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joshuha
April 23rd, 2007, 14:13
New things in FG 2

LUA SCRIPTING! This is huge and look for awesome scripts to come out soon.


Tokens/Combat Tracker:


Tokens resize themselves in the token bag.

Tokens can scale on the map individually by increasing their scale on the combat tracker.

Tokens can be set to always invisible and invisible only when masked.

When tokens are locked, can declare waypoints and tokens will move along the path when approved by the DM.

NPCs can be assigned tokens in the combat tracker and dragged to the map to create a token linked to that entry.

NPC tokens will automatically highlight the threatened squares depending on its size (the grid has to be on).

Can drag a portrait to a map to auto-create a token linked to the character.

Combat tracker can automatically jump to the next person in list and will increment the round counter after it gets to the bottom and then starts at the top. This also ties in to automatically tracking effect durations.

Map tokens / combat tracker is saved when closing down FG.

Players can target NPCs by clicking on them. This shows in the combat tracker as well as highlighting the NPC with the player color.


Character sheet

Improved spell interface that can handles preparation and spontaneous casting.

Keeps track of skill points much easier now.

Local character mode allows different methods of rolling/creating character.

In the Special Abilities section, you can create an entry and then drag a die or a number from the modifier box to keep track of an ability (Such as spell-like abilities or Turn Undead) that has a limited number of uses per day.



Other:


Can now paste into the chat line (ctrl+v).

Can from the same session create/play multiple characters (right-click to switch)

Players can only see and choose characters they created (tied to their login name).

Multiple die work by either dropping them into hotkeys or a field on your sheet that supports them (weapon damage)

Modules (including rulebook plugin type modules) can be forced to load on a player, optional to load, or only seen by the DM.

Improved navigator mode for DM to be able to see the map from a bird's eye view to quickly change the player’s viewpoint of the map.

There is a /reload command to reload campaign/ruleset information. Note this doesn't work if users are logged in.

You can drag and drop the tokens to individual monsters in the new d20 Monsters stats entries, so that when you drag and drop them into the combat tracker they automatically can assign the token you want for that default monster.

The High Druid
April 23rd, 2007, 14:37
Another thing for the combat window - a player can click on an enemy token and the players icon shows up in the monster entry on the tracker. In cases where you have, for example, 3 identical kobalds it's easy to see which the player is targeting and adjust the hit points on the right monster. Very neat feature.

joshuha
April 23rd, 2007, 14:39
I forgot about that one and actually the monster token on the map should highlight with the player color targetting it. You can use this in the LUA scripting as a token knows which identity/identities are targetting it. Adding it to the list!

Cantstanzya
April 23rd, 2007, 22:30
Maps are no longer viewable by users through windows explorer. It used to be that if a player knew where to look he/she could open up windows explorer and browse to that location and open up the map in paint or other graphics program. This is also know as cheating. I think it is great that they made it so that you know people aren't cheating.

Griogre
April 23rd, 2007, 23:24
Yeah and it would crash FG if they had it open and you changed something... :p

Tailz Silver Paws
April 24th, 2007, 00:46
I have a question, which I shall ask here as I am currently at work and can't try this out at home....

Since you can now set a token in the combat tracker to be your own token, and drag that token from the combat tracker to the map. If you change your token on the combat tracker, will your current map token also change to the new one on the combat tracker?

eg: I am using character X and the token shows the character in a standing pose, but in the next combat turn I have to change that token to one of the character in a prone or wonded pose?

joshuha
April 24th, 2007, 01:41
I don't think it works that way. Placing the token on the map creates a link between that token and the entry but at that point it becomes part of the map's internal list of tokens. It won't automatically update the token although you could script this with LUA with a bit of work.

richvalle
April 24th, 2007, 03:36
I thought the devs said they were going to change this... so the token did change size.

Right now it does not. It adds a red shade to the space the token takes up and gray for the reach.

I'd rather have big tokens.

rv

Griogre
April 24th, 2007, 04:00
I have a question, which I shall ask here as I am currently at work and can't try this out at home....

Since you can now set a token in the combat tracker to be your own token, and drag that token from the combat tracker to the map. If you change your token on the combat tracker, will your current map token also change to the new one on the combat tracker?

eg: I am using character X and the token shows the character in a standing pose, but in the next combat turn I have to change that token to one of the character in a prone or wonded pose?
Tailz, I was playing around in FG2 and I think this works.

greowhiste
April 24th, 2007, 05:06
I just tested this and it does not work for me. good idea though.

joshuha
April 24th, 2007, 05:09
I thought the devs said they were going to change this... so the token did change size.

Right now it does not. It adds a red shade to the space the token takes up and gray for the reach.

I'd rather have big tokens.

rv

In the combat tracker hold control and use the mouse wheel up over the token image. This should put a number above it and increase the scale.

Griogre
April 24th, 2007, 05:14
I misread the question slighty. :o You can change the token but you have to redrag the token out from the tracker to make this work. Probably not what you wanted.

AndyPan
April 24th, 2007, 05:47
In the combat tracker hold control and use the mouse wheel up over the token image. This should put a number above it and increase the scale.

You have just eliminated my one small disappointment I had upon seeing FG2. I am now thrilled beyond belief. This was everything I could have wanted, and more! Kudos to the developers! This was well worth the wait!

Tailz Silver Paws
April 24th, 2007, 07:47
I misread the question slighty. :o You can change the token but you have to redrag the token out from the tracker to make this work. Probably not what you wanted.
I thats ok for the moment, but it would be better if it was dynamicaly linked so if you changed your combat tracker token, the token on the map would change to match it.

Griogre
April 24th, 2007, 07:49
I think that would be cool, especially for shape changers.

Lee S.
April 24th, 2007, 08:08
I currently use a trackball with no 'mouse wheel'. Is it possible to emmulate the mousewheel with another keystroke for this purpose?

Edit - Found it. I was able to set my trackball so that holding both keys and dragging would act as a universal scroll.

rom90125
April 24th, 2007, 13:57
Can one client now 'play' multiple characters? It was my understanding that FGII would support this feature.

Thanks.

joshuha
April 24th, 2007, 14:04
Can one client now 'play' multiple characters? It was my understanding that FGII would support this feature.

Thanks.

Yes they can create and login multiple characters. From there they can just right click and Activate one to speak in that characters voice.

Casamordius
April 24th, 2007, 17:23
Is ist also possible that the GM logs in as a "multiple" character? this would allow to handle nsc companions or absent players much more elegant..

mr_h
April 24th, 2007, 18:17
My god that's beautiful (screenshot taken from client only view with two characters being played by one dude)


https://supernovagaming.com/~mrh/OnePlayerTwoPCs.JPG


Is ist also possible that the GM logs in as a "multiple" character? this would allow to handle nsc companions or absent players much more elegant..

A GM can bring up the NPC listing and click the little speech bubble on the upper right. That'll toss the npc name at the bottom of the screen, letting the GM act/speak as that npc.

kimba
April 24th, 2007, 19:16
I currently in 1.5 have all the characters also as npc's so if they are missing I can run them and not hurt the parties -
but the question remains - can I as the DM open a missing players character and use it like a player?

joshuha
April 24th, 2007, 19:31
I currently in 1.5 have all the characters also as npc's so if they are missing I can run them and not hurt the parties -
but the question remains - can I as the DM open a missing players character and use it like a player?

Not probably how you are thinking of. A DM would have access to the sheet as far as stats and stuff are concerned and could create an /id that matches the PC name to talk through him/her. This is what I did in 1.05 when I had a player gone and I wanted to play them real quick.

Or the DM could start another local session, change the login name to match the player login name, and that character would be available for choosing. However, then you have to ALT-TAB between them or have dual monitors or something.

Dachannien
April 24th, 2007, 20:52
Is FG 2 more stable than FG 1 to run across multiple monitors, or even just to move it to the secondary monitor if desired? FG 1 would usually bog down or even crash when this was attempted.

Griogre
April 24th, 2007, 20:52
Is ist also possible that the GM logs in as a "multiple" character? this would allow to handle nsc companions or absent players much more elegant..
Unfortunately not. This is a requested thing. As a work around tell one of you players to log on with the missing PC also. Once you have the "ring" up there it is much faster and easier to deal with the PC. This is what I plan to do anyway.

longarms
April 25th, 2007, 00:05
"Is FG 2 more stable than FG 1 to run across multiple monitors, or even just to move it to the secondary monitor if desired? FG 1 would usually bog down or even crash when this was attempted."

I also want to know if there were any improvements to multi monitor support. I only have one set up now, but if there is a better solution for getting more screen area then before, I am all for setting up another one ;)

longarms
April 25th, 2007, 03:58
"In the combat tracker hold control and use the mouse wheel up over the token image. This should put a number above it and increase the scale."

I have followed these instructions with no luck. Can someone try to explain it to me again? Is there a way to do this without using the mouse wheel - our mouse wheels may be configured differently.

Griogre
April 25th, 2007, 04:34
1) Drag a token onto the first line of the init tracker.
2) Drag the token onto an open map.
3) Put he mouse over the token on the init tracker and roll the mouse wheel.

I don't know if there is another way to do this.

Ged
April 25th, 2007, 05:54
Seems like EN World (www.enworld.org) is referencing to this thread as the list of features of Fantasy Grounds II. Thanks joshuha for putting the list together.

Scelous
April 25th, 2007, 11:11
Wow. I've been using FG for awhile now; my group and I love it. I wasn't aware that FGII was in the works. I just checked it out, looked at all the new features, and nearly wept.

This is some real good work, and I'm very impressed. Thanks go to the developers for continually making this a better product. I respect your dedication.

Note: I wasn't kidding about the weeping. It is that good.

richvalle
April 25th, 2007, 15:02
1) Drag a token onto the first line of the init tracker.
2) Drag the token onto an open map.
3) Put he mouse over the token on the init tracker and roll the mouse wheel.

I don't know if there is another way to do this.

Yep, I just tried this and it works. You have to have the token on a map with the grid on first though.

The number it changes too is the size inc the token goes up. I.e. rolling the mouse up to 2 = twice as big. When you do this you'll want to move the token to the center of 4 squares or the spacing is not right.

rv

AndyPan
April 25th, 2007, 15:46
I haven't tried it yet, but can the size of the token be scrolled smaller? Liek for instance, if you've saved everything in your token box to usable as a Medium-sized creature right out of the box, but in reality, that creature is Small, can it be made smaller?

lkj
April 25th, 2007, 19:11
Will there be an updated manual for FG 2? Any ETA? I only ask because it often seems there are many features that aren't obvious just from use.

AD

Ged
April 25th, 2007, 19:17
Manual and public documentation is our priority after the initial issues are solved. Not giving any ETA - we don't have pleasant memories of giving ETAs :bandit:

lkj
April 25th, 2007, 19:54
Fair enough. Thanks for the quick reply.


AD

untamo
April 25th, 2007, 21:45
How are wounds tracked in FG2? In FG1 you added wounds. so if you had a max hp of 65 and took 10 damage you would have max hp = 65; wounds=10.

I've always preferred to go down so that the above example becomes: Max wounds 65; wounds (left)=55. To do that in FG1 you had to report damage as negative values, -10.

Does FG2 handle this any differently?

richvalle
April 25th, 2007, 22:27
I think its the same as FG1... but you can do this if you want.

Just put max HP's in the Wounds and drag damage over as a - and drop it. I think you press the cntrl key as you drag and drop. Then it will count down as you do it.

To do heals you just drag and drop to add... the opposite of what you do now.

rv

Sir Bayard
April 25th, 2007, 23:04
I haven't tried it yet, but can the size of the token be scrolled smaller? Liek for instance, if you've saved everything in your token box to usable as a Medium-sized creature right out of the box, but in reality, that creature is Small, can it be made smaller?

Yes, the token can be sized smaller. Simply hover over the character token in the Combat Tracker, and just scroll the mousewheel down. It'll put a number like 0.9, 0.8, etc. Sizing it bigger scorll up and it goes 1.1, 1.2, etc. If you hold Contorl you can go up by whole numbers (2, 3, 4) a lot fatser than the .1 .2 .3 method.

longarms
April 26th, 2007, 03:49
"1) Drag a token onto the first line of the init tracker.
2) Drag the token onto an open map.
3) Put he mouse over the token on the init tracker and roll the mouse wheel."

Followed the instructions step by step and its working :)

Thanks Griogre!

This is a great feature as my tokens are often mismatched for the wrong size (small things have big tokens, big things have small tokens, etc.) I must compliment whoever on the design team decided to make fine granularity so that we can make things 110%, 120%, 130%. A simple feature would have been twice as big, half as big, but that would not have accomodated tokens being 110% too big, or 90% too small, etc. Good job to whoever decided to go the extra mile with the extra fine control.

Also makes casting enlarge person more fun ;)

Ged
April 26th, 2007, 04:13
twice as big
Ctrl-mouse wheel speeds the scaling up to integer steps.

AndyPan
April 26th, 2007, 14:46
I'm telling ya, I have been visiting the board religiously since Monday, and I have been learning the mostincredible stuff about this release! (What's sad is I am also learning about features in 1.5f that I never knew were there arrrgh!)I am loving this program more and more every day.

Hats off to the developers! It may have seemed like it took forever, but it was worth the wait for sure.

greowhiste
April 26th, 2007, 17:12
I agree, and that is all the more reason I await the release of the manual: so that all of their hard work and intelligent design can be fully appreciated. Scanning through the message boards takes a lot of time, and a comprehensive list is eagerly anticipated.

About the resizing of tokens, i'm surprised this function is in the combat tracker however. It seems everything is stemming from that window, the attributing of tokens to baddies, the scaling, the application of color-coded (friendly, neutral, hostile) descriptors...

As a DM and beginning a session, it seems as if you should open up the combat tracker before you even open a map, regardless if there is any "combat" on that map or not. Thoughts? (this could potentially spill to a different thread, sorry for posting in an important one...)

Yenooc
April 26th, 2007, 17:14
Yes, thank you, GED, for the quick reply about the manual/documentation. :D

What I'm reading in these forums about the features and techniques is . . . overwhelming--although I admit that it doesn't take much to overwhelm me. :o My only plea is that you make it suitable "For Dummies," so that those of us in the technical bottom percentiles will be able to enjoy at least a good portion of FGII's great potential. ;)

Necron99
April 26th, 2007, 18:08
Sir Baynard reports:

"I noticed that you can drag and drop the tokens to individual monsters in the new d20 Monsters stats entries, so that when you drag and drop them into the combat tracker they automatically can assign the token you want for that default monster."

Just wanted to get that documented and credited :)

sppeterson
April 26th, 2007, 19:34
Sir Baynard reports:

"I noticed that you can drag and drop the tokens to individual monsters in the new d20 Monsters stats entries, so that when you drag and drop them into the combat tracker they automatically can assign the token you want for that default monster."

Just wanted to get that documented and credited :)

This works well -- but, so far, it seems that the tokens get cleared when you exit the game. So you need to reset them every time you start up again.

Sir Bayard
April 26th, 2007, 22:32
Hmm, odd, it is doing it now, but when I first discovered it, it wasn't. That's how I saw that it wasn't carrying over from campaign to campaign (reference original post). When I exited and loaded a new campaign, saw they weren't there, so I exited and went into old campaign, saw them there. Now, everytime I exit it wipes out the token assignment.

Necron99
April 27th, 2007, 15:00
In the Special Abilities section, you can create an entry and then drag a die or a number from the modifier box to keep track of an ability (Such as spell-like abilities or Turn Undead) that has a limited number of uses per day.

Necron99
April 27th, 2007, 17:44
In the combat tracker, if the "personality" has an entry for attack or full attack, you can simple grab the entry with the mouse and throw it into the chat window to roll - with all modifiers, including those in the modifier box.

richvalle
April 27th, 2007, 17:52
In the combat tracker, if the "personality" has an entry for attack or full attack, you can simple grab the entry with the mouse and throw it into the chat window to roll - with all modifiers, including those in the modifier box.

And if it is a full attack you get ALL the attacks. So a lion with a claw, claw, bite rolls all 3 d20's and you get two claw attacks and the one bite attack.

I LOVE this. Dragons are going to be SO much fun now. :)

rv

Sir Bayard
April 27th, 2007, 17:54
In the combat tracker, if the "personality" has an entry for attack or full attack, you can simple grab the entry with the mouse and throw it into the chat window to roll - with all modifiers, including those in the modifier box.

You can do the same thing for the damage as well, and you can grab the attacks and damage from the actual personality's sheet. When typing in your own personalities, it works as well, as long as you following the format of

"Weapon Name" "+#" ("Damage") ie Longsword +7 (1d8+4)

If typing in multiples, use the or command or it won't recognize them seperately. ie

Longsword +7 (1d8+4) or Longbow +3 (1d8) (for Full Attack type and instead of or)

demonsbane
April 27th, 2007, 18:24
Sorry for hijacking the thread but... I just noticed FG II is available!

Congratulations!

Goblin-King
April 27th, 2007, 19:56
Any GM dropped damage on a player portrait yet? :)

richvalle
April 27th, 2007, 20:03
Cute! I like it.

I thought it might do the damage onto the init tracker... but no. Still good though.

rv

Ged
April 27th, 2007, 20:13
I thought it might do the damage onto the init tracker... but no. Still good though.
Yeah, it might, but it has more versatile possibilities this way: for instance the GM can give players a threshold for a die roll in order to succeed in some action etc. It's more generic this way but admittably in combat situation your idea would be kind of neat.

richvalle
April 27th, 2007, 20:19
I also wondered if it was a private tell... i.e. send the data to the player so he can drag and drop but no one else knows just how much damage that person took. I logged in another client to check though and everyone gets the message.

I kinda like this idea too. I guess I'm full of them today. :P

Everyone have a good weekend!

rv

kimba
April 27th, 2007, 22:39
is there a way to hide the damage a pc have received from them. I prefer to tell players how bad they are hurt rather than let them see the damage rolls against them.
I think this gives teh players a little more caution and urgency to protecting themselves. that pesky acid trap sure works better when they don't know how bad it is.
SO is there a way for me to track actual hit points but just give teh players a general condition?

Sir Bayard
April 27th, 2007, 22:53
Yeah, all your damage rolls are hidden, so just don't tell them the numbers. If you want to track the actual numbers, pen and paper works, or even a note in the game if you don't want them to ever see anything in their wounds section.

Griogre
April 28th, 2007, 18:36
On the note of a new feature my players noticed last night - If you change your Character's Name on the Character sheet it changes the name on ring at the top left and in chat. This is very nice, but it is also an effective alias feature for characters and coupled with a portrait change allows characters to change their appearance and title on the fly.

I had a cleric in a formal setting last night changing his normal character name to his more formal priestly title and last name and it was a very nice touch.

Ablefish
April 28th, 2007, 21:06
Heh, one of our players is running a halfling theif and he has a whole library of faces he plucked from Order of the Stick. He changes it regularily was the DM descibes events. It's frickin hilarious.

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0439.html

Callum
May 3rd, 2007, 16:41
Sir Baynard reports:

"I noticed that you can drag and drop the tokens to individual monsters in the new d20 Monsters stats entries, so that when you drag and drop them into the combat tracker they automatically can assign the token you want for that default monster."
I can't get this to work for generic monsters, only for individually-created personalities. Is this what you meant? (So, if you wanted to associate a goblin token with some generic goblin stats, you'd have to drag the goblin entry into the Personalities book and then drag the goblin token onto that.)

Sir Bayard
May 3rd, 2007, 23:54
In actuallity, it was proven that it was a bug to be able to assign them to the monsters, and we never should have been able to at all. We were only supposed to be able to assign tokens to Personalities. I would assume what you mentioned would work by dragging a creature into Personalities, but I have not tested it really since I'm DMing anything at the current time.

Necron99
May 4th, 2007, 04:31
It does indeed work; You must first drag the monster entry into the Personalities list. There, you can edit the creature and assign a token to it. As long as the token remains and the Personalities entry is not deleted, the assignment works great.

I gather that the d20 modules are supposed to be non-editable.

I tell ya, it's a curse - you have no idea how busy I am making tokens :)

Enforcer84
May 5th, 2007, 09:00
I have the lite version, I just downloaded 2 and wow.
0ne, I don't seem to be required to enter my license, is that true or am I not looking hard enough?
Two, can I grab my old character from v1? Or do I have to imput him again?

Griogre
May 5th, 2007, 09:31
1) FG2 looks for the FG1 license, if it finds it it won't ask you for it.

2) Server characters in campaigns you play in are converted when the GM converts the campaign. The conversion is not perfect. You will have to reinput spellbooks, Weapon Slots and Notes again on server characters. To take advantage of the new inventory features you will need to cut and paste your inventory items so they are only "one per line". Local characters are not converted. I'm not sure if you can cut and paste the xml of local characters or not. You might try creating a local character in FG2 with just the name of the character you want to convert to create a placeholder, then cut and paste the xml of the FG1 character over the place holder and see what happens.

Callum
May 5th, 2007, 15:39
You can drag-and-drop attack and damage rolls from the NPC (personalities) sheets straight into the chat window. This automatically rolls the appropriate dice with bonuses, and relevant descriptive text!

NB. To avoid revealing to your players that a weapon is magical or masterwork, make sure you enclose that bit of text in brackets - e.g. "[mwk] heavy flail +6 melee (1d10+4/19-20)".

longarms
May 9th, 2007, 04:13
There is an answered question in this thread...

""Is FG 2 more stable than FG 1 to run across multiple monitors, or even just to move it to the secondary monitor if desired? FG 1 would usually bog down or even crash when this was attempted.""

Any new multi monitor features? It would be cool to know if there are any changes without having to set up my extra monitor and test. Thanks in advance...

Jingo
May 9th, 2007, 16:45
"Is FG 2 more stable than FG 1 to run across multiple monitors, or even just to move it to the secondary monitor if desired? FG 1 would usually bog down or even crash when this was attempted."


FG2 still crashes when this is attempted. You must enable the second monitor first before starting FG2.

VarnFury
May 12th, 2007, 01:47
Im wondering sense people in the campaign i play with brought it up, Is there a way as a PC to be able to see your team-mates Health points like a Combat tracker in 2.0?

Sir Bayard
May 12th, 2007, 03:06
Not that I have ever found. Best way is for OOC conversations. In the campaign I play in the GM doesn't even post damage publicly, he adds it to our sheets and we role play it out (Better role play good or the cleric will let you die. lol)

Cantstanzya
May 12th, 2007, 17:02
Not that I have ever found. Best way is for OOC conversations. In the campaign I play in the GM doesn't even post damage publicly, he adds it to our sheets and we role play it out (Better role play good or the cleric will let you die. lol)I completely agree. To display everyones hit point value only takes away from the game.

Griogre
May 12th, 2007, 20:42
I totally agree on players knowing each others specific hit points. On the other hand I would like a general indication. IE changing the color of the ring around the portrait such that when the character is full to lightly wounded at 76% to 100% of total hit points the ring would be green; at 75-51% yellow and moderately wounded; 50-26% orange and seriously wounded; and when at 25% or less hp red and critically wounded.

Sir Bayard
May 12th, 2007, 21:14
I totally agree on players knowing each others specific hit points. On the other hand I would like a general indication. IE changing the color of the ring around the portrait such that when the character is full to lightly wounded at 76% to 100% of total hit points the ring would be green; at 75-51% yellow and moderately wounded; 50-26% orange and seriously wounded; and when at 25% or less hp red and critically wounded.

I think that would be a greta addition, but there should also be the ability to turn it on or off. In a case like my current campaign, it would defeat the purpose of being forced to role play it if people could just look at my ring and tell how hard I was hit.

Also, some people do the whole put your HP there and add negative's so you can subtract wounds down rather than add wounds up, and that would confuse people (Um.. red meansa I'm healthy, and green mena's I'm hurting bad. lol)

Overall though, I think that is an awesome idea!

Thelgar
May 21st, 2007, 08:00
You can just as easily, if not more easily, roleplay knowing the numbers. Show me the numbers when I mouseover someone's character. Or, better yet, give me a mini with everyone's HP on it and add a condition summary (poisoned, weakened, diseased, whatever) on it.

Typing, "Varn winces from his badly broken leg." gives me crap nothing to work with in determining what spell to use to try to fix it. And having 6 people trying to type their relative levels of hit point loss after a combat by describing their wounds is just a sloppy mess.

You could have people type "Varn winces from his Minorly/Lightly/Moderately/Seriously/Critically broken leg" but that is just awful.

It's much easier to roleplay (after Fred the Cleric sees varn lost 27 HP and decides to cast Cure Critical Wounds), "Fred the Cleric rushes to Varn's side after the fall and, recognizing the awful nature of Varn's injuries, places his hand on Varn's shoulder and calls upon the power of God of Fred. The broken bone recedes back into the skin, the bleeding wound closes and the limb straightens."

After which Varn (seeing his HPs back to full), can roleplay, "Varn flexes and straightens his leg several times before standing and putting his weight on it. He turns to Fred and says, 'It's like it never happened.'"

Or, Fred the Cleric's player can look at the HP totals after a battle, rattle off the spells he's going to cast to heal them OOCly based upon the numbers he sees, roll the dice and the whole thing can be wrapped up by the DM saying. "Fred the Cleric heals the party." Then the players can get back to focusing on taking the the quest or adventure in new directions rather than repeatedly roleplaying the same mundane healing chore a hundred times.

Oberoten
May 21st, 2007, 08:12
Actually... giving out this information without a diagnose would be something I'd be loathe to do as a GM.

Broken leg is a broken leg. How seriously broken it is... well that is what they need to figure out or the char might well end up with a permanent limp due to a improperly set limb.

... of course my players has occasionally taken things WELL over the top (a botched diagnose roll leading to an amputated arm... THIS is why it is a good thing to get a second oppinion ;) )

Thelgar
May 21st, 2007, 08:41
Actually... giving out this information without a diagnose would be something I'd be loathe to do as a GM.

Broken leg is a broken leg. How seriously broken it is... well that is what they need to figure out or the char might well end up with a permanent limp due to a improperly set limb.

... of course my players has occasionally taken things WELL over the top (a botched diagnose roll leading to an amputated arm... THIS is why it is a good thing to get a second oppinion ;) )

There is no mechanic for diagnosis in the D20 SRD. If people house rule systems for diagnosis, make people guess at what level of cure spell to use based upon their interpretation of the DM or other players description, play a sytem where diagnosis is part of the process, or whatever that's fine, then make a switch to turn off the player accessible tracker for them.

But, players being forced to OOCly type a bunch of stuff rather than having an easily accessable tracker is a deficiency, not an enhancement for roleplay.

Dachannien
May 21st, 2007, 15:00
Sounds like something that would make a good third-party mod. However, I think you're overestimating the difficulties associated with not revealing your hit points to one another.

zifnab69_fr
July 25th, 2007, 12:54
hello,
i'm trying the 1.5 and i see that the counters are not hide when they are in the fog of war....so with fog of war, all players cans see the "vilain counters" but not the map.
it it possible in the V2 ?
Thank you

Kalan
July 25th, 2007, 13:23
hello,
i'm trying the 1.5 and i see that the counters are not hide when they are in the fog of war....so with fog of war, all players cans see the "vilain counters" but not the map.
it it possible in the V2 ?
Thank you

FGII's FoW does hide tokens when you enable it on the tokens.

Griogre
July 25th, 2007, 20:10
Also, even if you are not using masking in FG2 you can set tokens to not be visible to players.

NymTevlyn
July 25th, 2007, 20:50
As both a DM and a player, I would much prefer that my players be able to see at a glance, their comrades current health totals. It's damned annoying having the cleric ask who's wounded and how much after a battle when they could in-character, look at see the number of wounds, blood loss, and such.

richvalle
July 26th, 2007, 16:50
Some people feel differently about this.

HP are a weird concept. 6 hp's will kill a commoner (I've seen posts about how easy a kitten can kill a person) but is nothing to a 15th level fighter will 100's of hp's (before buffing). Would that fighter even NOTICE a 6 hp hit? What the heck is a clw even doing to that guy? So a clw can take a commoner from -'s to full health and only able to fix the smallest of cuts on a high level fighter? Weird stuff.

I generally view it as near misses and scratches/bruises. Some attacks are always near misses (from a giant for example. I mean... if he HIT someone they would be dead) while others have to be a scratch (if someone is using wound poison for example. Don't ask me about giants using poison...)

Some people like to have players role play the wounds. I've played in games where the hp's are broken down into %'s so someone can say they are at half or 1/4.

I must admit it does bug me some when my players say 'I'm down 20' to get a cleric to cast a cure spell on them. It doesn't bug me enough to get them to stop doing it though.

rv

Dragonstar
July 26th, 2007, 18:55
I'm playing in a campaign where my cleric is sufficient level that when she casts "status", she gets everybody in the party and knows whether they're disabled, dying, dead, and any number of other conditions at any point. So after the combat - as well as during combat - , the DM and I have to go through this dance of "how badly is Whozit hurt?" A quick glance for me to tell, not even precisely how many HP are left, but who do I have to hustle towards first would be a very welcome feature.

Tailz Silver Paws
July 27th, 2007, 00:31
HP are a weird concept. 6 hp's will kill a commoner (I've seen posts about how easy a kitten can kill a person) but is nothing to a 15th level fighter will 100's of hp's (before buffing). Would that fighter even NOTICE a 6 hp hit? What the heck is a clw even doing to that guy? So a clw can take a commoner from -'s to full health and only able to fix the smallest of cuts on a high level fighter? Weird stuff.

A fellow I used to game with a long time ago had a system sort of like D20 Modern's Massive Damage system (in D20 Modern: Massive Damage works where when you take damage equel to or higher than your characters CON stat, you have to make a FORT save, if you fail your hit points become -1). Thus uber strong PC's and NPC's could be taken out by peasants or even low level characters if enoough damage was done in one hit. It made it more realistic for us and we liked it.

We even had a point in one game where the players were doing really badly and my evil SS Soldier NPC's had lined them up against a wall and were ready to shot them - one of the players cracked up laughing because he thought that even in the soldiers shot his character he would survive as one single rifle bullet could not do enough damage to kill his character! (he forgot about the Massive Damage rule).

But anyway they rushed the SS Soldiers, a few rifle shots that missed, and lots of grappel rolls later the SS Soldiers were up against the wall (the players were playing French Resistance and British SOE agents).


I must admit it does bug me some when my players say 'I'm down 20' to get a cleric to cast a cure spell on them. It doesn't bug me enough to get them to stop doing it though.
I don't mind too much, I assume that the characters would be looking at each other and assumeing how bad each is wounded and when a player says "I'm down by 20." it means he is really saying "I have this really bad belly wound... got a bandaid?"

Illrigger
July 27th, 2007, 01:11
Any cleric worth playing with will have Status up and running all day, so "I'm down by 20" should be perfectly acceptable. If your cleric is over 4th level and isn't running Status, elect someone else to be the cleric who cares for the job.

Toadwart
July 27th, 2007, 03:42
May be hard to implement but what about: if a player right-clicks on a character portrait there is a "status" menu item which (perhaps after making a heal check) gives some indication of how wounded the character appears.
What sort of 'indication' is given depends on your style of play I guess.
Personally I'd be happy for the PCs to see each others exact HPs (never bothered me that they can do this in PnP games...)

Dragonstar
July 27th, 2007, 04:02
As a DM, I have so much more to worry about than whether the players are being too explicit about how badly wounded they are. The only time I enforce the "no talk" rule is when the character is unconscious and in the minuses. "All you know, cleric, is that Joe Schmoe is sprawled motionless on the ground with a large pool of blood forming around him. You going to check him out?"

:p

richvalle
July 27th, 2007, 14:09
Any cleric worth playing with will have Status up and running all day, so "I'm down by 20" should be perfectly acceptable. If your cleric is over 4th level and isn't running Status, elect someone else to be the cleric who cares for the job.

Well see... we've NEVER used that spell since everyone pretty much metagames the status. Everyone sees/hears how much damage someone has taken so the cleric knows who needs a heal immeditatly even if the hit happened in the same round as the cleric is casting the spell.

Our party never splits up so knowing their status while out of sight doesn't help much.

It does look like a usefull spell though. I'll have to remember it when I'm playing a cleric. :)

rv

richvalle
July 27th, 2007, 14:13
As a DM, I have so much more to worry about than whether the players are being too explicit about how badly wounded they are. The only time I enforce the "no talk" rule is when the character is unconscious and in the minuses. "All you know, cleric, is that Joe Schmoe is sprawled motionless on the ground with a large pool of blood forming around him. You going to check him out?"

:p


Yeah, this is part of it too. Letting them talk like this keeps the game moving. Heck, I don't even really track the players HP's but let them do so. I roll the damage and they roll the heals and players add or subtract as needed.

One thing I do not let them do is know the status of someone who is down just by looking at them during a fight. I'll let them make a heal check to take a guess at the status. Maybe they need to cast that Status spell mentioned above! :)

rv

Dragonstar
July 27th, 2007, 15:49
Maybe they need to cast that Status spell mentioned above! :)




Yup. Status looks like one of those "ho hum" spells, but one of my pnp players started using it with his last cleric, and we all became quickly sold on its value. "Don't leave home without your Status spells."

richvalle
July 27th, 2007, 16:37
Hey Taliz... was that massive damage rule done in place of the current d20 crit rule or in addition to it?

i.e. can someone still crit an cause a fort save?

Tailz Silver Paws
July 30th, 2007, 00:30
Hey Taliz... was that massive damage rule done in place of the current d20 crit rule or in addition to it?

i.e. can someone still crit an cause a fort save?
The Massive Damage rule only comes into effect based on the amount of damage taken from a single attack, not if the attack was a critical hit or not.

So it is possible for a critical hit to not cause the Massive Damage Rule to kick in, if the Critical Hit does not score enough damage to beat the characters CON score.

But the chance of rolling enough damage to beat a characters CON score is much higher if you score a critical because of the damage dice multiplayer.

richvalle
July 30th, 2007, 14:38
Sure. I was just wondering if the Massive damage rule replaced the crit rule or was in additon to it.

Thanks for the intersting rule. Not sure I'd run a campaign with it but I'd like to run a one shot with it for sure.

rv

Tailz Silver Paws
July 31st, 2007, 00:26
Sure. I was just wondering if the Massive damage rule replaced the crit rule or was in additon to it.

Thanks for the intersting rule. Not sure I'd run a campaign with it but I'd like to run a one shot with it for sure.

rv
I run the rule as I found players would rely on the math of the system to permit them to get away with actions simply because they know that a hit from a weapon can not do enough damage to case them worry. This way it puts a bit more luck of the dice back into the game instead of it just being a hack'n'slash game.

Ellye
August 3rd, 2007, 12:56
The game session can be hosted by players in FG2? Or only the DM can host?

Griogre
August 3rd, 2007, 16:47
Only the DM can host in FG and he requires the full version. The full version can host or play. The lite version can only be a player. There is no seperate standalone server software.

Callum
February 3rd, 2009, 12:41
In the Special Abilities section, you can create an entry and then drag a die or a number from the modifier box to keep track of an ability (Such as spell-like abilities or Turn Undead) that has a limited number of uses per day.


What's the value of being able to drag a die into a special ability entry? You can't put modifiers into the little die bubble, right?

joshuha
February 3rd, 2009, 12:47
What's the value of being able to drag a die into a special ability entry? You can't put modifiers into the little die bubble, right?

To keep track of things like how many die in sneak attack you have and the like.