New FG User with Lots of Questions

[Orsalak]

I've been lurking and watching videos and just recently bought a license with the summer sale. Most of my questions will be on the basic side I am sure, so I will keep adding them here while I am getting started.

Okay, I'll start off with a couple:

1) I see three campaigns I can select when loading a campaign, but I saw a forth campaign in my directory structure "My Demo Sound Test". What is that and why doesn't that one show up?

2) What is a campaign in Fantasy Grounds? Do you create one for each Adventure you play or do you create one for the group for as long as it lasts?

3) When creating a campaign I see ruleset and extension options. What do the font extensions do? I have one called "5E - Language Fonts - Wizards" but I can't tell the difference when I load it.


Thanks,
Ors

[dulux-oz]

Hi Orsalak, and Welcome! to the Community,

Let's see if I can answer your questions.

2) A Campaign is a particular game of an RPG with a particular set of Rules (a Ruleset). You can have one campaign per game session (one-off games) or you can use a campaign to play a connected series of adventures (an actual PRG campaign, as they're known). I personally play in a couple of long-running games with the same sets/groups of players, so we have one campaign for each games/group - but you can do it anyway you like. Someone else will be along shortly with a differ (complimentary) explanation, which is OK because they might give you the explanation which you "get" better than mine - or vice-versa.

1) I've no idea what the My Demo Sound Test campaign is (and I wrote the sound system for FG, so you'd think I'd know). Perhaps its one that you created yourself somehow?

3) Rulesets are the RPG-mechanics of the RPG we're going to play. Extensions are "plug-ins" that can do all sorts of things. This here will help explain things. The 5E Language Font Extension causes words spoken (typed) by people with different in-game languages to appear as different text - so that Elvish looks different from Dwarvish, for example.

You said you've been watching some vids - that's good. If you haven't done so already, let me encourage you to take a look at some of the great Tutorial Videos available on the Fantasy Grounds Wiki (and on YouTube). Damn's are good, as are Xorn's, and people seem to like mine as well (mine are also available from the links in my sig, below).

Start with the ones on the CoreRPG, because the CoreRPG forms the foundation of just about all the RPGs we play with Fantasy Grounds - so by learning how to use FG with the CoreRPG you'll learn about 80% of what you'll need to know to play any RPG with Fantasy Grounds. Once you've gone through the CoreRPG Videos you can then go on to Videos about your chosen RPG.

When you get familiar with the basic Fantasy Grounds product the next step is to check out some of the Extensions (Plug-Ins) for FG, such as the DOE: Sound, DOE: Locations, DOE: Weather and DOE: Organisations Extensions (to name a but a few - and a Shameless™ Self Plug).

And keep on asking questions - we're a pretty friendly lot here, and we love answering questions.

Cheers

[Orsalak]

1) I've no idea what the My Demo Sound Test campaign is (and I wrote the sound system for FG, so you'd think I'd know). Perhaps its one that you created yourself somehow?

Okay, I feel silly now. Yeah, a month or so ago I downloaded the demo and was playing around with your sound extensions, it must have been left over from that. I forgot all about that and was thinking I had a clean install.

As for the videos, I remember watching a few of your videos a few months back, I'll have to check out some of the other ones as well.

Thanks for the help!

[dulux-oz]

Thanks for the help!

No problem. Glad to help out.

[Orsalak]

Time for my next question:

4) How do I get the Natural Explorer advantage on initiatives to work.

I downloaded Unearthed Arcana module and loaded that and the DD PHB Deluxe when running Manage Characters. I'm attempting to make a Human Ranger my son had created using the UA Ranger. Everything is going well so far and I am currently trying to add the Natural Explorer ability to the Action tab. I created the following Power:
Attachment 19540

When I 2xclick initiative for my ranger, it just rolls the 1 die instead of giving him advantage. I also tried double clicking the power and effect, but those don't roll dice. I imagine I can create a macro for the toolbar, but that defeats the purpose of creating the power. I'm not sure if this is doable, but seems like it should work.

Thanks for any assistance!

[Trenloe]

Effects need to be applied to a character when they are in the Combat Tracker.

Put your PC in the combat tracker then click the effect button (humanoid outline) to the left. This will apply the effect to the combat tracker and Init rolls for that character should now have advantage.

[Orsalak]

Effects need to be applied to a character when they are in the Combat Tracker.

Put your PC in the combat tracker then click the effect button (humanoid outline) to the left. This will apply the effect to the combat tracker and Init rolls for that character should now have advantage.

Okay, that did it. I noticed I have to click the passive effect I created after adding him to the combat tracker but before clicking initiative to get it to work. I wasn't sure if DR was added automatically, but monsters seem to have their effects added immediately upon adding them to the window.

[Zacchaeus]

Is DR = Damage resistance? What ruleset are you looking at? I suspect that something like Damage Resistance will get automated; you should probably see something indicating that when you put them on the Combat Tracker. But maybe not; I'm not too familiar with rulesets that use damage resistance.

[Orsalak]

I'm fairly new to 5E, so I may have been crossing them up a bit. I checked a skeleton and did not see DR, that must have been from 3.5 and Pathfinder. I noticed when I added a water weird it added it's effects, so I think the answer is monsters have them added immediately but characters need to have their effect buttons selected first.

[Zacchaeus]

Ah, ok. Yes in 5e certainly if an NPC has resistance to a particular damage type then that will work automatically. Skeletons in 5e are immune to poison and vulnerable to bludgeoning; so they will not take any damage from poison attacks and will take double damage from bludgeoning - both scenarios will be handled automatically by FG.