Calling all DMs - Newbie Questions Abound!

[morgangray24]

Hello everyone,

So I have been slowly coming to understand how to use FG to run Pathfinder for my friends and I, there are a few oddities that I still cannot wrap my head around. I was hoping that I could find some help here. I did a look through old posts, but could not find answers to my issues, so apologies if this ground has been covered before. So , my questions...

1. Using Hero Lab to export out a .hlfg file for a CLERIC, can't seem to have it come into game with spells shown, works fine for the groups Mage, but I have to manually add the Cleric's spells from my modules into its character sheet. Looking at the character sheet, i see options for Wizards/Sorcerers etc. but nothing for clerics. Any insight on what I am doing wrong?

2. I have a Player who controls 2 PCs, in the chat log it seems to to refer to him as 1 of the PCs regardless of who he is actually rolling for for certain rolls (skill checks), is this common?

3. I've watched a ton of Mr. Hershey's videos on YouTube (thank you sir!), but still don't understand how to apply combat variables (flanked, flat-footed, cover) to roles my PCs intend to make. Is this something that I just do after the fact, do I put it in the modifier stack and the next roll will use the variable?

4. One of my PCs has an animal companion, with stats generated into Hero Lab, any help on how to make it a party member that can be controlled by him like a PC in combat?


Thanks for any help provided, I love this program, it is helped keep my gaming group active between face to face sessions in a way we haven't had before!

[Trenloe]

Feedback below:

1) You're not doing anything wrong. This is just the way the import from HeroLab works - you don't get the spells added. Clerics are still prepared spell casters, so use the spellbook icon (even though it says "Wizard" in the tooltip text).

I suppose the argument for the spells not being added from the HeroLabs import is that clerics can change their prepared spells at their daily prayers so they have access to all spells available to a cleric. Wizards, on the other hand, only have what is available in their spellbook to memorise - so these can be listed in the actions tab and prepared as required. Having all of the cleric spells the PC could choose from in the action tab would take up a lot of application memory and character sheet loading time.

2) The player they are currently owning for all entries in the chat window has the PC name on the icon in bold (sometimes hard to tell). To change which one the player is controlling they should double-click on the icon and they should see the bolded name change.

3) Players have to apply modifiers via the stack and the modifiers window before they roll - GMs can't. You can left-click on the modifier stack (below the chat window) and type a number as a modifier. You can also open the "Modifiers" window and click one or more buttons that apply - e.g. "Touch" and "Cover" to make the attack a touch attack against a creature in cover. Then roll the attack and you should see the modifiers appear in the description of the attack in the chat window.

e.g. this is an example of an attack display in the chat window with "+2" in the modifier stack and "Touch" and "Cover" selected in the Modifiers window:

[ATTACK (M)] Dagger [CRIT 19] [TOUCH] [COVER -4] (+2)
the roll had a total modifier of -2 (+2 for the modifier stack and -4 for cover) and the result of the attack would be compared to the touch AC of the target.

Notice that all modifiers are removed after the first roll.

4) Export the animal companion from HeroLab jut like you would a PC (to an .hlfg file) and use the CharacterConverter to bring the animal companion into Fantasy Grounds - treat it exactly like a PC.

When the player logs in to your FG game, they will have to select both their PC and their animal companion to control.

[morgangray24]

Thank you so much for the help, this is awesome info, and I agree with your assessment on clerics, makes sense now that I think about it.