Question about Prices of the Apocalypse & caster levels on NPCs

[Galdrin]

My search for hidden things-skills aren't the best so I decided to create a new thread incase someone else looks for this in the future.

My PotA campaign has now reached the level where we run encounters with NPCs that has the following description in the text:
"The XYZ is a 6th-level spellcaster"

The NPC also has spells that says:
"spell's damage increases by 1d8 when you reach 5th level ..."

I understand that it might be hard to automatically parse this and the result is that the NPC is represented as a lvl 1-4 spell-user in the combat tracker. I noticed that the NPCs in the encounters are write-protected so I can't easily just adjust this without creating a new copy of the NPC, modifying the spells and then replacing the NPC in the encounter.

I'd like to do this in advance now that I have a few days and wonder if anyone might have a list of encounters that has NPC's that needs to be modified before I start going through each encounter?

[kylania]

Taking Oreioth as an example the quickest solution is to add the encounter to the Combat Tracker. Then under Actions/Spells click on the lines for Chill Touch and Shocking Grasp and arrow over to change the text of the [DMG:1d8 necrotic] to 2d8 in those lines.

[Galdrin]

Thank you Kylania for the swift answer. I knew about that fix "on the fly" but to battle my bad memory I'd like to fix it outside gaming sessions and as I wrote, I'm just checking if anyone has a list of encounters that needs to be fixed before I go through them one by one.

[Zacchaeus]

There isn't a list of encounters such as you seek. You can go through the NPC list (not the encounters) and edit the spells damage there and when the NPC is placed on the CT the new damage will be available.

An alternative is to leave things as they are and when you come to cast the spell instead of double clicking to apply the damage pick it up and hold, then right click to add the required extra dice before dropping on the target.

[Galdrin]

Perfect! I only checked the NPC via the encounter. Never thought of looking it up via the NPC tab.

I'll change the NPCs as I tend to forget things in the heat of the battle and tend to focus on roleplaying the battle more than checking number of dices.

[Galdrin]

Hmm, I must have missunderstood you Zacchaeus. Encounters doesn't seem to be linked NPCs but copies of the NPCs so I still need to identify all encounters, replace the NPCs and drag new tokens to the battlemaps.

[Zacchaeus]

Hmm, I must have missunderstood you Zacchaeus. Encounters doesn't seem to be linked NPCs but copies of the NPCs so I still need to identify all encounters, replace the NPCs and drag new tokens to the battlemaps.

No you didn't misunderstand it was me giving you false information. You can perform that trick in some modules but not others; it depends on how the modules were constructed and unfortunately PoTA was done a bit differently to most of the others. So you are correct in that you will have to proceed as you suggest. Almost in any other module you could have altered the NPC in the NPC list.

[Galdrin]

Ok, well, it's a good thing I have some time before next gaming session. I'll start going through NPC's and encounters that needs to be modified and create my own copies of them. If I manage to document it in a readable way I'll post it here once done.

[LordEntrails]

No you didn't misunderstand it was me giving you false information. You can perform that trick in some modules but not others; it depends on how the modules were constructed and unfortunately PoTA was done a bit differently to most of the others. So you are correct in that you will have to proceed as you suggest. Almost in any other module you could have altered the NPC in the NPC list.

Is the capability of having these linked to the NPC list vs. a copy made when making an encounter something that can be done with the GUI when making our own modules? Making copies is the only way I know of how to do it myself, but might want to do it as a link in some cases.

[Zacchaeus]

You can create an encounter either by dragging an NPC directly into the encounter from (say) the Monster Manual or you can drag an NPC from the list of NPCs in the campaign. The difference would be that the NPC in the NPC list is a copy and therefore can be edited but the one from the MM is locked and cannot be edited. You would also have to have the source module open for the link to function correctly.

Thus most people create a copy of the NPC for use in their campaign.

[LordEntrails]

I hadn't thought of the difference in where I drag the link from when placing in an encounter. Thx