Feature Discussion: Option to skip certain combatants in combat tracker

[Moon Wizard]

I'm looking at an option to be able to skip certain combatants in the combat tracker when advancing the turn.

Since it seems like this would be a very individual GM feature, I'd like to get an idea of what people would like to see in their game for a feature like this, as well as how you handle these situations in your game. I don't want to make this a blanket feature, since there are many unique situations in every campaign and for every GM.

While I will consider all the information presented, I'm going to try and keep a feature like this as simple as possible as well to keep UI confusion/expansion to minimum.

Specifically, I am looking at adding an option to skip combatants which are hidden and/or dying/dead.

Some questions:
* Should PCs be skipped when dying/dead? (or just NPCs)
* Should there be a differentiation between dying and dead? (again PC/NPC differentiation, and consider feats/abilities that allow action during dying state)
* Which options should be offered? (Skip when hidden, skip when dying/dead, skip when either, something else...)

The concept is to speed up play as well as to provide less information to players on "hidden" combatants, especially when preplacing units for ambushes or continuation battles.

Regards,
JPG

[JohnD]

Yes, skip when hidden/dead for NPCs but don't skip PCs.

[leozelig]

Agree with John D - skip hidden/dead NPCs.

[TASagent]

Third-eded

[damned]

I often have a number of NPC combatants hidden until after the battle begins. Hidden does not preclude them from acting though... Skipping dead/dying seems sensible to me.
Im not 100% sure but I seem to think that in the old v2 Castles&Crusades ruleset that if you set an actors INIT to 0 (or blank?) it would skip them? That doesnt work anymore (or it never dead and Im imaging it...) and I use the auto reroll init each round so that would bugger that too....

[Moon Wizard]

Yeah, that C&C hack falls apart with negative initiative modifier combatants, since they can actually have zero initiative. The only other way to do that is to add another checkbox to "skip" combatant, but that seems like creating as much work as solving plus UI proliferation.

Personally, I just click fast when changing initiative over hidden combatants, and my players don't even notice. Of course, they rarely advance the turn themselves, because they are lazy.

However, I wanted to explore this option. My thought was that the GM would handle the "skipped" combatant while handling the next actor or while the PC was doing their turn.

Regards,
JPG

[damned]

My thought was that the GM would handle the "skipped" combatant while handling the next actor or while the PC was doing their turn.

Yes that would work fine.
Jalador is swinging her Great Axe at the Trolls head when an arrow strikes her in the shoulder...

[TASagent]

Moon Wizard, how feasible is it to create a meaningful difference between Null and 0? IE, selecting the box and pressing delete clears the value, whereas setting it to 0 just puts him at that part of the initiative order?

[Mgrancey]

Most definitely agree on skip hidden or dead npcs, because right now it becomes apparent that there are more hidden or lurking npcs when tracker goes to ... nobody. Not sure how difficult it would be to mod but would be really nice.

[Moon Wizard]

The number fields in FG have no concept of null or undefined. So, it would have to be a completely separate database node and field, with a separate mechanism to set/unset null state.

I'm concerned that the null field fix in this situation doesn't really simplify anything in the long run.

JPG

[TASagent]

Sounds reasonable. Thanks!

[Nickademus]

I'm looking at an option to be able to skip certain combatants in the combat tracker when advancing the turn.

Since it seems like this would be a very individual GM feature, I'd like to get an idea of what people would like to see in their game for a feature like this, as well as how you handle these situations in your game. I don't want to make this a blanket feature, since there are many unique situations in every campaign and for every GM.

While I will consider all the information presented, I'm going to try and keep a feature like this as simple as possible as well to keep UI confusion/expansion to minimum.

Specifically, I am looking at adding an option to skip combatants which are hidden and/or dying/dead.

Some questions:
* Should PCs be skipped when dying/dead? (or just NPCs)
* Should there be a differentiation between dying and dead? (again PC/NPC differentiation, and consider feats/abilities that allow action during dying state)
* Which options should be offered? (Skip when hidden, skip when dying/dead, skip when either, something else...)

The concept is to speed up play as well as to provide less information to players on "hidden" combatants, especially when preplacing units for ambushes or continuation battles.

Regards,
JPG

Skipping dead is okay, but not dying. Not all 'dying' creatures are out of the combat in some rulesets. Better yet, have each entry in the CT have a flag that can be set to Skippable. This would work best since some hidden creatures are just waiting to join the fun, while others are already having fun but shouldn't be seen in the CT.

Regardless, a related issue (well, 'feature' since it's design this way) is that hidden creatures that use an action on a PC will be named in chat window. It was changed so that hidden creatures didn't show when they used an action on themselves or other NPCs, but it still gives away the name of the hidden enemy casting that grease spell under the PCs. Would be nice to have the 'Unknown' casting spells on the party instead of 'Pixie' or 'Tiny winged man'.

[Callum]

Some questions:
* Should PCs be skipped when dying/dead? (or just NPCs)
* Should there be a differentiation between dying and dead? (again PC/NPC differentiation, and consider feats/abilities that allow action during dying state)
* Which options should be offered? (Skip when hidden, skip when dying/dead, skip when either, something else...)

* Personally, I would like it to include PCs, as it seems that one often ends up waiting for a player to pass the turn when their PC is out of action - and it's an unkind reminder of their PC's state!

* A differentiation between dying and dead doesn't seem particularly useful to me, but that may be because I've not played with PCs that have an ability to act when dying.

* For me, the most important option is "skip when hidden" - my players are very astute, and deduce that there's a hidden NPC if I don't advance the Combat Tracker instantly! I'd also appreciate a "skip when dying/dead" option, and would have both turned on by default (or a "skip when either" option).

[Shadranar]

I agree with others in that the dying/dead NPCs should be skipped. I'm on the fence about PCs though. It makes sense to me that you should skip them since they can't take an action anyway being in a dead or dying state. Or, am I not correct about that?

[TASagent]

Keep in mind that, in 5e, Auto Death Rolls is just an option. Having it on takes some feeling of control away from players (I have it turned on, but I completely understand why some people might not). As such, dying PCs should not be skipped, at least not without making skipping dying PCs its own option. The dying state also seems like an area people can and will make house rules about (Last Stand - a self-resuscitation with a permanent penalty, or Left4Dead style downed activities, etc). Callum mentioned PCs who are downed and have nothing to do, but take too long to press the "End Turn" button, but that's a non-issue for me because the DM has the same button. In this case, erring on the side of not stripping away agency and participation from players seems preferable.

Hidden NPCs are obviously tricky, because it's used to represent two different things - creatures who don't exist in the combat yet, and creatures who are in the combat but can't be seen. Ideally, we would want to skip over the creatures that were tossed onto the map, but are still hidden and not participating, and not skip over, for example, the creature who just cast invisibility.

I am wary of just sticking a separate "skip" option onto each entry in the combat tracker, because that seems like an ideal spawning ground for confusion and oversight, plus it could potentially be really annoying to use if the default behavior didn't suit my style.

Perhaps using a condition like "Stealthed" might make sense? Hidden NPCs are skipped unless they have the Stealthed condition? No, that sounds annoying. Let's not do that.

Better Idea?:
What if the visibility toggle in the combat tracker were tri-state? The Default state when adding NPCs is "Hidden/Skip", Clicking the visibility button makes them "Hidden/NoSkip", then clicking it again makes them "Visible". It may take some tweaking to make sure GMs aren't accidentally revealing NPCs they wanted to bring from "Hidden/Skip" to "Hidden/NoSkip", and to provide an easier way of going backwards.

[TASagent]

I just played around with the client, and it seems like a hidden creature who the players know about would be best run by leaving them visible in the combat tracker and just hiding their token, which we can already do. The only edge case I think people might have an issue with is hidden creatures that the players don't know about yet and who are taking meaningful actions. To me, that's such a minor edge case that I'd rather have the combat tracker skip them along with the other CT-hidden foes and manually handle them, than introduce extra baggage to try to shore up every edge case with extra buttons.

In summary, I think it might best fit my needs with three options:
Skip Downed PCs: *Dead/Dying & Dead/No
Skip Downed NPCs: Dead/*Dying & Dead/No
Skip CT-Hidden NPCs: *Yes/No

* Default

[damned]

The only edge case I think people might have an issue with is hidden creatures that the players don't know about yet and who are taking meaningful actions. To me, that's such a minor edge case that I'd rather have the combat tracker skip them along with the other CT-hidden foes and manually handle them, than introduce extra baggage to try to shore up every edge case with extra buttons.

in my experience this is far from an edge case....

[TASagent]

in my experience this is far from an edge case....

That's fair. Though by "meaningful actions" I was imagining doing something significant enough that I'd want everyone to wait while I performed some bookkeeping or other actions, and not just sliding them around on the map. Simple enough stuff I could do at the beginning of the next PC/NPC's turn without defeating the purpose of having them hidden in the CT in the first place.

Could you provide me with an example or two so I can better picture what you might mean?

[damned]

That's fair. Though by "meaningful actions" I was imagining doing something significant enough that I'd want everyone to wait while I performed some bookkeeping or other actions, and not just sliding them around on the map. Simple enough stuff I could do at the beginning of the next PC/NPC's turn without defeating the purpose of having them hidden in the CT in the first place.

Could you provide me with an example or two so I can better picture what you might mean?

Anytime the players walk into an ambush.
Anytime the players get into a fight in close proximity to another potential encounter from where reinforcements can come.
Anytime the players get into a fight with opponents who can go invisible, concealed, whatever.
Anytime the action takes place in an area with lots of cover.
Anytime the encounter is with the vanguard of a larger force.
Anytime the encounter is with intelligent sneaky opponents.

If the actor immediately after the "skipped 'cos she's hidden" actor is another NPC for the GM to manage, or if the next actor is a PC who was the target of the hidden NPC and so starts acting "out of turn", or if the next actor is simply a complex actor requiring the GMs full attention etc - the mere act of skipping over the hidden actor can be enough for the GM to forget her turn or even forget her completely which totally changes the challenge of an encounter.
Having the Actors turn be flagged to the GM may still mean the GM hits skip but the GM has been alerted that the NPC has a turn to take and this can be worked in however the GM feels appropriately.
The GM has so many balls in the air - for me - the reminder of the hidden actors turn being shown is a good thing.

[Zacchaeus]

Hmm. To be honest I'm not seeing any real benefit from skipping any character on the CT. I suppose fair enough for dead PC's but that must be fairly rare (well it is in my campaigns :)). I have the PCs make their own death saving throws so no skipping them for me. As for NPCs, well most of the time that NPC's come up that the PCs can't see is because they are still under the fog of war and usually they are taking meaningful actions - such as moving towards the fight. The only time that I can remember where skipping an NPC might have been useful was when there were a number of traps in a particular room as well as NPCs. Like one of the posts above my group are pretty switched on and this did give away the fact that there was 'something' that they weren't seeing.

Having said that I do like TASagent's suggestion of a tri-state visibility toggle. That, to me, would seem to satisfy the majority - if not all - of the possible options a DM would need or want.

[Moon Wizard]

The main problem I can see with tri-state toggle is the sheer confusion of the average user. I just can't see an easy way to denote this graphically, address user confusion over what each state means exactly, nor easily handle global toggling.

I'm gunning for a feature with little to no overhead, more of a fire and forget that handles any easily automated GM styles. In the worst case, they don't use and handle just like they do today.

Personally, I would use the skip dying/dead and hidden together. In the case of hidden actors that are active in combat, I would either handle their actions during the other actor turn (usually moving into position or casting defensive spells) or tell the current player to hold up because something happens (when the hidden actor takes aggressive action). As for the dying/dead state, I use the automated rolls, so auto-skip works great.

Regards,
JPG

[Griogre]

This is not a feature I would probably use since if I have hidden combatants on the tracker they are hidden for a reasons such as mentioned by damned above, and I don't use automated saves and death rolls for PCs. My NPCs all start hidden and I only reveal them both on the tracker and on the map when they can be seen, and take their initiative. Its very common for me to have tokens of NPCs revealed on the map but not on the tracker. (As a side note it is very annoying in FG when on a masked map you have a visible NPC token vanish and become invisible because you made the NPC visible on the CT. If an NPCs token is visible, then it should stay visible when the NPC is unhidden on the tracker.)

[dr_venture]

IMHO, after reading the different responses here, I'd say that this is a functionality/option that is best handled with some simple generalities. Even when playing around a table in a face-to-face game, players often get an inkling that something hidden is going on when the GM spends prodigious amounts of time doing *something* behind their GM's screen, so I'm not so worried about players knowing something's up. Something's always up! :D

Anything implemented as an option is always welcomed, as I can always disable an option I don't like. FWIW, I do often have circumstances where I'm working out the actions of unseen NPCs between the actions of the PCs, so I like the current functionality of having those NPCs have INITs to place them in the order of melee round actions, yet still "invisible" to the players. That said, there are often times that I just wish I could easily flag a combatant as being one I'd like to skip in the CT for whatever reason. For me, I just wish there was a simple way to flag a combatant in the CT as being "skipable." Maybe rather than creating a new control in the CT to flag this, use a radial menu on the INIT field that sets the combatant's INIT to "NA" (however this is accomplished in the campaign DB). Such combatants would just aggregate at the bottom of the CT.

That said, the issue isn't a huge pain point for me -- I'd like it to be smoother, but I can see it's a bit of a sticky subject.

[brautigan1]

One for the effects wiki. I'd love to be able to add "skip turn" as an effect, or as part of an effect. But, then, there are a ton more things that should trigger effects, and things that effects should trigger. I said it in my introductory post a couple of weeks ago, and I still believe it to be true: effects need a ton of expansion, and would be the thing to take FG to the next level (imo, ofc). It seems what's missing is effects that simply appear when the trigger happens, instead of needing to be manually applied. If I poison my blade and hit a guy with it, the defined "poison" effect should just be applied,and/ or a saving throw initiated -- (parameters definable by user), etc. If I'm concentrating on a spell and cast another spell with the concentration condition, the first spell effect should end on whoever it applies to, etc. "if {concentration {charname}}...," etc. Maybe this sort of thing is doable through LUA already? I have no idea. From a FG laymen's view, though, 'tis the thing to do.

But, for now, "if dead" seems fairly useful.

[darrenan]

I think this was mentioned above, but if you're skipping dying creatures you need to allow for exceptions. For instance, in Pathfinder, creatures that have Ferocity can continue fighting when below zero but are staggered. I also don't want this feature to break automatic stabilization rolls. Otherwise, I'm all for skipping dead/dying creatures.

[Moon Wizard]

I just reviewed all the comments and thoughts, and considered this some more.

Here's my current plan to implement in v3.1.2 beta.
* Add skip hidden NPCs option that is on by default. It will only trigger on being hidden in combat tracker, not if the token is hidden directly.
* Punt on dying/dead skip option.

My thoughts:
My guess is that many GMs just remove dying/dead NPCs in most cases, so skipping on dying/dead not a big issue. Also, it seems most people that responded do not want dying/dead PCs skipped in CT (plus you can always remove/add PCs from/to CT as well). All the options suggested were actually very interesting, but I'm hesitant to add yet another UI toggle or multi-state button to the CT at this point. I actually would like to streamline the CT a bit. I think the biggest bang for the buck is the hidden NPC capability which can be turned off for those that don't want it.

Regards,
JPG

[Nickademus]

So turning both options off will keep things as they are now? That sounds good.

[MadBadHare]

Just my $0.02 after reading all of this - I think just a "Skip" Flag (Checkbox for GM) on the combat tracker would be rather easy and accomplish the goal. It could be used for any circumstance really - Hidden from tracker or not, dying or not. I also think that this option would be easy to implement as it's just really an "If checked then Skip" -
Just want to point out my experience in FG is limited to about 4 weeks, so I may be completely off base. :)

[Nickademus]

... but I'm hesitant to add yet another UI toggle or multi-state button to the CT at this point. I actually would like to streamline the CT a bit.

The Skip Flag is not the direction SW wants to go.

[MadBadHare]

The Skip Flag is not the direction SW wants to go.

Noted - it is just going to be a trade off they will have to decide on. I get they want to streamline but that makes everything on the back end that much more complex to do as well as maintain. "Hesitant" was the word used so it is still a viable option. Like I said I am looking at this with a VERY fresh set of eyes.