Automated Evocations

A small window, the Companion Manager, that keeps a list of the creatures a character can summon: familiars, animal companions, conjured elementals, spiritual weapons. Click a creature and choose where to place it: its tokens appear on the scene with a summoning animation.

It works in every game system. The Portal library module must be installed and enabled, and Sequencer (opens in a new tab) is needed to play the summoning animations.

Getting Started

Companions Button

Open a character sheet, click the ⋮ button in its top-right corner and choose Companions. The Companion Manager opens.

The first time it is empty. To add your first companion:

1. Open the Actors sidebar tab (or a compendium).
2. Drag the creature you want onto the Companion Manager window.

You have added your first companion! Add as many as you like: they stay in the list until you remove them.

Companion Manager

Companion Manager

Each line of the list is one companion:

• Portrait: click it to summon the creature (see below).
• Name: click it to open the creature's sheet.
• Number: how many tokens to summon at once, for example 2 for two wolves.
• Animation: the effect played where the creature appears. They are grouped in Elemental (Air, Fire, Four Elements, Ice, Lightning, Storm, Water), Magical (Darkness, Energy, Magic, Conjuration) and Other (Doki-Doki, Crescendo, Chord).
• Trash can: removes the companion from the list, after asking for confirmation.

Type in the box at the top to filter the list by name, and drag a line up or down to change the order. The number and animation you choose are remembered for next time.

Summoning a Companion

1. Click the companion's portrait. The Companion Manager shrinks to its title bar.
2. Move the mouse over the scene: a circle shows where the creature will appear.
3. Left-click to place it, or right-click to cancel.

The animation plays and the tokens appear. Players can summon even if they are not allowed to create tokens, as long as a GM is connected.

Whose list is it?

By default each user has one companion list, and it is the same whichever character sheet they open it from. If a player has several characters, or you want the GM's NPCs to have their own companions, turn on Store Companions on Actor in the module settings: every character then keeps its own list.

To give a single character its own list without changing the setting, use the Store Companions On Actor macro (see Included Compendiums).

Settings

Open them from Game Settings -> Configure Settings -> Automated Evocations - Companion Manager.

• Auto-Close: close the Companion Manager after a summon, instead of reopening it.
• Store Companions on Actor: keep a companion list for each character instead of one per user (see Whose list is it?).
• Hide Companion Button: remove Companions from the character sheet menu. Useful if you only open the Companion Manager from macros.
• Only Owned Actors: only show the companions the user owns. Creatures a player cannot control are hidden from their list.

Included Compendiums

The module comes with two compendiums:

• Automated Evocations Summons (dnd5e only): ready-made creatures for summoning spells, such as Flaming Sphere, Spiritual Weapon, Arcane Hand, Arcane Sword, Spectral Guardian and Phantom Watchdog. Drag them into the Companion Manager like any other actor.
• Automated Evocations Macros:
  • Store Companions On Actor and Store Companions On Global for Actor: select a character's token and run one of these to switch that character between its own list and the user's list. Switching back does not delete the character's list.
  • AE_Companion_Macro(...): Companion Macros for the summons above, which change the creature when it is summoned (see Companion Macros). Import a macro into your world for it to work.

Advanced

Companion Macros

A Companion Macro runs every time a creature with a given name is summoned, and can change the new token, its actor and its items, for example to scale damage with the spell level or use the caster's save DC.

1. Create a script macro named AE_Companion_Macro(Creature Name), with the creature's exact name: a macro for an actor named Bat is called AE_Companion_Macro(Bat).
2. In the macro, read the summon data from args[0] and return the changes to apply.

args[0] contains:

The returned object can have:

• token: changes to the token, for example { token: { name: "Flaming Sphere (Merric)" } }
• actor: changes to the summoned actor
• embedded: changes to its items, by item name or id: { embedded: { Item: { "Item Name": { ... } } } }

This Flaming Sphere macro (dnd5e 6) sets the save DC to the caster's spell DC and adds 1d6 damage for every level above 2nd:

// Macro name: AE_Companion_Macro(Flaming Sphere)
const { spellLevel, assignedActor } = args[0];
const upcast = Math.max((spellLevel || 2) - 2, 0); // Flaming Sphere is a level 2 spell
const dc = assignedActor?.system.attributes.spell.dc ?? 10;
const dice = 2 + upcast;
 
return {
  embedded: {
    Item: {
      "Flaming Sphere": {
        "system.description.value": `<p>Any creature that ends its turn within 5 feet of the sphere, or has the sphere rammed into it, must make a Dexterity saving throw (DC ${dc}). The creature takes ${dice}d6 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.</p>`,
        "system.activities.dnd5eactivity000.damage.parts": [{ number: dice, denomination: 6, types: ["fire"] }],
        "system.activities.dnd5eactivity100.damage.parts": [{ number: dice, denomination: 6, types: ["fire"] }],
        "system.activities.dnd5eactivity100.save.dc": { calculation: "", formula: `${dc}` },
      },
    },
  },
};

dnd5eactivity000 and dnd5eactivity100 are the ids of the activities of the Flaming Sphere item in the included compendium actor. For your own creatures, read the ids from the item's activities.

Opening the Companion Manager from a macro

A macro can open a Companion Manager with a fixed list of creatures, for example from a spell with a macro attached. These creatures are not saved in any list, and the spell level is passed to the Companion Macros.

new SimpleCompanionManager(
  [
    { id: game.actors.getName("Giant Rat").id, animation: "darkness", number: 4 },
    { id: game.actors.getName("Dire Wolf").id, animation: "air", number: 1 },
  ],
  3,                          // spell level, passed to the Companion Macros
  _token?.actor,              // the summoner
  60,                         // optional: range in feet, drawn around the selected token
  "icons/svg/fire.svg"        // optional: image shown inside the range circle
).render(true);

id can be an actor id or a UUID (for compendium actors). The animation ids are the names in lowercase, except energy1 (Energy), magic1 (Magic), magic2 (Conjuration), ice1 (Ice), lightning2 (Storm), fourelements (Four Elements), heart (Doki-Doki), music (Crescendo) and music2 (Chord).

Custom Animations

You can add your own animations to the list by saving them in a hidden world setting.

const customanims = {
  energy2: {
    fn: "light2",      // name of the macro that plays the animation
    time: 650,         // milliseconds to wait after the animation starts before the tokens appear
    name: "Energy 2",  // name shown in the dropdown
    group: "My Group", // optional: dropdown group
  },
};
game.settings.set("automated-evocations", "customanimations", customanims);

Reload the page after running it. The animation macro (here named light2) receives the placement position in args[0] and the token data in args[1]:

const template = args[0];
const tokenData = args[1];
const tokenScale = (Math.abs(tokenData.texture.scaleX) + Math.abs(tokenData.texture.scaleY)) / 2;
await new Sequence()
    .effect()
    .file("modules/automated-evocations/assets/animations/energy_spark_CIRCLE_01.webm")
    .belowTokens()
    .randomRotation()
    .atLocation(template, { randomOffset: true })
    .repeats(6, 50, 25, 75, 60, 20)
    .scale(Math.max(tokenData.width, tokenData.height) * tokenScale * 0.15)
    .wait(500)
    .effect()
    .file("modules/automated-evocations/assets/animations/energy_pulse_yellow_CIRCLE.webm")
    .belowTokens()
    .atLocation(template)
    .scale(Math.max(tokenData.width, tokenData.height) * tokenScale * 0.35)
    .play();

Hooks

• automated-evocations.preCreateToken: just before the tokens are created, with tokenData, customTokenData, posData, actor, spellLevel, duplicates and assignedActor.
• automated-evocations.postSummon: after the summon, with the same data plus summonedTokens.
• automated-evocations.saveCompanionData: when a companion list is saved, with actor and data.

Credits

• The Fire, Air, Lightning, Water, Energy, Magic, Doki-Doki, Crescendo and Four Elements animations are from Jack Kerouac's Animated Spell Effects: Cartoon (opens in a new tab), with his permission.
• The Chord, Darkness, Ice, Conjuration and Storm animations are courtesy of JB2A (opens in a new tab), with their permission.
• Sequencer (opens in a new tab) plays the animations and Portal places the tokens.
• Some images are from Game Icons (opens in a new tab).