combat tracker question

[azbo]

how does the dm make the monsters visible in the combat tracker?

they show up with a condition instead of a stat line and they show up in initiative order but it's very handy to see what's going on in the tracker.

[Griogre]

I'm not sure what you are asking here. Do you mean get the monsters on the tracker? Just drag and drop them from the personality list. On the monster's initiative the phasing monster does "open up" some. You can keep the defense, attack or condition part of a monster open by clicking on the sword, shield or body. When a character targets a monster (by clicking on a monster so a circle of his dice color appears) it also opens up the defense part of the monster on the tracker so you can see it's AC and saves/defenses.

Typically the only part I usually want open all the time on a monster is the Conditions part. I will set that open to remind me the monster has a condition on it.

[azbo]

No I meant so that monsters appear in the players trackers.

normally in most campaigns I've experienced we can see the monsters name, initiative and status in the tracker. There's a step requeired to do this because they're sometimes missing. Today we had a new DM and he couldn't figure it out. In 3.5 the conditions were healthy, light wounds, moderate wounds, heavy wounds and in 4e it's healthy, light and bloodied.

I was wondering what that step is to get the monsters in the players tracker.

[Foen]

The standard ruleset (bundled with FG) doesn't allow you to share the tracker with the players. You must have been using a modified ruleset, as many of those do allow the GM to share.

Stuart

[azbo]

oh. there's a button on the game for the tracker is that not part of the standard ruleset? Or does that just show the pc's by default. I've only been a player up to this point but I've been considering buying the full client because I'm a coder and I want to play with the ruleset.

Oddly every game I've been involved in had the more advanced combat tracker. This could because a lot of people seem to be using jpg's ruleset both in 3.5 and 4e

[Foen]

The tracker is included in the default ruleset, but only on the GM side. There is no button on the client side for a combat tracker.

I guess you've been using JPG's rulesets rather than the default one.

Stuart

[scytale2]

Whilst it would be nice to have monsters in the player tracker, I think it would be better to have them "glow" in a different way, dependent upon their wound status. If all monsters show up in the player tracker, then many encounters would be ruined.

For instance, that gelatinous cube would not get its DC25 surprise, as someone walks into it.

[Tenian]

scytale2, JPG does this:

From JPG's release notes on .98

* When an NPC in the combat tracker is bloodied, the underlay for their icon on the map will darken slightly.


It would be nice if the ruleset could do more, but my understanding is that interactions with the tokens are very limited.

[azbo]

the tracker we've been using is much better than that. It doesn't put the monsters on our tracker until they take an action so surprise is not lost and it shows them with the status line and the color underlay on the map as well.

[Moon Wizard]

In the rulesets that I've been modding, there is a checkbox for each combat tracker entry which is labeled "Show NPC". The NPC will only be displayed in the player combat tracker, if the box is checked.

Cheers,
JPG

[Xorn]

Yup. My players love it, too. Especially with the latest release, it actually announces the creature's turn in chat if it's checked!

But they had no idea when the 12 skeletons on the battlemap would act until their initiative came up and I checked them. :)

[Bidmaron]

Pardon me, but which jpg mod are you referring to?
--Dale--

[Griogre]

The feature is in the combat tracker on both the d20 and 4e JPG rulesets.

[Bidmaron]

There is no checkbox to show the monster in my d20 ruleset. JPG was talking about a mod, so there must be a mod that has this feature.
--Dale--

[Griogre]

Correct. I was refering to the d20_JPG ruleset and 4E_JPG ruleset not the default d20 ruleset.

The d20_JPG ruleset is here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8640

[Bidmaron]

Appreciate the link. It's sure hard to find all the good mods out there.
--Dale--