ALIEN - Combat & Combat Tracker

Owned by Derek Batting
Last updated: Jun 20, 2021
4 min read

COMBAT TRACKER (CT) OVERVIEW

The ruleset implements fair degree of automation to handle combat encounters. The following features are added to the combat tracker:

  • Trackers for Slow/Fast actions. For PCs, the markers are linked to and triggered from the PC Sheet as well.

  • Linked values for Health, Stress, Armor Rating and Air Supply during combat for PCs.

  • Targeting enables automation of attack, damage and armor rolls

  • Pause-mechanism before damage allocation to support stunts and allow the GAME MOTHER to handle all cases before damage is committed to an actor or cancel attack/damage sequence.

  • Automatic NPC initiative

  • Initiative sub-menu

  • Spaceships can be dragged & dropped to the combat tracker. HULL & ARMOR are linked attributes under HL and AR columns.

The combat tracker has the following categories that can be expanded globally or per actor:

  • TARGETING – remains unchanged from the CoreRPG.

  • ABILITIES - enabled for NPCs - displays ABILITIES, SKILLS and GEAR entries from their sheet and allows relevant rolls to be made directly from the CT, without opening the actor’s sheet. When the actor is of the XENOMORPH type, the SIGNATURE ATTACKS are listed instead.

  • COMBAT - this category is populated automatically when successful attack is made against the actor. It will display the information for the attack (what was the total dice pool and the resultant BASE DAMAGE and STUNTS). The GAME MOTHER can use buttons to adjust the outcome of an attack action before applying the final result.

  • SPACE/REACH – Speed is added to this category. The rest remains unchanged from the CoreRPG.

  • EFFECTS – remains unchanged from the CoreRPG.

COMBAT FLOW SUPPORTED BY THE AUTOMATION

The following is the recommended sequence of actions for handling automation-assisted combat. The flow is the same for NPCs and PCs (will be referred as Actors in the section below), with the only difference the location from where the attacks & stunts are executed. Players use their character sheet’s COMBAT tab to execute attacks and spend stunts, while the GAME MOTHER is using the buttons in the ABILITIES & COMBAT category in the CT’s entry. GAME MOTHER can also spend stunts on behalf of the players.

Preparation Phase:

  1. Add PC to combat tracker.

  2. Add Encounter or NPCs to combat tracker (NPCs will automatically roll their initiative values)

Combat Phase & Combat Flow

  1. PC/NPC targets another actor. This requires combat map with tokens, otherwise the GM will assist the player and make targeting on their behalf.

  2. PC/NPC makes attack roll

  3. The combat flow is paused, and the targeted actor has

COMBAT category populated with the result of the attack. The player or GM uses the relevant buttons to spend stunts as appropriate. Spending stunts is tracked by reducing the Successes counter. Once depleted, no more stunts can be spent, and message will be logged in the chat for the GM. The BASE DAMAGE can be adjusted using the Ctrl + mouse wheel. Certain stunts apply immediately.

  1. The GM clicks APPLY button, which triggers armor roll on the target and health is reduced.

  2. Next combatant.

INITIATIVE SUB-MENU

There is CT-Sub menu that implements four initiative-related actions. It can be accessed from the MENU button and select the option at 9 o’clock. The menu options are as follows:

  • ROLL ALL INITIATIVES - all initiative values are cleared and the initiative is automatically rerolled for each participant

  • ROLL NPC INITIATIVES - initiative is rolled or re-rolled for every NPC in the list.

  • ROLL PC INITIATIVES - initiative is rolled or re-rolled for every PC in the list.

DUPLICATE INITIATIVE & INITIATIVE GROUPS

ALIEN RPG rules govern that each participant in combat has unique initiative (represented as cards from 1 to 10 on the tabletop and roll of D10 in Fantasy Grounds). In case of more than 10 combatants (or when there are too many opponents with SPEED more than 1), the GAME MOTHER is encouraged to group them.

By default, the automation does not allow duplicate initiative values. This behavior can be switched on using the following switch in OPTIONS MENU: Initiative: Allow NPCs to share initiative. When turned ON, NPCs will share initiative and will be group together in the combat tracker’s list as in the D&D 5E ruleset.

Player characters will never share the same initiative with NPCs or other PCs. They always have unique initiative.

MONSTER ATTACKS & EFFECTS

The effects of monster attacks are handled the traditional way. Monster attack that has Base Dice is rolled automatically, but it does not trigger the abovementioned combat flow.

CREATURES WITH SPEED OF 2 OR MORE

Xenomorphs or other creatures get an action for each point of SPEED they have EACH ROUND. This rule is easy to follow when playing with pen and paper, but becomes challenging in virtual environment. In Fantasy Grounds, an NPC actor in the CT is stand-alone copy of an NPC object from the library, rather than reference as PC actors.

Recommendation for handing xenomorphs and other creatures with SPEED greater than 1 is to place separate NPC with the same Non-ID name, but different Name. Players will continue targeting the enemies marked in RED, while the entities marked in YELLOW are for marking the extra actions.

All xenomorphs in the ruleset are prepared with XENOMORPH as Non-ID name to facilitate this. Changing the name or the non-id name to something more appropriate, after they are placed in the CT, is optional.