Outlining circle around monster too faint

[longarms]

I have a question about using combat tracker. I am putting a bunch of goblins in the combat tracker, and each goblin has the same token. I then track each of the goblin tokens to the map.

As I cycle through the turns on the combat tracker, a very faint circle surrounds one of the monsters tokens on the map. The faint circle tells me which one of the monsters on the map has the current turn.

The circle is too faint, I can barely see it. I want whatever monster whose turn it is to have his token on the map CLEARLY marked (just like for the PCs).

How do I fix this? It should be as simple as changing the color of the circle indicating the monster whose turn it is.

[devinnight]

I had the same problem... still do.
What I had to do to track which token was which was to use the scroll wheel and enlarge the active token, then reduce it back down, the jump in size was enough for me to tell one from another.

I agree though that the active token should stand out more. Especially tokens where one token picture is used for a lot of the same bad guy.

[Griogre]

I had the same problem but I am lazier than Devin. I just set the token scale so the tokens were smaller than the token grid by a bit. Normally I use to scale the tokens so the filled the grid exactly. Now I have found scaling them down a bit more shows the active token better. You want to be able to see the green square around a player token when you scale them.

[Dachannien]

I use square tokens, and it draws the circle so that its diameter is the widest measurement across the token (the diagonal, in the case of a square token). That makes it pretty easy to find the "whose turn is it anyway" highlight.

[scytale2]

What would be useful would be if the programme allocated a number to duplicate entries on the combat tracker, so we had Bahamut1, Bahamut2 etc. or even Goblin1, Goblin2, Goblin3 etc.

You can write it in, but it all takes time, which would be fine, if you could pre-prepare combats.

[John_Geeshu]

"Pre-prepare" *scoffs*

Scytale, the master of gobbledy-gook! :D

[Hamish]

What would be useful would be if the programme allocated a number to duplicate entries on the combat tracker, so we had Bahamut1, Bahamut2 etc. or even Goblin1, Goblin2, Goblin3 etc.


I believe there is a post in the Workshop describing a ruleset modification that does just that!

[joshuha]

There may be a way to solve this with code but it would take a bit of work. Essenitally there is an onActivation event that you could use to add a special underlay (make it big, like twice the base size of the token) using a color not used by the other underlays (the ones for reach/size).

The hard part is that you need to remove the underlay when its no longer that token's activation and doing this removes all underlays which you then need to rebuild the ones for reach/size. This is kinda already done by the updateUnderlay custom function in the d20 but you would be adding a third parameter in a different event.

[Griogre]

What would be useful would be if the programme allocated a number to duplicate entries on the combat tracker, so we had Bahamut1, Bahamut2 etc. or even Goblin1, Goblin2, Goblin3 etc.

You can write it in, but it all takes time, which would be fine, if you could pre-prepare combats.
Ha, it’s not the adding the numbers that bothers me - it’s the changing the name from "Character Killer of DOOM" to "Fluffy Bunny" that I *find* annoying. ;)

More seriously, you shouldn't have to number the monsters. I think that it is clear that was the developer’s intent. If the players target them then their portrait goes next to the monster being attacked and you can see which monster is being attacked. When the monster attacks he is highlighted and you should be able to pick out the monster which is attacking. This is the theory. Like most theories it does not work as well in practice.

My experience is the highlights are sometimes hard to see, and almost impossible to see on certain backgrounds. It is much easier to see the highlights of square tokens. I personally have gotten to the point I *really* want to see which figure is suppose to go and don’t care about esthetics anymore to the point I would like to see the active token colors inverted so it is very clear who is up – anything to make it more obvious.

Targeting by the players should make it obvious who he is swinging at, but after while it doesn’t - because so many monsters are targeted by various characters that if you have a big list of monsters I find myself scrolling up and down the list to find the right monster. By accident last Saturday, I think I may have found something to help with this. I had a rare FG2 server crash in the middle of a fight with lots of monsters (I tried to delete a “ghost” pointer). When I restarted the fight everyone was still on the combat tracker and but no monsters were targeted.

When the first people started targeting them it because obvious which monsters they were attacking because only that one monster was “open” on the tracker. In my games I am going to try asking players to untarget the monster after they have made an attack and after the next FG patch I think I’m going to see if I can change the tracker to automatically untarget when initiative moves on the next turn. It would be nice if Smiteworks could change the tracker so that only the active player’s targets “open” the monster entry by default on the tracker and the other targeted monsters are closed.

[scytale2]

A "Blinking" token is often the best way to see something without obscuring it completely.

Thanks, Hamish, I haven't yet figured out how to modify my ruleset, but will look into this.

[Dachannien]

More seriously, you shouldn't have to number the monsters. I think that it is clear that was the developer’s intent. If the players target them then their portrait goes next to the monster being attacked and you can see which monster is being attacked. When the monster attacks he is highlighted and you should be able to pick out the monster which is attacking. This is the theory. Like most theories it does not work as well in practice.

The numbering does have its upsides and downsides. The downsides are especially pertinent when most of a horde of monsters is lying in wait, and the players happen to come across "Ogre 34" first in their travels.

However, I've found that numbering (or, at least, naming uniquely) the monsters is still necessary to keep straight what's going on in combat. First, we use Teamspeak, and so a lot of our combat management is done verbally, and sometimes my players neglect to click on the target they're attacking. Second, at least one of my players has a tendency to randomly click enemy tokens when it's not his turn due to his propensity to fidget. And third, when dealing with area-effect damage, it's very helpful to be able to have some sense of order among the affected monsters, especially if some of them are affected by saving throw modifiers or energy resistance.

To some degree, though, it comes down to different DMs' styles of management, and I can certainly see how other DMs may not have a problem with unnumbered monsters or may not even need the targeting circles.

[Rexaurum]

It's been 13 years, and I still have this problem!
Could the developers please make this bright orange, or a setting, or blinking... this seems like an easy feature that many DMs will really appreciate!
Thanks.

[Rades]

I've been using Celestian's extension "Has Initiative Indicator" to get around this - it overlays a gold crown on top of the token whose turn it is. Very useful. https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?46585-CoreRPG-Extension-Has-Initiative-Indicator&highlight=has+initiative

[Rexaurum]

that's great!!! thanks!

[MrDDT]

that's great!!! thanks!

The ext that Rades says is great, however, if you really want to have a better toolbox I suggest using this one. Does cost $$.

5e Indicators (https://www.dmsguild.com/product/353690/Fantasy-Grounds-5E-Indicators)

[Rexaurum]

Nice. For 6$, I'll try that out.
Thanks.