5E Advanced Effects (items, npcs, characters)

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Originally Posted by TheoGeek

Equipped Effects with Automatic Effects combo will add both 2d6 fire and 1d6 cold to the PC

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Why do you need another extension to add cold and fire damage other than AE.

Again, I dont know what Equipped Effects is doing that you'd want it when you can already do this (apply effects to effects to a weapon) with Advanced Effects. I simply don't know why you'd use something that is duplicating equipment/pc effect management when it sounds like it's doing the same thing but not in a way you can control it.

I'll ask this again...What is EE doing that Advanced Effects isnt that you'd want to use EE.

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Originally Posted by celestian

Why do you need another extension to add cold and fire damage other than AE.

Again, I dont know what Equipped Effects is doing that you'd want it when you can already do this (apply effects to effects to a weapon) with Advanced Effects. I simply don't know why you'd use something that is duplicating equipment/pc effect management when it sounds like it's doing the same thing but not in a way you can control it.

I'll ask this again...What is EE doing that Advanced Effects isnt that you'd want to use EE.

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Sorry...Equipped Effects automates what Advanced Effects does manually, but not just for items, it automatically adds class and racial effects too, but EE does not provide the Action Only feature that I love about Advanced Effects.

In short, EE lets me drag any item to a player's inventory and it automatically adds the proper effects to the player when the item is equipped - I don't have to remember to add the effects or even which effects to add, it just does it by associating the item name with effects named a certain way which is what the Automatic Effects datasets have done. It's the automation that makes EE so nice, but it's missing the "Action Only" property that I really love about Advanced Effects - EE was never intended to work that way. So, when I drag a frost brand and a flame tongue to a PC, and then the PC equips both, EE adds the effects to the character's effects automatically, but since it doesn't have an "action only" feature, any damage roll the player initiates applies the effects of both plus any other DMG effects that apply.

I love the automation of EE - I don't need to remember which effects to add to items or classes or races, it just does it.

I love the "Action Only" feature of Advanced Effects, players can have multiple items equipped and it applies the right damage.

Sorry if I haven't been clearer on what I'm looking for, but it boils down to this - I'm a lazy DM, and any automation I can use is helpful. EE provides that automation, but it doesn't provide the ability to distinguish between what effects to apply and which ones not to apply - any effect added by Equipped Effects gets added to the character's effects in the Combat Tracker and all of them apply if their effect type dictates (i.e. all DMG effects get applied every time damage is rolled, etc.) regardless of what attack initiated a damage roll. I'd love the automation of EE and the "Action Only" ability of Advanced Effects.

Maybe my perfect world ends up being a "good enough" world and I just need to figure out how use these two extensions together the best way. The way I've been told to use both involves renaming effects in question so that EE can't find the right effect and then manually adding that renamed effect to the weapon using Advanced Effects. That works, and if that's the answer, that's the answer. Alternatively, I could not worry about the "Action Only" feature and remind my players to unequip any weapon they aren't using and equip only the weapon they are, but they have already expressed that is not ideal. :)

Ah, so it sounds like the guy created a database of effects so you don't have to? For me, I found that adding the effects to the items was what I needed (you can do that before giving it to them). The 2E ruleset does it for race/class/backgrounds and all that jazz also but I guess 5e doesn't come pre-populated with effects like 2e. I have a better understanding why you are doing what you are, thanks ;)

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Originally Posted by celestian

Ah, so it sounds like the guy created a database of effects so you don't have to?

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Yup!

Automatic Effects is the database of all effects (created by Aridhro) for a ton of sourcebooks and Equipped Effects (created by SilentRuin) is the extension that uses that database to automatically apply effects to items when they are equipped. It's pretty slick for lazy DMs like me. :)

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Originally Posted by TheoGeek

Yup!

Automatic Effects is the database of all effects (created by Aridhro) for a ton of sourcebooks and Equipped Effects (created by SilentRuin) is the extension that uses that database to automatically apply effects to items when they are equipped. It's pretty slick for lazy DMs like me. :)

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For me, the easiest thing is to actually just delete the custom effects for anything that I have manually created an Advanced Effect for. That way there's no need to equip/unequip or anything like that.

Fwiw I do think there is a ripe opportunity for a collaborative functionality between Advanced Effects and Equipped Effects. I have done a similar thing in Kit'N'Kaboodle to tap in to the Equipped Effects automation when an item is equipped to add any actions to the item itself directly as opposed to the character sheet, which then allows benefits of charge tracking, etc from KNK. From what I saw when taking a quick look, the primary consideration would be translating a regular custom effect into the format used by Advanced Effects. Doubt it would be too difficult, but would take more than the 5 minutes I set aside for looking at it originally.

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Originally Posted by TheoGeek

True, bonuses like +1 don't stack because they aren't considered effects, they are inherent with the weapon. Without having the effects added per Advanced Effects, if the PC has a shortsword flame tongue and a shortsword frost brand, the Equipped Effects with Automatic Effects combo will add both 2d6 fire and 1d6 cold to the PC when the weapons are equipped. Attacks with either will trigger both effects all the time. I can remind players that they need to unequip one weapon when attacking with the other, but I guarantee they'll forget. In your +1, poison and simply +1, unless you unequip the poison one when attacking with the normal one, the poison damage will get applied to it too because it is added as an effect (unless you simply add it manually to an already existing +1 sword via Advanced Effects, but then EE wouldn't have added it anyway and it's not an issue - I'm not worried about that case.)

With standard magic weapons though, that EE would add effects for, with the effects added per Advanced Effects to get the "Action Only" function, if I add the 2d6 fire and 1d6 cold damage to each weapon using Advanced Effects, when I equip the weapons, the effects get added both by Advanced Effects and Equipped Effects so that a hit with the frost brand triggers a 1d6 cold from Advanced Effects, another 1d6 cold from Equipped Effects, and a 2d6 fire from Equipped Effects. Unless I rename the effect to force EE to not automatically add it when equipped. Fundamentally, this is what I want to avoid and retain the "Action Only" capability of Advanced Effects.

I don't mind the extra setup it takes to manually add effects from Automatic Effects to weapons using Advanced Effects and renaming something to make Equipped Effects not re-add the effect when the weapon is equipped...I guess I'm looking for the most straightforward way to do it - I fully admit that I may be making it too complicated.

Maybe all I need is to know what method you use to make those extensions best work together without duplicating effects.

Thanks for the patience!

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I just add the bonuses like +1d6 fire to the weapon's damage. I don't add it as an effect on the character or combat tracker. Then nothing to turn on or off, it's just applied when they roll damage for that weapon.
I'm confused because you can just go into the weapon itself, add a line in damage, add a dice, then rename the damage to anything. So the damage is only rolled when they click on the damage for that weapon. Why add it to the character instead of the weapon?

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Originally Posted by Poe the Homunculus

I just add the bonuses like +1d6 fire to the weapon's damage. I don't add it as an effect on the character or combat tracker. Then nothing to turn on or off, it's just applied when they roll damage for that weapon.
I'm confused because you can just go into the weapon itself, add a line in damage, add a dice, then rename the damage to anything. So the damage is only rolled when they click on the damage for that weapon.

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You actually shouldn't do that.

Try this:

Short sword with damage of 1d6; 1d8 cold

critical hit does 2d6 + 2d8 like it's supposed to.

Now change the extra crit dice property for the PC to 1. Critical damage SHOULD be 3d6 + 2d8.

But, adding the effect damage as weapon damage breaks the critical roll - it does 2d6 + 3d8. The reason? It assumes all damage added to a weapon like you do is "normal weapon damage" and takes the highest damage die and adds one and wrongly adds the extra cold die, not only doing an extra d8 damage instead of an extra d6 damage, but doing an extra d8 cold damage instead of and extra d6 normal damage.

Adding as effects cause critical damage to be calculated properly. Adding special effects as raw weapon damage breaks critical damage.

That's the biggest reason and the reason extensions like Advanced Effects and Equipped Effects add effects as effects, not as weapon damage.

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Originally Posted by celestian

Ah, so it sounds like the guy created a database of effects so you don't have to? For me, I found that adding the effects to the items was what I needed (you can do that before giving it to them). The 2E ruleset does it for race/class/backgrounds and all that jazz also but I guess 5e doesn't come pre-populated with effects like 2e. I have a better understanding why you are doing what you are, thanks ;)

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Yeah, that's what I do too.

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Originally Posted by TheoGeek

You actually shouldn't do that.

Try this:

Short sword with damage of 1d6; 1d8 cold

critical hit does 2d6 + 2d8 like it's supposed to.

Now change the extra crit dice property for the PC to 1. Critical damage SHOULD be 3d6 + 2d8.

But, adding the effect damage as weapon damage breaks the critical roll - it does 2d6 + 3d8. The reason? It assumes all damage added to a weapon like you do is "normal weapon damage" and takes the highest damage die and adds one and wrongly adds the extra cold die, not only doing an extra d8 damage instead of an extra d6 damage, but doing an extra d8 cold damage instead of and extra d6 normal damage.

Adding as effects cause critical damage to be calculated properly. Adding special effects as raw weapon damage breaks critical damage.

That's the biggest reason and the reason extensions like Advanced Effects and Equipped Effects add effects as effects, not as weapon damage.

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Why add an additional 1d6 for base weapon damage? A crit should be just double the amount of dice rolled. If the character hits with an effect or weapon that does different dice on a crit, it rolls those dice separately. Like if a rouge hits as a crit on sneak attack with a short sword, it will roll 4d4 and 2d6 as damage. Sneak attack is an effect. I run both extensions and don't have issues.

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Originally Posted by Poe the Homunculus

Why add an additional 1d6 for base weapon damage? A crit should be just double the amount of dice rolled. If the character hits with an effect or weapon that does different dice on a crit, it rolls those dice separately. Like if a rouge hits as a crit on sneak attack with a short sword, it will roll 4d4 and 2d6 as damage. Sneak attack is an effect. I run both extensions and don't have issues.

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Because high level fighters, half orcs, etc, add an extra crit dice on critical hits..sometimes two, heck, sometimes even 3.

So, if you add the fire or cold damage as "weapon damage", the critical damage will be wrong.

Critical damage without the extra crit die added by class or race comes out correctly. But as soon as you add that extra crit die, or more than one, it'll be wrong.

It really comes into play if you were attacking a creature that was vulnerable to fire and you had a PC with brutal critical or something that added an extra 3 crit die. That critical short sword flame tongue would to 2d6 + 7d8 fire (2d8 critical fire + 2d8 fire + 2d8 critical fire + 3d8 extra critical fire), and then fire damage would be multiplied by 1.5 for a range of 10 to 84 fire damage instead of 6 to 48 fire damage that the rules say: 5d6 (2d6 + 3d6 extra crit + 2d8 fire + 2d8 critical fire.)

That's a MASSIVE difference in damage. If you are OK with that, that's fine, just know it's not how 5e intended effect damage to work.

Oh - so why not just add the extra crit die as a "Power" on the character sheet. Then when they roll the crit, after the auto-roll, they can just roll the extra "Power" dice.