NPCs disguised as Commoners - how do they fight with better stats than Commoners?

[Jed Shields]

Hi guys and gals,

I'm setting up an encounter where the Party will stumble upon a Goblin ambush on a lone cart with some travellers. The travellers are in disguise and will fight off the attack with the help of the Party, but will turn on the party if one of them recognises one of the Players (Perception check) as they've possibly encountered them before in another fight.

The question is... how do I get them to fight with their stats while disguised as Commoners? I've currently set up two encounter groups, one made from Commoners and the second from Guards. I can swap them over if they turn on the party. But if I'm using the commoners in battle then their attacks and defence are going to suffer.

Cheers,

Jed

[Trenloe]

Players don't see the full stats of the NPCs in the combat tracker - they just see initiative and a description of their current health. See the Wiki here for an example screenshot: https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/996641984/5E+Combat+Tracker#Player's-View

So, just put them in the combat tracker as the guards, but with different names. The players may get an idea they're a little bit more than commoners when they start fighting off the goblins (based off the effectiveness of their attacks and damage) but that would be realistic.

[LordEntrails]

Give them an unidentified name of Commoner (or Traveller, or Merchant, or...), give them a Commoner token, or whatever. Then leave them unidentified. You can do all of that in the Encounter.