Group Manager

(Feature not available in Player Genie)

The group manager allows you to create and edit groups. This means you can create new creatures, add them to one or more groups, move them around or delete them. Keep in mind that until you delete it, a creature is always in the “All Creatures” group. You can remove it from a specific group but get it again from “All Creatures”. Deleting a creature is permanent. Also, the same creature can be in two different groups – changing something in 'Krugg the Orc' in one group will change it for 'Krugg the Orc' in all groups.

Many of the functions of the group manager are available from the Main Window or the Campaign Manager , but some, like the Group Manager Menus are only available here.

Special Groups

Three groups are “special” and cannot be renamed or removed. They are at the top of the group selection lists, and are:

-          All Creatures: A complete list of all the creatures in the current campaign. Even if a creature is in no other group, if it is still on file, then it can be found in this group.

-          PC's Party: This group should hold your players' characters, as well as any NPCs that accompany them and fight on their side during a battle. All the people in this group should be friends. You can add or remove PCs or NPCs to this group as they join the game or as they die or leave.

-          Current Encounter: This is a placeholder group for creating a battle. You can add monsters from another group here, then add the PCs. You can then run the battle, and clear the list when you are done.

The Source Group

On the left is the list of all the groups in this campaign. They can be arranged in a tree structure, by clicking and dragging groups onto each other. You can keep the list easier to manage by collapsing branches. Right-click any group to get a menu allowing you to move its position among other groups of the same level. To put a group onto the base level, drag it onto the separator line (after 'Current Encounter'.

Select one of the groups and the grid in the middle displays the name of all creatures in that group, along with some useful info like hit points, armor class and challenge rating. You can Select Multiple Creatures .

The Destination Group

A list box allows you to select which group is the destination group. This is the group that is being edited. You can add, remove or delete creatures, rename the group or delete it.

Editing the Groups

Below the list of creatures in the source group you'll find the Add All and Add Selected buttons. These buttons add creatures from the source group to the current destination group. There can only be one of the same creature in any group. A particular creature can be in two or more groups at the same time, and its stats are the same for both groups.

For example, you've added “Marcus” to both groups “PC's Party” and “Battle on Mount Doom”. If Marcus receives damage while in “Battle on Mount Doom”, then when you select “PC's Party”, Marcus will have the same damage.

If you were to create a new creature and name it Marcus as well, then that creature's statistics would be independent from the first Marcus. Copies of a creature work the same way.

Adding Creatures to Ongoing Combat: in this frame you can specify on which round the new monsters will start to act (for example, you could plan for the orcs to get reinforcements after 10 rounds). You can also specify whether their initiative should be re-rolled (if not, their old initiative will be used). Finally, by checking the Are Aware box, the new monsters will come in first in the next round (that is, their initiative will be 1 higher than the rest of the group).

You can remove creatures from the current group using the Remove All and Remove Selected buttons. The creatures removed will no longer be in the current group, but you can add them again by going to the “All Creatures” group.

To permanently remove a creature from all groups, select it and click Delete Selected. The file containing the creatures' information will be permanently deleted, and it will be removed from all groups.

Adding Creatures

The New Creature button opens the New Creature Screen that allows you to create a new creature. The creature is added to the current group, in both the main window and the group manager window.

The Add PC's Party button adds all the creatures from the group “PC's Party” to the current group. If the group contained only monsters before, it now contains all the creatures in a battle, and returning to the main window will allow you to start a battle. See Steps for Running a Battle .

Create New Group

Asks for a name for the new group and creates an empty group with that name. You can then add creatures to it.

Rename Group

Asks for a new name for the current group. Press Cancel or enter nothing to keep the previous name.

Delete Group

This will delete the group and, if you choose it, the creatures in the group as well.

Group Manager Menus

From the File menu you will find a couple of useful tools for reducing the list of creatures:

Delete All Creatures from Random Encounters: Whenever you use an adventure's Random Encounters to automatically generate monsters, these creatures are marked as being from a random encounter. Use this menu to delete them all. This is useful if you've had a lot of random encounters but haven't deleted each creature as they were killed.

Delete Ungrouped Creatures: During the course of using DM Genie, you may end up with a lot of creatures in the 'All Creatures' group that aren't in any other group. Usually, this occurs when you remove the creature from a group without deleting it. Use this menu to reduce loading time by deleting all these creatures.





Documentation for DM Genie and Player Genie, page Group_Manager. Copyright © Mad Scientist Studios, 2006.
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