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Actors
In Foundry, an actor [↗︎] is anything that (1) can be represented by a token on the map, and (2) hold items [↗︎].
In the Cypher System game system, there are five different types of actors. Below, you can find an explanation of all the actor types.
The PC actor type is meant for player characters. Double-clicking the actor in the Actors tab in the sidebar or the actor’s token on a scene opens up the PC sheet. The token data is automatically linked to the actor.
The NPC actor type is for all NPCs and creatures. Double-clicking the actor in the Actors tab in the sidebar or the actor’s token on a scene opens up the NPC sheet. NPCs come with a highly reduced data set. Only the level, the current and maximum Health values, Damage, and Armor are stored as numerical values in the data of the actor. All the other stats are stored as text in the Notes. NPCs can hold equipment items for loot.
NPC tokens are not linked to the actor data. The health bar and the level are automatically assigned to the resource bars of the tokens, but by default only visible to the GM.
If you add an NPC to the Combat Tracker, its initiative value (level × 3) is automatically added. Note that 0.5 will be subtracted from the result, because on a tie, PCs go first. This will only show up when manually changing the value, the result in the Combat Tracker will round up to the actual value. Since NPCs all act on the same initiative, an NPC stand-in token can be found in the Markers Compendium. Refer to the initiative section for more details.
The Companion actor type is for Companions from Predation. Double-clicking the actor in the Actors tab in the sidebar or the actor’s token on a scene opens up the Companion sheet. The token data is linked to the actor data by default. As with NPCs, health and level are assigned to the resource bars of the token. Companions can hold equipment items.
The player of the Companion should have ownership of the actor. Depending on how you play, the owner of the companion (in-game) should have observer permission. This way, the player of the companion can fully play them, while the owner can still open the character sheet. Use limited permission for the companion if you use token vision and don’t want the owner to see what the companion sees.
The Community actor type is for Communities that use the community rules from Numenera Destiny. Double-clicking the actor in the Actors tab in the sidebar or the actor’s token on a scene opens up the Community sheet. The token data is linked to the actor data by default.
I have made good experiences to just give all players ownership permission to communities, but you might want to limit that to limited or observer permission. Note that then the players can’t edit the community sheet.
The Marker actor type is special, as it’s not meant to represent anything from the game, but it’s meant as a marker on the scene. I use them for XP, to count ammo, and cyphers. You can see a screenshot of that in use in the Design Principles section. Double-clicking the actor in the Actors tab in the sidebar or the actor’s token on a scene opens up the Marker sheet Marker have a level and a quantity. The quantity can be used to have a counter in the Combat Tracker [↗︎] (see blow).
By default, Marker that have been added to the Combat Tracker decrease their quantity by one when they receive initiative. This can be deactivated and set to increase the quantity on initiative in the Marker Sheet. In the Combat Tracker Settings, you can set the tracked resource to “quantity.value” to have the quantity displayed directly in the combatants list.
This can be used to either have a timer, for example to see when an effect ends or when an event takes place (“the bomb explodes in 5 rounds”), or to count rounds after an event.