Dynamic Lighting: Retaining Explored Areas

Hello, new subscriber here, just playing around with some of the tools for a campaign I am starting up. I'm using Dynamic Lighting and Fog of War, and my big question is this: How do I adjust the settings so that explored areas retain background pictures, but Dynamic Lighting/LOS only allows the PC's to see Tokens. I basically don't want to have to force my players to map on paper as they go, but I want to force them to use the LOS for their tokens so that monsters can creep up behind them. Is it possible?

Not sure if there is a way to do that via settings. The dynamic lighting and the FoW are two different layers. Once you have your Dynamic lightmap configured, you won't have to mess with it again at "run-time." The FoW war layer is the eye icon in the left tool bar. Use Reveal Areas tool to drag a rectangle selection on the map. This will "uncover" the fog. Any lights in the room will keep the room lit, but if you want to keep a dark room "lit" so they can still see the room on the map with out being there, you can use a blank token in the room and give it a large light radius.

im not sure this is possible. enforcing LOS is a map-wide setting. i think what youre asking for is LOS that can be done on a token-by-token basis. Michael's idea will only work if the player has line of sight to the blank token. if there is a barrier on the dynamic lighting map in the way, the token will not be visible. there might be a way. you would have to turn line of sight off, then use the blank token idea with a light radius large enough to reveal the room. then as players enter a new area, make a new blank token to keep it visible after they leave. the downside of this idea is any tokens in that light would also be visible unless you concealed them on the GM layer. a little trial and error might help you figure out the best solution for you. you dont have to use the fog of war and dynamic lighting at the same time. the lighting is actually the better tool because it reveals terrain as the players move, saving you from having to reveal it manually. however, you CAN set their vision arcs in their lighting to not see behind them. set the lighting arc to 200 degrees or something. this would allow you to have monster pogs sneak up behind them

You can drop light tokens in each room they have explored. Make sure the players have control over the light token and that it has "has sight" checkmarked so that they can see that area. Note: if you have "new" creatures moving through those areas you will need to put them on the GM layer.

aha, so that's what "has sight" means. learn something new every day :)

I would also advise that, while restricted sight is more realistic, give your players 360° sight, or they will be constantly be rotating their token to see if the party is together, set the light to the front of the character, i use 120° to 240° depending on the armor/helm worn, more armor equals a smaller vector. Also for 60' infravision set light to 60' dims at 0' and the degrees per armor, and leave "all characters see" unchecked. And finally, if the light is not coming out of the front of the token use Right click/Advanced/Rotate either vertically or horizontally until the light points forward.

I'm having the same issue, and the suggested thing above (player controlled lights in explored rooms) wont' work. Essentially, my PCs are assaulting a lodge/building. I set it up for DL/LOS and it's completly confusing, with the smallish rooms and odd angles, you lose track of where you are very quickly. So I'd love to have it so that everything outside the line of sight/lighting area you can see the map, but not the tokens. There's 15 odd enemy tokens in this area, and I don't want to have to be flipping them back and forth between GM layer and token layer as it will bog things down.

i believe the only way to do what you are suggesting Tim, is to turn off the lighting for that map, and utilize the GM layer for tokens hidden from players. it would be like the players having a "player map" without any of the tags or traps visible. as the DM, i think you can still see all the monsters on the GM layer, they just look grayed out. when the time comes to spring an ambush, or if the point-man in the group enters a new room, just move the tokens across to the Token layer at that time.

I hjave just let the characters draw notes etc. on the map. Caution, the marks sometimes get dragged along accidentally.