Best VTT for PF "load 'n go"?

[DeDiceManCometh]

I'm looking for the best VTT for Pathfinder. My parameters for "best" are:

Quickest way for a DM to create an adventure. I don't have time to spend hours entering stats in to fiddly little data forms.

Surely there are VTTs that have access to online data stores? (And, yes, sorry, I'll stop calling you Shirley.)

 

[IronWolf]

Most of my experience with a VTT is with MapTool. There is a Pathfinder framework available for it or you can use a campaign file as a starter that already has the framework installed - neofax here used to provide these. The framework can handle a lot of the combat, effects, etc that happen over the course of the game and of course MapTool is a very good mapping program handling fog of war, visibility, maps, etc. You can use another tool to import stat blocks with reasonable accuracy.

The other two that are frequently mentioned but ones I have not used are d20 Pro or Fantasy Grounds. There are several others with experience with these that might be able to chime in. d20 Pro can be attractive if you happen to already use Hero Lab as you can do your character and NPC dev in there and then export the information in a format suitable for direct use in d20 Pro. I've only played with the demo version of d20 Pro though and not in an actual game format.

 

[DeDiceManCometh]

Does NPC Generation mean Monster Creation, too?

 

[kyonu]

Most of my experience with a VTT is with MapTool. There is a Pathfinder framework available for it

I just thought I'd pipe up and say THANK YOU because I have not been able to find this anywhere. Showed it to my DM and he instantly fell in love, since we're in the process of making a home-made projector table.

 

[IronWolf]

Does NPC Generation mean Monster Creation, too?

The statblock to token tools for MapTool can do monsters to tokens for use in MapTool. They are worth looking over though for anything that might not have imported 100% correctly, but still a time saver.

As for Hero Lab to d20 Pro, I have not been able to play with this as much as I do not have the Bestiary package purchased in Hero Lab to test exporting to d20 Pro. Hypothetically it should be possible, but I cannot confirm.

 

[IronWolf]

I just thought I'd pipe up and say THANK YOU because I have not been able to find this anywhere. Showed it to my DM and he instantly fell in love, since we're in the process of making a home-made projector table.

No worries! MapTool should work great for a home-made projector table. I believe there are likely some pics of it in action in some of the Ultimate Gaming table threads in the General forum.

 

[mgehl]

Does NPC Generation mean Monster Creation, too?

Yes, it does. You can create any of the races in the Bestiary using the editor in Hero Lab (or the Bestiary package has them finished for you). You can then add class levels, templates, and adjust them to your heart's content.

 

[Bigkilla]

I'm a HUGE fan of D20PRO and can not recommend it enough. I have been using it for my Pathfinder game for a few months now and although it does not have a lot of the rules built in it is very very easy to use and very effective a simulating the combat side of the game. As for the monster aspect of Pathfinder I spent a good few months working on importing all of the monsters from the Herolab bestiary addon into D20pro format and you can find them in this thread there are also a lot of other goodies that you can grab off of the D20pro forums as well. The D20pro staff is incredibly helpful and although D20pro is still fairly new they constantly take user advice and make adjustments and add features per peoples requests. You can also download a demo for 30 days and play around with it free, the guys over there give tutorials quite often and other players/GM's do as well. It's 30$ for a judges licence that come with 2 guest licences meaning that you can have 2 addition players connect to you without them ever needing to pay for anything. Player licences cost 10$ each. I went and bought a Judges licence and I have 8 guest slots so 8 people can join my games and never need to pay.

I just today for the first time playied in a game using FGII and that was pretty fun, although it seems like a much more complicated program to use and its at least two or more times the cost of D20pro
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh_OwN-_Ca0]D20pro[/ame]

 

[neofax]

I have used all of the VTT's mentioned above and others. Here is my comparison review:

Ease of use:
1) MapTools
2) d20Pro
3) FGII

Features:
1) FGII
2) MapTools
3) d20Pro

Price
1) MapTools
2) d20Pro
3) FGII

Portability(Use on different OS's)
1) MapTools & d20Pro (both use JAVA which can be used on pretty much anything)
2) FGII (only windows and a decent videocard)

As for the one I use, it is MapTools and I love it! I have a d20Pro license with 6 guest accounts that I use infrequently. Both the MapTools and d20Pro community are outstanding along with the developers. If you can narrow down your exact use case and sell points you are looking for, I can give you a better blow by blow analysis.