Blog (A5E) Level Up & Electronic Tools

[VanguardHero]

Why do you want to switch to Foundry?

Not them, but in my experience of trying to get people to switch to Foundry I often barely get past "What if Roll20 was actually intuitive and fun to use" before they're in. I have a whole sales pitch and rarely get through the whole thing xD Full javascript support so the community support is amazing, it's new so it's not anchored in decade old tech, automated sight and fog of war which R20 expects you to subscribe for, It's growing and improving at an impressive rate, it's not even at 1.0 yet. Only reason to stick with R20 as far as I can think is if you've already invested a lot of effort into a system that's hard to support, like 4e, but there's a Foundry system in the works for it so that's limited time.

 

[dave2008]

Not them, but in my experience of trying to get people to switch to Foundry I often barely get past "What if Roll20 was actually intuitive and fun to use" before they're in. I have a whole sales pitch and rarely get through the whole thing xD Full javascript support so the community support is amazing, it's new so it's not anchored in decade old tech, automated sight and fog of war which R20 expects you to subscribe for, It's growing and improving at an impressive rate, it's not even at 1.0 yet. Only reason to stick with R20 as far as I can think is if you've already invested a lot of effort into a system that's hard to support, like 4e, but there's a Foundry system in the works for it so that's limited time.

Thank you for the response. Unfortunately none of that really tells my why to use Foundry over any other platform. I will let you know I have never used a VTT, but my regular game has been on hold since march 2020 because of the pandemic and I am starting to feel like if I don't start up a VVT game with my group we may loose it completely.

I would also state I don't have any coding skills, but we do use some important and fundamental homebrew content. The ease of implementing that content will probably be the determining factor in whether or not we use a VVT.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

The only thing we know for certain right now is we’ll have a Roll20 character sheet at launch.

Great news. A lot of things about Roll20 drive me nuts, but the idea of moving to another unknown VTT is even worse...

 

[Nebulous]

Why do you want to switch to Foundry?

I have done some playtesting in it. It makes the VTT look like a video game. Which, in my personal opinion, 5e is already a video game in tabletop format. DnD has always been silly. Anyway, you can drag and draw spell templates straight from your token and it animates them; you can share inventory items with other players and it changes your gear; you can rattle locked doors and the lighting is superior to what I have seen in Roll20. Sound effects can be tweaked to low or higher volume depending on how far the PCs are away. Foundry seems well supported by the public and people constantly add content. The only thing I don't look forward to is the learning curve to adapt a whole new system. Roll20 took me many months to master.

 

[dave2008]

Thanks for the reply!

I have done some playtesting in it. It makes the VTT look like a video game. Which, in my personal opinion, 5e is already a video game in tabletop format.

OK, not my perspective at all, so I don't know if that is a plus or a minus for Foundry!

DnD has always been silly. Anyway, you can drag and draw spell templates straight from your token and it animates them;

That could be interesting I guess, but definitely not need. I call that one neutral.

you can share inventory items with other players and it changes your gear;

Can you not do that on Roll20? If not, that is a + for Foundry.

you can rattle locked doors and the lighting is superior to what I have seen in Roll20.

I don't care about rattling doors, but superior lighting is another + for Foundry

Sound effects can be tweaked to low or higher volume depending on how far the PCs are away.

I would probably turn the sound off, so I am neutral on that one.

Foundry seems well supported by the public and people constantly add content.

That is good to hear. Possibly another plus for Foundry.

The only thing I don't look forward to is the learning curve to adapt a whole new system. Roll20 took me many months to master.

Well I have that learning curve no matter what platform I choose!

Do you mind answering a couple of questions? If not:

Does Foundry support official published WotC adventures or do I have to put it all in myself?
Does it support official classes or do I have to enter them myself?
How easy is it to homebrew compared to Roll20 or another VTT?

 

[Nebulous]

Do you mind answering a couple of questions? If not:

Does Foundry support official published WotC adventures or do I have to put it all in myself?
Does it support official classes or do I have to enter them myself?
How easy is it to homebrew compared to Roll20 or another VTT?

I wish I could answer better, but I don't have enough knowledge of Foundry yet. I don't think it officially supports WotC modules yet, but I know you can import from Roll20 and Beyond and Foundry converts it to its system. For instance, I imported my Curse of Strahd game, and it turned it into a 1.2 GB file and uploaded all my maps into Foundry, even the homebrew ones I made for Roll20.

 

[Nebulous]

The amount of modules (tweaks) you can add to Foundry are staggering. Attack animations, 3D models, animated dice of different substances that makes different sounds when they hit the virtual table. The content creators are very busy, and the community on Discord eager to help and answer questions. You might want to head there or Reddit for far more information than I can give you.

 

[Nebulous]

@dave2008 This video from earlier this year highlights a lot of the features.

 

[dave2008]

I wish I could answer better, but I don't have enough knowledge of Foundry yet. I don't think it officially supports WotC modules yet, but I know you can import from Roll20 and Beyond and Foundry converts it to its system. For instance, I imported my Curse of Strahd game, and it turned it into a 1.2 GB file and uploaded all my maps into Foundry, even the homebrew ones I made for Roll20.

I did check out a bit last night. I didn't particularly like their website, but I could overcome that. However, just browsing around made me feel like, maybe I am not ready for a VTT yet! It is just a bit overwhelming.

Regardless - thank you for all the feedback! Have a great day!

 

[dave2008]

@dave2008 This video from earlier this year highlights a lot of the features.

That video is pretty awesome and Foundry seems great - but also very overwhelming. Makes me want to learn to code so I could homebrew Foundry like I do D&D!

Ugh, I want to embrace this tech, but it seems like a lot of work. Maybe over the winter holidays I will give it a go.