Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Game Master Help! Re:Encounter window

Ran our first adventure last night with friends and family! I would say we had a great time.
I had a hell of time figuring out what was happening with the encounter window I had set up for the map. I had seeded the window with say, Elven Rangers for example and deactivated them with intentions on a surprise attack. All good. I then set up the npcs to "enemy" for instant combat. All good. I then set behavior (this is where things got confusing) to "ranged" because I figure they are Elven Rangers and should act like it. All good. Now, the Rangers themselves were lvl 3 by default, which was 2 lvls higher than the intended group. No problem, there's an encounter lvl option to set which I then set to lvl 1. All good.
Switch to running the module, then group has a surprise encounter with said Rangers! I activate the encounter, but confusingly, the Rangers are still lvl 3 (I manually dropped them down to 1 individually) and I seemed to have to manually control each Ranger during the fight to progress and if I dropped possession of an npc, I could no longer see the turn window at the top of the screen. This was not working out like I planned.
Questions...
Was I setting the AI wrong? I wanted to allow the fight to run with the npcs on autofight (with me taking control of maybe one or two Rangers).
What's does the lvl (+/-) option actually control?
Does the above lvl (+/-) option not adjust the npc's lvls automatically?
What's the difference between "basic AI" and a specific setting (like ranged AI)?
Thanks for reading, hope I can get some clarity before the next session.

Hello!

Have you modified your encounter after already starting a session with your family? If yes it means that "active session" is now separate from the campaign you was preparing. "Prepare" mode is the mode where you set up campaign before you run it with players. Once campaign started it creates a copy instance for players and doesn't fetch changes from "prepared" campaign. This is done so you could start same campaign for different parties without having changes intersect between each other.

About possession. During combat GM can possess an encounter, it means if you try to possess anyone from active combat, you will get everyone under your control. You can switch back to game master mode but creature will still be under your control, waiting for you unless you will manually select "Give control to AI".

(+/-) are controlling the level of the encounter, i.e. every creature in it.

AI options sets beahaviour of the NPC when its controlled by AI. It controls the decisions npc will take based on the current combat situations. Ranged AI for example will try to get higher ground as fast as possible. Berserk will go for its target no matter what.

You may want to take a look on the tutorial video and take a look on the "The Hungry Journey" campaign that give some hints and basic overview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSh7hOZl9hg

"Once campaign started it creates a copy instance for players and doesn't fetch changes from "prepared" campaign. This is done so you could start same campaign for different parties without having changes intersect between each other."

Uh, you mean we can't continue to develop the adventure as it unfolds and I have to complete the entire project before we run it? Is there no way I can continue creating things in the current adventure?

I suppose I could run the current adventure from last night and do my GM editing from within that instance?

You can continue editing the Campaign from your Saved file and simply save it afterward.
I asked a similar question a while back:

http://larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=81263&Number=642368#Post642368

As for the encounters, there is a weird thing I've noticed, unless the Encounter level is set to the level of the NPC and then manually lowered, nothing happens, i.e. Encounter default is level 1, all NPC's in the encounter are level 3, when the encounter starts they are level 3 still. But raising the default to 3 and then lowering it to 1, lowers it for all NPC's in the encounter. It also will raise all NPC's if you desire that.

Selecting "Give control to AI" is just part of the learning curve with the system. I assume you and your group know that it was the first time and you're all learning together

This is intended behavior for not accidentally lowering down "Boss" creatures. I.e. if you have encounter with several level 3 creatures and 1 level 15 creature - you don't want upon pressing "-" scale down level 15 creature to level 2. So leveling down works only with minimal levels on encounter.

"As for the encounters, there is a weird thing I've noticed, unless the Encounter level is set to the level of the NPC and then manually lowered, nothing happens, i.e. Encounter default is level 1, all NPC's in the encounter are level 3, when the encounter starts they are level 3 still. But raising the default to 3 and then lowering it to 1, lowers it for all NPC's in the encounter. It also will raise all NPC's if you desire that."

Thanks I had figured that one out.
Glad to be able to continue creating the adventure with the current save. I did lose 2 hrs of work yesterday after I realized this was the case..doh!
Thanks for the help guys!

"Jumping on the wagon":
Would be nice to be able to see the turns window even if we don't possess the NPCS. Or, if we could posses the NPCs, but give control to AI so we could jut watch the encounter.

Loving the GM Mode so far, just few tweaks that I believe would make the mode more enjoyable.

I totally agree! Oddly, the other night during a group fight with my players, even when I took control of an npc, the turns order didn't come up for me...is that a bug or is there another reason?

OK, I seem to be confused about how the encounter window works. Last night's continuing adventure saw my party at a cemetery fighting skellies. I had no problems letting the AI run the fight even controlling and releasing a skeleton myself, but when we moved on to a new encounter in the very next area, I HAD to control the npc's during the fight as the fight turns wouldn't advance even though it showed I didn't "possess" any of the npc's...what am I missing?