrow to add both encounters. Then those fully prepped encounters are loaded into the CT. You still have to drag them from there onto the map but thats ok. This should still help speed things along (providing of course that this translates to BRP which I think it does).
Trenloe
July 13th, 2014, 02:19
Is the only way to get the AP for each hit location to show up in the combat tracker to create a separate encounter entry for each creature and enter its AP individually in each hit location?
From the testing I've done, yes - I believe the only way to do AP for each location outside of the combat tracker is as an encounter entry.
Is there any way to create a standard list of creatures with the location AP info already entered that will appear in the Combat Tracker? (perhaps like a customised version of the list in the GMs guide section)
Create a list of encounters - one for each creature in which you want to pre-populate the AP. Then use the chat command /export to open up the "module export" window. Give the module a name and a filename, select "encounters" in the exported data section and right-click and select "Export". This will create a module of the encounters in the campaign that can be activated just like normal modules and will create a separate tab at the bottom of the encounter window list that will contain all of these exported encounters.
I also still can't figure out why, if I select "custom hit location" (either in an encounter entry or personality entry) nothing at all shows up in the Combat Tracker other than the column headers, no HP, AP or location table - am I missing something here?
This works OK for me if I set the custom hit location once the personality is in the encounter entry, not before.
So, essentially, do everything in the "encounter" entry.
ddavison
July 13th, 2014, 17:07
Before we move too far along, I want to make sure that you have the preferences set and working properly. The comment about dragging multiple copies of the same creature to the combat tracker makes me think it may not be set properly. Does your combat tracker look similar to this attached image? The hit locations showed up automatically and I just replaced the AP value of 0 with each entry's proper AP.
Shaun
July 14th, 2014, 11:30
Hey Shaun - welcome aboard. I dont use BRP but this works for me in C&C and it might address your issue...
Thanks for the tips, Damned, this approach would certainly help for any NPCs there are likely to be a lot of, and thanks for the video links, I also have the C&C ruleset so these are particularly useful
Shaun
July 14th, 2014, 11:33
Create a list of encounters - one for each creature in which you want to pre-populate the AP. Then use the chat command /export to open up the "module export" window.....
So, essentially, do everything in the "encounter" entry.
Brilliant - that's doing exactly what I needed, cheers Trenloe
Shaun
July 14th, 2014, 11:36
Does your combat tracker look similar to this attached image? The hit locations showed up automatically and I just replaced the AP value of 0 with each entry's proper AP.
6989
6990
Doug – see attached screenshots of the Combat Tracker and a Personality entry for an example of what happens if I select custom hit locations for a personality. The problem doesn’t seem to happen with an encounter entry.
Shaun
July 15th, 2014, 09:19
Update on the problem, having played around with the options and suggestions…..
Just to clarify what the problem is:
What I need to be able to do in order to run an encounter properly is to be able to place creatures into the combat tracker with their stats and hp individually calculated and the armor points for each location entered. Entering the AP directly for each individual creature in the Combat Tracker is too time-consuming to be practical to do this in real time during a game (eg: if the party is attacked by ten wolves, each of which has 7 hit locations, that’s 70 AP entries I’d have to put in before the combat can even start).
If I create the creatures as encounters (either to export as a module or use as a generic list of creatures), they all have the same stats and hp.
If I create them as Personalities, an apparent glitch with the AP occurs – If I select one of the standard hit location tables on the combat page (eg: “humanoid”), as soon as I select “race” on the creatures main page (in order to get the randomly generated stats) the armor and hp locations disappear from the creatures combat page and AP don’t appear in the combat tracker.
If I select “custom” hit locations, it gets worse – only the column headers for hp & ap appear, with no location table at all (see previous screenshot)
The same problems occur regardless of whether I create a new Personality or drag a standard one from the GM guide.
damned
July 15th, 2014, 11:06
Hi Shaun,
What about expanding the Encounter monsters to give you 2-4 variations of those that you are concerned about having the same AP?
Another advantage of this is you can vary the tokens too.
Going back to my Slavers or Hobgoblins example:
1. Drag your Hobgoblin from your source book into the NPCs.
2. In NPCs drag the Hongoblin to an empty spot in NPCs and release and you should now have 2 of them.
3. Do again if you want more variations.
4. If you want to you can rename them eg Hobgoblin Archer, Hobgoblin Spearman, Hobgoblin Axeman, Hobgoblin Warrior.
5. Assign them different tokens.
6. Drag one of each into your "stock" encounter. Leave the number of each at 1 or even set at 0.
7. Spec up the AP making them unique.
8. When you need your encounter of 5 Hobgoblins choose 2, 1, 1, 1 or whatever options and Add to Combat Tracker
Ok - so still not random but there is more "randomness" and the different tokens spice it up a bit too.
You can do the same leaving them all with the same names and same tokens and that will appear more random to the players.
Its still not what you are looking for but I do something like that to mix up the tokens mainly. Again - I use CnC so I dont know if everything will translate but I think it does.
Shaun
July 15th, 2014, 15:02
Hi Shaun,
What about expanding the Encounter monsters to give you 2-4 variations of those that you are concerned about having the same AP?
Thanks, this is a possible workaround, it would allow for a bit of variation, although it's not ideal, and I'm concerned that something isn't working quite as it should, especially the blank columns in the combat tracker issue, surely this can't be right?
Shaun
July 19th, 2014, 14:54
After extensive playing around with this, I still seem to be getting the same problems regardless of what I do. Is there anybody out there running a BRP based game on FG? If so, do you have the same problems I'm finding, and if so, how do you get around them? I'm particularly interested in the apparent glitch of the AP and HP columns not showing up at all if I select "custom" HP locations, because if I could use this option for "Personalities" I think it would solve the main problem with using this ruleset.
Shaun
July 24th, 2014, 08:41
My final conclusion after playing around with the options for a while, in case anybody else is confused by this, or any developers decide to update this ruleset: I don't think this has anything to do with the combat tracker, but more likely with the NPC records. The problem is that you can't create a "Race" template with default armor points, which makes it impossible, for example to use wandering monsters/random encounters with randomly rolled stats and hp (at least within the FG software itself). It seems like an illogical feature to leave out deliberately so I can only guess that for some arcane programming reason it wasn't possible to make it work (or subsequent updates to the main software have broken it?). I think I was finding it a little confusing and frustrating because I had unrealistic expectations of this ruleset. I discovered FG and tried the demo, thought it was great and bought it with the C & C ruleset, and was really impressed by how accurate and comprehensive the conversion of C&C to FG was. When I found there was a BRP ruleset for $30 I assumed I'd be getting something at least as comprehensive, but it turns out to be an old ruleset lacking many of the features of the D&D based ones. It certainly looks possible to run a BRP game with it, but it's a bit primitive compared to some of the other rulesets. Anybody know if there are any plans to update it?
damned
July 24th, 2014, 08:59
Hey Shaun,
I wasnt ignoring your previous post I was hoping that an active user of BRP might be able to contribute. Im not positive but I think that the developer of that ruleset has been awol for a while now - he used to be very active here but I havent seen him about for a while.
Late last year Fantasy Grounds version 3 came out and introduced a layered ruleset approach which allows rulesets to sit atop CoreRPG and even sit atop eg Pathfinder AND CoreRPG and inherit all the goodness of those rulesets and only apply the required changes. This makes developing new rulesets faster and also means new features in CoreRPG are automatically received. Win Win.
But it did mean that the older rulesets lag in a lot of functionality when compared to new ones.
I dont know if the feature you are looking for is present or not because I dont have that ruleset... but it is possible it doesnt work... I will try and find out definitively for you over the next few days...
Shaun
July 24th, 2014, 10:20
Cheers Damned, didn't mean that last post to imply that I thought you were ignoring my question, not at all, apologies if I gave the wrong impression there. I'm grateful for everybody taking the time to give me replies and suggestions, and I think the only workaround is indeed going to be to combine what you & Trenloe are suggesting and create a module with a selection of low/medium/high stat variations for each creature I want to use. Unfortunately this is going to be a clumsy and cumbersome way to do things and doesn't really implement the BRP rules properly, but it looks like the only option available. When I say "my final conclusion" I just mean that I think I've got to grips with the FG software and BRP ruleset enough now to realise that it just can't do what I want it to.
I'm interested in the BRP ruleset mainly because I have a Historical Fantasy/Low Fantasy setting that I'd like to convert to FG and in the past I've always used BRP/RQ rules for this. I've considered converting it to d20, especially since FG does this so much better, but I don't think the class/levelling/xp system lends itself well to this kind of setting, it's great for D&D type games where the emphasis is on gameplay above simulation but not so good if you want a more gritty "realistic" feel.
I've also got the CoC ruleset in the hope that this might be a way forward, being based on the newer system, but although it has some of the newer features, its combat features are very basic, since you don't need much for CoC.
What I really wanted, perhaps unrealistically, is something like the features of the C&C ruleset for BRP.
I suspect that if anybody was going to do an updated BRP ruleset it would probably make more sense to base it on the CoC version rather than the existing BRP ruleset, but I appreciate that there would be a lot of work involved to implement things like the hit location and strike rank rules, and if there aren't many people using it it may not be worthwhile for the developers to spend their time on this, especially if the original developer is no longer around. It's a catch 22 there though, since the more the ruleset lags behind in its features, the less people are likely to use it.
damned
July 24th, 2014, 11:17
hey Shaun - you are right on lots of points there - good rulesets help drive more players which would make the ruleset sell more.
when BRP ruleset came out it was pretty much right up there for features but other rulesets have come a long way since then.
I think the original Dev had a change of jobs last year and really hasnt been seen much since :(
In terms of cost - the cost is usually aimed at being comparable to the PDF product. The Publisher gets about half of the proceeds of any sales and the rest is split between smiteworks and the developer - so there is not really much money to be made in building rulesets (ok there is even less than that) so its really a hobbyist project...
once D&D5E is all sorted we might see the devs turn their attention towards a ruleset builder that will do *some* of the building work. no ide/builder will ever be able to build something as complex as BRP without some serious hand coding on top of it but if we have a tool that can help speed up development it would be good.
my understanding of the BRP ruleset is that it is still very function-able but doesnt have a lot of the new features of Fantasy Grounds...
Shaun
July 24th, 2014, 19:37
hey Shaun - you are right on lots of points there - good rulesets help drive more players which would make the ruleset sell more.
when BRP ruleset came out it was pretty much right up there for features but other rulesets have come a long way since then.
I think the original Dev had a change of jobs last year and really hasnt been seen much since :(
In terms of cost - the cost is usually aimed at being comparable to the PDF product. The Publisher gets about half of the proceeds of any sales and the rest is split between smiteworks and the developer - so there is not really much money to be made in building rulesets (ok there is even less than that) so its really a hobbyist project...
once D&D5E is all sorted we might see the devs turn their attention towards a ruleset builder that will do *some* of the building work. no ide/builder will ever be able to build something as complex as BRP without some serious hand coding on top of it but if we have a tool that can help speed up development it would be good.
my understanding of the BRP ruleset is that it is still very function-able but doesnt have a lot of the new features of Fantasy Grounds...
It looks usable enough to run a game despite the lack of the newer features, and the licensing issue would explain the price (d'oh!). I don't know much about the legal technicalities of these things but maybe Mongoose RQ/Legend would be a better option to base it on if anybody does revamp this ruleset, since I believe that's all OGL (?). Halving the price would probably help the sales a lot and the developers wouldn't lose out that way. The one feature I'd like to have in this is those auto-rolling tables you can make in all the new rulesets, that's a great idea, I wonder if it's possible to add something like that with a few extra lines of code somewhere?
Trenloe
July 25th, 2014, 20:55
It looks usable enough to run a game despite the lack of the newer features, and the licensing issue would explain the price (d'oh!)
Oh Yeah its completely usable to run games and you get a lot of the BRP rulebook material in electronic format (library modules) and some adventures to get you started. But, as you say, some newer features aren't there. People have been running games on FG for over ten years, so the newer features are nice but won't stop you running a game. :)
The one feature I'd like to have in this is those auto-rolling tables you can make in all the new rulesets, that's a great idea, I wonder if it's possible to add something like that with a few extra lines of code somewhere?
Should be able to make that with an extension. This ruleset was designed with making extensions in mind - see part three of the BRP user guide: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/filelibrary/manuals/BasicRoleplayingforFantasyGroundsII-UserGuide.pdf
Trenloe
July 25th, 2014, 21:00
You also might want to get onboard this thread: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?21715-BRP-Issues-List Sunspoticus is rallying people for BRP updates... :)
Shaun
July 27th, 2014, 14:05
Cheers Trenloe, will look into the extension making/tables and the update thread.....
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