D&D 5E Fantasy Grounds, Roll20, or both

[Thateous]

Roll20 with voice over skype gets my vote.

Did this very thing last night. We still however, experienced some lag within Roll20 and DMs auto initiave scripts and things broke momentarily.

 

[Rabbitbait]

Roll20 only has the SRD stuff available, which is free on Fantasy Grounds. All you would need would be for the DM of the month to have the $10 Fantasy Grounds subscription, and you would have the equivalent of what Roll20 offers its paid subscribers.

I thought the SRD stuff was free on Roll20. I'm not sure of that since I pay the $4.99 a month subscription. But I'm the only one who does and it gives the whole group the dynamic lighting effects, and everyone also has access to the SRD. So either way, having the SRD is cheaper on Roll20.

However for me Roll20 wins simply due to dynamic lighting. That is a blimmin cool feature and really adds to the atmosphere. On a big map I've had the party get lost and not know the way back to the start because they can only see what the character can see. It also means that if one character runs around the corner, the characters they leave behind can't see what they see.

 

[Thateous]

I thought the SRD stuff was free on Roll20. I'm not sure of that since I pay the $4.99 a month subscription. But I'm the only one who does and it gives the whole group the dynamic lighting effects, and everyone also has access to the SRD. So either way, having the SRD is cheaper on Roll20.

Not sure if you get a full SRD compared to what I see as a non-paying user but it's very inconplete. I see one feat, grappler. One elf sub race and that's just a few things i easily spot. Not sure what the purpose of the SRD is exactly but a simple PHB is leaps and bounds better.

 

[Kalshane]

Not sure if you get a full SRD compared to what I see as a non-paying user but it's very inconplete. I see one feat, grappler. One elf sub race and that's just a few things i easily spot. Not sure what the purpose of the SRD is exactly but a simple PHB is leaps and bounds better.

That is the SRD. If you were to download the 5E SRD from WotC's website, that's what is in it. It's meant for use by publishers, not a replacement for the rulebooks (unlike the old 3.x SRD that had everything but certain IP items like beholders and displacer beasts.) So Roll20 isn't giving free users less content. They're giving everything they're legally allowed to.

I personally find it has enough to make it a nice rules reference during my games. If I do a search and something isn't actually in the SRD, I can still thumb through the requisite book, but having 90-ish % of what I need while actually running a game a keyword away is incredibly useful.

I personally pay $5 a month level subscription, even though I generally don't bother with using Dynamic Lighting (barring specific situations where I want the PCs to try to deal with limited visibility) because I feel I'm getting that much value out of the product and want them to continue improving it. All of my players are doing the free model, though.