Building NPC Characters and encounters

[Brucewayneis007]

Newbie to FGU and setting up a campaign I am building encounters to place on maps. I want to build NPC as actual characters with classes, etc. Once the NPC character is built can I drop them in a new built encounter or does it have to be a NPC built from the NPC tab? Good tutorial out there?

Also does anyone know if I can place Rob Twohy mods into a built NPC creature? I.E. place action surge on a created NPC monster

Sorry if this is confusing.

[WindrunnerCGG]

Hi Bruce,
It is not confusing, as I totally understand your questions. I think the most fundamental answer is that player characters and nonplayer characters are supposed to be different. I understand what you want to do, and there are some best practices to approach this, but an NPC is fundamentally built differently.

The way the 5E ruleset is coded, there is a lot of automation built into the nonplayer characters in order to help you construct them in a timely manner. You need to familiarize yourself with the way fantasy grounds parses the text that you use, and where you place that text on an NPC record.

If you take the DM102 class with FantasyGroundsCollege.net they show you exactly how to do this. Additionally, Founder Laerun and I did exactly what you’re talking about with the new sidekicks from Toshas. We created them both as player characters and as non-player characters. We can show you how each approach works.

Garner/Windrunner

[LordEntrails]

Mod: moved to 5E sub-forum since this is specific to that ruleset.

[WindrunnerCGG]

I would also add that you can always build an additional player character that you as the DM can take control of. This character does not have to be added to an encounter record in order for you to place it into the combat tracker, and use it for an encounter. Remember, you are the dungeon master and are in control, and fantasy grounds is a flexible platform that allows you to leverage all of these tools to create a role-playing experience for your players.

[Zacchaeus]

See here for details on NPCs and encounters as well as the wording you can use to create effects https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/996641934/5E+NPCs+and+Encounters