D&D 5E Interesting review of Fantasy Grounds software posted on reddit
- Thread starter MerricB
- Start date
smiteworks
Adventurer
There are two of us who work full-time on it and we have another developer that we've made an official part of the team. Apart from that, we employ around 30 commissioned community developers as well. Those folks do anything from simple adventure conversions to full blown ruleset development for us and we pay out commissions to them each quarter. There are other community developers as well, but they don't work on the "official" items.
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
I've been a player in a game for several months. The DM has whatever super-ultimate license that allows us to connect to him and play with the free version, though all characters and such stay on his server, I can't create a character or anything until I connect.
I haven't had resource hog issues. The only "hog" is screen real estate. I've got it across 1 and 2/3 large monitors (the remaining 3rd is our skype or hangout video chat), and it's tough to fit character sheet, combat tracker, party tracker, notes, and either map or images. Finally shrunk the UI to 80% (option before connecting) and undocked the chat window so I could resize that and it's good enough.
I like it but it still feels like an early product. My DM had to create lay-on-hands, smites at various levels, channel divinity for Oath of Ancients and a bunch of other stuff just for my character in order to have automatically working versions. Still can't figure out how to automate my 6th level aura giving +Chr to saves vs. spells. But it looks like there is a community that's coming up with some things, not sure how active.
Other negatives where I needed to create a whole second character sheet (more screen space!) for my Find Steed warhorse with barding to let me run him. And we still have issues with targeting occasionally because it's so easy to forget. We leveled up mid session and characters that edited their level from 5 to 6 were still level 5 characters though they said 6 (!!), while users that opened the classes from the library and dragged it onto their character were automatically and properly leveled up.
But for all that, it's smooth enough and gets out of the way of playing. We're having fun using it.
I have used MapTools, but that didn't have any rules support. I haven't used Roll20 to compare. But I'm happy with it and will continue to use it.
I haven't had resource hog issues. The only "hog" is screen real estate. I've got it across 1 and 2/3 large monitors (the remaining 3rd is our skype or hangout video chat), and it's tough to fit character sheet, combat tracker, party tracker, notes, and either map or images. Finally shrunk the UI to 80% (option before connecting) and undocked the chat window so I could resize that and it's good enough.
I like it but it still feels like an early product. My DM had to create lay-on-hands, smites at various levels, channel divinity for Oath of Ancients and a bunch of other stuff just for my character in order to have automatically working versions. Still can't figure out how to automate my 6th level aura giving +Chr to saves vs. spells. But it looks like there is a community that's coming up with some things, not sure how active.
Other negatives where I needed to create a whole second character sheet (more screen space!) for my Find Steed warhorse with barding to let me run him. And we still have issues with targeting occasionally because it's so easy to forget. We leveled up mid session and characters that edited their level from 5 to 6 were still level 5 characters though they said 6 (!!), while users that opened the classes from the library and dragged it onto their character were automatically and properly leveled up.
But for all that, it's smooth enough and gets out of the way of playing. We're having fun using it.
I have used MapTools, but that didn't have any rules support. I haven't used Roll20 to compare. But I'm happy with it and will continue to use it.
Last edited:
epithet
Explorer
It is important to note that this isn't intended to be a fully automated D&D game--it's got a lot of automation built into it, but almost all of it can be adjusted, customised, or toggled on-and-off. This is a program designed to let you play your tabletop RPG (D&D, Pathfinder, etc.) across the vast distances of the internet (whether that's on the other side of the world, or the other side of the coffee table.)
What that means is that you can choose whether to apply bonuses to hit manually to the roll, for example, or apply an effect to the character that applies it automatically. Either way works just fine, both ways are easy to do, but you have the flexibility to play the game in a style that is your own.
What that means is that you can choose whether to apply bonuses to hit manually to the roll, for example, or apply an effect to the character that applies it automatically. Either way works just fine, both ways are easy to do, but you have the flexibility to play the game in a style that is your own.
Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad
Wow. That should be a high priority. It's simple and very high utility for the user.
Hussar
Legend
This is an issue with all VTT programs. If you start bombing giant image files, your VTT will go kerblooie. It's not just the processor speeds, it's the speed of the slowest connection to the group.
Hussar
Legend
And the drawing tools should damn well be player usable too. As a player, if I draw on the map, it doesn't show up for other players. That's terrible. I should be able to drop note tags on the map, if nothing else.
Psikerlord#
Explorer
Especially now in the age of things like Microsoft Surface and the pens you write directly onto the tablet with. They work great. If only the drawing tool for FG had more options!
Psikerlord#
Explorer
What is this Unity engine upgrade thing that is coming? Any info on that?
Similar Threads
