Evolving encounters - Pulling from the CT

[seycyrus]

First off, I'd like to apologize for not being able to follow through on the replies to my earlier CT thread. Real life got really busy for the past few days.

There was a bit of a heated discussion regarding the first part of my original question, but not much attention on my secondary question - Is there a way to pull NPCs out of the CT in their current state (hurt, blind, etc.) and "save" them somehow to create a new encounter, or maybe join the monsters in another encounter?

The way it is now, if you pull from the CT and try to populate a newly created encounter ("cowardly backbiting survivors" - for example), you get the original NPC statuses (they're not hurt anymore).

Is there already a workaround to do accomplish this result?

If not, what would be the terminology that I would use to phrase this as a feature request? I'm a doctor, not a programmer. ... and not even a medical doctor!

[Andraax]

If I'm going to use survivors again later, I just leave them in the CT and make them hidden. With the option "Skip Hidden" turned on, it just goes right past them.

[Trenloe]

Is there already a workaround to do accomplish this result?
Nope. Effects, conditions, wounds (for NPCs) etc. only exist in the combat tracker.


If not, what would be the terminology that I would use to phrase this as a feature request? I'm a doctor, not a programmer. ... and not even a medical doctor!
Ask for combat tracker specific data (effects, conditions, wounds, etc.) to be persisted if the NPC is copied from the CT to a campaign NPC list.

This won't be an easy change, unless the data is just copied statically and is not visible in the NPC record outside of the CT. Otherwise, it will require a whole new section of GUI and associated code to review/change effects/conditions in a NPC record outside of the CT.

Looking deeper at this, in the 5E ruleset as an example - when you drag a NPC form the CT to the campaign NPC list, all of the data from the CT is copied with the NPC record - as it is a complete database copy. However, when the NPC is added to the CT, there is specific code that only copies over a certain list of data - which doesn't include the <effects> section of the NPC record. Interestingly it does copy over any wounds the NPC originally had.

The CombatManager.addNPCHelper function that is used to add the base NPC record to the combat tracker has specific code to remove the effects: DB.deleteChildren(nodeEntry, "effects"); As this function is used when NPCs are added to the CT or copied within the CT, it makes sense to remove any effects to one NPC record that might not be needed on another NPC.

So, there would need to be some additional option - maybe a right-click menu to copy-with-effects and then relevant code to make this work smoothly from NPC records and encounter records.

[JohnD]

So you can create a new Encounter and drag your NPCs that have fled from the CT into said Encounter. It will save them as specific entities (i.e. instead of 2 Orcs you will have Orc 4 and Orc 17 or whatever they were called in the CT).

As soon as you delete these entities from the CT, what you added to the Encounter looses all it's data and when you try to re-add to the CT, you'll get a message "Missing data record, check your modules. Unable to add NPC record (name)." So this doesn't really help you.

Then I tried to pull the wounded Orcs to the NPC window. They get added fine and retain their information even when the originals are removed from the CT. You can drag the newly created Orcs back into the CT one at a time. In my test they both retained their last state (i.e. one was at 1 HP and the other at -1). So this may work.

You can create a new Encounter and add the creatures you dragged from the CT into the NPC window. They retain their data and whatever name they were assigned in the CT (i.e. Orc 3 and Orc 15). You can then re-add this new Encounter to the CT and when added back the creatures retain their state.

At least this all worked in the C&C ruleset: I'd imagine whatever you're using should be the same.

Process:
1. Drag "fled" creatures from CT into your NPC tab then delete originals from CT.
2. Create new Encounter.
3. Drag "fled" creatures from NPC tab into Encounter.
4. Add Encounter back to CT.

[Trenloe]

As soon as you delete these entities from the CT, what you added to the Encounter looses all it's data and when you try to re-add to the CT, you'll get a message "Missing data record, check your modules. Unable to add NPC record (name)." So this doesn't really help you.
Yeah, encounter records contain a link to the original record, not a copy of the record.


Then I tried to pull the wounded Orcs to the NPC window. They get added fine and retain their information even when the originals are removed from the CT. You can drag the newly created Orcs back into the CT one at a time. In my test they both retained their last state (i.e. one was at 1 HP and the other at -1). So this may work.
As I mentioned above, wounds come through, but you lose effects data. Basically, the underlying addNPCHelper code removes effects, the active active flag (if it was originally active on the CT), the original token reference (not the token image, just the original CT reference) and token scale. Everything else is copied across, and a new token reference created.

[Callum]

As I said in the other thread, I do exactly the same thing as Andraax - it works very well.

[JohnD]

As I said in the other thread, I do exactly the same thing as Andraax - it works very well.

Yes, this is what I do as well; it really isn't terribly intrusive most of the time.

[Trenloe]

Yes, this is what I do as well; it really isn't terribly intrusive most of the time.
Yeah, this is probably the most appropriate way. If you want to remove NPCs from the combat tracker because they won't be around for a while, there's a good chance that most of the effects on them would have healed/expired. So persisting effects on NPCs copied from the CT and then back might not be desirable most of the time.

[seycyrus]

Thank you all for your responses. I have tried (just tried again), to drag from the CT into NPCs, but I still get the original stats (wound level) of the NPC. Perhaps this is a ruleset issue. I am using the GURPS ruleset and will take this over to the GURPS forum.

I plan on putting this as a feature request to the appropriate list since I do think it is needed and would be helpful. When I have encounters that evolve in this fashion, the players have a big impact on determining when (if ever) they encounter the NPCs again. Not to get too philosophical, but perhaps it is a byproduct of the ruleset (game) that people play. It seems that others have encounters that tend to be more ...err... "close-ended" than what I experience. I play a low magic world where (for example) I have wounded goblins running (or limping) away to huddle in a hidden cave, and others that go to join the orcs in another cave and others join the hobgoblins. Crippled arms, bashed heads etc. won't have time to heal before the party catches up to them.

I'm not sure why I can't even do the actions that John D. can, but thanks again.

[shadzar]

but perhaps it is a byproduct of the ruleset (game) that people play. It seems that others have encounters that tend to be more ...err... "close-ended" than what I experience.

well the "close-ended" combat is a d20 system thing, since everything heals instantly with those "rests".

In AD&D when you regain 1 HP worth of damage from 8 hours of rest, the auto-heal to full between combats doesn't happen, and monsters are subject to the same healing as PCs, so you could later find the same wounded goblins you fought before.

I think the only way Celestian got AD&D into FG was using OSRIC rules? I haven't cracked into it yet, but I see a LOT of OSRIC listed there (and eagerly awaiting a final version to see what it does), which is basically d20 system like 5e, coreRPG, etc.

Been so long since i looked at GURPS, but i recall things didn't auto-heal to full after a combat with it either. (30 years does things to ones memory after having only played it a couple times)

[Callum]

Have you tried the approach that several of us have said we use, of clicking the eye symbol in the CT to hide the NPCs, or do you have some objection to this?

[seycyrus]

Have you tried the approach that several of us have said we use, of clicking the eye symbol in the CT to hide the NPCs, or do you have some objection to this?

My apologies for not answering this directly, I thought to indirectly answer this in my discussion regarding evolving encounters.

I have done that in the past when I have a bad guy hiding nearby (in both time and space), and it works sufficiently well. I have not yet tried it in the larger scenarios I was describing since we haven't been able to play. And by the way I try VERY hard to not split the party, I'm not a masochist after all.

However, I think it is plain to see that as the number of subgroups and participants gets larger, this solutions get less and less ideal. After all, people don't load up ALL the NPCs in ALL their encounters at the beginning of each game session, and then just make most of them invisible revealing them as needed, do they? Of course they don't.

[seycyrus]

I have created an item on the wishlist, https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/proj/fg2app?ia=118089.