5E Effects for Advanced Automation

What is an Effect?

One of the most powerful features of the built in 5e ruleset is effects. It is also, judging by the number of forum posts, the area where most users find the learning curve steepest. In Fantasy Grounds an effect is anything which gives the character either a bonus or penalty of some kind to a dice roll they are about to make. In order for the effect to be properly executed the character must be on the Combat Tracker (CT) and either they or another actor must make a dice roll which involves the character. In other words effects are checked when a character attacks, does damage, makes a saving throw (including death saves) or makes an ability or skill check. Effects are also checked when that same character is attacked, or damaged or has a saving throw, ability check or skill check forced on them (such as from a spell).

Automatic Effects

Many effects are created automatically for you in the 5e ruleset when you create a character or level one up either by dragging and dropping from the source material or by using the Character Wizard. For example dragging spells into the actions tab will in almost every case create an effect. Where an effect is not created via this method the probability is very high that either the spell doesn't require an effect or Fantasy Grounds doesn't have a built in way to handle whatever the spell is trying to do. For example the spell 'Animal Messenger' doesn't require an effect since this spell and others like it are simply 'Theatre of the Mind' spells. As another example the spell 'Counterspell' won't create an effect either because Fantasy Grounds can't know what the difficulty class of the incoming spell might be. For more information see the 5E Character Sheet

In the case of NPCs effects appear on the Combat Tracker when the NPC is placed there either from the NPC list or from an encounter. This action causes Fantasy Grounds to attempt to parse the information contained in the NPC sheet and create the effects. Most of the standard NPCs from the Monster Manual will, when dragged to the Combat Tracker, create any necessary effects so that the DM can use them. Again, not everything will create an effect either because one isn't required or Fantasy Grounds doesn't have a way to create one. For more details see the5E NPCs and Encounters and the section below on the wording used to create NPC effects.

Creating Effects - Player Characters

In the player Character sheet effects are created in the actions tab. An effect can be added to an existing power or if no power exists a new one can be created.

• Create a new power group and add a new line to that group; or add a new line to an existing one See the Character Sheet article on how to create power groups.

• Now right click on the new line created above to bring up the radial menu and select 'Add Action'. This will bring up a submenu which allows you to create the following:

  • Add Cast: this allows for an attack roll to be made against the target or forces the target to make a saving throw - or both

  • Add Damage: As it's name suggests this allows for the creation of a damaging effect to apply to the target

  • Add Heal: Create a healing effect

  • Add Effect: This adds an effect to the target. This can be almost anything from applying a simple condition such as ‘poisoned’ to a whole series of statements which might apply to the target.

• Whichever you choose a new line will be created with a small magnifying glass beside it. Click the magnifying glass to open up the dialogs associated with each effect type.

Open

Cast Dialog

• The first section is concerned with attacks. Click the words under 'type' to cycle through the (self explanatory) options, ranged, melee or none.

• Under 'Base' click to cycle through the options:

  • Group Attack+: This refers to the Power Group and the base attack will feed off whatever the base attack has been set within the power group (see the character sheet article for more on Power Groups).. So if the Power Group ability has been set to STR then this attack will use the character's STR to determine any bonus or penalty to the attack roll.

  • Ability: This allows for setting an ability for this effect independent of whatever has been set for the Power Group. Click the 'Stat' field to cycle through the options. This includes all of the ability modifiers, classes, the character level (lvl) and the character's proficiency. This allows for extreme flexibility in setting up actions. Setting this to 'Base' will feed off the ability which has been set for the Power Group.

  • Fixed: Allows for entering a straightforward number. This is useful if the attack is not based on any particular ability, class or level. In this case enter the number desired in the 'bonus' box.

  • Bonus: Enter a number if any bonus is to be applied to this attack roll.

• The second section of this dialog is concerned with saving throws.

  • Type: Click to cycle through the options. For example if you want the target to make a DEX saving throw set this to 'Dex'. Once again 'Base' represents the ability set in the Power Group.

  • Base: This is the same as the 'Base' option described above in the attack section.

  • Bonus: Again this is the same as the bonus section in the attack section.

  • On Save: Click here to select 'Half on Success' if the creature takes only half damage on a successful saving throw.

• Once completed the effect will appear in the Actions tab ready for use. Clicking the small dice icon beside the effect will cause Fantasy Grounds to make the attack and/or saving throw against the target of the attack. Players can also perform the attack and save separately by clicking first on the little sword icon and then on the dice icon beside the save.

Open

Damage Dialog

• Drag dice and drop them into the 'Dice' box for the damage amount. For example if the damage is 2d6; click and hold a d6, then right click to add a second dice and then drop into the box below 'Dice'.

• If the action gets a bonus from an ability click on the box below 'Stat' to cycle through the options. Once again 'Base' will feed off whatever ability was set in the Power Group. You can enter a value in the ‘multi’ box if the character gets a bonus to the damage based on their ability modifier. For example if the damage is 1d6 + half your dexterity modifier then set the Stat to Dex and enter 0.5 in the ‘multi’ box.

• Add any bonus to the damage if this is relevant. Note that this is not the bonus from the ability being used but any bonus that might be available from a magic weapon for example.

• Enter the type of damage that the effect will do. Note multiple damage types can be entered separated by a comma. You can also add magic, silver, adamantine or cold-forged if the damage has any of these tags.

• You can add new lines by clicking the green cross icon if necessary. For example if the action did 1d6 bludgeoning and 1d8 cold damage then you would need a line for each one.

Heal Dialog

• Select the target of the heal by clicking through the options in 'Targeting'. 'Self' will only heal the caster. Targets will heal any target selected including the caster if they are selected.

• Cycle through the options under 'Type'. 'TEMP' will give the target temporary hit points, 'HP' will remove wounds from any targets selected by the character using the cast..

• Drag dice into the dice box in the same way as described above.

• Select a stat if appropriate in the stat box by clicking through the options. Again 'base' will use the ability from the power group. There are also options to add level, proficiency or class.

• Enter a figure for any bonus to the heal.

• More lines can be added if needed using the green ‘+’ icon.

Effect Dialog

• The Descriptions/Conditions/Modifiers line is where you enter your effect. Almost anything can appear here including 'dummy' text. More information on how to create effects in this box is given below.

• The Duration information is specified in time units. Click on the 'RND' word to cycle through the available time unit intervals (RND = Round, MIN = Minute, HR = hour and DAY = day). If the effect should never expire, enter a zero value or leave blank. Otherwise, enter a number to indicate how long until the effect expires using the selected time units.

• Click on 'Targeting' to select whether the effect should apply to the caster (self) or to targets.

• Click through the 'Expend?' options. This determines whether the effect can expire based on usage (i.e. expended), in addition to duration. The options are as follows:

  • Never: The effect will never be expended, and the length of the effect is only governed by the duration.

  • On Next Action: The effect will be expended on the next relevant action. So if the effect is a damage effect then it will be used up when the player next rolls for damage.

  • On Next Roll: The effect will be expended immediately on the next relevant roll made by the character. For example if the effect modifies both attack and damage the effect will be used up on the next attack or damage roll. If there are several targets then each of the targets will be affected by the roll not just the first.

Once per modifier: The effect will continue until a roll has been made involving all of the modifiers in the effect. For example if there is an effect which applies to both attack and damage. The attack part will only be used on the first attack even if the character makes several subsequent attacks. The effect will then be expended completely once a damage roll has been made.

Case Study - ATK

So let’s take a look at just one of the possible modifiers that you can use to create effects the ATK modifier. As its name suggests this modifies a character’s attack roll. Normally an attack is made by rolling a d20 but a variety of situations and spells can add or subtract from the number rolled.

Let’s start with a simple example, where the character has a spell cast on him which gives him a +1 to hit. This effect is written ‘ATK: 1’ (without the quotes). In longhand this is telling Fantasy Grounds to add 1 to the d20 dice roll when a player rolls to attack. The value after the modifier ATK can be a number or a dice value and either can be positive or negative. So we could have all of the following ATK: -1d6, ATK: 4, ATK: -2, ATK: 1d4. The format as you can see is always the modifier (ATK) followed by a colon ‘:’ followed by the value ‘1d4’.

We can also specify a player’s attribute bonus as the value for the modifier. The format for this is ‘ATK: [XXX]’, where XXX represents STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS or CHA. ‘ATK: [WIS]’ will add the players Wisdom modifier (whether positive or negative) to the attack roll. We can also use the negative form ‘ATK: [-WIS]’ to reduce the roll by a specific ability modifier. We can even modify the attribute by halving or doubling it; ‘ATK: [HWIS]’ will add half the wisdom modifier to the roll and ‘ATK: [2WIS] will add double the wisdom modifier. Note that square brackets '[]' are used around the ability modifier. In addition to ability modifiers the character's level [LVL] or proficiency [PRF] or class level [BARBARIAN] can be used as a modifier.

In the case of ATK: 1d4 this will add a 1d4 to any attack roll that the player makes. However we can restrict this to just certain attacks by including a descriptor to the effect. Let’s say that we can only get a bonus on melee attacks; in that case our effect is written ‘ATK: 1d4, melee’. The descriptor is added after the value and separated by a comma ‘,’. Now when used on a character only melee attacks will benefit from the additional dice. If we substitute ‘ranged’ for ‘melee’ then only ranged attacks will get the benefit.

We can go even further and limit the benefit to only opportunity attacks. The format for this is ‘ATK: 1d4, opportunity’. Now FG needs to know when you are making an opportunity attack so when you make the attack hold down shift as you do so. If the player has the effect on him then he will get the bonus to the throw but otherwise nothing happens.

The following are all examples of effects which can be created using the ATK modifier

• ATK: 1d4 - Will apply a 1d4 bonus to the attack roll.

• ATK: [-STR] - Will apply a negative equal to strength modifier to the attack

• ATK: [HLVL], melee, opportunity - will apply half the character's level only to melee opportunity attacks.

• ATK: 1d6, ranged - will apply a 1d6 bonus to only ranged attacks

• ATK: [2CON], melee - will apply twice the CON modifier to any melee attack.

• ATK: [CLERIC] - will add the character's cleric level (only) to the attack. This is useful for multiclassed characters where the bonus relies on the class level rather than the overall level.

Combat Tracker

When an effect is applied to an actor in the combat tracker, some additional fields are available to the DM. See the 5E Combat Tracker for more details.

• Active State: By default, an effect is set to always be active (i.e. On). The active state can be toggled to Skip or Off. If set to Skip, the next application of the effect will be skipped, and then the effect will be set to On again. If set to Off, the effect will no longer be applied to rolls, but will remain in the CT.

• Duration: When the main duration field is set to Start/End Turn values, an additional field will be shown to track the initiative number when the duration should start/end.

• Applied By: The active actor will be used as the source actor of an effect, and shown in the lower right of the effect entry. If no actor is active, then this field is hidden. To set the source actor of an effect, drag the name field of a CT actor onto the label field of a CT effect entry. The source is usually just informational, but may occasionally be used to support advanced effects (such as Marked). Click on the Applied By field to clear the source actor.

Targets: By default, effects are applied to relevant rolls for all targets. However, some effect components can be targeted (such as attack and damage modifiers). A targeting button is shown next to each effect entry, and can be dragged onto a CT entry or CT-linked token to specify that the effect is targeted to a specific actor or set of actors. Additional options to target all allies or enemies are available by right-clicking on the targeting button. The Targets field is hidden unless targets are defined. Click on the Targets field to clear the targets.

Effect Targeting

As described above in the dialog for Spell/Ability Effect there is a box for ‘Targeting’ which can be set either to ‘Targets’ or ‘Self’. It is important to understand that this isn’t asking you to tell Fantasy Grounds who the target of the effect is but rather where the effect should reside.

If we take a simple case of a character that has set up an effect to deal some extra damage, DMG: 1d6. It is the character who is the beneficiary of this additional damage (not the creature who is going to take it) and so when creating the effect the character needs to set the ‘Targeting’ box in the dialog to read ‘Self’. When the player clicks the action button to apply the effect it will correctly be set on the character even if he has a number of enemies targeted on the Combat Tracker (or none at all).

On the other hand suppose we have some spell or ability which means that an enemy gets disadvantage on attack rolls DISATK:. Clearly there’s no use this effect sitting on the character; it must be placed on an enemy and so when setting the targeting we make sure that