D&D 5E Roll20 vs Fantasy Grounds

Dax Doomslayer · Jan 6, 2017

Hi Folks,
As I've gotten older, most of my D&D group has migrated all over the USA and thus my gaming has pretty much declined greatly. We were thinking of trying a VTT. It seems that the 2 big ones are Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds. I honestly don't know what's important vs. what isn't. I was wondering if people have any insight to either of these two programs especially around functionality and pricing (obviously). It looks like Fantasy Grounds is more expensive but has access to all the WoTC materials. In addition, it appears that Fantasy Grounds will be upgrading to a "Unity" engine so I'm not sure how that effects pricing and functionality. Also, would a single person be able to play multiple PCs using either program. Any insight / experiences with these is greatly appreciated. Thanks!!

cmad1977 · Jan 6, 2017

I currently use and like Roll20. The price point is good for me and better for my players.
I've looked at FG a little and it looks good.
Roll20 just happens to fit us for now.

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xanstin · Jan 6, 2017

Fantasy Grounds is fantastic and very powerful, but it has a steeper learning curve.Roll 20 is free as you know. FG has a ,out of makes life easier built into it even more so if you buy the official modules.

My group started on roll20 and moved to FG and never looked back for 5e since the official support make my prep almost zero outside of reading module.

Roll 20 paid sub has some features like macros and lighting which with some searching or programming knowledge can mimic some of FGs built in functions. Unity will add some of roll 20s map draw and usage functions which are better and dynamic lighting to be on par with roll20.

If your very hands on and don't mind running it like a table with books open and figuring out everything on the spot like a live session you can get by with roll20. If you want a lot of automation like hits, damage calcs , automated savings throws, targeting, etc FG is the way to go. I believe roll 20 is slowly adding official module support so that's a draw.

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Psikerlord# · Jan 6, 2017

I personally prefer roll20. It just works. Fantasy Grounds was fiddly with ports and crap, would sometimes work and other times not. Annoying!

Shiroiken · Jan 6, 2017

Have not used Fantasy Grounds, but I checked out a demo once. Have been using Roll20 for about 3 year now, and have had few issues. FG requires that either the DM pay for a master subscription (whatever they call it) or each player has to buy a license. With Roll20, each player/dm decides if they want to pay extra or not. Additionally, the 5E material provided for FG is quite pricey (almost as much as the books themselves), while the Basic Rules are available on Roll20 for free. FG may be a better engine/site, but Free is a powerful feature!

Blue · Jan 6, 2017

FG has a lot of good things, and if you run published modules and are willing to buy them again through them all of the prep is done for you if you run it strictly by the book.

It's also not that cheap, and the fact that it covers 90% means that it's really noticable for the 10% it doesn't cover. For instance, last campaign I was lpaying in on FG it couldn't handle Paladin auras, so while all to-hit and damage was automatic, the DM often needed to manually undo things because saves were actually made or there was resistance to spells up.

That said, when it's working and you've moved past a bit of the learning curve like area of effect targeting, it's gets out of your way and lets you play.

I don't have Roll20 experience. I've done MapTools where we handled all mechanics ourselves like around a table, but Roll20 has a lot more. From what I understand it's a bit more mature, and people rave about it's fog of war.

Dax Doomslayer · Jan 6, 2017

Thanks for all the responses folks. So it sounds like Fantasy Grounds is a bit more feature rich but costs more money and with the more features may have more 'technical' issues. Roll20's strength is the maps but isn't as feature rich. Is that the general consensus. The money part isn't really an issue probably. The learning curve could be a little bit but I also don't want to spend more money and then have the program with lots of 'exceptions to the rule' kind of thing. How many times do things like the paladin's aura happen and how 'difficult' is it to cope with it? I appreciate everyone's input!! Thanks.

SpiritOfFire · Jan 6, 2017

I switched from Roll20 to Fantasy Grounds since DMing on Roll20 is more work.

I think I prefer it since the automation features are so nice. Speed of play is extremely fast once you get over the learning curve (kinda steep). Right now, for my group, its faster than face-to-face games, so that's a huge plus. Game is much more fun and engaging.

To cite some examples, it has stuff like a more robust integration of the combat tracker. It tracks targets, effects, initiative, stats, npc flavor text, etc with the secret info hidden to players. Both on-grid and theater of the mind combat is FAST. It's also super simple to award xp/ treasure/ parcels, or for player to hand an item in their inventory to another party member. You can click a button for short/long rest and each character's appropriate powers will reset, etc.

All the [MENTION=13913]pl[/MENTION]ay automation features and the basic rules you can get for $40, but you can also buy the sourcebooks or adventures so you can avoid data-entry, image-scanning, etc during the preparation phase. Everything is linked and easy to reference. All the adventure pictures and maps are preloaded, so you can just rightclick+share to show your players. This is a HUGE time saver (for DM).

But I think this is what people mention when they say fantasy grounds is too expensive. The prices for the books are set by WotC... so gonna be expensive no matter where you get it (FG/Roll20/physical copy). So even if you go Roll20, its gonna cost you to buy something like Storm King's Thunder.... otherwise you gon have to input monster stats, their attacks, set the tokens, upload map, then set a grid, etc. Be warned the PBH, DM guide, and Monster manuals are not available on Roll20. Prepare for manual stat entry and a longer character creation/leveling process...

I think if you're a player or just gonna mess around and maybe run some one-shots Roll20 is the best bet since it looks like google/facebook UI and it's free. I think if you pay $10/mo sub, it'll let you write scripts so you can program some of the automation yourself though. And...you'll get dynamic lighting! (Fog of war clears up based on token's line of sight if you set it up)

FG is an oldschool windows program. But if you want more powerful automation features and are willing to learn the extra stuff FG gives you, I'd pick that as a DM. Otherwise.... Roll20 does the diceroller + battlemap for free.

Rhenny · Jan 6, 2017

If you play/DM a lot, Fantasy Grounds is really worth it. I started using it during the 5e playtest paying $9.95/month, adding monsters by hand and using material a friend helped me create. After 2 months I upgraded to the ultimate license. Now that they have all of the books for sale, I've also bought them. Yes, over 3 years, I've spent about $300, but I don't regret it at all.

SpiritOfFire · Jan 7, 2017

Dax Doomslayer said:
How many times do things like the paladin's aura happen and how 'difficult' is it to cope with it? I appreciate everyone's input!! Thanks.

It doesn't happen too much but tbh, since D&D is an open-ended game (which makes it awesome), it definitely happens. It will happen more frequently if you throw in your own cool homebrew powers, items, etc as well.

But the nice part about Fantasy Grounds is that is FLEXIBLE to handle this, which is a MUST for table top RPGS. You can always handle things manually without the automation as a backup.

So for example, the Paladin aura with a +char mod bonus to saving throw, there is no way to automate applying this effect based on your range (Think about it... if you were running it theater of the mind? how could it?). You can just drag that effect and toss it on the players your DM says are within 10 feet. If you're using a battle grid, it's even easier to tell who's in range. Just drag it onto their token on the map before they make their save.

But you don't even need to do that. Say your friend makes a saving throw and fails. But you remember you had your aura, and that he should have made the save! Tell your DM and he can just not apply the damage or effect on him. Or half the damage... You'll see that even if a lot of it is automated (faster) you can just manually change the values like you would at the table (flexible).

The automation features spoils you, and sometimes, you end up going crazy and put a lot of effort into perfectly automating everything when you could just adjust on the fly...