[BUG] Actor Names revealed on skill/ability checks/saves, but uses Token Name for Item/Spell/Feature usage

[GambetTV]

I believe that there should be consistency with which name is revealed to the players, whether in chat, or on the scene. If you don't own an actor, then on a scene you really only have access to their Token name, and whatever the DM puts in their character sheet should be hidden to you.

However, in both 3.1.2 and 3.2.1, if you make an ability check, ability save, or skill check, the Actor Name (the name on the character sheet) shows up in the chat roll. But if you use any of the Inventory Items, Spells, or Features of the character, it outputs the Token name.

This means the DM can no longer conceal information from the players with the naming scheme. If I want "Frodo" to take on the disguised form of "Mr. Underhill," I now have to change both the Actor's Name and the Token's Name, and then change both back when he changes back. If I don't, then if he makes a skill check his real name will be revealed to the players, which is obviously not ideal.

[Norc]

While I agree with this request and think it would be insanely useful, could you use a less, ah, on-the-nose example? Not everyone here GMs all the time. Update: thanks!

Note: I didn't actually test this myself. I'm sure most cases where I do this accidentally is self-inflicted in some way.

[GambetTV]

Fixed. Apologies for the brain fart.

[Rabulias]

I am not seeing this on FVTT 11.315 with DND5E 3.2.1. Are you testing with no modules? What version of Foundry are you using?

I just used the SRD Adult Black Dragon and renamed the token as Rufus and rolled an Ability Check, a Skill check, and a Saving Throw and all had the token name in chat:

[GambetTV]

Okay, so it is a module (MidiQOL) causing the disparity between Ability Checks and Item Uses in the chat room. However, there is still a problem of consistency even without modules as you can see in the screenshot below.

If a player were to be able to see the token's name on the scene, or in the Combat Tracker, they would see the Token Name, however, when rolling (without any modules) they see the Character Sheet/Actor name in the chat room.

In this way, MidiQOL is actually restoring the behavior of item rolls to pre v3 behavior. It's still core DnD that is messing up by revealing the Actor Name in chat.

[Rabulias]

Tokens for Player Character sheets default to linking the Actor sheet data to the token.

If you uncheck the option in the Token Config, the token name will be used.

Note that if you are using a PC sheet this way, the token's usage of ammo, resources, consumables, spells, etc., will not be reflected on the Actor sheet under the Actors tab.

Is this for a player character? If not, I would recommend using the default NPC sheet.

[GambetTV]

I probably tested the fresh test world from the above screenshot with a PC sheet, but this issue is affecting even my NPCs, although admittedly I only checked with NPCs that definitely have their Actor Data Linked. Trying it again with unlinked actors it does work how I would prefer it to, however to me this is more vital that it works with Linked Actor Data, because those are more likely to be long-term NPCs who might have an identity change. As an example, there are long-term NPCs for whom you might actually want to track changes to ammo count, spell slots, etc. across many scenes and across many sessions, who might have a token name that we would expect to be player-facing with their fake identity, only to be undermined when they make a roll and their true identity is revealed. The only way around this would be to rename both the Actor and the Token names, and not only is that redundant but I'm just not sure what the benefit of having two separate names for linked actor/token is if it's going to show both in two very different but very common occurrences. I can't really envision the scenario where a GM thinks: "Man, my players are seeing this token with this name on the map and in the combat tracker, but I really wish they saw a different name whenever I rolled something with that character or used a spell."

And to confuse the issue even more, if you have the token selected and type something, it shows the token name in the chat room!

These are very unintuitive, inconsistent, and overall just not very useful rules in my opinion.

[Fyorl]

I think this would be fairly involved to fix, and would only work if you either rolled from a sheet opened by a token (i.e. not from the actor sidebar), or had a token selected when rolling. But I agree it should probably be consistent with how normal chat speaking works.