FANTASY GROUNDS Virtual Tabletop's D&D License!

Officially licensed D&D electronic tools! For real! Fantasy Grounds, one of the leading virtual tabletops, has just released a set of D&D 5th edition licensed data packages. These include the D&D Basic Rules, packs for each of the core classes, and a pile of monster packs. Each states specifically that "This product is licensed from Wizards of the Coast." This appears to be the first officially licensed and branded electronic product. (thanks to Matchstick for the scoop)

Check out their D&D wares here. They mention that "The DMG is still in the works, along with the Hoard of the Dragon Queen, The Rise of Tiamat and Princes of the Apocalypse." and that "The basic 5E ruleset will continue to be provided directly within Fantasy Grounds to all licenses. These purchasable options add a new graphics theme that is officially branded, along with the library module support, and whatever other enhancements we could squeeze in, like tokens or portraits or decals."

Here's the announcement:

We are proud to announce that we are officially licensed to sell D&D source material and content inside of Fantasy Grounds! This is the beginning of a great new partnership between SmiteWorks and Wizards of the Coast that will benefit gamers worldwide.

You can purchase the D&D Complete Core Class Pack with all the class, feats, spells and equipment or you can purchase individual classes only. You can also buy the monsters in packs or as the D&D Complete Core Monster Pack. These products have been converted to work really tightly with Fantasy Grounds to give you the best possible gaming experience - we know you're going to love them. They contain all the great artwork and content from the official products and all the smarts and integration to work with Fantasy Grounds. Not only will you get the same content that can be found in print, but you also get an exciting new Fifth Edition theme, adventures and content customized specifically for ease of play inside of Fantasy Grounds.

For Dungeon Masters and players on a budget, you might pick up a Player Customization Pack and one or two Class Packs of your choice. Dungeon Masters can often get by with just the Adventure of their choice and one or two Monster Packs.

Don't forget that players can gift purchases through Steam for Dungeon Masters who have linked their license on Steam.
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[Dire Bare]

Wow. I've been as excited for and supportive of 5E since the play-test. But this is a big miss-step for me; the only mac option for FG is through steam. And all that does is create a wineskin wrapper... what a sub-par option! That and fold in the pricing and this is a non-starter.

The software might not be to your tastes, and it may not be designed to work (easily) for your system, but that doesn't make it a "misstep".

This license was an excellent step for WotC and Smiteworks to make. Is the software to everyone's tastes and needs? No. But no software ever is.

 

[Gecko85]

I feel like for 5E's electronic/online solution it could have/should have tried to be more; more platform agnostic, more mobile/tablet friendly more electronic and more online.

This isn't "5E's electronic/online solution", it's ONE product that has obtained a 5e license. That's a huge difference.

 

[ShadoWWW]

I've used PHB and MM rulesets nearly from day 1, and the overall experience is great. I love the free-form solution, which allows easy inclusion of home rules, especially when 5e is kindly opened for home rules.

 

[Ghost Matter]

I've been mulling this over since the news has come out. I'm still on the fence.

I used Roll20 weekly and I love it. I pay for Mentor. My players love it, especially dynamic lighting. One of my ex-players was on Linux and it took no effort for them to join in.

As for Fantasy Grounds, So I guess I could pay for the Ultimate License monthly. I could scrounge up the money for the books. But I'm missing a few things:

• dynamic lighting
• easy cross-platform (no typing in commands or stuff like that, or buying a license on Steam) (I think that's coming with Unity?)
• GM and Map layers

I might try to find a game to join as a player. Or try the Basic Rules. But, for now, I'm still not convinced.

 

[smiteworks]

I've been mulling this over since the news has come out. I'm still on the fence.

I used Roll20 weekly and I love it. I pay for Mentor. My players love it, especially dynamic lighting. One of my ex-players was on Linux and it took no effort for them to join in.

As for Fantasy Grounds, So I guess I could pay for the Ultimate License monthly. I could scrounge up the money for the books. But I'm missing a few things:

• dynamic lighting
• easy cross-platform (no typing in commands or stuff like that, or buying a license on Steam) (I think that's coming with Unity?)
• GM and Map layers

I might try to find a game to join as a player. Or try the Basic Rules. But, for now, I'm still not convinced.

I'm just curious, are there actually Linux users out there who are uncomfortable with command line stuff or installing and configuring software? Almost everyone I've ever met or known who uses Linux is an IT professional. Granted, a lot of people I know are IT professionals, but still.

For Mac, you launch Steam, but the product or choose the Demo and click the Install button. There are no command line steps. If your players don't have Steam yet, then they are missing out on the dominant market for games.

Our Unity build is still underway but has quite a while before it will be ready for release.

Finally, the dynamic lighting. We don't currently support dynamic lighting. Instead, we support a fog of war via a mask that can be cut away as needed to reveal rooms or parts of the map underneath. Visibility on tokens can also be turned on or off globally or individually. On the plus side, your maps don't require you to do a bunch of additional setup in order for them to work. Most of our attention has been focused on features to help the game play faster and be easier to run for the DM and players. When you play in person, your players can typically look at a wall and realize that even though your ally can see them, your character can't.

 

[Mirtek]

Hello Mirtek,

Thanks for answering.

I'm not sure if you've run a Check for Updates recently, but we have pushed out a few data patches over the last few days.

That's good. But do I really have to check for updates myself? Can't steam keep my software up to date?

The Sage Personality Traits lists 8 options that can be selected or rolled randomly. The window has a scroll bar and may not show them all at once on your screen. You can use the scroll bar or the mouse-wheel while the cursor is inside that window.

The Sage personality traits sometime list 8 options. However there seems to be a bug that sometimes restricts it to only showing the first six and no scrolling down either, the bar stops after the sixt. Propably something for your issue list.

The Explorer's Pack is not currently bringing over the rations, the empty backpack or the rope automatically. We will add this to our fix list.

Great

Overall, I want to be clear to everyone reading the thread here that Fantasy Grounds is not intended as a rules validating character builder.

IMO that's a feature you really need to add. The core class pack alone costs more than many full-fledged PC games and together with the character customization pack actually costs more than the PHB. For that much money for a software I expect more.

At the moment I have not recommended shelling out that much money to my friends who asked me how happy I am so far with my purchase. 90 EUR is a lot of many.

Note that I have yet to play, which I won't before next Wednesday. So far my only experience is to re-create my level 4 character from my P&P game and create a new level 1 character for the game on wednesday.

I might appreciate my purchase more after Wednesday, but right now I am sorry that I couldn't wait for Wednesday and first try it out with the demo but instead was so impatient that I just had to do a 90 EUR purchase immediately.

The true power of Fantasy Grounds comes when you begin using the completed character sheet to play the game online.

I am waiting to have my socks knocked off.

launch attacks or spells at monsters and have it automatically determine a hit or a miss or force your targets to roll against a set saving throw. You can have it automatically deal full or half damage or apply an effect to anyone who fails.

On of my two characters is a warlock. His spell slots become level 2 slots, is there a way that I can increase the damage of my level 1 spells to match the new slot on the character sheet? Or is this done only later in the actual game?

 

[smiteworks]

Other than the most recent review, Fantasy Grounds has received very positive reviews here on ENWorld. You can read them here:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?386930-Fantasy-Grounds

This was prior to the availability of official D&D content.

 

[Nylanfs]

Fantasy Grounds runs perfectly in wine

And you can totally have GM map layers you can even run it from the same computer twice once as a player, once as the GM

 

[Mirtek]

Another question that might be more appropriate as a general question, but FG brought this to my attention:

Do you gain skills by multi-classing? I always thought that you don't, since they are not listed on pages 163-165 in the PHB. Yet FG seems to think you do, when I dragged a warlock level to my fighter level FG added proficiency in the warlock skills in addition to the fighter skills.

So either this is a bug and needs to be fixed or I've been a fool all this months and my character should have been a lot better in certain things than I thought. Actually hope it's the later, can't have enought proficicent skills

 

[Ghost Matter]

[...]

I haven't asked the person but they are not an IT person. They got a computer with Linux pre-installed I think.

As for the Steam demo, I didn't know! I didn't see it anywhere. Thanks.

I think Dynamic Lightning is very fun and adds a lot to immersion. I don't feel like Fog of War is the same. Players can move and forth in a room while they don't see the changes in there. If I wanted that effect with Fog of War, I'd have to constantly change the fog during a game after the PCs exit a room.
I understand your reasoning for it but the fact is, a lot of players want it (I'm sure you've seen the #1 suggestion for FG) and enjoy it.