How does fantasy grounds compare to roll20?

[Skillkoil]

You create a group in the items section for your campaign then you can either create a new item or drag a similar item in and edit it with what you want it to do. Change name, properties etc.. Give the item to the player and it will be ready to go. Fantasy Grounds also has an item forge. You can drag a mundane item into the left box and then a magical item into the righ box and it will combine them for you into a new item. It also works for adding mods, accessories, upgrades depending on what ruleset you are using.

[Three of Swords]

Once an item is created, it exists as its own entity. If multiple players have one, they can all use it equally.

As for hitting multiple targets, the player selects the targets it will hit. If targets need to make a save, they use the ability and each target selected makes the appropriate save. If it's an attack, it will automatically make an attack roll against each target's AC. In both cases, once the save or hit/miss is determined, you use the damage ability from the item and it will apply it to each target.

So it's not fully automated. It's not an MMO. You still need to decide which targets an ability affects and manually select them. But once they are selected, it will know which ones were missed and made saves.

Setting up the items can be a little time-consuming while you learn how. But once complete, it's no different than using lightning bolt or fireball.

PS All of this assumes the 5e ruleset. I don't know anything about other rulesets, but I assume they work very similarly.

[Skillkoil]

Going off what Three of Swords was saying. In FG each item has types & subtypes which tell the program if it is a weapon, armor, adventuring gear, wondrous item etc. So if you make a shield once it is in the players inventory and they equip it.(Little button in the inventory tab of character sheet) it automatically adds the shield to their AC. If it is a weapon it will add the item to their actions tab. Where it has an attack roll and a damage roll beside it. So the player targets one or multiple enemies depending on the item and in chat it will show the roll and if they hit/miss or if the target failed/succeeded on the save. Most things are at least somewhat automated.

There is a very large list of items already in the items category, depending on if you are using basic rules or have purchased other supplementary books/modules. It's pretty easy to look at items that are already created to learn the syntax and placement for making your own item.

Hope this helps!

[Zacchaeus]

You should probably hop on to the FG College Discord server or the official Smiteworks Discord Server and we can help you out more quickly and with pictures

[Nylanfs]

Don't forget the biggest part that a) the community is more friendly and b) Doug and John don't have a problem with talking about and comparisons with competitors (as log as it's constructive ore not pure marketing).

[Andraax]

• Card decks. You don't realize how useful this can be until it's gone.
• Rollable table tokens. A very powerful tool when used well.

There is a card extension that allows you to use tables as card decks. Also, tables are rollable in FG.

[LordEntrails]

There is a card extension that allows you to use tables as card decks. Also, tables are rollable in FG.

Don't forget Story Templates, that can be combined with tables and more.

[Maasq]

I'll just pop a wee plug in here for the software suite I am writing

As a homebrew DM, you'll hopefully appreciate ways to get your stuff into FG as easily as possible. There are fully fledged NPC and Spells modules, and I have started work on an Items module. Magic Items will follow that. The NPC module even has an importer for 5E Shaped data from Roll20, if that is of any use to you.

Links in my sig should you wish to look at NPC Engineer & Spell Engineer - I'd hope that they could help form a positive view of both FG and the community.

Maasq

[Three of Swords]

There is a card extension that allows you to use tables as card decks. Also, tables are rollable in FG.

Card Decks
The card extension isn't the same thing. Actual card decks are nice for things other than cards. I use a decks in Roll20 for things like consumable items (healing potions, scrolls, etc). I also use them for various tokens, like tracking Inspiration. They also work well for random dungeons since the cards are just graphics, you can pull a card, place it on the map, and you have a non-repeating tile for a dungeon. Draw again, and you have the next tile of the dungeon.

Rollable Tokens
As for rollable tokens, I'm not talking tables. Those are different. In Roll20 I can set up a single token to have multiple graphics. For example, I have a 'commoner' character token. When I place that token on the map, it randomly chooses from the nearly 100 graphics I have set up. I have a hydra token that I can change the number of heads it graphically displays just by right-clicking and selecting the number of heads (you can roll randomly or select the 'side' of the token you want). Lycanthrope tokens have one 'side' for full animal form, one for hybrid, one for humanoid form. Works well for other creatures that change weapons, like hobgoblins (sword and shield, sword only, bow, etc).

[Three of Swords]

Don't forget the biggest part that a) the community is more friendly and b) Doug and John don't have a problem with talking about and comparisons with competitors (as log as it's constructive ore not pure marketing).

You are definitely correct on B. The censorship on the Roll20 forums is pretty strict.

As for A, I consider the communities equal. On the FG forums, you have almost a dozen awesome, helpful, active members. Most of them have posted in this thread already. Almost any question is answered by one or more of them. Unfriendly responses are rare, but they do occur.

Roll20 has the same thing; a dozen or so awesome people that answer basically every question. But since the Roll20 forum community is significantly larger, you do have a larger chance of an unfriendly response. It's just a matter of mathematics.