Grouped NPCs

[diskdusk]

Hello! I am not sure if this is an issue of "Savage Worlds" or FG in general or Unity, but I decided to post it here. When I send an Encounter to the Combat Tracker, all similar NPCs are in one single group that's dealt one Initiative Card. This can be helpful in some situations, for me it's not how I want to run things, I want players and NPCs to alternate, not have all players do their things and then all NPCs. How can I deactivate this automatic grouping? Or at least drag NPCs out of the group after I added the encounter to the CT? I am playing "War of the Dead" and players could encounter 20+ Zombies and I really don't want all of them to act on the same Initiative Card.

[Neovirtus]

In 5E there is an option "Add: Auto NPC initiative", which when set to Group has this effect. I assume Savage Worlds has the same option you can turn off, but I don't use that ruleset so I'm not sure.

edit: looks like this is not applicable in SW. Sorry it wasn't relevant for you.

[LordEntrails]

MOD: Moved to Savage World forum for better visibility.

[fubeca150]

I experienced this from the opposite direction and figured it out. I had 4 orcs in an encounter and wondered why they WEREN'T grouped automatically when I moved them to the combat tracker.

In my case I needed to rebuild my encounter by dragging a single Orc to the encounter, then choosing "4" in the # box that seemed like it was tied to an identifier because I'm new to FG. When moved from the Encounter to the Combat Tracker each of the entries * # will be grouped. So in your case if you wanted 5 groups of 4, you would drag 5 zombies and put 4 in the # field. Then when you add the encounter to the CT it will have them in 5 groups of 4 each.

[diskdusk]

I don't see that option in Savage Worlds, can someone familiar with SW in Fantasy Grounds confirm that I'm not blind? :)

[diskdusk]

I experienced this from the opposite direction and figured it out. I had 4 orcs in an encounter and wondered why they WEREN'T grouped automatically when I moved them to the combat tracker.

In my case I needed to rebuild my encounter by dragging a single Orc to the encounter, then choosing "4" in the # box that seemed like it was tied to an identifier because I'm new to FG. When moved from the Encounter to the Combat Tracker each of the entries * # will be grouped. So in your case if you wanted 5 groups of 4, you would drag 5 zombies and put 4 in the # field. Then when you add the encounter to the CT it will have them in 5 groups of 4 each.

Ah, OK, gotta try that. It's gonna be quite a bit of work, but ok, War of the Dead is kind of poorly integrated anyway, so I'll have to redo the whole thing anyway, I guess.

[fubeca150]

First create an encounter

1) Drag NPC to encounter
2) The top line shows the NPC icon, an empty box (in the # column which isn't immediately obvious as to what it is), and the name of the NPC. If you put a number in the box then it will put placement tokens on the next line, one for each NPC.
3) Use the placement tokens to put the NPC onto your battle map.

I'm using FGU. I don't have FGC so I can't say what it looks like there.

Here's an image with the flow because I found that the text entry box wasn't obvious to me when I started setting up the encounter (I'm pretty new to Fantasy Grounds).

35245

[Mgrancey]

Skip Lavoiejh, he was talking about 5e which works differently than Savage Worlds.

When you create an encounter you can change how many NPCs there are by simply changing the number. However when dropped into the combat tracker. Each entry in the encounter will have all those NPCs as 1 group. To break them up when using an encounter, simply create multiple entries and they will be dropped as different groups.

35247
35248


Now, once they are in the Combat tracker, you can move them around, but this is a little bit messier though might be info you need. Since I am unsure of how familiar you are with FG, I will be thorough so please don;'t be offended since I will be explaining on a basic level.

35249 This is the drag and drop icon. Anywhere you see it you can open the linked asset or drag it to drop it in any multitude of places.

35250 This is the GROUP icon in the combat tracker.

You can move NPCs and PCs into and out of groups. You can select a specific NPC/PC and drop them into a group OR another group by clicking the Drag Icon and dropping it on the Group Icon for a specific group.
You can remove NPC/PCs from groups, so long as not the Leader (first entry not indented) by grabbing the Drag Icon and dropping it anywhere elsewhere in the combat tracker except a Group Icon.

35251

This is of course a bit more work but good for if things change during combat, it also allows you to add followers, friendly NPCs, and pets that are controlled by a PC and lets them act on same turn as their controller.

[Ikael]

Hello! I am not sure if this is an issue of "Savage Worlds" or FG in general or Unity, but I decided to post it here. When I send an Encounter to the Combat Tracker, all similar NPCs are in one single group that's dealt one Initiative Card. This can be helpful in some situations, for me it's not how I want to run things, I want players and NPCs to alternate, not have all players do their things and then all NPCs. How can I deactivate this automatic grouping? Or at least drag NPCs out of the group after I added the encounter to the CT? I am playing "War of the Dead" and players could encounter 20+ Zombies and I really don't want all of them to act on the same Initiative Card.

If you have pre-made encounter where NPCs are grouped together but want each to be individual in CT, you can use following trick: Hold down ALT when clicking Encounter's button. This will ungroup all grouped NPCs into individual when they are added to CT.

[fubeca150]

You can move NPCs and PCs into and out of groups. You can select a specific NPC/PC and drop them into a group OR another group by clicking the Drag Icon and dropping it on the Group Icon for a specific group.
You can remove NPC/PCs from groups, so long as not the Leader (first entry not indented) by grabbing the Drag Icon and dropping it anywhere elsewhere in the combat tracker except a Group Icon.

This is of course a bit more work but good for if things change during combat, it also allows you to add followers, friendly NPCs, and pets that are controlled by a PC and lets them act on same turn as their controller.

That's a lot more than I'd been able to figure out so far. Thanks for sharing. I hadn't even thought about grouping stuff with players in the CT (I didn't know you could group or ungroup once it's in the CT).

[diskdusk]

Wow, thanks for all the great ideas! That'll make things easier. This forum is golden!

[Mgrancey]

Yeah, grouping PCs can be done for a couple of reasons, main I have run into is usually when in vehicles as they will act together.

Another is if the party has split and are in different areas but not in combat. Usually deal initiative to keep things orderly

[qdwag]

Wow, thanks for that Ikael. I had no idea this was possible.

[jimweaver]

Wow, thanks for that Ikael. I had no idea this was possible.

To save some time when populating an encounter to the combat tracker - I'd love to be able to do the _opposite_. If I have NPCs of different types (say three groups of three orcs, each with an orc commander), I'd like the option of grouping the different types together ahead of time in the encounter. Instead, what you have to do because of the different types, is populate the encounter to the CT, then move the NPCs around using the "Group" drop target. It's not a big deal, but for large combats with a lot of NPCs participating, it's a bit clunky to have to pause the game session while you get everything setup.

For that matter, it'd also be nice to be able to apply _effects_ to NPCs ahead of time. Say for instance one orc group is staring behind a wall and in cover. As I've found so far, I have to make a note to apply that effect after the CT is populated - I can't set it up ahead of time in the Encounter data.

[macDsinfo]

thx for this information!

Skip Lavoiejh, he was talking about 5e which works differently than Savage Worlds.

When you create an encounter you can change how many NPCs there are by simply changing the number. However when dropped into the combat tracker. Each entry in the encounter will have all those NPCs as 1 group. To break them up when using an encounter, simply create multiple entries and they will be dropped as different groups.

35247
35248


Now, once they are in the Combat tracker, you can move them around, but this is a little bit messier though might be info you need. Since I am unsure of how familiar you are with FG, I will be thorough so please don;'t be offended since I will be explaining on a basic level.

35249 This is the drag and drop icon. Anywhere you see it you can open the linked asset or drag it to drop it in any multitude of places.

35250 This is the GROUP icon in the combat tracker.

You can move NPCs and PCs into and out of groups. You can select a specific NPC/PC and drop them into a group OR another group by clicking the Drag Icon and dropping it on the Group Icon for a specific group.
You can remove NPC/PCs from groups, so long as not the Leader (first entry not indented) by grabbing the Drag Icon and dropping it anywhere elsewhere in the combat tracker except a Group Icon.

35251

This is of course a bit more work but good for if things change during combat, it also allows you to add followers, friendly NPCs, and pets that are controlled by a PC and lets them act on same turn as their controller.


If you have pre-made encounter where NPCs are grouped together but want each to be individual in CT, you can use following trick: Hold down ALT when clicking Encounter's button. This will ungroup all grouped NPCs into individual when they are added to CT.

[macDsinfo]

Yeah, grouping PCs can be done for a couple of reasons, main I have run into is usually when in vehicles as they will act together.

Another is if the party has split and are in different areas but not in combat. Usually deal initiative to keep things orderlygroup icon is apparently gone now, hitting the edit list brings up an ungroup item, but I don't see how you can group PCs together, as you were referring to... also, took me a bit, but to group PCs, drag the drag icon to another players init card (a very subtle red frame appears, which I missed repeatedly. anyway - thanks for all the info and ideas..