Question about custom modules and tokens

[Klandare]

I am experiencing an issue on a custom module I have been making. I have taken some monsters from the monster manual and made a copy of them into my module so that i can modify them as I want. One of the thing I have done is taken a specific monster and changed its name to just a custom name (I took a Pit Fiend and named it Vos). So this works perfectly fine. But after I closed out the monster manual and went back to look at the monster I moved to my module, the monster is there fine but the token of it in my encounter has now changed to a V. What is odd is that if I click on the link for the monster, all the stats are right and the token in it matches the Pit Fiend.

I can grab the token out of the NPC page and drag it over the V in the encounter (the one for placement, not the one of the left showing what monster it is) and it will change and then I can drop that on the map and it is a Pit Fiend and not just a big V. But if I close FG down and restart and load the campaign again...it is back to a V.

Am I doing something wrong?

(When I export the module, it will not even let me do a drag and drop of the token into the module.)

Thanks.

One additional thing, creatures that I copied into my module that are also from the Monster manual but I do not modify maintain their tokens fine (like the Nightmare I brought over).

[Zacchaeus]

By changing the name you have broken the link with the monster. Tokens are linked to the monster internally and this will only work if the name of the token is the same as the NPC. So in the case of a Pit Fiend, FG will want a token called pitfiend.png and will automatically allocate that token to the NPC. If you change the name then you need to change the token otherwise as you have discovered FG will place a standard letter token if it can't find one with the same name. Since you can't access the tokens you won't be able to do this.

So either don't rename the NPC in your campaign that you are exporting; rather do the renaming in the encounter in the campaign it is being used in, or do as you are doing and link up the token again in the new campaign.

[Trenloe]

By changing the name you have broken the link with the monster. Tokens are linked to the monster internally and this will only work if the name of the token is the same as the NPC. So in the case of a Pit Fiend, FG will want a token called pitfiend.png and will automatically allocate that token to the NPC. If you change the name then you need to change the token otherwise as you have discovered FG will place a standard letter token if it can't find one with the same name. Since you can't access the tokens you won't be able to do this.
I think you're confusing the PAR5E module creation process with how Fantasy Grounds itself handles tokens attached to creatures.

When a module is created in PAR5E it will link token files that match the "sane" name of the creature ("sane" name is the XML friendly conversion of the creature name). See page 31 of "PAR5E DD5E User Guide.PDF" that comes with the public version of PAR5E.

In out Pit Fiend example, during the PAR5E process outside of FG, the record name "Pit Fiend" matches a token file of pitfiend.png. So, the XMl data in the module is stored as:

<name type="string">Pit Fiend</name>
...
<token type="token">tokens/pitfiend.png@DD MM Monster Manual</token>


And this is as far as the "creature name matches to token name" process goes.

when the creature is opened in Fantasy Grounds, FG looks at the <token> record and uses whatever that record points to. It does not use the creature name in any way at this point, only the <token> record. Even if the creature name is changed, e.g. to "Vos", the <token> entry stays the same:

<name type="string">Vos</name>
...
<token type="token">tokens/pitfiend.png@DD MM Monster Manual</token>


So, as long as Fantasy Grounds can access tokens/pitfiend.png in the "DD MM Monster Manual" module, then that token will be used. Tokens are also "special" in that the module doesn't even have to be open, as long as it is installed on the GMs computer, the token will be accessed in a module.

However, when a creature is added to the combat Tracker or an encounter, if FG cannot find a valid token file for the creature <token> entry, then it will use the first character of the name and use a letter token instead of the <token> record.

So, the process that Klandare is following should work fine - as long as the "DD MM Monster Manual" module is installed on the GM's computer (for tokens, the source module doesn't even have to be activated).

---------------------------------------------------------

@Klandare - could you expand on your process when the "V" token is seen? Did you export the module and then use the module on another computer that doesn't have the Monster Manual module installed?

[Zacchaeus]

I think you're confusing the PAR5E module creation process with how Fantasy Grounds itself itself handles tokens attached to creatures.



As ever you are correct

[Nylanfs]

I bet he doesn't have the MM open in his test campaign, therefore he wouldn't have the pit fiend token available.

[LordEntrails]

I bet he doesn't have the MM open in his test campaign, therefore he wouldn't have the pit fiend token available.
According to what Trenloe says, I don't think this is needed. Though I have not tested it myself.


So, as long as Fantasy Grounds can access tokens/pitfiend.png in the "DD MM Monster Manual" module, then that token will be used. Tokens are also "special" in that the module doesn't even have to be open, as long as it is installed on the GMs computer, the token will be accessed in a module.

[Trenloe]

According to what Trenloe says, I don't think this is needed.
Correct.

[Klandare]

I have tried it both ways with and without the MM opened.

I opened up the xml file for the module and what I found was that for each of the creatures which i changed to a custom name, the token was changed to the Letter Token of the first letter from the letter token bag.

I am going to try changing them back to the ones from the MM and see if they will work.

I checked one of my modules which I did this same thing and IT seems to have kept the tokens working fine. So maybe somewhere I did something different.

Thank you for the confirmation that what I have done seems to be the correct steps.

[Klandare]

I went back through some of my other inputted modules and sure enough all of them maintained the tokens correctly.

The only thing I can figure on this one is that I mucked up and had not placed the token pieces on a map before doing an export or something similar. And that made them revert to the letters. I did figure out that I could go into the exported module and find the custom monsters and change their letter token to the correct ones from the monster manual just bey changing it to tokens/pitfiend.png@DD MM Monster Manual (or whatever the correct token icon was). One thing when doing that is that when it changes to the letter icon it went to tokens/Medium/v.png@Letter Tokens. So if you run into the problem and correct this way you have to remove the Medium in there (I didn't the first time and it just makes a blank icon circle and it is not possible to put it on a map).