Is there a way to add bear totem effect to an NPC?

[crankdawg47]

Hey All,

Was curious if there was a way to add the bear totem effect (resist all except magic and psychic) to an NPC stat block so that it works properly once it's added to the combat tracker.

I know how to manually add the effect after the fact but would prefer not to have to edit a bunch of these once the encounter starts.

[Zacchaeus]

There isn't a way to add magic resistance since FG doesn't recognise that as a thing per se. You can make an NPC resist damage types using the RESIST key word. So you would build an effect of RESIST: fire, cold, bludgeoning, piercing etc and place that on the NPC. You could use RESIST: all, !psychic (I think - not tested it) for the situation you describe.

[El Condoro]

!magic will do the magic part.

[crankdawg47]

There isn't a way to add magic resistance since FG doesn't recognise that as a thing per se. You can make an NPC resist damage types using the RESIST key word. So you would build an effect of RESIST: fire, cold, bludgeoning, piercing etc and place that on the NPC. You could use RESIST: all, !psychic (I think - not tested it) for the situation you describe.

I can write an effect for the needed resistance its RESIST: all, !magic, !psychic

My question is if there is something I can type in the resistances block for a monster that will give it that effect without me having to edit every instance of that monster once it hits the combat tracker.

[LordEntrails]

Did you try typing "all, !magic, !psychic" in the resistance block of the NPC? What if you explicity state all the types like is done with piercing, bludgeoning, slashing?

[crankdawg47]

I tried doing "all damage except psychic and magic damage" which resulted in "RESIST: !psychic, magic

once I get back home I'll try "all, !magic, !psychic" but I think I remember that not working

[Zacchaeus]

I fear I have not been clear enough, unless I am misunderstanding what is required.

You wish to apply the Bear Totem to an NPC, so whilst this creature is raging it has resistance to all damage except psychic (It would appear also that you want it to not resist magic which isn't something inherent in the Bear Totem trait). So (and I have now tested this) create an effect in the effects dialog of RESIST: all, !psychic and when the creatures turn comes around and it goes into a rage apply the effect to the creature. Henceforth (until the effect is deleted or runs out) the creature will resist all damage except psychic damage.

If you don't want to do this then the only way to do it would be to amend the resistances of the NPC in the NPC sheet by adding all of the resistances into it (except psychic obviously).

I'm not entirely clear to be honest what it is you want to do with the magic part. The suggestion above is that the effect be RESIST: all, !psychic, !magic but that will not work if a wizard were to cast a spell which dealt fire damage for example. This is because, as I said above, magic isn't seen by FG as an attack type when a spell is cast. You can set up an effect which can resist certain attacks from non magical weapons. RESIST: piercing, bludgeoning, slashing, !magic will achieve this. When placed any non magical attack that does those damage types will be resisted unless the weapon is magical. An effect of RESIST: fire, !magic will also resist all fire attacks from a weapon unless it is a magic weapon.

So if you want resistance as per the bear totem then RESIST: all, !psychic will do it. If you want the damage from a spell attack to not be resisted, then I think you are going to have to do that manually.

[LordEntrails]

If I understand correctly, he wants it on the NPC sheet and not as an effect in the CT.

[Zacchaeus]

If I understand correctly, he wants it on the NPC sheet and not as an effect in the CT.

In that case he will have to type in all the resistances into the NPC sheet (except psychic). The damage resistances line won't accept 'all', and all, !psychic will only add psychic to the resistances which is kind of opposite to the desired result. You can't drop an effect into an NPC sheet and there's no wording which would automatically add the resistances into a trait for example which would then create the effect when dropped into the CT.

And I have to say even if there was a way to add it into the NPC that would cause problems since the Bear Totem would only take effect if the NPC wished raged (it isn't automatic) and it also runs out after a period of time. So my view would be that creating an effect is the best solution all round.

[Nickademus]

and there's no wording which would automatically add the resistances into a trait for example which would then create the effect when dropped into the CT.

This is the answer the OP was looking for.

[crankdawg47]

I fear I have not been clear enough, unless I am misunderstanding what is required.

You wish to apply the Bear Totem to an NPC, so whilst this creature is raging it has resistance to all damage except psychic (It would appear also that you want it to not resist magic which isn't something inherent in the Bear Totem trait). So (and I have now tested this) create an effect in the effects dialog of RESIST: all, !psychic and when the creatures turn comes around and it goes into a rage apply the effect to the creature. Henceforth (until the effect is deleted or runs out) the creature will resist all damage except psychic damage.

If you don't want to do this then the only way to do it would be to amend the resistances of the NPC in the NPC sheet by adding all of the resistances into it (except psychic obviously).

I'm not entirely clear to be honest what it is you want to do with the magic part. The suggestion above is that the effect be RESIST: all, !psychic, !magic but that will not work if a wizard were to cast a spell which dealt fire damage for example. This is because, as I said above, magic isn't seen by FG as an attack type when a spell is cast. You can set up an effect which can resist certain attacks from non magical weapons. RESIST: piercing, bludgeoning, slashing, !magic will achieve this. When placed any non magical attack that does those damage types will be resisted unless the weapon is magical. An effect of RESIST: fire, !magic will also resist all fire attacks from a weapon unless it is a magic weapon.

So if you want resistance as per the bear totem then RESIST: all, !psychic will do it. If you want the damage from a spell attack to not be resisted, then I think you are going to have to do that manually.

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend. I appreciate everyone weighing in to assist. Let me try to clarify.

I AM wanting to add the resistances that one gets from the bear totem (minus the magic resist) to an NPC via the NPC stat sheet. This is due to the fact that I intend for my players to be fighting several of these NPCs at once and don't want to have to stop things while I edit the effects in the combat tracker.
I can, as you described, add all the various damage types to the resistances field excluding psychic, but there are two problems with this approach:
1) It's tedious and I didn't want to type all that out if someone had already found an easier way (I'm a lazy IT guy, what can I say)
2) If, for some reason, my group found a way to make up a whole new damage type, I would have to go back and add it in to each NPC that I wanted to give this trait to. So it's better, from a programming point to exclude things they aren't resistant to than to try and cover everything they are resistant to.
Additionally, FG tracks another damage type of "magic" which negates resistance to other damage types from the same source. It is most commonly found on magic weapons with physical damage, so I needed to find language to exclude resistance to a damage type if the magic type was present (I think I have found that now with the help of everyone here in the community)

So, in short, I didn't mean to sound unappreciative. I couldn't be more thankful of the help and mentoring I've received from this community. I was trying to convey a thing that I was looking for and doing a poor job of it.

[Zacchaeus]

You didn't offend in any way whatsoever.

Clearly having to type all the resistances into each NPC would be tedious and I can see why that is a non starter. Additionally as I said earlier that would be unsatisfactory anyway since the rage isn't automatic and it does have a time limit.

However adding the effect from the effects dialog means that you only need to create the effect once and then click the effect button to add it to the CT for each NPC as their turn comes around. So that shouldn't slow anything down nor create a lot of work.

If you only want to negate the resistance for magic weapon damage then it will involve a little more typing in that you'll need to create two effects. The first will be RESIST: acid, fire, cold etc and the second will be RESIST: slashing, piercing, bludgeoning, !magic. Incidentally FG only recognises the standard damage types from 5e; if you create a new damage type you can't just add it to resistance because it won't work. (At least I don't think it will - I haven't tested it).

And just to be clear, since you have mentioned typing effects into the CT, I am talking about creating the effect in the effect dialog. Click the small running man icon on the top right hand side of the screen and create the effects in the dialog that opens. Use the effect by clicking on the icon next to the effect in the same window. Apologies if you understood this but I mention it just in case.

[crankdawg47]

And just to be clear, since you have mentioned typing effects into the CT, I am talking about creating the effect in the effect dialog. Click the small running man icon on the top right hand side of the screen and create the effects in the dialog that opens. Use the effect by clicking on the icon next to the effect in the same window. Apologies if you understood this but I mention it just in case.

Didn't even know this was a thing I could do... I feel dumb now.

Thanks for pointing this out. It seems so simple now. Can I make an ability in the NPC sheet that references a custom effect I created so that I can "target" all the relevant NPCs and apply the effect to all of them at once? I doubt it but thought I'd ask.

[Zacchaeus]

Didn't even know this was a thing I could do... I feel dumb now.

Thanks for pointing this out. It seems so simple now. Can I make an ability in the NPC sheet that references a custom effect I created so that I can "target" all the relevant NPCs and apply the effect to all of them at once? I doubt it but thought I'd ask.
Not as such. You could create a PC with the effect on it and havt that PC only available to you. With that PC on the CT you could select multiple targets and place the effect on all the targets. Seems overkill though, and the presence of the PC could complicate other things.

[crankdawg47]

Not as such. You could create a PC with the effect on it and havt that PC only available to you. With that PC on the CT you could select multiple targets and place the effect on all the targets. Seems overkill though, and the presence of the PC could complicate other things.

I'd have to agree. Still its better than nothing. Thanks for the tip