Free 5E extension to prompt the GM when reaction is triggered.

[illahad]

Hello everyone!

I made an extension to solve my problem, and I think it may be useful for others as well. The problem is that while I like to use complicated monsters, for example those from MCDMs “Flee, Mortals!” or The Tome of Beasts or Monsters Menagerie, I constantly forget about all the reactions they have. So many times my players had a much easier time that it could be only because I forgot that the monster explodes on death, or can intervene when its ally is attacked etc.

So the extension now takes care of this for me. Then an NPC is added to the combat tracker, it parses the text of its traits and reactions and keeps an index of them. And when the proper trigger happens, it makes sure that monster is not incapacitated and that it can see the target if the reaction requires it and so on. And if everything is fine - a message appears in the chat, with the link to the reaction text. Oh, my players are going to suffer now, mwahahahaha! Just kidding, I love my players

Screenshot 2023-11-12 144440.png Screenshot 2023-11-12 145754.png

You can get the extension for free in the Fantasy Grounds Forge or on GitHub

PS. If you want to report that something is not parsed, please attach the exact wording of a trait or reaction. As a workaround, you can try to change wording to a more standard, e.g. if “when the monster is dealt damage” is not parsed, try “when the monster takes damage”

[illahad]

Version 1.0.1 is now out, with the following changes:

* Start Turn reactions now only triggered by PCs to reduce noise

* New trigger supported: The monster suffers a crit. Typical wording is "when a creature scores a critical hit against the monster_name" or "when the monster_name suffers a critical hit".

* Monster fails an attack. Typical wording is "when the monster_name fails an attack roll" or "monster_name misses with an [possibly melee|ranged] attack"

* Creature regains hit points. The wording is practically that.

[rocketvaultgames]

This seems awesome so far. I'm pretty bad at remembering to Parry with the NPCs...

The only downside I'm seeing is that it is checking NPCs that are in the CT but not currently displayed in the CT due to being in a hidden Combat Group a la https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/154/view.

Is there any way you can make it only announce available reactions for actors currently displayed in the CT?

I know Legendary Assistant (https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/590/view) had an issue like this at first as well, but was able to be changed to play nice with Combat Groups.

Thanks much!

[illahad]

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I'll try to look into that, but I don't use the former extention myself, so I cannot test, but I guess I'll take a look at the latter's code.

I guess, this is different from a creature being hidden, right?

I also want to find a way to detect spellcasting as there are many creatures what do something when someone casts a spell, but the FG doesn't really mark spell-related actions internally as it seems.

[rocketvaultgames]

It is not the same as just having visibility toggled off in the CT. The actor is in a group (from Combat Groups ext) that can be toggled visible/invisible in the combat tracker for the GM.

This allows you to have multiple encounters (and parties) all staged in the combat tracker with their effects and tokens on maps, but then hide them so you are only seeing what you want at any given time.

I'm happy to answer any questions or help test.

Thanks much for your consideration.

[MrDDT]

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I'll try to look into that, but I don't use the former extention myself, so I cannot test, but I guess I'll take a look at the latter's code.

I guess, this is different from a creature being hidden, right?

I also want to find a way to detect spellcasting as there are many creatures what do something when someone casts a spell, but the FG doesn't really mark spell-related actions internally as it seems.

Also work, thank you so much for this.

I know BCEG (Better Combat Effects Gold) does detect spell casting, maybe talk to the author in that.

[illahad]

Version 1.0.2 is out, changes are:

Added two configuration settings -
"Notify for hidden tokens": now you can hide notifications for combatants, hidden in the combat tracker
"Notify in hidden Combat Groups": compatibility option for "Combat Groups" extension, allows to turn off notifications for unseen combat groups.

@mattvictim -- please check for updates go get the version 1.0.2 and you should be fine. If it doesn't work -- please let me know.

[rocketvaultgames]

Looks perfect now. Thanks!!

Not terribly important, but just to let you know that this exists if you want to have it show updates for your extensions: https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/726/view

[illahad]

Great! And thanks for the hint.

[illahad]

Hello everyone!

I'm happy to say that version 1.1.0 is out with the following features:

* Now it can handle distances! If you use a grid, and the reaction says "within X feet", the extension will measure fow far the involved tokens are apart and notify you if the distance is too long.

* Another QoL improvement is that "Parry" style reactions got special handling. The extension will tell you, whether applying the bonus is enough to deflect the triggereing attack or not.

I hope you will like these changes. Cheers!