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Do you find Fantasy Grounds just too much of an investment?
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<blockquote data-quote="velkkor" data-source="post: 6751576" data-attributes="member: 6804153"><p>As someone who paid for a mentor-level subscription to roll20 for some time it was pretty easy for me to make the change to Fantasy Grounds. This was my breakdown:</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Cost of program.</strong> This was pretty straightforward, as I'd easily paid several hundred dollars to Roll20 over the course of my subscription. I planned on continuing using VTT (my RPGing friends are scattered around the country now) so paying for the Ultimate license on FG was an easy choice (or rather, upgrading my standard license to Ultimate during the Steam summer sale).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Cost of content.</strong> This initially turned me off (as it turns off others), however after spending about 10 hours putting things in manually I was more than happy to just pay for the PHB and MM in Fantasy Grounds. It is 100% possible to do everything yourself, but the learning curve is high and my time is valuable. The PHB is also available to any of my players during the session, so they don't need to purchase it themselves (actually my players don't need to purchase anything at all). I spent hours and hours and hours and hours scanning and cropping things to use in my Roll20 games. I have no problem paying for content on FG, especially when you get *more* content than you get in the books. DM and player versions of maps alone is worth it to me. Rather than paying $30-$40 for a module, then going to the artist's site and paying another $20 or more for digital versions of the maps (or spending time in Photoshop making my own player version) I can spend the $30 or $40 for the FG version of the module and have those maps already.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Tracking of items during play.</strong> This was the #1 reason I switched from Roll20 to Fantasy Grounds. Fantasy Grounds does an outstanding job of tracking effects, conditions, etc "under the hood," automating things that had historically been a pain to keep track of in Roll20. An example I used for a friend:<br /> <br /> I have an encounter with a green dragon. In the Combat Tracker I have entries for the players and for the dragon. Under the dragon's entry I have all the abilities listed, including the breath attack and the saving throw information. I'm able to drag the saving throw to the player (or players) and FG automatically rolls the saving throw for them and remembers the results. Then I target the players and drag the breath weapon attack to them and it automatically applies the proper damage to the characters depending on if they succeeded or failed the saving throw. When the next round comes and it's the dragon's turn in the initiative order a d6 will automatically roll to determine if the breath weapon gets recharged or not, staying grayed out if not or becoming available if so.<br /> <br /> Things like that are particularly useful in games like 4e where you have tons of character powers that are tracked on use (once per day, once per short rest, etc) as you don't have to think about that sort of thing anymore.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Prep time.</strong> I'd like to say that I got quicker at prep time in Roll20 as time went on, and FG took about a week or two for me to acclimate myself to how it does things, but I can honestly say that the amount of time it takes me to get things prepped (to my personal liking) in FG is quite a bit less than the time it took me to do things in Roll20. Gridding maps is much easier for me in FG, and in the time I'd spend prepping for one session in FG I can prep 3-4 sessions in FG.</li> </ul><p></p><p>Fantasy Grounds is not for everybody, certainly. One of the previous posters mentioned that they use Roll20 essentially for a map and dice roller, and if that's all you need then FG is way overkill. It's pretty, but still overkill.</p><p></p><p>If you're on a shared network (many university networks, some apartment buildings, etc) or have poor internet connectivity (satellite, wireless) then Fantasy Grounds will be a chore for you if you're a DM (if it works at all). Unlike Roll20--where all players just connect to their website--the DM in Fantasy Grounds is hosting the connection. This requires you to either be able to forward/open the proper ports on your router/firewall or use a VPN solution such as Hamachi. This may be beyond the technical capabilities of many players (though there are some folks on the Fantasy Grounds forums that help users with this on a daily basis), but still can understandably turn people off.</p><p></p><p>For me, it was a great decision and I don't think I'd ever go back to Roll20. I certainly have nothing against Roll20, as they were there for me for a long time and what they've done with a web interface is nothing short of amazing. Unfortunately my needs outgrew them, and especially once Smiteworks got the official D&D license then I really had little choice.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="velkkor, post: 6751576, member: 6804153"] As someone who paid for a mentor-level subscription to roll20 for some time it was pretty easy for me to make the change to Fantasy Grounds. This was my breakdown: [LIST] [*][B]Cost of program.[/B] This was pretty straightforward, as I'd easily paid several hundred dollars to Roll20 over the course of my subscription. I planned on continuing using VTT (my RPGing friends are scattered around the country now) so paying for the Ultimate license on FG was an easy choice (or rather, upgrading my standard license to Ultimate during the Steam summer sale). [*][B]Cost of content.[/B] This initially turned me off (as it turns off others), however after spending about 10 hours putting things in manually I was more than happy to just pay for the PHB and MM in Fantasy Grounds. It is 100% possible to do everything yourself, but the learning curve is high and my time is valuable. The PHB is also available to any of my players during the session, so they don't need to purchase it themselves (actually my players don't need to purchase anything at all). I spent hours and hours and hours and hours scanning and cropping things to use in my Roll20 games. I have no problem paying for content on FG, especially when you get *more* content than you get in the books. DM and player versions of maps alone is worth it to me. Rather than paying $30-$40 for a module, then going to the artist's site and paying another $20 or more for digital versions of the maps (or spending time in Photoshop making my own player version) I can spend the $30 or $40 for the FG version of the module and have those maps already. [*][B]Tracking of items during play.[/B] This was the #1 reason I switched from Roll20 to Fantasy Grounds. Fantasy Grounds does an outstanding job of tracking effects, conditions, etc "under the hood," automating things that had historically been a pain to keep track of in Roll20. An example I used for a friend: I have an encounter with a green dragon. In the Combat Tracker I have entries for the players and for the dragon. Under the dragon's entry I have all the abilities listed, including the breath attack and the saving throw information. I'm able to drag the saving throw to the player (or players) and FG automatically rolls the saving throw for them and remembers the results. Then I target the players and drag the breath weapon attack to them and it automatically applies the proper damage to the characters depending on if they succeeded or failed the saving throw. When the next round comes and it's the dragon's turn in the initiative order a d6 will automatically roll to determine if the breath weapon gets recharged or not, staying grayed out if not or becoming available if so. Things like that are particularly useful in games like 4e where you have tons of character powers that are tracked on use (once per day, once per short rest, etc) as you don't have to think about that sort of thing anymore. [*][B]Prep time.[/B] I'd like to say that I got quicker at prep time in Roll20 as time went on, and FG took about a week or two for me to acclimate myself to how it does things, but I can honestly say that the amount of time it takes me to get things prepped (to my personal liking) in FG is quite a bit less than the time it took me to do things in Roll20. Gridding maps is much easier for me in FG, and in the time I'd spend prepping for one session in FG I can prep 3-4 sessions in FG. [/LIST] Fantasy Grounds is not for everybody, certainly. One of the previous posters mentioned that they use Roll20 essentially for a map and dice roller, and if that's all you need then FG is way overkill. It's pretty, but still overkill. If you're on a shared network (many university networks, some apartment buildings, etc) or have poor internet connectivity (satellite, wireless) then Fantasy Grounds will be a chore for you if you're a DM (if it works at all). Unlike Roll20--where all players just connect to their website--the DM in Fantasy Grounds is hosting the connection. This requires you to either be able to forward/open the proper ports on your router/firewall or use a VPN solution such as Hamachi. This may be beyond the technical capabilities of many players (though there are some folks on the Fantasy Grounds forums that help users with this on a daily basis), but still can understandably turn people off. For me, it was a great decision and I don't think I'd ever go back to Roll20. I certainly have nothing against Roll20, as they were there for me for a long time and what they've done with a web interface is nothing short of amazing. Unfortunately my needs outgrew them, and especially once Smiteworks got the official D&D license then I really had little choice. [/QUOTE]
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