Stirge Drain effect

[Thirsterhall]

I was running The Lost Mines campaign the other night and the party ran across the group of Stirges. The stirges have a drain effect of 1d4+3 at the start of each of the stirge's turns which got parsed to [EFF: DMG0: 1d4+3]. The thing is I couldn't figure out how that is supposed to be used. If I placed the effect on the player when they where hit they took damage on thier own turn. If I placed the effect on the stirge and then targeted the effect onto the player the stirge took the damage.

Bob

[LordEntrails]

Yep, by default there is no way (that I know of) to automate an effect on another creature's turn. What you need to do is after you place the effect on the PC, change the initiative number for the effect so that it triggers on the stirge's initiative number. As long as you are not re-rolling init every turn, doing that isn't too big of a deal.

[Thirsterhall]

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind for next time.

Bob

[Trenloe]

What you need to do is after you place the effect on the PC, change the initiative number for the effect so that it triggers on the stirge's initiative number.
The initiative value in an effect on the CT is not when the effect triggers, it's when the effect duration reduces - which isn't relevant for the stirge being attached. As a side note - when an effect is applied from a creature that is currently active in the CT, the init of that creature is tagged with the effect.

@Thirsterhall - personally, I wouldn't use the DMGO effect for this, I'd just manually roll damage at the start of the stirge's turn if it's still attached.

[Thirsterhall]

Good points however one downside of not being able to use the effect is keeping track of which stirge is attached to which PC. I might try using the effect but removing the 1d4+3 damage so the effect does no damage but can still be used to track who the stirge is attached to.

[LordEntrails]

The initiative value in an effect on the CT is not when the effect triggers, it's when the effect duration reduces - which isn't relevant for the stirge being attached. As a side note - when an effect is applied from a creature that is currently active in the CT, the init of that creature is tagged with the effect.

@Thirsterhall - personally, I wouldn't use the DMGO effect for this, I'd just manually roll damage at the start of the stirge's turn if it's still attached.

Good catch. I had forgotten that.

[Trenloe]

Good points however one downside of not being able to use the effect is keeping track of which stirge is attached to which PC.
Add an informational effect to the stirge "Attached" or something like that, and leave the original targeting present on the stirge. This will tell you that the stirge is attached and which PC it is attached to - and you just double-click on the damage, with the targeting automatically applying the rolled damaged to the correct PC.