Tactical Console Question

[geminigrey]

New user of Hero Labs, and I had a quick question... if I have all of my PCs and NPCs loaded in one portfolio, is there a way to only pull in certain heroes to the tactical console? That is, instead of all of the heroes in the portfolio coming over and having to pick out which one are involved in the combat?

 

[Aaron]

On the right side is a circle with a strike across it. If you click that, the corresponding character will be removed from the combat and sort to the bottom.

 

[ValaraukarU]

As a user of tactical console dring play I have some suggestions to smooth play.

I create a single portfolio of my PCs only. Before play I export any PCs who will not be in the session from that portfolio and remove them (you can go the other way also and start with an empty portfolio and import only the valid PCs).

Then I maintain separate portfolios for adventure enemies, NPCs and such. Often I will create a portfolio that is a complete encounter to speed things up.

Whenever I get ready to begin an encounter I import the NPCs, monsters etc into the PC portfolio where tactical console is visible. Then I run my combat from there. When the combat is over I delete the temporary monsters and NPCs from the PCs portfolio. The master copy of all those NPCs and Monsters are in their original portfolio or stock so there is no harm, unless for some reason I need to update that NPC for saving in which instead of delete you can import them into the original portfolio from PCs one and overwrite if you like.

 

[d20Maverick]

I run things much the same way ValaraukarU does, except I actually save the final file as a separate "completed encounter" portfolio so that I can refer back to what kind of shape the PCs were in after each encounter, to help in planning future encounters. If I know that I threw six skeletons at them and three of the PCs ended up nearly bleeding out, but I threw eight zombies at them before that and they breezed through the encounter, it helps me to better balance future encounters.

But to answer Geminigrey's original question, the Tactical Console will pull in every character in the portfolio when you start it. That does not mean that every character in the portfolio must participate in combat - as Aaron mentioned, you can always remove characters from the initiative order (especially useful when you have someone who has died and is no longer part of the encounter). But if you have a character in the portfolio, it WILL appear on the tactical console.