D&D 5E Question about Fantasy Grounds and pricing

[Ricochet]

Hoping someone can help me. A few of my players have looked at Fantasy Grounds for playing the official 5e modules. I have a few questions about pricing though... If I buy an "ultimate license" is that it? No other annual or monthly fees?

Do I have to buy the D&D Core Classes for $50 and Monster Manual for $50 in addition to the scenarios I buy, or are the rules & monsters needed for the scenario included when I buy said scenario?

If I have to plonk down $150+$50+$50+whatever the modules cost it is getting rather pricey. The features list says "5e rules included", but what does that entail - the availability to purchase said rules, or are they part of my package already?

 

[Prism]

You can either buy the ultimate license as a one off or pay monthly. That lets you run the game using 5e rules and provides a character sheet plus sections you can use to create 5e monsters, a combat tracker, lists of 5e conditions, a mechanism for applying advantage etc.

When the players want to create characters they can do so manually and write all of their abilities into the character sheet, however if you buy the classes then this becomes easier as they can copy the information into their character sheet. Its pretty useful when the character is a spell caster as all the spells are fully written up. If you want an example of this then you could buy the basic rules pack (fairly cheap) which contains the 4 core classes, although its optional. This also contains a copy of the written rules as normally provided by the free pdf - a bit redundant but convenient to have built in.

You shouldn't need the monster manual if you are buying the adventure modules as they should contain copies of all the required monsters arranged into the encounters. The modules I have seen so far have been very well done with all of the book content, hyperlinked together and extra maps included where needed. The monster manual becomes useful if you want to write your own adventures but just like the classes pack you could survive without by typing the monster details in yourself

 

[Ricochet]

Aha, very cool. And if I buy the monthly pass and decide to get the ultimate license, do I own said license forever (or as long as the hosting company is around at least )?

 

[Prism]

Well if you buy the monthly pass its only a subscription, so you can only use it as long as you keep paying. I used the monthly pass for three months to see if FG was right for us as at the time we had been using Roll20. After the three months I bought the one off license instead and dropped the subscription. It cost more to do it that way as you don't get the monthly costs back but we wanted to make sure as a group.

I also survived with just the basic rules pack for a while too, but during a Steam sale decided to buy the Monster Manual as I have been creating my own campaign and writing up the monsters was taking too long. If I was running prewritten modules I wouldn't have bothered as they contain the monsters you need.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

Another thing of note: the Ultimate License covers your whole group; players don't have to spend anything extra, install the demo version and log in to your game. Alternativley you can have each player buy a Full License for $39 per player. This might get interesting if you wait for some discount or sale to be offered.

 

[Nylanfs]

There is also the 4 for the price of 3 pack in Steam.