Work Around to Hide 'Turn Notices' in Chat

[RobboNJ69]

We're about 3 sessions into using Unity and overall, we love it. I had a group of NPCs set around the corner, waiting to ambush the players. They were set to 'visible based on LOS. Long before the players saw them, they all saw the NPC turns announced in the chat window.

"[Turn] Drow Assassin" So much for the ambush.

How is everyone handling that? Is there a way to hide NPC turns entirely? That would be great. I checked in the campaign options and nothing addressed it.

I know I can just keep them invisible in the CT, but that defeats the purpose of the PCs moving around the corner and automatically seeing the bad guys.

Thanks in advance for any ideas!

[Zacchaeus]

The only option is Skip hidden actors; which means of course they need to be invisible on the CT.

[RobboNJ69]

The only option is Skip hidden actors; which means of course they need to be invisible on the CT.

Thanks Zacchaeus. I was afraid that was the only option. It's a shame, that diminishes one of the nice features of LOS.

[kevininrussia]

Yes, as Zacc states the NPC has to be made invisible on the CT.

There is a wish list item that would fix this issue. Vote on it here:
https://fgapp.idea.informer.com/proj/?ia=135345

[RobboNJ69]

Yes, as Zacc states the NPC has to be made invisible on the CT.

There is a wish list item that would fix this issue. Vote on it here:
https://fgapp.idea.informer.com/proj/?ia=135345

Voted. Thanks!

[Ecks]

This wouldn't hide the turn notice, but one thing that might help is setting the enemy NPCs to unidentified and changing the name to something that won't give them away. The notice would still give away that something is going, but at least it wouldn't say what.

You could also set the Option "Turn: Stop at round start" under Combat to on, then move all the NPCs you want hidden to the top of the CT. Then, at the start of each round, manually advance the turn indicator to the first visible actor (skipping over the hidden NPCs). Not sure if this is works for all rulesets or not.

[Ludd_G]

If this is a pre-set group of NPCs I'd set up a separate encounter for the ambush as per normal but then not activate it for now. I would then just drag the correct tokens for the NPCs from assents to the map, set them to mask sensitive and then, when the players finally spot the ambushers or are surprised by them, I'd delete the dummy tokens and activate the ambush encounter (which will place the correct CT linked tokens where the dummy ones had previously been).

I hope this makes sense? I'm not sure it's the best or most elegant answer but it's just what came to mind.

Cheers,

Simon

[RobboNJ69]

You could also set the Option "Turn: Stop at round start" under Combat to on, then move all the NPCs you want hidden to the top of the CT. Then, at the start of each round, manually advance the turn indicator to the first visible actor (skipping over the hidden NPCs). Not sure if this is works for all rulesets or not.

Thanks Ecks. One problem with that is I found (at least in PF1) that manually advancing the turn breaks 'DMGO' and other automated functions like regeneration. We use those quite a bit, so I could do that.

[Ludd_G]

Also, I just double checked, and it seems I was remembering correctly, that if you have your ambushers invisible on the combat tracker you can still right click on the actual token on the map and set it to 'mask sensitive' rather than always invisible. This stops the player being notified of that token's turn (whether "skip hidden actor" is on or off, just remember if it's off there will be a pause in the flow as you jump down CT which may give the game away!) but when they come into LoS they are still revealed, at which point you can click the eye on the CT to make them visible there too.

Hope this helps,

Cheers,

Simon

[RobboNJ69]

If this is a pre-set group of NPCs I'd set up a separate encounter for the ambush as per normal but then not activate it for now. I would then just drag the correct tokens for the NPCs from assents to the map, set them to mask sensitive and then, when the players finally spot the ambushers or are surprised by them, I'd delete the dummy tokens and activate the ambush encounter (which will place the correct CT linked tokens where the dummy ones had previously been).

I hope this makes sense? I'm not sure it's the best or most elegant answer but it's just what came to mind.

Cheers,

Simon

Thanks for the idea Simon. I'll give that a shot. That would work.