FG: How to Defend?

[qdwag]

Hi guys,

So, can anyone tell me how I can activate a PC's Defend action in FG, so I can get the +4 bonus to Parry?

Thanks in advance!

[mac40k]

It is in the Effects list (small man silhouette button in upper right corner of screen). Just add it to the appropriate character.

[qdwag]

That's awesome! Thanks Mac40k!

[qdwag]

Oh erm quick question, what are these "eye" icons used for? Toggling them don't appear to do anything?

https://i.imgur.com/EgYEFR0.jpg

[superteddy57]

They are to make the effect visible/invisible when placed on the Actor for the connected clients. So they will see it on their combat tracker or not.

[qdwag]

They are to make the effect visible/invisible when placed on the Actor for the connected clients. So they will see it on their combat tracker or not.

Oh wow. That's neat but when would I need to make an effect invisible to the players? Can you give me an example or two?

[superteddy57]

Well maybe they have ingested a secret poison that only interacts with alcohol and you don't want them to know, but you want to give yourself a reminder. They ingest that fine mead in the next town and boom, die a horrible agonizing death. Just the scenario off the top of my head.

Another scenario is improvising an NPC with higher abilities or defenses and this will allow you to quickly boost/weaken a NPC without them seeing those changes.

[qdwag]

Good call :) Thanks Superteddy.

[mac40k]

Note that players can apply effects themselves, so the player wanting to use Defend or Wild Attack can open the effects box and click the button to apply an effect to themselves rather than needing the GM to do it for them, or drag an effect onto another character to apply it to a different target (such as spell effects, which are in each of the powers individual dialog boxes btw). You can also create your own effects and aren't limited to just the ones included, so if you are running a setting which has say, effects for Gravity, you can add them yourself.

The eyeball icon when it is grayed out for the GM means that effect is not visible in the effects list of players connected to you. You can see this yourself by launching a second instance of FG and connecting to your GM session using the word localhost as the host address. You can use this handy functionality when prepping for sessions to see what your players will see such as how masking on a map will look to them, what images/notes show up in the list when they open it, etc. Obviously, the only reason to gray out an effect would be the case where you don't want the players to see and/or apply the effect themselves. This is core FG functionality and while it may make more sense in other game systems, the only reason I can think of to do it SWADE would be the edge case where you've house ruled a change to one or more of the existing effects, like Cover for example, where you've created your own entries and don't want the SWADE entries showing up in the list as well.

[qdwag]

Thanks Mac40k, your answers are always appreciated!

Speaking of DIY, is it possible to create my own Special Abilities for NPCs that will interact properly with the system's automation?

[mac40k]

You can code effects on NPCs, items, etc. However, for NPCs I try to keep it simple. For example, there is no need to have a creature that has scaly hide granting 2 points of armor be coded as an effect. You just put the 2 in the little shield box adjacent to their Toughness and increase their Toughness accordingly. AP rounds will take the armor value into account either way, I just always opt for the least work solution. For DIY Special Abilities, it really depends on what you are wanting the Special Ability to do. It's hard to give a blanket answer with no idea what you might be wanting to try. Another thing I've learned over the years is that as much as I appreciate the automation (and joke about struggling to run a game without it at an actual table due to being spoiled by it), some things aren't worth the effort to me to worry about it. For a one off NPC encounter, I'm much less inclined to try to automate something than I am for say, a setting rule I want to include that will be used frequently.

[qdwag]

Well said Mac40k.

But if I did want to go abouts coding in automation, where can I find some further information on how to do so?

[mac40k]

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/Savage_Worlds_Effects

[qdwag]

Thank you so much Mac40!