Combat Groups Extension (Fantasy Grounds Unity 5E Ruleset)

[SilentRuin]

Am I correct in saying that there isn't currently a way to roll initiative for all NPCs (or all actors) currently visible in the CT without also rolling for all the hidden actors?

Correct - there is no case i would not want that happening in my games.

[rocketvaultgames]

Right on. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something.

I run multiple parties in a shared world on different days so I almost always want to preserve existing initiatives for hidden groups, but I definitely understand not needing it.

[MrDDT]

Right on. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something.

I run multiple parties in a shared world on different days so I almost always want to preserve existing initiatives for hidden groups, but I definitely understand not needing it.

You can use another ext that helps with this, by giving them a fixed INIT and removing it once you start that session.
https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/692/view

[rocketvaultgames]

Thanks! I do use FIXINIT for some things. I didn't think to use it for the more global picture. I'll give it a spin but I think it's going to be more work than just rolling individual initiatives for what's showing in the CT.

[SilentRuin]

Thanks! I do use FIXINIT for some things. I didn't think to use it for the more global picture. I'll give it a spin but I think it's going to be more work than just rolling individual initiatives for what's showing in the CT.

As my players only EVER see stuff in CT that is owned by them (or of same faction in some cases when not controlling groups of things) - and I often only have the active turn CT entry and its targets as only things showing on my host CT - any non roll of inits out of sight of CT would cause issues. Just FYI. Though if you have need of something you can always rewrite it to do what you like or add your own extension in to do only visible on CT rolls - which I warn you - will cause issues for you at some point unless you always keep everything in your CT for your "current players section of the world". IMHO this will be a dangerous option if you do do it - fixing the inits as MrDDT says seems much safer as you have to actually acknowledge to yourself those things are off limits for init rolls.

[rocketvaultgames]

Sounds good. I'm in no way suggesting you should write this feature just for me! I just wanted to make sure it wasn't something that was there but I was just missing.

How I've been running for multiple groups is:

Total of ~200 actors in CT, all in ~20 combat groups.

Players can see anything in CT that I have toggled to visible (FGU visibility toggle) irrespective of faction, etc.

I have an "active" and "sitting out" combat group for each party.

During a session, I'll have the active party combat group and any NPCs relevant also showing.

Basically what I'm missing is a 1-2 click initiative roll for friendly and non-friendly NPCs (and PCs, ideally) that are in visible combat groups. The FGU Menu will roll for all the hidden combat groups (as expected), so I am typically once per encounter, rolling initiative on a per-actor basis for usually 2-4 actors (friendly NPCs) while the PCs roll their own. Usually Hostile NPCs are pre-rolled when added to CT. This is still easier than toggling FIXINIT effects I think.

Not directly relevant, but I'm in the same boat with Clock Adjuster. I would love for it to only adjust NPCs currently in visible combat groups, but it hits all the hidden actors as well (expiring effects in mid-combat for another party).

Regardless, Combat Groups is on a short list of must-have extensions in my book, and I thank you for that.

[SilentRuin]

Sounds good. I'm in no way suggesting you should write this feature just for me! I just wanted to make sure it wasn't something that was there but I was just missing.

How I've been running for multiple groups is:

Total of ~200 actors in CT, all in ~20 combat groups.

Players can see anything in CT that I have toggled to visible (FGU visibility toggle) irrespective of faction, etc.

I have an "active" and "sitting out" combat group for each party.

During a session, I'll have the active party combat group and any NPCs relevant also showing.

Basically what I'm missing is a 1-2 click initiative roll for friendly and non-friendly NPCs (and PCs, ideally) that are in visible combat groups. The FGU Menu will roll for all the hidden combat groups (as expected), so I am typically once per encounter, rolling initiative on a per-actor basis for usually 2-4 actors (friendly NPCs) while the PCs roll their own. Usually Hostile NPCs are pre-rolled when added to CT. This is still easier than toggling FIXINIT effects I think.

Not directly relevant, but I'm in the same boat with Clock Adjuster. I would love for it to only adjust NPCs currently in visible combat groups, but it hits all the hidden actors as well (expiring effects in mid-combat for another party).

Regardless, Combat Groups is on a short list of must-have extensions in my book, and I thank you for that.

If these are groups that will never meet sharing the same space, you should be creating your "base world" campaign then copying it for each group as a different campaign and letting them each play it out.

[rocketvaultgames]

Both groups are operating in the same shared world around the same time and will probably meet eventually. Even if they never did, the single campaign in FGU is SO MUCH BETTER.

They were 2 separate campaigns when I started, but once I got Combat Groups, I merged them and I can't express how much I've enjoyed that move. (I'm technically even running 2 other campaigns, numerous one-shots, and even a Blades in the Dark (set in Waterdeep) in the same 5E FGU campaign, these just don't see weekly play like the main 2)

Benefits:

Campaign is always up for either group to access.
No need to duplicate data for anything (story entries for locations, new NPCs, items, maps etc.)
Never having to switch active campaign to check a detail in the other one. (Can prep/worldbuild for either on the fly)

Downsides:

Only 1 Calendar... would be nice to have multiple "current days" tied to multiple party sheets (which would still be able to be viewed/searched as one).
Clock Adjuster can't be used without adjusting time for everything.


Operating with just the 1 campaign in FGU has saved me dozens if not hundreds of hours, plenty of aggravation, and caused me to prep/world-build minor things when I might have balked at the thought of switching back and forth between campaigns.

Again, I'm in no way saying you should change anything for me, and really appreciate all of your extensions.

[SilentRuin]

Honestly, I don't think you'd be able to get any extension to manage something like that as there are two many variables to manage. Effects time out - initiatives change (in my games rerolled every round as I don't believe in the cheat of letting players plan on what to do next based on knowing the next rounds order - way more fun with unpredictability) - damage/temp HP/etc. CT data changes - and as you share potentially the same encountered NPCs their CT data would need to be preserved to allow the other parties encountering them to see the same data.

Gist is - you will always be forced to choose some "good enough" path of manual data management that no extension will be able to predict for you. Will just have to be part of your session prep between sessions. And I believe this will include making a copy of the master campaign after any group is finished so you can bring up the master and the last stored copy to edit the master with anything the group had in its last session with common sense application of the master state of any common NPC/PC map area structures.

There is really no other reliable way to manage what your trying to do - for sure no extension could manage that kind of thing for you IMHO.

[rocketvaultgames]

Honestly, I have pretty much all that I want. My 'good enough path' is definitely good enough, but if it can be better, I'll take it.

I know some other extensions (5e Legendary Assistant, Illihad's Prompt Reaction) started out with hidden combat groups being picked up by them. They were both able to (quickly (if not easily)) make changes so only visible combat groups would be picked up (toggleable option).

Ultimately if there was a 'hook-in' of some kind where any extension could toggleably optionally care about 'everything in the CT' OR only 'actors in visible combat groups in the CT', that would be perfect.

[SilentRuin]

As " toggleably optionally care about 'everything in the CT' OR only 'actors in visible combat groups in the CT'" would for sure have no way of working predictably on what I want in my games or other games outside of your specific situation (as even if I did what your doing there would be things not visible in CT that I wanted cared about outside of the current group playing combat groups which were invisible), I'm afraid someone else will have to provide what your looking for. I try not to put in options which can wreck each other in unpredictable ways.

Personally, if you have more than a page worth of CT entries I would always want to be using the option shown in this video to make things simpler for managing things - which would trash the hole visible in CT visibility toggle your talking about.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ17CiWjztU

[rocketvaultgames]

Yup. I have seen that before (and just rewatched now).

I have both of those hotkeyed to toggle and it is certainly useful for largescale battles.

The toggle I was suggesting would be in Options... not likely to be used often.

https://i.imgur.com/JUtRP6K.jpg

I'm not saying you can or should do this, but if:

Clock adjuster had the same option shown here.

and

Built-in FGU CT Menu -> Initiative -> Roll All/Roll NPC/Roll PC Initiative somehow had the same option

I'd be golden.

[WinterSoldier7]

Hello, came across an issue today that I'm fairly sure wasn't there before...

Hovering over tokens on a map highlights the creature name as well as the group name they belong to. I don't want this to be the case, as the group name was actually a spoiler in this instance.

Is there an option for this, or is it fixable? If not, I will have to begin naming the groups simply 'Group 1', 'Group 2' etc

Thanks

[SilentRuin]

Hello, came across an issue today that I'm fairly sure wasn't there before...

Hovering over tokens on a map highlights the creature name as well as the group name they belong to. I don't want this to be the case, as the group name was actually a spoiler in this instance.

Is there an option for this, or is it fixable? If not, I will have to begin naming the groups simply 'Group 1', 'Group 2' etc

Thanks

I'm confused - are you saying you looked in .txt file doc and did not see the option to turn off groups? Or you looked in combat group options in app and did not see it?

[MrDDT]

Hello, came across an issue today that I'm fairly sure wasn't there before...

Hovering over tokens on a map highlights the creature name as well as the group name they belong to. I don't want this to be the case, as the group name was actually a spoiler in this instance.

Is there an option for this, or is it fixable? If not, I will have to begin naming the groups simply 'Group 1', 'Group 2' etc

Thanks


TLDR
You can turn it off in the options.

[WinterSoldier7]

I was going to take some screenshots to help show what I meant, but MrDDT is correct - I found the options called 'Display Group on Map Token' and turned it off.

Thank you!

[SilentRuin]

V1.61 - Bug - when a CT entry was owned by a player the host would not have its selection/centering of the token updated as it was supposed to do. Client always worked correctly. Fixed.

[SilentRuin]

Still problems with owned NPCs not responding properly when they have their turn set in the CT from host (host displays selected/centered with vision active - client does not - though you can work around that by double clicking CT NPC token). Non NPCs not centering or selecting. Will have to look into it - as it appears it works (same logic) for PCs and not for non PCs so its likely some new secret squirrel code in FGU wrecking my ownership logic (used to work). Yet to find it - thought it was isOwnedPlayerCT only respecting "charsheet" but that does not appear to be the issue. Or not that I can determine yet.

[SilentRuin]

V1.62 - Bug - something changed in FGU sometime in the last few years since I wrote this and I have to force the center of map call now to get NPCs to center on client when turn indicator changes. It will respect the auto-center map option.

[SilentRuin]

Death saving throws and next actor turn indicators are not working properly in all cases when "roll initiatives on each round" FGU option is ON. Will have to look into it.

[Resolved DM error in options] Somehow I had accidently set the FGU stop after round advance option to ON - which was never letting it advance without manually setting turn or advancing it myself.

[WeirdAdventures]

Hi. I'm having an issue: when Combat Groups is loaded, the players cannot see the enemy (red) NPCs in their combat trackers.

[rocketvaultgames]

In options, check "Players only see same Faction". There are a number of options to customize and restrict what the players see.

[WeirdAdventures]

In options, check "Players only see same Faction". There are a number of options to customize and restrict what the players see.

I see it; thanks!

[MrDDT]

Hi. I'm having an issue: when Combat Groups is loaded, the players cannot see the enemy (red) NPCs in their combat trackers.

This feature is so awesome, I love playing using it, it's how D&D should be.

[rocketvaultgames]

You are probably already aware and may already have the fix but I'm getting the following errors when opening/manipulating an image with only Combat Groups 1.62 loaded in FGU 4.5.

60006

[estrolof]

Hi SilentRuin, I really do hate to mention this, and I really hope it's just a setting I'm missing...

We're not playing this week, so I'm taking the opportunity to test my loaded extensions and the new 4.5 features. Well, the new Initiative Tray (that can be toggled from the Character Tray) appears to IGNORE hidden combat groups when viewed as the Player.

I have several groups of NPCs in the Combat Tracker, all are hidden - except the PC group and the two remaining members of the previous encounter (captured gnolls). When I toggle from Character to Initiative view in the upper-left portrait tray AS GM everything is "as expected" - meaning it ignores the hidden groups. (Aside: this is a fantastic feature IMO, and will hopefully ensure my Players - who have trouble remembering to use the CT are prepping their turn).

However, when I log in locally as a Player and connect to the campaign and toggle this same feature to INITIATIVE mode from that client...ALL of those NPCs appear - even though they are correctly hidden in the CT.

[SilentRuin]

Hi SilentRuin, I really do hate to mention this, and I really hope it's just a setting I'm missing...

We're not playing this week, so I'm taking the opportunity to test my loaded extensions and the new 4.5 features. Well, the new Initiative Tray (that can be toggled from the Character Tray) appears to IGNORE hidden combat groups when viewed as the Player.

I have several groups of NPCs in the Combat Tracker, all are hidden - except the PC group and the two remaining members of the previous encounter (captured gnolls). When I toggle from Character to Initiative view in the upper-left portrait tray AS GM everything is "as expected" - meaning it ignores the hidden groups. (Aside: this is a fantastic feature IMO, and will hopefully ensure my Players - who have trouble remembering to use the CT are prepping their turn).

However, when I log in locally as a Player and connect to the campaign and toggle this same feature to INITIATIVE mode from that client...ALL of those NPCs appear - even though they are correctly hidden in the CT.

If this is the case then the client side is not calling the sorted combat list to get that data which would then ignore anything i visibility filters (bug in FGU). I can look at it in a few eerks but if that the crazy they want to do then thats ehstvyou eillcsee.

[estrolof]

I re-tested, to see if I could better narrow down the experience thus far.
- Game System: D&D 5E
- Active EXT: Only Combat Groups
- Player only sees same faction: Off
- Player only sees same Group: Off


TEST SCENARIO A:
Step 1: Add 1 PC (no group assignment), 1 NPC Enemy (assigned to Group A), and 1 NPC Enemy (...Group B) to the Combat Tracker
Step 2: Load a client and log in, claiming the PC (confirming that the Portrait <--> Initiative toggle is user-specific...it is).
Step 3: As GM, confirm both NPCs are VISIBLE (the 'eye' icon is turned ON) and both GROUPS are set to visible - so they appear in the Combat Tracker for both the Player and GM. <-- works (as it should)
Step 4: Both NPCs appear visible in the INITIATIVE LIST and the COMBAT TRACKER
Step 5: Toggle the Group B Visibility (the "Visible" button, not the "Hide All NPCs in Group" button).
- This correctly hides the NPC in the CT (they vanish from both the Player and GM views).
Step 6: With Group B set to Visible (see Step 5), Toggle the Hide All NPCs in Group button.
- This correctly hides the NPC in the CT and INIT list
- The Player view no longer sees the NPC in the CT or in the Initiative List
- The GM still sees the NPC in both the CT and INIT (they are accessible but greyed out in the INIT list for the GM and appear just as they have prior to 4.5 in the CT - as the GROUP hasn't been hidden, just the NPCs within it)
- The same result occurs if the individual NPC is made invisible/hidden (while the Group remains Visible).
Step 7: With the NPC invisible/hidden (the eye)...Toggle the Group visibility.
- No change for Initiative List. As the NPC is individually invisible, they remain hidden from Player view but remain visible in the DM's view of the Initiative List
- They continue to disappear from the CT for the DM, which is what we expected and experienced in pre-4.5

TEST SCENARIO B:
Step 1: Re-Launch Campaign and Re-Connect but with 0 extensions loaded
Step 2: Toggle all NPC to SHOWN (the eye at top of CT)
- Confirmed (as expected) that both NPCs appear in the CT and INIT list when not hidden
- Confirmed (as expected) that both NPCs vanish from the CT and INIT list when hidden
Step 3: Toggle an individual NPC using their personal "hide" button
- Confirmed (as above, as expected)


Maybe this means it's "working as intended" and users (I) simply remember (as DM) to pre-HIDE/INVIS any inactive groups...now that Players have a means of peeking ahead. I leave that assessment in your more capable hands - if it saves you time and headaches: sweet.

[SilentRuin]

My brain is probably still fuzzy so not getting what the ispsue is.

If you use global eye to turn on or off visibility it will everywhere in CT (even groups not visible in CT will be effected as they are really still inCT).

If you turn on or off a groups eye then thatflag will be set in the groups members only.

VISIBLE button governs if group is visible in host and client CT

Eye icons will determine if visible in client CT and its map.

These flags are two different unrated things.

Given that im notsurewhat your tring to tell me.

[SilentRuin]

V1.64 - Update - option "Disable CombatListManager icon (requires restart or reload of app)" defaulted to "off" will now allow the CombatListManager icon to be removed from host and clients when set to "on" and the app is restarted or /reload is done in chat. This proved to difficult to override the player side logic to respect combat groups code or only remove the icon from player side so just removing it entirely for my games as it gives away things players should not see.

[MrDDT]

V1.64 - Update - option "Disable CombatListManager icon (requires restart or reload of app)" defaulted to "off" will now allow the CombatListManager icon to be removed from host and clients when set to "on" and the app is restarted or /reload is done in chat. This proved to difficult to override the player side logic to respect combat groups code or only remove the icon from player side so just removing it entirely for my games as it gives away things players should not see.

Thank you so much for this, I really hope we can get it so players can use the Combat List but just not see the NPCs, but this is a good option also just going back to the way it was before the FGU update. At least they can't see all the NPCs in there.

[WinterSoldier7]

Hello,

I noticed this now says 'ONLY IN FORGE'. Does this mean no more updates on Dungeon Masters Guild?

It's my most used extension of all extensions, but I had to turn it off in recent updates due to causing issues. Was periodically checking DMG for updates.

[MrDDT]

Hello,

I noticed this now says 'ONLY IN FORGE'. Does this mean no more updates on Dungeon Masters Guild?

It's my most used extension of all extensions, but I had to turn it off in recent updates due to causing issues. Was periodically checking DMG for updates.

DMsG has an issue with .ext files being uploaded correctly, it's started since Roll20 bought DMsG a few months back. We've tried working with them to get it fixed but pretty sure they don't want to fix it and thus unable to update the files on DMsG.

We ran a sale on these EXTs a while back, however, Smiteworks FORGE only allows sales to go so long and so often, so I would suggest you wait for the next sale coming up in a few weeks to make sure you buy whatever EXT you have from the DMsG on the FORGE so you get the correct updates.

[WinterSoldier7]

Ah, thanks for the info. I would prefer Forge to DMG any day.

Will wait for that sale then, though can't say I'm up-to-date on when these are happening :S. It dawns on me I'm not signed-up for newsletters

[SilentRuin]

Ah, thanks for the info. I would prefer Forge to DMG any day.

Will wait for that sale then, though can't say I'm up-to-date on when these are happening :S. It dawns on me I'm not signed-up for newsletters

Grim press discord channel for fantasy grounds is usually place like this is discussed.