[Bug Report] Players cannot properly control their allies

[FrodoB]

Hi there,

after someone asked about it on the Discord, I tried to use Allies in combat myself and ran into issues.

Steps to Reproduce

Create PC
Add PC to the Party Sheet
Add an Ally to the PC
Use the Combat Tracker Menu to "Add PCs"
Use the Combat Tracker Menu to "Add Allies"
Use the "Friendly" icon at the bottom of the CT to move them both to a (properly gridded) map.
Advance turns until it is the Ally's turn
Try to move the Ally around.
Try to perform an attack as the Ally as usual (open up the sheet, drag the attack dice to over a token on the map and drop them)


What should happen
The player of the PC should be able to move the Ally on the battle map.
The player of the PC should be able to perform attacks as the ally which get picked up by the combat tracker. The attack should show up as "Ally:" in the chatlog and the result should be compared to the target's Parry and added to the CT for the GM to confirm.

What actually happens
The player is unable to move the Ally's token around.
When the player performs an action as the Ally, it shows up as "PC:" in the chatlog. For example, if the PC is called "Alice" and the Ally is a bear, if the player rolls the Claw attack it shows up as "Alice: Bite/Claws" in the chatlog.
Furthermore, it does not compare the result to the target's parry nor does it show up on the CT.

Additional Info
When the Ally is assigned a target manually and the player rolls the Ally's attack by dropping the dice in the chat window (not the battle map or CT!), the attack gets processed as normal, though the chat window still shows the PC as the "source" of the attack.

[Moon Wizard]

What do you have set for the Party Movement and Vision option in the Options window?

Regards,
JPG

[FrodoB]

Hey Moon Wizard,

I did not have this set, no. I interpreted this post by Ikael (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?45476-How-are-Allies-supposed-to-work&p=404643&viewfull=1#post404643) to mean that you're able to control your allies even without that option activated.
When activating the option the player can move their Ally...but that is to be expected because now every player can move any allied token, even ones not listed as "Allies" under their character sheet. I gave a PC the Ally "Bear" on the character sheet and added a seperate "Bull" to the CT and as the player is able to move both tokens, even though the Bull isn't their "own" Ally.

The targeting issue is not changed by that option, though I'm not 100% if that might be a case of "Working as intended, please use targeting".

[TomtheBu]

I can reproduce this.

Rolls made by players from an ally sheet don´t state the name of the allied npc - just the character´s name! I guess this is a bug.

1. The attack roll made by the player from the allied npc sheet shows like [Character Name]: Fighting: Sword.

2. When the same player rolls an attack from any other (non Ally) npc sheet, which was just shared to the player by dragging to character portrait by the gm, the attack roll shows like: [Character Name] NPC Name: Fighting sword.

3. Further, allies can be moved by players on the map only, when party vision and movement is enabled. I guess this is intended and no bug. I think the control of an ally is first of all meant to have access to the npc sheet to make skill/trait tests and attack rolls without the need to share the sheets by the gm.

[ItsCliffGaming]

Having the same issues as Frodo and Tom.

[Jiminimonka]

Yeah this used to work but something changed. Same as blood splats now appearing 30000 miles from the corpse and tokens disappearing off the maps when you approve their move (which happens in 5e as well as SWADE). But those 2 aside (I'll make a post about one of them soon) the Ally used to work.

[Lonewolf]

Testing again whilst tired :pirate:. Tryed it with party vision switched on and off in options. With shared vs proper entry method.
So far it works if party vision switched on. Allies on PC character sheets and added to CT. You can either automatically add them on the same action card or drag and drop to their own place on CT as desired.
So far the attack roll made by the player from the allied npc sheet does indeed appear as [Character Name]: Fighting: Sword
However rolling from CT will produce [NPC Name]: Fighting: Sword

Will have to take a proper look at this in the next play session.

[FrodoB]

However rolling from CT will produce [NPC Name]: Fighting: Sword


As GM or as Player? I could've sworn players cannot roll from the CT...?

[kronovan]

As GM or as Player? I could've sworn players cannot roll from the CT...?

Indeed, players cannot roll from the CT. You can't properly test the controlling of allies if you're hosting as GM, you need to connect to a hosted session as a player.

[FrodoB]

Though you can connect to your own session by starting FGU twice if you just want to test it. Not sure if you mean that - just to make sure. :)

[kronovan]

Though you can connect to your own session by starting FGU twice if you just want to test it. Not sure if you mean that - just to make sure. :)

Yep, exactly what I do whenever I want to see a player's view of a map or how the ruleset's features appear and function for them.

[Caratacus]

I GM'ed last night and neither of my players could do anything with their allies, no movement nor any attacks. And a wildcard ally (pulled from a character sheet) did not show any bennies available on the combat tracker. I went in this afternoon to test as per previous posts and had a similar result on one of my other campaigns, though the overall game settings were the same.

[Rojek]

My group is now also experiencing this problem. The druid in our group has an ally jaguar and up through mid-December, they have had no issues controlling the ally in our previous 10 or 11 sessions in PFSW. We resumed our campaign on Jan 22nd after a break and since then no one is able to control any allies assigned to them. Toggling "Party vision and movement" works as a workaround for now

[FrodoB]

Quick status update:

Moon Wizard has said on the Discord that the issue has been forwarded to Ikael (the maintainer of the ruleset), but he is swamped with IRL stuff right now.
And the downside with the SWADE code being so heavily customized is that a quick fix from anyone but Ikael is a tad difficult. :(

[Caratacus]

Ikael has done so many amazing things for SWADE on FGU, I am certainly willing to give him some time. We'll find a work around in the meanwhile.
Good luck Ikael at whatever those challenges are.

[Hex08]

I can reproduce this.

Rolls made by players from an ally sheet don´t state the name of the allied npc - just the character´s name! I guess this is a bug.

1. The attack roll made by the player from the allied npc sheet shows like [Character Name]: Fighting: Sword.

I'm running into this too. Happy to wait for a resolution until Ikael can look at it, I hope the IRL issues are ok

[wframe]

Had this issue in my game tonight. Really confused me. I'm glad I'm not alone and I'm looking forward to a fix!

[wframe]

Adding more information to this issue:

I noticed that the Ally does not provide flanking bonuses either. They were of the same faction and within range, but not granting flanking bonuses. It's like they weren't even there.

[FrodoB]

I'm not sure, but that might be a different bug worthy of its own thread. It shouldn't matter if PCs can control allied NPCs to determine whether they provide a Gang-Up bonus or not.

[wframe]

I'm not sure, but that might be a different bug worthy of its own thread. It shouldn't matter if PCs can control allied NPCs to determine whether they provide a Gang-Up bonus or not.

I’m fairly certain it’s related, since gangup bonuses are working fine otherwise everywhere else.

[Caratacus]

Has there been any progress on the original NPCs not working as allies question? With all the latest changes to FGU I am getting the idea this has been forgotten.

[Moon Wizard]

I have not heard anything from @Ikael recently, who is the developer for this ruleset DLC. I am guessing that he is tied up in real world commitments at this point. He is quiet fast on fixes, once he has some time available.

Regards,
JPG

[blibertore]

I posted to the wrong thread earlier, but I ran into another issue last night.

When an ally is added to the combat tracker and goes on the players turn... I noticed tonight in my game that they do not get the gang up bonus as they should... is this known and if so, is there a fix for it?? or just have to enter the bonus manually...?? i.e., player 1 has an ally listed on his character sheet. a familiar using a Hawk, when the hawk is added to the tracker as an ALLY that's great because it shows it goes on the players Initiative card, however we noticed that the gang up bonus stopped working. When that same hawk is on the combat tracker as just another player getting its own initiative, then gang up works again. it's only when they are listed as an ALLY does it stop working.

[Moon Wizard]

You're correct. Currently, allies are not applying gang up bonus when they attack.

I'll take a look at this while @Ikael is away, and see if I can get fixed in the next ruleset update. It will probably be at least a few weeks, since I'm making sure that our v4.2.0 FGU launch settles in.

Regards,
JPG

[Caratacus]

Hello, I am wondering if this issue has been addressed yet. I haven't heard anything for quite a while, last time I played it still seemed to be a problem. Please help.

[Kyler]

I had the same question. Did the issue get addressed or were we doing it wrong?

[Jiminimonka]

Played last night. This is still an issue.

[Caratacus]

Hi Moon Wizard. I am guessing Ikael is still not available, but I was wondering where this issue of NPCs adding to combat tracker, plus the sometimes odd chat box results are going. Is there a likelihood of this getting fixed, or will this just have "to be lived with". Savage Worlds encourages the PC/NPC mix, but the current challenges really make that harder to implement in FGU. Saying "Pretty Please with a cherry on top" that it can be fixed.

Thanks for your (or whomever it is) attention to this tiny but annoying matter.

Caratacus

[Ikael]

I have addressed this issue. However I was only able to reproduce the "player cannot move friendly NPC which is under his/her action card". Allies under PC sheet worked just fine and I was not able to reproduce gang up issues

[Jiminimonka]

Thanks Ikael!

[Caratacus]

I second that. Thanks Ikael!

Caratacus

[Rojek]

Thank you! Much appreciated