Pathfinder Second Edition - Bestiary - Inquiries, Issues, Development, and Updates

With the Pathfinder Second Edition Bestiary now available in the store, I am starting this thread for people to come to looking for a consolidation of known issues and bugs, ongoing development, and product updates. If you are looking for a quick link to find the Bestiary, you can find it here: PF2 Bestiary for Fantasy Ground

Foremost, if you find any inaccurate data or information, please report it here and I will address it ASAP so that it can be rectified in the next available update. The more information the better (which creature, what aspect is a problem, etc). I appreciate even the smallest details I might have missed in the creation of the product, including simple typos or formatting errors.

Beyond that, there is a lot of automation that'll be developed over time, and I'll keep that information updated, too, so you know what to expect, what's in the works, and what's still on a wish-list. Trenloe is amazing at what he does, but there are complexities involved in setting it up and I'll aid in the process as much as possible, but the key component is going to be time.

Because it will take time getting the automation to where we will want it, I am more than happy to give examples and help people use the available resources to accomplish just about anything you'd like to have in some working form from the Bestiary. Anyone familiar with my (SR) Bestiary knows that there are ways to get things like Dragon's Breath, Diseases and Poisons, Saving Throws, and similar effects working through use of the Spell Tab available on each creature.

As a final word, if you are reporting something, please include which version of Fantasy Grounds you are using. There are aspects of Unity that are still under development that work perfectly fine within Classic, so it's important to know which virtual tabletop you are referring to. If it's an error message, please include what you were doing at the time of the error report and include the error message as well.

Thank You and Enjoy!
ShadeRaven

(Reserved for Updates)

FGC 3.3.11

Usually I run bought adventure paths so there is little need for the Bestiary, but I bought it anyway and gave it a quick test for automation. So here is some critical feedback. ;)

Unfortunately the current implementation of saves + effects seems less useful than I hoped for. Double-clicking on a saving-throw in the automation does not automatically apply its effects. Here is an example of what I have to do to apply the saves + effects of a Cloaker's "Infrasonic Moan" (30" emanation) to a party of 5 people.

1. Target everyone within the 30" emanation.
2. Double-click on the automation "Save: Will[DC:22]" to let everyone automatically roll their saves.
3. Clear targets.
4. Target everyone who failed their save.
5. Double-click on the automation "Effect: Frightened: 1" to apply the fail effect.
5. Clear targets.
6. Target everyone who critically failed their save.
7. Double-click on the automation "Effect: Frightened: 2" to apply the 1st critical fail effect.
8. Double-click on the automation "Effect: Fleeing[D:2][End]" to apply the 2nd critical fail effect.
9. Clear targets.

Instead of this rather inconvenient way I would like the save and corresponding effects to be linked into a single double-click and then be applied accordingly (success/fail/crit fail).

It would also be useful if automation save/effects could be dragged & dropped on single characters instead of having to target them first, this is possible with attack rolls. I know of the workaround to first double-click and then drag the result from chat to single characters, but that is obviously an extra step and more mouse-movement.

Here is how I currently do it without automation:

1. Ask everyone to do a Will save.
2. Either target everyone who failed their save or hit ALT-3 to open the Effects window and drag the effect to the one or two affected PCs.
3. Either target everyone who critically failed their save or just drag the effect to one or two affected PCs.
4. Either clear targets or just be done with it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Weissrolf

Instead of this rather inconvenient way I would like the save and corresponding effects to be linked into a single double-click and then be applied accordingly (success/fail/crit fail).

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This is standard operation throughout Fantasy Grounds, not just the PF2 ruleset - one action does one action only. I doubt I'll change that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Weissrolf

It would also be useful if automation save/effects could be dragged & dropped on single characters instead of having to target them first, this is possible with attack rolls.

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This will come in a future release.

Thanks for the feedback. The automation actions are provided to allow triggering of standard PF2 actions. The GM determines how they're going to use them. For example, having players roll saves is a common occurrence, as many players don't like the system doing the roll and prefer to do it themselves. But then the effect actions can be used to apply as needed.

Three target/clear operations for a single action may be the "standard operation", but it is still too inconvenient to even consider using it. If the GM rolls the save for everyone then effects ought to be applied automatically, this is what "automation" is for.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Weissrolf

Three target/clear operations for a single action may be the "standard operation", but it is still too inconvenient to even consider using it. If the GM rolls the save for everyone then effects ought to be applied automatically, this is what "automation" is for.

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I am looking into ways of tracking and applying the results of saves as one action(similar to the "basic save" functionality now).

We're still getting there with the experimental NPC automation. But one thing that will remain - an action (e.g. attack, save, etc.) will always be separate from the effect of that action (damage, effects, etc.) - there are just too many edge cases to try to do an all-in-one automation. This is by design and will remain for all mainstream activities.

Sounds like a good solution:

1. Target players.
2. Roll saves (GM or players).
3. Double-click once (!) to apply effects according to save results.
4. Clear targets.

Hey Weissrolf. Thanks for the feedback!

Automation is really still in its infancy. We would have loved nothing better than to have it released in a complete and finished state, but the enhancement it offers even without some of the down-the-road features seems too good to withhold for now.

So while I agree, there are some things we'd love to have employed to make the joys of GMing ;) easier (I run 3 campaigns, so I get you), for now, just keep letting us know what you'd like to see as this progresses and have patience as we work towards those ends.

Oh! And one thing I would suggest having active in the meantime, if you don't already, is the Target: Remove on Miss. This can be found in the options window (the little gear in the upper right hand corner). Personally, I set this to [Multi] so that it works only for multiple target attacks/saves. What this does, at least, is remove all those targets that made their saving throw (although it doesn't remove those targets until after damage for saves that are tagged BASIC).

While it doesn't cover effects that happen on a successful saving throw and we still have to deal with critical failures that are different from normal failed saves, this at least tends to start the process of differentiating between the "good" and the "bad" saving throw results on targets.

This reminds me - it used to be that if you targeted a bunch of creatures and then triggered an effect with a save, the ones who saved would be removed as targets. This meant that if you then applied the failure effect of the spell, it would only apply to the ones who failed. However, in some recent version, it seems to have changed that targets who succeed have to be manually removed as targets.

Is this an intentional change?

EDIT: I just saw ShadeRaven's post above. I haven't changed my options, but perhaps that Remove on Miss option got changed somehow by an update. I'll check it.