LoS / Fog of War Explored Area History?

[Ecks]

With line of sight enabled, areas that a character/token has explored but are not currently visible are shown with Fog of War. However, if the token is moved to a different map and then back, the history of the explored area is reset. Is it expected for a token to retain explored area history?

This is mostly relevant for locations with multiple maps that a PC/token might be moving between. For example, using "Player Map - Inner Baillie Lower/Upper" from Tomb of Annihilation:

Drag PC/token from Combat Tracker to Lower map and explore the map to generate explored area.
Drag PC/token from Combat Tracker to Upper map. This removes the token from the Lower map.
Drag PC/token from Combat Tracker to Lower map. This removes the token from the Upper map. The previously explored area is reset.


I also noticed that a player can drag their token from one map onto another map (I didn't expect this to work, and it doesn't appear that the GM is able to do this). This duplicates the token, but the new token is not linked to the character sheet. The player instance crashed a few moments later (player/host running on same PC), though there was nothing in console.log and I wasn't able to recreate this. A unity dialog had popped up with a progress bar before the player instance closed.

FGU version 2020-04-04

[Moon Wizard]

The LoS/FoW information is tied to a token; and tokens are different on different maps. When you move a token from one map to another; it's actually creating a new token with the same picture, and deleting the old one. We don't have any mechanism to track history across maps by token.

Regards,
JPG

[Brett Ryan]

So, to kind of take this question in a different direction.

Is there a way to retain Line of Sight memory on the same map, between sessions?

When done with a session, but not done with the map, you close it for the day. But when you open back up for the next session, the LoS is reset again.

Is there a way to "save progress" on the current map?

[Temmpest]

I wish!

[BronzeDodger]

One idea and one question:

IDEA: add an additional token (perhaps named for the map) that remains on the map when the PCs move to a new area. Drag that token along with the party while exploring. Would this let "party vision" then see through the fog of the explored areas?

Q: would there be a way to create some sort of eraser tool for the GM - such that if the PCs return to a previously explored map the GM could 'defog' explored areas (this would likely require the GM to grab a screen cap before leaving the map so they could reset it correctly).

[Zacchaeus]

So, to kind of take this question in a different direction.

Is there a way to retain Line of Sight memory on the same map, between sessions?

When done with a session, but not done with the map, you close it for the day. But when you open back up for the next session, the LoS is reset again.

Is there a way to "save progress" on the current map?

Yes, this is the default position. Closing the map and/or session does not change the LoS which is already on the map. Provided of course you don't remove the tokens before you close the session. If you are not seeing this then I'd make sure that an extension isn't interfering with the process.

[Zacchaeus]

One idea and one question:

IDEA: add an additional token (perhaps named for the map) that remains on the map when the PCs move to a new area. Drag that token along with the party while exploring. Would this let "party vision" then see through the fog of the explored areas?

Q: would there be a way to create some sort of eraser tool for the GM - such that if the PCs return to a previously explored map the GM could 'defog' explored areas (this would likely require the GM to grab a screen cap before leaving the map so they could reset it correctly).

For your first one, no since someone needs to own the token. A token on it's own won't clear LoS. You'd need to create duplicate characters for every character and leave one set of characters on the map and then put the second set on the other map.

For your second point once you have set the player's tokens back on the map (and the players are joined) the DM can move the player's tokens around to re-reveal the LoS which they previously revealed (just group the tokens up and move them all at once).

[Ecks]

I never really found a workaround but I also haven't run into a scenario where I needed to return to a map yet (though I expect this to come up when the party finally reaches the Tomb of the Nine Gods in Tomb of Annihilation). I'm thinking it would be nice for some multi-level dungeons/locations where the party might jump between maps often (e.g. Castle Ravenloft).

A potentially useful enhancement would be to save the party-vision fog of war so that it could be restored for all PCs when returning to a map. (I don't think it would be that useful for NPCs or even individual PCs as much as for the whole party).


Q: would there be a way to create some sort of eraser tool for the GM - such that if the PCs return to a previously explored map the GM could 'defog' explored areas (this would likely require the GM to grab a screen cap before leaving the map so they could reset it correctly).
Off topic, but slightly related to this eraser tool idea - across a couple of VTT platforms, I've always thought it would be a useful feature to have a "smart mask" revealing feature. The idea was to use the existing LoS boundaries and be able to click a bounded area and reveal the mask (or, in this case, FoW) within that bounded area. Mostly I wanted this when I was using Roll20 with manual masking and I got tired of spending time manually revealing areas. Not sure how feasible it is or how useful it even would be with LoS in FGU. One case where it could be really useful is for less powerful computers that cannot handle running with LoS - the GM could revert to using traditional masking but still take advantage of the LoS boundaries to quickly reveal areas without manually tracing.

[LordEntrails]

Off topic, but slightly related to this eraser tool idea - across a couple of VTT platforms, I've always thought it would be a useful feature to have a "smart mask" revealing feature. The idea was to use the existing LoS boundaries and be able to click a bounded area and reveal the mask (or, in this case, FoW) within that bounded area. Mostly I wanted this when I was using Roll20 with manual masking and I got tired of spending time manually revealing areas. Not sure how feasible it is or how useful it even would be with LoS in FGU. One case where it could be really useful is for less powerful computers that cannot handle running with LoS - the GM could revert to using traditional masking but still take advantage of the LoS boundaries to quickly reveal areas without manually tracing.
I like that idea. I hope you submit it to SW via the customer portal link in Mr Z's signature.

[Ecks]

I like that idea. I hope you submit it to SW via the customer portal link in Mr Z's signature.

Done

[WishX]

Done

Received. :)

[Brett Ryan]

That would be nice, to be able to click on a "room" or "hallway" and reveal the LOS when returning to a map rather than dragging around a token to re-reveal.