Help with custom effect for Vex

[Lazybones1969]

Hey all, I was trying to create a custom effect for the Vex weapon mastery and couldn't get it to work. I based it on the coding for Hunter's Mark. There is an example of ADVATK working with IFT on the wiki, but for some reason I can't get it to trigger here.

Here is what I created:

On Self: IFT:CUSTOM(Vex); ADVATK;
Target: self, duration: 1 round

On Target: Vex;
Duration: 1 round

I know you can just give yourself the ADVATK easily enough, but I was trying to come up with something that would track which target you'd hit the first time.

[LordEntrails]

Don't put the semicolon at the end of the effect lines. See: https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/996642031/5E+Effects+for+Advanced+Automation#IF-and-IFT-Examples

But if you are setting a duration of 1 round, the effect will expire on the next round so you won't know who you hit last round... We generally assume you are going to continue hitting the same target, so we don't set a duration. But, generally we find it easier to click the ADV button once, rather than click two effect strings and have to set the target for one of them.

[Lazybones1969]

Removing the semi-colon didn't resolve the issue; it still doesn't work in testing on a clean campaign without extensions. See image.

I agree in most cases the custom effect isn't necessary, but there are situations where it is useful to track which target you've vexed (e.g., if a room is full of ten bandits). I've told my players they can just create a marker effect along the lines of "Vexed by [name]," but I was just curious why the effect language above doesn't work.62629

[Zacchaeus]

You need a colon at the end of ADVATK.

[Lazybones1969]

That did it; thanks.

[cwsoots]

You need a colon at the end of ADVATK.

I have to ask why the colon is necessary in this case...?

When I look in the Portal reference information, it says "Modifiers need to be followed by a colon ':' if you intend to have anything after them such as a number, dice etc. If the colon is missed then Fantasy Grounds assumes that there is nothing to follow. Thus if the effect requires nothing after the modifier the colon can be missed out." and "If colon missing, assume no dice, numerical modifier or descriptors."

I assumed that the colon was therefore only needed if something followed ADVATK, like "ADVATK: opportunity". I wondering if I need to go back and verify all of my custom effects for ADVATK, DISATK, ADVSAV, DISSAV, ADVSKILL, etc....?

[Zacchaeus]

I don’t know why it needs a colon but it doesn’t work without it. Having said that ADVATK: can have delimiters so it may be that you need the colon to indicate that nothing follows.

[cwsoots]

I don’t know why it needs a colon but it doesn’t work without it. Having said that ADVATK: can have delimiters so it may be that you need the colon to indicate that nothing follows.

Somebody might to update the Portal then: https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/996642031/5E+Effects+for+Advanced+Automation#A-Word-on-Syntax, and I need to go and verify a whole lot of colon-less effects to verify they are working as expected.

[Trenloe]

ADVATK on its own works OK, ADVATK used as part of an IF conditional effect works without the colon too. I believe this is a nuance of the FG code that processes the IFT conditional effects - hopefully this will be investigated further...