Fantasy Grounds Now Offers Free Trial; Plus D&D 5E Basic Rules Now Included In All Licenses

Virtual Tabletop Fantasy Grounds has been the licensed VTT for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition for a while now. The price point can be a little steep for those who just want to try it out, so Smiteworks has just announced a free 30-day trial (you have to sign up then cancel before it's up) and also that the D&D Basic Rules are now included in all Licenses and Subscriptions (other than the demo). That's the four basic 5E reaches and classes, plus 120+ spells, equipment, and the basic rules reference. It also includes, of course, other game like Call of Cthulhu, Castles & Crusades, and Savage Worlds.

Click on the pretty screenshot!
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[smiteworks]

It was a 5E game, but it predated your 5E wotc license. (So I'm withholding gripes about 5E specific stuff.) Also it's the middle of the workday and I'm posting from memory, so this ain't exhaustive.

Why couldn't I ping the map?
Why couldn't I add/subtract numbers from existing values on my character sheet? (this isn't the same as editing a value)
Why couldn't I log in and edit my character sheet between sessions? (obviously, I'm aware of the limitations of the client/server architecture--but that shouldn't prevent me from having a local copy of the char sheet to fiddle with, especially given how obtuse the spell/powers scripting is.)
Why couldn't I generate random numbers that don't conform to dice? (e.g. 1d73)
Why weren't there tooltips on the buttons to let me know what to expect? (more of an interface problem than a missing feature, but eh.)

Perhaps the answer to some of those questions is "You can, but you don't know how." In those cases, just replace "this feature is missing" with "this feature is obfuscated behind an unfriendly interface to such an extent that no one in my group knew how to do it."

Looking back over this post, I find I don't like the irritable tone I'm adopting--I hope you don't internalize it--but the sentiment is sincere, as this eight month campaign left me frustrated and dissatisfied with your product.

No offense taken.

Unusual Dice. You can make custom dice strings now, such as 1d73. Type /die 1d73 and you can save it to a hotkey slot if you want by dragging it to the hotkey bar. This may have been added after you tried it.

Tooltips. This somewhat depends on the ruleset but many of them have tooltips. Again, I'm not sure when you tested and whether or not they were added after.

Ping Map. Currently active token from the combat tracker initiative is highlighted to draw focus to it. Players and GMs often use pointers to highlight a specific area or to demonstrate line of fire and whether or not there is cover or blocking terrain from one corner of a square to another area... per the PHB rules. It also measures distance this way, which is nice. I guess it would depend on why you want to ping the map. There may be a different way of doing that in FG.

Temporary Edits to abilities. There is a simple way and a more advanced way.
Simple Method:
use the /mod command and save it to a hotkey. type /mod +2 (Bull's Strength bonus) and drag it to a hotkey. Click the hotkey or press the F1 or whatever each time you want to apply it. It will show the rolls and any modifiers in the modifier stack on the final calculation.

Advanced Method.
Create an effect that is linked to a spell or ability that you toggle on and set the duration in turns, minutes, hours, days, etc and then toggle it on from your character sheet or drag it to a target it if is a spell that effects a target.
An example effect might be:
STR: +4;

The result would look like this in the chat window when you had that effect active and made your next attack:
[ATTACK (M)] Battleaxe [EFFECTS +2]
It would not apply the bonus to a shortsword attack since it is a finesse weapon or to a longbow because it is ranged.

You can make even more advanced effects that combine several features, such as:
Rage;ADVCHK:strength;ADVSAV:strength;DMG:2, melee;RESIST:bludgeoning,slashing,piercing;[SELF]

 

[Mistwell]

I really don't want 3d mapping, because for us it makes it too close to a video game (and interferes with the players ability to see things sometimes as the top-down view is not a view of what the character sees anyway). But I am pleased to hear 2d mapping is in the works as well. And of course I assume others want the 3d thing, so cool for them as well. I admit one of those videos of the 3d mapping looked really simple to use. I like that you select a stone type, then just highlight an area and it automatically makes it a room or a corridor between rooms. That's pretty nifty.

 

[dd.stevenson]

Ping Map. Currently active token from the combat tracker initiative is highlighted to draw focus to it. Players and GMs often use pointers to highlight a specific area or to demonstrate line of fire and whether or not there is cover or blocking terrain from one corner of a square to another area... per the PHB rules. It also measures distance this way, which is nice. I guess it would depend on why you want to ping the map. There may be a different way of doing that in FG.

I want to do this.

Temporary Edits to abilities. There is a simple way and a more advanced way.

Not what I mean: I want to type "+543" into my xp field (for example) and have the program add 543 to the preexisting xp value. (I'm aware that the DM can give out xp on his end; that's not what I'm talking about, here.)

 

[smiteworks]

Got it. No, there is no ping animation currently. It works a bit different. It looks like you want the ping to draw their attention and to move the map to focus on that area. In FG, many DM's draw attention with pointers or by flashing the visibility of a token. To sync all the player's views, they would use the sync player view option from the image's right-click menu. That way, if a GM wanted to center the focus over an area of the map that might be off screen for someone or not zoomed at the level the DM wants, it sets everyone's view to match exactly what the DM has. The ping would be a pretty easy feature to implement, though, so we could look at adding that to the other map enhancements when we do those.

For XP, you can do this by typing 543 into the modifiers box and then dragging from that field to your XP field. You can type in any number, positive or negative and it will add or subtract it for you.

Most DM's use the party sheet to track XP for quests and for encounters since it keeps a log of the XP granted and divides it for the party automatically. You basically just enter the XP under Quests, set what it was for and click Award. Looking at it again, it looks like we should make a simple mod to allow you to drag and drop it on a single player in the part sheet to award it instead of always dividing it out equally. You would have to either manually adjust it for a single player or do the drag and drop from the modifier window to that PC as I mentioned earlier.

FG has a lot of flexibility on how it can handle drops onto any fields. We just have to tell it what to do for different scenarios. Most of these suggestions come from users requesting them -- just like this.

 

[Psikerlord#]

I like FG a lot, played for quite a few months using it. It looks great and very easy macro drop into the tabs down the bottom of the screen. We didn't use any of the packs etc, just used the tabletop dice and picture handouts etc, it is very cheap if that's all you want to do. Players still input their data to use the PC sheets, and as DM I would just enter a few stats and attacks for monsters. The combat tracker was great for initiative handling and noting conditions etc.

I only had two issues with FG (we are now back to roll20 as another member is DMing and he prefers roll20):

1. It would bug out on us occasionally, not allowing us to sync. We tried all sorts of fixes but ahh maybe we just aren't techy enough. I really think the whole port forwarding issue needs to be removed.
2. The drawing tool is too poor. We were using Stoodle in browser, which was fine, but if we're paying decent money I think the drawing tool should be better.

Overall however an excellent program and highly recommended.

Cheers
Steveg

 

[I'm A Banana]

In FG, many DM's draw attention with pointers or by flashing the visibility of a token

Gotta be careful with that - if you've got any other pointers up (such as a spell area), this deletes them.

The ability to have multiple pointers...and color them different colors...even something like the area templates in MapTool (where you could select a border color, a fill color, a transparency, and drop an area)...would be SUCH a good thing.

if we're paying decent money I think the drawing tool should be better.

+1'd. HOPEFULLY the mapping enhancement they're working on cover this territory. It's one of the things stopping me from giving a strong recommendation.

 

[dd.stevenson]

Got it. No, there is no ping animation currently. It works a bit different. It looks like you want the ping to draw their attention and to move the map to focus on that area. In FG, many DM's draw attention with pointers or by flashing the visibility of a token. To sync all the player's views, they would use the sync player view option from the image's right-click menu. That way, if a GM wanted to center the focus over an area of the map that might be off screen for someone or not zoomed at the level the DM wants, it sets everyone's view to match exactly what the DM has. The ping would be a pretty easy feature to implement, though, so we could look at adding that to the other map enhancements when we do those.

It's not clear in your answer whether you understood, so I'll just say again that I want to ping the map as a player.

I am aware that the DM can push his map view out to the players, but that doesn't in any way help players point out parts of the map to ask questions or to explain actions.

 

[smiteworks]

These areas are scheduled to be improved upon -- specifically drawing. By default, each player (and the GM) will always draw in the dice color they have selected. This makes it easy to tell who "owns" what effect.

Toggling visibility of a token doesn't delete any of the pointers or area of effect markers. Selecting the menu item to Remove all Pointers will. Right clicking and selecting Remove This on a pointer will remove just that one. If a player chooses to delete All Pointers, it removes their pointers only. If a DM does it, it removes them for everyone.

Instead of using the pointer menu, the faster way is to make a "quick pointer" by holding the LEFT and RIGHT mouse buttons down and then drag from point A to point B to make a measured line. When you are done just press LEFT and RIGHT mouse buttons again. You can also make quick round, square and cone areas this way too but doing that and pressing SHIFT, CTRL or ALT. See the wiki for more details: http://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/Images

View attachment 71843

In this image, it makes it very easy for players and DM's to determine line of sight, cover, range, etc.

 

[damned]

It's not clear in your answer whether you understood, so I'll just say again that I want to ping the map as a player.

Many tools implement a similar feature in a different way. FG doesnt have a ping but you can draw arrows, circles, cones, squares on the map - player or GM. These automatically colour the same as your dice to make it easy to work out whose things are whose. You can draw a "quick" arrow/cone/circle/square that will disappear with a click or when you do your next quick one - or you can do a semi permanent one, of which you can have multiple - again players and GMs can do this.

 

[damned]

Gotta be careful with that - if you've got any other pointers up (such as a spell area), this deletes them.

The ability to have multiple pointers...and color them different colors...even something like the area templates in MapTool (where you could select a border color, a fill color, a transparency, and drop an area)...would be SUCH a good thing.


+1'd. HOPEFULLY the mapping enhancement they're working on cover this territory. It's one of the things stopping me from giving a strong recommendation.

Heya I'm A Banana - turning visibility on and off has zero effect (as far as ive ever encountered) on pointers or effects. If a PC is targeting this actor then the targeting will be cancelled (from 3.1.2 onwards).

Currently the pointers cant be done as you describe. Each player (and the GM) can set their own dice colours and this also sets the colour of their pointers (pointer, cone, circle, square) and the actual squares that this will affect and shades them in that colour. It also shows the radius, length etc of those pointers/fields. They can be moved around - for example as the stinking cloud flows down the slope.

The drawing tool is basic in the extreme. Its not really good for too much at all....!