Player Token Layering Problems

Alright, this has been an ongoing problem for over a year now and it is easy to replicate. In one campaign create a character sheet DnD 5e, give it vision, maybe even dark vision (this works even without this but I am stating it so I am not told to "toggle sight on and off!" we've done that, it's happened, it is broken either way) then you create an NPC DnD 5e sheet. The first sheet is the player and the second is their mount, usually a warhorse. You can even port it in with the compendium if you want to closed box this as much as possible. Now you give a player control over both sheets. That player then fetches those sheets and/or copies them into a second campaign. In the second campaign the mount will ALWAYS be on top of the player. The DM will click "send to back" and/or "send to front" and it will do that for everyone except for the player who controls the sheets. It is fairly easy to see how this becomes frustrating. So? How do we both have the player controlling their PC and their NPC Mount while in a secondary campaign without layering problems?

Hi Oskarr! Does this happen only when the mount is controlled by the player, has sight, and the campaign settings are set to Graphics: Always show controlled tokens on top? What happens if you toggle that last setting?

keithcurtis said: Hi Oskarr! Does this happen only when the mount is controlled by the player, has sight, and the campaign settings are set to Graphics: Always show controlled tokens on top? What happens if you toggle that last setting? Controlled by Player -> Yes Has Sight -> With or without sight Graphics: Always show controlled tokens on top -> I am unable to find this setting?

Oskarr said: Graphics: Always show controlled tokens on top -> I am unable to find this setting?

Thanks Rick!

That is not present for me?

Hopefully this uploads a screenshot of what I am seeing.

Legacy game? The token layering (Z-order in the jargon) is arcane and less controllable.  Personally, I would eliminate the Mount tokens and use a Token Marker to indicate that the token is mounted, just like I use a Token Marker to indicate that the token is flying. 

Not a solution for what is happening, but an option to get around it: What I've done in the case of a character who uses a mount is to (as the GM * ) create a multi-sided token for the character: one image with the PC mounted and the other with the PC dismounted. Without using an API script (MOD), if the "mounted" version is a larger size this would require manually resizing the token whenever the player would switch images. Using the TokenMod API script, the GM could create a macro that does this automatically. * A player can create their own multisided token by first creating a game and, within that game, creating their character and a rollable table containing the desired images. They can then use the rollable table to create the multisided token, link the token to the character sheet, and export the character to Character Sheets or the Character Vault.

Yeah, that's a legacy game. I'm not sure this is solvable under Legacy. Is there a specific issue that keeps you from upgrading to the modern engine (used to be called Jumpgate)? You are missing out on a lot of great features. If you do decide to upgrade, I would suggest making a copy of your game, and during the copy process, specifically upgrade the game engine. That way, you can leave your original game untouched in case you do run into an issue.

Jumpgate's errors are more erratic in my experience so there hasn't been a need to switch over although I may have to in order to not deal with this mount problem going forward. Unfortunate but this did seem like the most likely outcome, no solution except to move to Jumpgate. Thanks for the replies.

I think the best solution is a multi-sided token, but I have a player who loves shapeshifter magic. ;)

Two tokens make sense where the horse has stats that might come up in combat (AC, HP, etc.) Oskarr, if you have not tried the new engine in a while, it might be worth another shot. It really is a much better experience, IMO.

Two tokens are also useful when party members dismount in the middle of combat to fight (fighting on a Riding Horse without Animal Handling can be a problem) and don't have a henchman to manage their mount, which will tend to run away, causing predators to prefer it to the smaller, harder-to-bite, things with sharp sticks.  It can make a mounted encounter a lot more complicated to manage for the players (and fun for the DM). I will second the recommendation for Jumpgate.  It has the "problem" that Roll20 is still actively adding capabilities, and so sometimes introduces new bugs, but despite that I've found it very stable. I switched my game to it towards the end of the beta period, so that's been some time now.  I also play in a legacy game a friend runs, and I haven't noticed that being any more (or less) stable.