Combat Tracker questions

[Wellness]

Hello, I am new to fantasy Grounds and will be running my first game under the 5e ruleset. I was running a ''practice'' combat with 2 instances of FG running, on GM and one connected as a player and a few questions came up.

1) it was a very simple combat against giant rats. For example, if a rat had 7 HP, when it got to 7 wounds, some of the rats went unconscious and were listed as dying. Is it possible to have them go straight to Dead? If not, what is the quickest way for the GM to set them to dead?

2) What are some best practices to deal with dead NPCs to clean up the Combat tracker? Make them invisible?

3) From the Player side, I could target NPCs with ctrl-Left click directly from the map, but I could not do it from the combat tracker. If I tried to ctrl-left click on a NPC on the combat tracker (player FG), I got the error message: Active PC not listed in combat tracker.

Thanks in advance

[Targas]

I simply delete dying/dead NPC entries (right click, delete) so that they don‘t clutter the map and the CT. You can modify the damage in the combat tracker to more than double amount of HP to the status to dead. But I don‘t bother, just delete them. As a player you can‘t steer the NPCs by default (you could if you‘d drag the NPC to the PC symbol on the tp left, but that‘s a different story). You can still drag attck or damage dice to the NPC combt tracker, instead of targeting it the other way.

[Zacchaeus]

When an NPC has taken enough wounds a red delete key appears on the far right of the NPC entry on CT. Just click it to delete the NPC from the Combat Tracker. NPCs don't auto delete since it is possible to have them be revived etc or some might regenerate.

Players can target NPCs from the Combat Tracker with CTRL+Left Click or by doing the same on the NPC token on the map. Make sure that you have properly placed the PCs and NPCs first onto the CT and then dragged from the CT onto the map. If you use encounters that have been built in an adventure module such encounters will automatically be placed correctly on both CT and map.

If you have done this and still get an error when your players CTRL+Click to target on them check that any extensions that you are using isn't the problem. I can't really think of any reason why you'd get such an error.

[Wellness]

Thank you. I haden't noticed the red delete Key, it's what I needed. I thought that I did eveything right, but I reset everything and haven't had the error since. Probably missed something the first time.

Talking about cluttering. If a NPC is hurt and runs away from a fight, what is the best way to keep the NPC ''around''? I was just putting it invisible, ready to pop back up in a further encounter, but the CT is cluttered. Any other way?

[Zacchaeus]

No, because if you remove an NPC from the CT then it'll remove any effects or wounds etc. The CT will only really get cluttered if you have big encounters. Generally it isn't a big deal. You're not placing every possible encounter onto the CT are you? You should just place the one that the PCs are taking part in. If there is a possible encounter in another room don't place that until the PCs are ready to interact with it (or the noise of combat has alerted them and they are on their way)

[Wellness]

You're not placing every possible encounter onto the CT are you?

No, I am not. Thank you for the help!

[LordEntrails]

Sometimes I will make a new encounter and drag the NPCs that have fled (or the PCs have fled) from the CT to the encounter if I want them to come back some time later. But as Mr. Z says, effects and HP will be reset. So make sure you are ok with that or otherwise handle it.

But in general, as you use FG more you'll get more used to it and aware of what you can do and what you prefer. Just keep asking questions and exploring what's capable.

[GavinRuneblade]

Talking about cluttering. If a NPC is hurt and runs away from a fight, what is the best way to keep the NPC ''around''? I was just putting it invisible, ready to pop back up in a further encounter, but the CT is cluttered. Any other way?

If you delete their initiative they appear in a clump at the bottom of the CT. Then you can use the setting to ignore invisible entities on the combat tracker and they don't impact the "next" button at all. They're still there but super easy to ignore until you want to re-activate them later.

[LordEntrails]

Their is also a GM Option to skip hidden actors. So then regardless of where they are in init they just get passed over.

[GavinRuneblade]

Their is also a GM Option to skip hidden actors. So then regardless of where they are in init they just get passed over.

Right but then you have to be careful if you use hidden status for invisible enemies who shouldn't be skipped. But yes that does work too.