Bestiry Question - Effects from Monsters and saves

[Mirdur]

Hello, I am one of the new guys coming from DnD after WotC OGL fiasco. I am loving pathfinder so fine and impressed with the complexity of the rules, especially if compared with DnD 5e.

I was making some tests last night and I faced the following "problem".

I had a ghoul attack a PC with its jaws: +9 [+4/-1] (finesse), Damage 1d6+1 piercing plus ghoul fever and paralysis. I was under the impression that the effect ghoul fever and paralysis would be immediately applied after the hit, but it seems I need to click in the effect box after the hit.

This was a minor setback but one thing that got me confused was the paralysis effect: Paralysis (incapacitation, occult, necromancy) Any living, non-elf creature hit by a ghoul’s attack must succeed at a DC 15 Fortitude save or become paralyzed. It can attempt a new save at the end of each of its turns, and the DC cumulatively decreases by 1 on each such save.

I was under the impression that after each turn passes in the combat tracker, it would make automatically the Fortitude save, but this did not happen. Is there any way to do it? or should be done manually?

Thanks for the help in advance!

[Zacchaeus]

Generally effects are not automatically applied because there are so many exceptions which can cause the effect to not be applied. A character might have some trait which allows then to negate the effect; or another character might be able to cast a spell which negates the effect. So effects are always applied manually once you determine that there's no reason why it shouldn't be applied.

There's no mechanism (as yet) for ongoing saving throws that I am aware of (it's a wee while since I looked at the PF2 ruleset). So such saves would need to be done manually - especially in this case where the save is dynamic and not fixed each round.

[Trenloe]

You've picked a fairly complex example! Assuming you're using the Ghoul from the Bestiary, let's break this down:

When a ghoul hits with its Jaws it does "Damage 1d6+1 piercing plus ghoul fever and paralysis." - which will apply the damage. Ghoul Fever and Paralysis are offensive/proactive abilities that are detailed in the Ghoul's statblock:

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=55856

These abilities have various automation actions build into the code - depicted by square brackets around text, for example: [DC 15 Fortitude save] - if you hover over these, it will show what action will be applied when they are double-clicked.

So, for the ghoul, after you've rolled damage - double click on the [DC 15 Fortitude save] for Paralysis, which will trigger a save from the target and let you know if it's failed or not. If ir fails, double-click on [paralyzed] to apply the paralyzed effect to the target, which will have some extra descriptive text to help manually handle it: Paralysis (DC 15, -1 DC per Turn, End of Turn Save; Paralyzed There's nothing in the FG PF2 to do automatic saves at the end of each turn - the most it will do is the flat checks for persistence damage effects.

Do something similar for Ghoul Fever - trigger the separate fortitude save and apply the relevant "Stage" effect depending on the result of the save. Then handle the ghoul disease affliction manually each day. Better handling of afflictions will come in a future release.

The double-click automation fields are also available in a slightly different format in the combat tracker creature entry.

More info on NPC automation in the bestiaries is available here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?64192-Pathfinder-Second-Edition-Bestiaries-and-Automation

[Mirdur]

Oh thanks! I was under the impression I might be doing something wrong since the effects appeared in the tracker, but the saves did not happened after each round.