Out of the Abyss Token placement

[lordsoth3]

Hello, I'm new to Fantasy Grounds. I purchased and activated the OotA module. I had thought that the encounter and trap tokens would have been pre-placed on the maps, but for me it's not so. Should these tokens already be placed on the maps for the various encounters or is it all manual placement? Thanks.

[damned]

Welcome lordsoth3

You may be coming from a different VTT with a different way of doing things.
In Fantasy Grounds these tokens are stored in Encounters.

Have a look at some of Zacchaeus excellent videos https://www.youtube.com/user/Zacchaeus55/videos
also see encounters here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/Encounters

I would stop what you are currently doing and try the 5e Demo Campaign - it will walk you thru some of these things.

[lordsoth3]

Yeah, that's what I've been doing, however, the demo campaign has the token's pre-placed as indicated by checkmarks in the encounters window. This is the same I expected from the OOTA module, but within that module, they are all the icons and I have to manually place them.

[SirGraystone]

It depend of the adventure, they often are placed already when you explore a dungeon or something, but many of the encounter in OotA it depend of the players placement. Which is probably why you have to manually place them. But you can open the encouter, drag them to the map from the encounter window and when you drag the encounter to the combat tracker later it will remember where you put them.

[damned]

Hi lordsoth3 I dont have OotA but Id be very surprised if that were the case. Can you post a screenshot? Are you working from the Player Maps?

If OotA is a big sandbox what SirGraystone says is worth checking out. Some might be placed and some might depend on where they encounter each other.

[lordsoth3]

Attached. This is the first chapter. I used the Southern watch post as it states, 2 drow are stationed here at all times. Would seem the perfect example for them to preload the tokens. If I need to go through each chapter and do so, that's fine. I was just hoping to avoid it. I've check both the player and DM maps. Both are the same. 24106

[SirGraystone]

I do have OotA if FG, the Velkynvelve map for the start of the adventure don't have NPC placement, others like the Oozing Temple map, the Lost Tomb map and the Hook Horror Lair in chapter two do have the npc showing on the map when you drag the encounter to the Combat Tracker. So it does depend of the map.

But then Velkynvelve have spires with multi layer or level in them, making hard to place the npc too. On top of that the PCs will be with little gear on them, so you should probably be flexible on where you put the encounters so you don't TPK.

[Zacchaeus]

Oota probably has the least amount of token placement of all the modules due to the random nature of much of the action and the lack of proper battlemaps in many cases.

[lordsoth3]

Thanks all. I did some spot checking beyond Velkynvelve but maybe I just happened to grab the others that weren't placed. We'll see how it goes. Either way, having to place will be good experience for me. Really looking forward to my first DM!

[damned]

Hey lordsoth3 the other posters have alluded to the fact that this is a sandbox kinda adventure and its very easy for the players to end up way over their heads very early on... have fun and try not to kill too many foolish characters!

[SirGraystone]

Awww, but killing foolish characters was my favorite part of being DM :D

[NinkasiNinja]

I am also dissappointed in the lack of pre placement. That is why paid for the module, to save some work. So I spent a day trying to figure out the first scenario, why nothing was up (I am also an FG noob). I thought I had did something wrong. But I did find Zacchaeus's maps in the process, and appreciate the work!

[JohnQPublic]

Attached. This is the first chapter. I used the Southern watch post as it states, 2 drow are stationed here at all times. Would seem the perfect example for them to preload the tokens. If I need to go through each chapter and do so, that's fine. I was just hoping to avoid it. I've check both the player and DM maps. Both are the same. 24106

Something is wrong. I opened that same encounter and it shows checkmarks for placement. 26761
I clicked through the encounters in OOTA and most of them have placement.

[Zacchaeus]

Something is wrong. I opened that same encounter and it shows checkmarks for placement.
I clicked through the encounters in OOTA and most of them have placement.

This is because I just updated OotA a bit and it was released I think last Tuesday. Originally those encounters were not placed because technically they take place on the floor below the one shown on the main map and there's no map for the sublevels of the three dimensional start location. However I added them anyway - even though they are technically wrong.