Is fog of war a thing in Fantasy Grounds?

[Jupp]

Coming from maptools I was wondering if dynamic fog of war is a feature that is either already there now or planned for a future release in FantasyGrounds. I used FG years ago but moved over to maptools because of those features not being there. Now that FG seems to have increased momentum and D20pro getting a fog of war I thought it might be interesting to see what FG is up to in regards to FOW + dynamic lighting.

[damned]

There is no Dynamic Lighting or Fog of War. Nor is it likely to be on the current short list as the current game engine doesnt multi-thread and so high computational things like this would impact the rest of the system. Once the Unity rewrite is completed it is likely to get god consideration.



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[Nylanfs]

The Fog of War is manual, the DM reveals it as the players move along the map.

[Valarian]

Fantasy Grounds has the focus on story and the characters, rather than the map. So the map functionality is a little limited when compared to map-centric tactical VTTs like Maptool, Battlegrounds or roll20. That said, it's top on the wishlist and might well get looked at in the FG Unity build (as damned mentioned above). Vote for the functionality on the wishlist (https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/).

[Fugl]

On your map there is a small icon in the top left corner of a mask. try it :)

[kane280484]

Fantasy Grounds has the focus on story and the characters, rather than the map.Well, what's the problem with having a focus on story and at the same time decent map system? :P I am not complaining, as I am satisfied with what I paid for, but I hope to see some new features being implemented, everything evolves, why not FG map system? If money is the issue, maybe we could do some "kickstarting". I.e. people "vote" with money they put as "points" (1$ = 1 point) to certain ideas proposed by developers and top three winning proposals are being implemented thanks to the money collected this way ;)

[Zacchaeus]

Well, what's the problem with having a focus on story and at the same time decent map system? :P I am not complaining, as I am satisfied with what I paid for, but I hope to see some new features being implemented, everything evolves, why not FG map system? If money is the issue, maybe we could do some "kickstarting". I.e. people "vote" with money they put as "points" (1$ = 1 point) to certain ideas proposed by developers and top three winning proposals are being implemented thanks to the money collected this way ;)

I don't think money is the issue; as damned said above it is a limitation of the engine which Fantasy Grounds uses. As he also said there is going to be a switch to another engine which might well mean that this feature could be more easily implemented.

[damned]

I don't think money is the issue; as damned said above it is a limitation of the engine which Fantasy Grounds uses. As he also said there is going to be a switch to another engine which might well mean that this feature could be more easily implemented.

Oh I think money always helps. The model where you sell a one time license in a niche market means you are gonna run out of money somewhere!
This will be possible in the Unity Engine and probably there will be an upgrade fee to go to FG 4 when it arrives.



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[Trenloe]

...but I hope to see some new features being implemented...
I'm sure in the one year you've been on Fantasy Grounds you've seen a lot of new features - how many updates to Fantasy Grounds have been done during that time? At least 6, if not more... Fantasy Grounds certainly isn't standing still - take the recent 5E developments as an excellent example. And, has been said, there is a lot of work going on behind the scenes to move the platform to Unity which will allow more options within the system. This will take a lot of effort to move to the new platform, along with the other improvements and new functionality that we have grown used to regularly getting.

[Fynious]

As a brand new customer, something I think Smiteworks is working hard to aquire I find it disconcerting to read posts like this. Seeing statements like "Fantasy Grounds is more about the story", "It has Mask of War, so just use it." Those aren't statements I think they would want new customers to see. I think someone said that this software is changing and doing a good job of adding features. In that case I think they would be very open to seeing what customers in general are looking for and since Dynamic Lighting is #1 in the voting for a new feature I think that would be very high on their list. Just because "You" (That's a general You...) don't want or like Dynamic Lighting, it's a feature that is very popular and you shouldn't play it down.

As a long time user of Roll20, and a new customer for FGounds I think that's one large feature they are lacking to make this hands down the best product for VTT on the market. (I personally don't care about the costs, but that's an issue for some.) I was really attracted to this product because they have a great piece of software and are working to make it better. Also, I really liked that they worked to get the licensing from WoTC which should pay off for them and the user base.

With all that said, please don't disregard peoples opinions when it comes to things they would like to see in the software. There are a lot of people that would like to see Dynamic Lighting in Fantasy Grounds, and I think they know that. Remember if you don't want to use it.. just don't. That doesn't' affect you in any way.. but if I want to use it and it's not available that does affect me. Which might turn people away from this great product and I think it would be in everyone's best interest to grow the player base as much as possible.

Fyn

[Griogre]

Welcome to the boards, Fynious. You points are good, and dynamic FoW *is* one of the most requested enhancements. Like others, I suspect a large part of their migration of FG over to Unity is to accommodate the requests for a better graphics subsystem.

The reason you might see some push back against FoW is that for a small development team like SmiteWorks, they can only work on a few things at once. If I don't care about FoW then the time they are working on it, *is* the time they are not working on things I might care about like ruleset improvements, better effects, improved automation, better drag and drop, etc. I personally don't care about FoW, I'm a minimalist when it comes to prep time, and the time to set up light blockers isn't worth it to me for my games. However, I agree that for FG to remain competitive they are going to have to implement FoW eventually.

[Fynious]

Griogre, thanks for the welcome. You have a valid point in that some players would not want time wasted on a feature that they are not interested in or think is a complete waste of time. But that's why I think the voting is a good thing, it helps Smiteworks see what is the most popular feature that is wanted by players using their software. With that in mind, we have to remember this is still a product that might mean the world to lots of people but in the end, Smiteworks wants to make money with this product. I think that is clearly shown in the start up costs (Which I personally have no problem with.). If they didn't care, the software would just be free. With that in mind I think he would be prudent for Smiteworks to work on the features that are the most popular along with of course patching and updating the current builds.

I guess in the end, I just want as a lot of people said a one stop shop for a VTT solution. Personally I think with the new WoTC license, along with others they already have they are moving in the right direction. If they are able to get the engine updated to Unity, a good portion of the "Most Wanted" feature sets, they will move a long with towards being the defacto VTT solution. I purchased all of the 5e Modules along with the Ultimate license so I have put my money where my mouth is. But with that, I just wanted to speak up for the things I'd like to see. I would never tell anyone that their wants/opinions are not valid just because they don't align with mine.

It's taken some time as a noob to the forums here, but I've found some information on what they are doing (Unity, Dynamic Lighting, etc..) and I think what the devs have said look really good for the future of this product which is good for everyone.

Fyn.

[damned]

I dont believe its even development time thats the primary issue here. My understanding is:

The current game engine is single threaded. It can do one thing at a time and queues the next thing up. When the 3d dice are bouncing around the screen the next actions are being queued. When you have dynamic lighting every time any token is moved it sets off a mass of calculations which would pause every other thing going on. until the game engine is upgraded it is extremely unlikely you will see a dynamic lighting or similar.

Fynious I dont think anyone is disregarding your opinion.

[Dracones]

There are a lot of people that would like to see Dynamic Lighting in Fantasy Grounds, and I think they know that. Remember if you don't want to use it.. just don't. That doesn't' affect you in any way.. but if I want to use it and it's not available that does affect me. Which might turn people away from this great product and I think it would be in everyone's best interest to grow the player base as much as possible.

Dynamic lighting is the top most requested feature at https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/

One thing with Smiteworks is that they're a very transparent company. For people that have been on the forums here a few years they'll have experienced the times when the company has had open discussions on the pricing model, features, has worked with the community and re-designing the rulesets to use CoreRPG and so on. Dynamic lighting isn't in because the engine doesn't support it easily. The current engine has a lot of limitations which is why they're moving to a new one, but the company is really small and doesn't move quickly.

So for the vets on the forums we see the new people come in and bring up subjects we're all well aware of(confusing pricing, easier ruleset design, better mapping, etc) and Smiteworks is also aware of the issues, it's just that it's going to take time to slowly knock them out.

[ddavison]

Dynamic lighting, dynamic map building, layered maps, better drawing tools, random map generation, auto-scaling of map images on import so they perfectly align and streaming of sound and music, and better campaign folder/heirarchy support are all features that we consider to be a very high priority for immediately after our move to Unity. I doubt these are features we would consider for implementation prior to the move to Unity because we'd likely have to re-write them again afterward. The 5E implementation took a large part of our focus and slowed down our port to Unity, but we are hoping to begin resuming this again in the near future. The immediate focus is to make sure that the Unity version supports everything that we can do today and that we can utilize all our current assets, such as modules, adventures, etc and deploy them natively to the various platforms that Unity supports.

[JeffKnight]

Dynamic lighting, dynamic map building, layered maps, better drawing tools, random map generation, auto-scaling of map images on import so they perfectly align and streaming of sound and music, and better campaign folder/heirarchy support are all features that we consider to be a very high priority for immediately after our move to Unity. I doubt these are features we would consider for implementation prior to the move to Unity because we'd likely have to re-write them again afterward. The 5E implementation took a large part of our focus and slowed down our port to Unity, but we are hoping to begin resuming this again in the near future. The immediate focus is to make sure that the Unity version supports everything that we can do today and that we can utilize all our current assets, such as modules, adventures, etc and deploy them natively to the various platforms that Unity supports.

This x1000. The path they have chosen is the wisest approach. When you are doing something as massive as a code rewrite and changing the development engine, it's not smart to release the new version with less capability than the old one already had. Logos Bible Software did this when they changed from Logos 3 to "Logos 4." Logos 4 (and it's derivatives 5 and 6) still doesn't have some of the functionality that Logos 3 has now had for almost a decade.

[Falantrius]

I've been playing with it for about a week and finally bought an Ultimate license to fully test it. People may disagree with me but as customer and one who paid the $150 (Skyrim was only $60) - here are some areas that have disappointed me. Keep in mind - the Combat Tracker is excellent and the reason I purchased it AND the only main reason I bought it.

1) I expected a full character created - PCGEN and Hero XXX - have great character builders and PCGEN is free. I expected something similar for PathFinder in FG. Instead I get use this, export it, convert it, then load it in FG - every level for every character. I want players to be able to create, level up and be able to print their characters. Wasn't there.

2) Multi-monitor and resolution support. I have three monitors in our gaming room - two horizontal and one vertical. The one horizontal is higher resolution than the other. Windows like Combat Tracker and Party Sheet will only resize to about 5 characters high which makes screen usage difficult. The inability to undock windows like Combat Tracker - makes it impossible to drag it to another monitor and use it. The solution to expand it over two monitors doesn't work for monitors that change resolution or are vertical I'd like to see some support here.

3) Pathfinder support is sketchy. I've went to list of modules and loaded what I can get going. After loading an Oracle, no spells loaded and appear to incomplete. I'd like to see native Pathfinder SRD support in FG - esp. when free apps like PCGEN have nearly 95% of the content.

Now so you don't think I'm a hater - I have a lot of respect for FG and the work that has been put into it - or I wouldnt have purchased it but with its exposure on Steam - I'd like to see some updates over the next year to meet the broader need from customers. There are more than one way to use FG and while the primary should be the focus - others should also be considered.

[ianmward]

Welcome to the family!

I have to say, I think you will not regret your purchase and the $150 will give you many years of service (much more than Skyrim) and you will quickly forget these minor gripes.

On your particular issues...

1. Fantasy Grounds is not a Character Generator and has never (afaik) claimed to be one. It allows you to import characters created in the best of breed character generator, Hero Lab.
2. What you want on the wall. I.e. The combat tracker for all to see, is not the GM's combat tracker, but the player's view.
Simply run up a second instance of FG, connect to localhost and display this second, player view, full screen on the second monitor.
3. The pathfinder support is better than you will find for any other similar product, I am certain. There are modules available for most SRD material and what is not available, you can enter yourself, easily through the interface provided and then share it with the community.

Good luck and I hope to see you in-game at next FG-Con!

[Falantrius]

Welcome to the family!

I have to say, I think you will not regret your purchase and the $150 will give you many years of service (much more than Skyrim) and you will quickly forget these minor gripes.

On your particular issues...

1. Fantasy Grounds is not a Character Generator and has never (afaik) claimed to be one. It allows you to import characters created in the best of breed character generator, Hero Lab.
2. What you want on the wall. I.e. The combat tracker for all to see, is not the GM's combat tracker, but the player's view.
Simply run up a second instance of FG, connect to localhost and display this second, player view, full screen on the second monitor.
3. The pathfinder support is better than you will find for any other similar product, I am certain. There are modules available for most SRD material and what is not available, you can enter yourself, easily through the interface provided and then share it with the community.

Good luck and I hope to see you in-game at next FG-Con!

This is generally what I keep seeing here - people just filter out what I'm saying like my concerns are "minor gripes"
1) My players don't have PCs or clients - they have paper printed characters - all they need do is show up - pick up their dice and character sheet and have fun. When its time to level up, they go shopping with their money - and level up. I cant seem to do that with what I paid $150 for - people say "Its not a character generator and never claimed to be one. I know you paid $150 but go use another product if you want that." - this email is about what I would LIKE to see in FG - and I'd like to see a merger of something like PCGEN directly into FG. Would save the whole create it with this, export it and then go through it with a fine tooth comb to add effects, dmg to spells, etc. EVERY TIME they level up.
2) That's the work around I am using today. Running THREE Instances on the same computer and its dragging my performance down.
3) PCGEN which is free has far better support. I loaded a XML Bard in and it worked great - then I loaded an Oracle and lost the entire spell list and couldn't add it back in even. Yes I can enter it in via the interface - but my players are using PCGEN to level up their characters and send me the XML to load into FG. Each time all eight players LEVEL, I have to manually walk through their character and re-enter everything I fixed the LAST round of leveling. Then I have to go through all players spell lists and add effects, dmg, etc. before I can start a game. Totally lame - if the support was there - when the character was loaded, I wouldn't have to go to the library, find stuff, drag it on, add effects, etc. I just want to load the players character sheets and play for the day. If FG supported for PathFinder was more complete - I wouldn't lose things like all the Oracles spells and things. As for the SRD modules - I've downloaded them all and there is duplicate info in several, old data in others and missing data. It needs cleaned up and updated.

I'm still figuring this all out - so bear with me.

[Von Stalhein]

I've been using FG2 for several years now, and I'd just like to say that I've been very impressed with the strategy and direction Smiteworks have taken. As a small company with a demanding and diverse range of customers they've done an amazing job at trying to cater to the needs of their consumers across the full range: be that Savage Worlds GMs, D&D, Pathfinder, free-formers, etc. In view of that, I'm confident that Smiteworks will do everything they can to please as many old and new customers as they can. So, if there is something missing from FG for you, all I can say is vote for your feature on the idea tracker, and have a little patience - chances are it will get there eventually.

@Falantrius: it sounds like you're trying to use FG2 as an aide for play round a physical table? I just wanted to note. For others reading too, that the Ultimate license simply permits anyone (including those who have not bought any license) to connect to your game over the net - to my knowledge, there's no functionality difference between Full and Ultimate, only the need with Full for your online players to have a license too.

[ddavison]

3) Pathfinder support is sketchy. I've went to list of modules and loaded what I can get going. After loading an Oracle, no spells loaded and appear to incomplete. I'd like to see native Pathfinder SRD support in FG - esp. when free apps like PCGEN have nearly 95% of the content.


Have you checked out these modules yet for Pathfinder? While the base app only includes a subset of the Pathfinder SRD, the community has built the remaining modules and shared them on the forums here and elsewhere. There are some other great community built tools as well that help import characters and do all sort of things for Pathfinder. I have reached out to a few people before to see if they would mind us incorporating some of those modules into the official ruleset libraries. Even though they have built it and shared it on the forums, we don't want to simply include them without permission from the original authors. We also don't want to duplicate efforts if we don't have to.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?16074-List-of-Modules

[Trenloe]

This is generally what I keep seeing here - people just filter out what I'm saying like my concerns are "minor gripes"
We're not filtering them out - we wouldn't be replying if we were. A lot of these things have been raised by other people in the past and the developers are well aware of them - some might get done in the future, others might not. As such, we're telling you how things work in the current version of the software and also giving you feedback on what the developers have said about some of the features you're talking about.

1) The developers have said multiple times that FG is not a character generator and the vast majority of the users of Fantasy Grounds don't want the developers to dedicate hundreds of hours of development to do something like that, when that development time could be spent providing more features for this Virtual Table Top software.

The desire for a 3.5E/Pathfinder character generator is pretty low on the FG wishlist (22 votes), but go ahead and vote for it: https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/proj/?ia=57990

2) Multiple monitor support is much higher on the wishlist: https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/proj/?ia=54190 So, again, the devs are well aware of it. But, you won't see anything like this in the current platform used by Fantasy Grounds as this would be a massive overhaul of the interface, maybe when the platform moves to Unity this will be a possibility.

3) As has been mentioned to you before, Fantasy Grounds is not competing with PCGen or HeroLab - hence why there is the PCGen and HeroLab character converter included with the product. Yes, you'll have the issues that you say, but this is symptomatic of Fantasy Grounds not being a character generator. Sorry, I'm going to keep saying that, because that is something that you seem to "filter out".

Please keep the following in mind when thinking about Fantasy Grounds - it is not a computer RPG/MMO where everything is done for you, Fantasy Grounds is a Virtual Table Top (VTT) - it replaces the physical table top used by players in a face-to-face game, with a virtual application that allows people who aren't face-to-face to player over the internet. It provides places to record the PC data (record data, not automate character creation/leveling) and NPC data; allows rolling of dice (in the open and in secret), provides tracking of data, initiative, etc. via the combat tracker; GM campaign data management, sharing of maps, handouts, etc.; provides inventory management; provides base library data for reference during play; provides some level of automation and the effects system for users to add in lots of automation themselves if they really want it, provides the ability to play many, many different RPG rules in the same platform; etc., etc., etc... Fantasy Grounds is not a replacement for the player/GM knowledge of the rules of the game they're playing. It facilitates that play in a virtual environment where people normally wouldn't be able to play pen-and-paper RPGs.

Keep asking your questions - but please take into account the above when thinking about your expectations of Fantasy Grounds. Also, please don't think we're filtering things out when we give you feedback on how the software works - we're trying to manage your expectations of what you can do and let you use the software in it's current form.

[Dracones]

1) My players don't have PCs or clients - they have paper printed characters - all they need do is show up - pick up their dice and character sheet and have fun. When its time to level up, they go shopping with their money - and level up. I cant seem to do that with what I paid $150 for - people say "Its not a character generator and never claimed to be one. I know you paid $150 but go use another product if you want that." - this email is about what I would LIKE to see in FG - and I'd like to see a merger of something like PCGEN directly into FG. Would save the whole create it with this, export it and then go through it with a fine tooth comb to add effects, dmg to spells, etc. EVERY TIME they level up.


Yeah, unfortunately I don't think you're ever going to see Hero Lab/PCGen level functionality in FG when it comes to Pathfinder character creation and upkeep. Pathfinder character software is an insanely complex thing to do. It's brutally hard and requires full time paid staff dedicated to adding new Paizo supplements into the software as they come out. It's why the folks at Hero Lab can charge hundreds of dollars for their software + packs and people buy it up.

Now the 5E ruleset for FG does have some pretty decent character generation/level up code in it. But that's because 5E character generation/leveling is absurdly easy so it's not a lot of work to throw a level of warlock on your character sheet and have it auto-add the abilities in. Of course 5E has its own issues(no OGL license) that makes it a bit of a mess compared to Pathfinder.

If there are specific ways that the import could be made better so you have less work to do when PCs level up that would probably be a lot more doable. I'm also curious if the importing works different from PCGen vs Hero Lab. I've worked with Hero Lab file formats and they have in them a huge amount of information. Maybe post in the Pathfinder forums the issue you're having with the Oracle and see if other users have a better way of handling it? Or maybe see if other users can try it with a Hero Lab export/import and it has the same problem?

[JohnD]

Level in your external program, write down all the changes, manually update your character in FG accordingly.

I've run a 3.5 game for three years and this is how I've always done it. Not a big deal - as DM I do it for eight PCs and it takes maybe an hour.

I did the same thing for the Pathfinder game I used to run as well.

[PopinFRESH]

Dynamic lighting, dynamic map building, layered maps, better drawing tools, random map generation, auto-scaling of map images on import so they perfectly align and streaming of sound and music, and better campaign folder/heirarchy support are all features that we consider to be a very high priority for immediately after our move to Unity. I doubt these are features we would consider for implementation prior to the move to Unity because we'd likely have to re-write them again afterward. The 5E implementation took a large part of our focus and slowed down our port to Unity, but we are hoping to begin resuming this again in the near future. The immediate focus is to make sure that the Unity version supports everything that we can do today and that we can utilize all our current assets, such as modules, adventures, etc and deploy them natively to the various platforms that Unity supports.

You guys and gals at SmiteWorks are amazing Doug! I'm fairly new to FG (since your launch on Steam) and there is already so much that is fantastic about the software. There are also some obvious shortcomings that require additional work for both a player & GM (not anymore than actual PnP). All of the things you've listed above are fantastic and will allow for more robust systems that can further automate things and provide a greater level of immersion for everyone involved. One such concept which I'm hoping to be included under the "dynamic map building" banner would be for an objects library for all sorts of map elements that can have properties easily added to them. For example I could create a barrel object that I can drag a parcel onto for it's contents, add a cover attribute to it so that if it's in the line of sight would automatically add a cover bonus, etc. Thus you could build relatively "empty" base maps and then add in most of the objects such as tables, chairs, columns, fountains, chests, book shelves, torches, etc. I'm really looking forward to the move over to Unity and all of the potential upgrades it can bring (as well as native OS X, linux, and potentially iOS / android support). Once you get the Unity build to a point where it would be appropriate for external testing I'd love to play around with it on any of those OS'. Lastly, thanks for all the videos Doug, I greatly enjoy them and they have helped a lot in getting up & running in Fantasy Grounds!

Kind Regards,
-PopinFRESH

[PopinFRESH]

Yeah, unfortunately I don't think you're ever going to see Hero Lab/PCGen level functionality in FG when it comes to Pathfinder character creation and upkeep. Pathfinder character software is an insanely complex thing to do. It's brutally hard and requires full time paid staff dedicated to adding new Paizo supplements into the software as they come out. It's why the folks at Hero Lab can charge hundreds of dollars for their software + packs and people buy it up.

Now the 5E ruleset for FG does have some pretty decent character generation/level up code in it. But that's because 5E character generation/leveling is absurdly easy so it's not a lot of work to throw a level of warlock on your character sheet and have it auto-add the abilities in. Of course 5E has its own issues(no OGL license) that makes it a bit of a mess compared to Pathfinder.

If there are specific ways that the import could be made better so you have less work to do when PCs level up that would probably be a lot more doable. I'm also curious if the importing works different from PCGen vs Hero Lab. I've worked with Hero Lab file formats and they have in them a huge amount of information. Maybe post in the Pathfinder forums the issue you're having with the Oracle and see if other users have a better way of handling it? Or maybe see if other users can try it with a Hero Lab export/import and it has the same problem?

I would tend to disagree with the idea of SmiteWorks attempting to duplicate the functionality of HeroLab within Fantasy Grounds. HeroLab is another amazing piece of software that would be a waste of energy for SmiteWorks to attempt to build the same thing within Fantasy Grounds. What I would rather see is discarding the whole notion of importing/exporting and have SmiteWorks and Lone Wolf work together on building plugin support for HeroLab so that if you have HeroLab installed you can install a Fantasy Grounds plugin. Thus within the character sheet you could have a button to open in HeroLab. Then you can create/level up and HeroLab would validate all the rules for that system and directly modify the Fantasy Grounds character sheet once you choose to apply changes. I'm going to stop now as this is already fairly off topic for this thread, but it is something that I would like to see as a possibility with the move to Unity.

Kind Regards,
-PopinFRESH

[Dracones]

The problem for that would be on the Hero Lab side. It doesn't have any tie ins where it could talk back and forth with FG or other external apps. The codebase for it is also pretty old with a dev team that's really busy working on other products(Realm Works). The Hero Lab file format is very open though and they're friendly towards devs working and using their save files. So you could maybe have the FG app constantly reading the HL por save file and import/update directly from that.

[Trenloe]

I'm going to stop now as this is already fairly off topic for this thread, but it is something that I would like to see as a possibility with the move to Unity.
All good ideas - please log them in the FG wishlist if they aren't already there: https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/

[PopinFRESH]

Hello Dracones,

Yeah, I understand that and was mainly mentioning it as a better possibility to have that level of character validation within Fantasy Grounds. My point was more directed at Falantrius, but I forgot to imbed his quote within yours so it didn't make as much sense :) My main point was that I'd rather not see the good folks at SmiteWorks reinventing the wheel when they could be putting that labor to better use.

Thanks for the reply,
-PopinFRESH

[ianmward]

With all due respect Falantrius, your attitude comes accross as a little annoying, I'm sure that's not what you mean, but it does.
You have bought the worlds best VTT, well done, you will not regret it. You have not bought a character generator. Wishing it was one will not make it so. If you want a character generator, you should buy Hero Lab, the worlds best character generator (for which you will pay far more than $150, I know because I have). It even includes a combat tracker!
What the small, but excellent team at SmiteWorks give you for your $150 is a perpetual license for the VTT and the rulesets to run the d20 games (& Numenera). It is the framework to allow you to play over the Internet with other players, that is its aim and it does it brilliantly. The other gamesystems and data modules take a lot if extra time to make. Time the developers don't generally have spare, therefore the modules are created, usually by third paries, and sold on the SmiteWorks store or (where legal for coyright reasons) shared in the community. All of the additional SRD modules that you have found, with dupllications etc. were created by people like you and me, so if 'It needs cleaned up and uptated', please feel free to do just that and share the new modules with the people who did just that to give you those that you've found.

[Falantrius]

Falantrius: it sounds like you're trying to use FG2 as an aide for play round a physical table? I just wanted to note. For others reading too, that the Ultimate license simply permits anyone (including those who have not bought any license) to connect to your game over the net - to my knowledge, there's no functionality difference between Full and Ultimate, only the need with Full for your online players to have a license too. .

Thanks - but I decided that if I ever want to have them dial in - the price for Full + Ultimate Update was a lot more than the Ultimate - so I just paid for Ultimate - the price wasn't that much more and I like to support systems that put a lot of work into it.

[Falantrius]

We're not filtering them out - we wouldn't be replying if we were.

>FALANTRIUS> In the replies I have seen many have made me "feel" as if my comments were irrelevant. I just want to be heard.

1) The developers have said multiple times that FG is not a character generator and the vast majority of the users of Fantasy Grounds don't want the developers to dedicate hundreds of hours of development to do something like that, when that development time could be spent providing more features for this Virtual Table Top software.

>FALANTRIUS> I totally respect devs who listen to the customers - I know I am once voice in the crowd - but as a voice I just to be counted and the devs can make the calls.

2) Multiple monitor support is much higher on the wishlist: https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/proj/?ia=54190 So, again, the devs are well aware of it. But, you won't see anything like this in the current platform used by Fantasy Grounds as this would be a massive overhaul of the interface, maybe when the platform moves to Unity this will be a possibility.

>FALANTRIUS> Yah this is a big problem for me - I could run a Client on the same PC and use it on my vertical monitor - but I'm being told that that approach will crash in the long run. So its a big problem for me as I wont be able to use FG until I can come up with a solution - so its good to hear its high on the list.

3) As has been mentioned to you before, Fantasy Grounds is not competing with PCGen or HeroLab - hence why there is the PCGen and HeroLab character converter included with the product. Yes, you'll have the issues that you say, but this is symptomatic of Fantasy Grounds not being a character generator. Sorry, I'm going to keep saying that, because that is something that you seem to "filter out".

>FALANTRIUS> nah - not filter it out either - but since its a key part of what I want to do - I have to keep hoping. Characters updating their characters, purchasing stuff, leveling up and reloading them into FG is a key part of what I think should happen regularly to play a game - so its just really odd to me that its not supported AND never plans to be supported.

Keep asking your questions - but please take into account the above when thinking about your expectations of Fantasy Grounds. Also, please don't think we're filtering things out when we give you feedback on how the software works - we're trying to manage your expectations of what you can do and let you use the software in it's current form.

My comments are inline above - thanks for the reply

[Falantrius]

Level in your external program, write down all the changes, manually update your character in FG accordingly.

I've run a 3.5 game for three years and this is how I've always done it. Not a big deal - as DM I do it for eight PCs and it takes maybe an hour.

I did the same thing for the Pathfinder game I used to run as well.

My concern with doing that was getting the bonuses wrong for something - so I was going to have the players export the XML from PCGEN and email it to me to load into FG.
If that didn't work - I was going to go back to what I use today - which is updating their characters in a Pathfinder PDF (which they do today) and email it to me - and I just update FG like you say with their info.
I was hoping the first option would work - because I am finding errors in some of my characters totals - like not adding their Cloak of Protection to their CMD or miscalculating their AC or To HITS

This is esp true for my Eidolon in the game - who I have two character sheets for him - one in form and one not.

[Falantrius]

If there are specific ways that the import could be made better so you have less work to do when PCs level up that would probably be a lot more doable. I'm also curious if the importing works different from PCGen vs Hero Lab. I've worked with Hero Lab file formats and they have in them a huge amount of information. Maybe post in the Pathfinder forums the issue you're having with the Oracle and see if other users have a better way of handling it? Or maybe see if other users can try it with a Hero Lab export/import and it has the same problem?

Hero Lab requires conversion of the XML and costs money
PCGEN imports without conversion and is free.

[Trenloe]

I could run a Client on the same PC and use it on my vertical monitor - but I'm being told that that approach will crash in the long run.
You can run one additional client on the same PC. The discussions about crashing are if you run more than one client on the same PC. To clarify: you can run your GM instance and one player instance on the same PC no problem - the system is designed to do that.

[damned]

and if/when it does crash it will only crash that the PC sessions - not the GM session. you can flush the cache and jump right back in again when it happens.

[Trenloe]

and if/when it does crash it will only crash that the PC sessions - not the GM session. you can flush the cache and jump right back in again when it happens.
Hey, great advice "immortal" - do something that the software specifically isn't designed for, you might get crashes but just go ahead anyway... WEEEEEE!

Keep in mind that a crash is an uncontrolled shutdown of the software - if the client was in the midst of updating data to the GM it is possible (slim, but possible) that this may screw up something in the campaign database on the GM side. Best to just avoid this scenario completely and not run two clients connected to the same GM on the same PC. If you do, be prepared to accept any potential consequences...

[PopinFRESH]

Thanks - but I decided that if I ever want to have them dial in - the price for Full + Ultimate Update was a lot more than the Ultimate - so I just paid for Ultimate - the price wasn't that much more and I like to support systems that put a lot of work into it.

>FALANTRIUS> nah - not filter it out either - but since its a key part of what I want to do - I have to keep hoping. Characters updating their characters, purchasing stuff, leveling up and reloading them into FG is a key part of what I think should happen regularly to play a game - so its just really odd to me that its not supported AND never plans to be supported.

Hello Falantrius,

I wanted to respond to these two quotes just for clarity and to possibly help you accomplish your goals for gameplay. First, and I'm mainly pointing this out for clarity of those who find this thread later, There shouldn't be a big difference in pricing buying the Ultimate license or buying the Lite -> Full license and then upgrading with a Full -> Ultimate license. Although things have changed regarding pricing recently to try and simplify the pricing structure while adding the subscription options. I believe it's still roughly a $5 difference ($40 + $115 = $155 vs $150). When I purchased it on Steam (right when it launched) I believe it was $35 + $115 for the ultimate upgrade which worked out to being the same amount. Which is what I did since my initial purchase was specifically for me to check out the VTT and explore the toolset, which I ended up quickly upgrading to the ultimate license as it is a fantastic system and I knew that many of my friends who would possibly be interested in getting into D20 wouldn't want to dump a ton of money into it without trying it out first.

Secondly, I think you've lumped a lot of things into one bucket with that. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "updating their characters" as you then mentioned leveling up separately which is what comes to mind for me when you say updating characters. First lets look at the purchasing stuff as this is something that can easily be done within Fantasy Grounds. Buying and selling items is definitely something that I would agree would be something that should/would happen regularly (or at least more frequently). How you choose to handle this is completely up to you as a GM, however, Fantasy Grounds has a very nice and powerful system that I've found makes it incredibly easy to accomplish this and can be done easily ahead of time.

While some GM's simply provide a general "you've had time to provision / sell things" at character level up, however I tend to prefer handling this aspect more within the game along with the RPing. To do this I tend to build shops with a decent amount of selection of items that players can visit while on their journeys when passing through towns (or from roaming caravans, etc). This is fairly easy to accomplish with Fantasy Grounds. I usually add all of the items that I want to be readily available to the campaign, and then if there is something that I want to add later such as weapons, armor, or a magic item that I didn't include already I will add that as I discover the players roles throughout the campaign. Once I've populated the Items list, I then create Parcels that will act as the store fronts. Then all you need to do is add the story element for the Store and link which parcels are available in that store, link an image(s) of the store to push out to players and then they can easily "purchase" the items fairly easily directly in the flow of the adventure. All you need to do is share the shops story sheet and the players can brows the parcels and let you know what (if anything) they would like to purchase. Then you simply deduct the gp from their character and add it to that parcel and drag that item to their inventory and adjust the quantities.

For leveling up, it's something that (in my games) tends to be somewhat less frequent. I usually will try to front load a little XP to have a slightly accelerated leveling for the first few levels and then slow the XP gain to a decent pace. Initially I try to provide enough tasks and encounters to award a level each session, then I typically shoot for a level every 2 - 3 sessions depending on player choices. I personally don't find it too cumbersome for my players to do their leveling within Hero Lab, then send me their .por file so that I can open it, verify things and then modify their character sheet in the campaign. The biggest challenge for me is dealing with Spells, but I really think that is more of me still learning the software. Regardless, none of this is any more difficult than actually running a game via PnP. There really shouldn't be a massive amount of adjustments to make when a character levels up. Increasing their skill ranks is simple, adding ability points at those levels is simple, adjusting their HP is simple, I think the biggest things you might get hung up on are class abilities, spells, and feats which again aren't bad once you get more comfortable with the system. It generally takes me about an hour or two in prep work when characters level which is still far less than I would spend via PnP.

Lastly, I'd like to chime in on your current use case. If you are meeting face to face, you might be better served by utilizing your software a little differently. You may wish to run a normal local setup for Fantasy Ground (1x GM and 1x PC instance) just to manage the story elements (handouts, images, your notes, NPC dialog, etc.) and use physical battle maps and POG's along with HeroLab to manage combat, inventory, leveling, etc. I know that may seem like I'm saying "Hey, just don't use the $150 software you bought" but I'm not. I'm saying the way you are wanting to use the software is not really what it's designed for and resultantly it's not the softwares strength. With that in mind Fantasy Grounds would still be very useful in preparing and managing the story. So basically with your setup, you'd have one of the monitors private for the GM Fantasy Grounds session, the second horizontal monitor viewable by the players with the PC instance of Fantasy Grounds, and then the vertical monitor have Hero Lab open with the party's portfolio. Hero Lab has a reasonable encounter builder and from what I can tell a decent combat tracker (although I've never actually used it in a campaign because we just did combat by hand using Hero Lab as a digital character sheet, which it does extremely well). Anyway, try it out and see if it works better for you, then run a campaign remotely (since everyone can connect to your game for free) and I think you'll grow to appreciate how much easier Fantasy Grounds makes GMing.

Good Luck and have fun,
-PopinFRESH

[dulux-oz]

To do this I tend to build shops with a decent amount of selection of items that players can visit while on their journeys when passing through towns (or from roaming caravans, etc). This is fairly easy to accomplish with Fantasy Grounds. I usually add all of the items that I want to be readily available to the campaign, and then if there is something that I want to add later such as weapons, armor, or a magic item that I didn't include already I will add that as I discover the players roles throughout the campaign. Once I've populated the Items list, I then create Parcels that will act as the store fronts. Then all you need to do is add the story element for the Store and link which parcels are available in that store, link an image(s) of the store to push out to players and then they can easily "purchase" the items fairly easily directly in the flow of the adventure. All you need to do is share the shops story sheet and the players can brows the parcels and let you know what (if anything) they would like to purchase. Then you simply deduct the gp from their character and add it to that parcel and drag that item to their inventory and adjust the quantities.

PopinFRESH=> Have you seen / are you aware of my Locations Database Extension? While the "shop" function is still pretty primitive in the current version, the next version will have a fully working Shop sub-system built-in - just letting you (& anyone else who's interested) know.

Cheers

[PopinFRESH]

PopinFRESH=> Have you seen / are you aware of my Locations Database Extension? While the "shop" function is still pretty primitive in the current version, the next version will have a fully working Shop sub-system built-in - just letting you (& anyone else who's interested) know.

Cheers

Hey Dulux-oz,

no I have not seen and was not aware of it, however, I will definitely be checking it out.

Thanks for the heads up,
-PopinFRESH

[seycyrus]

Ok, trying really hard to not derail this thread, but ... In a recent thread (I THOUGHT it was this one), someone threw down a one-liner that pretty much said "For a good example of manual map revealing, watch this" and included a link. It was a link to some recorded game sessions. I can't seem to find the post or the link, can anyone else help me?

Oh and just to emphasize again, You can have two instances of FG open at once, a GM AND a player instance, on the same computer, no problem whatsoever.

[Falantrius]

Hello Falantrius,

I wanted to respond to these two quotes just for clarity and to possibly help you accomplish your goals for gameplay. First, and I'm mainly pointing this out for clarity of those who find this thread later, There shouldn't be a big difference in pricing buying the Ultimate license or buying the Lite -> Full license and then upgrading with a Full -> Ultimate license. Although things have changed regarding pricing recently to try and simplify the pricing structure while adding the subscription options. I believe it's still roughly a $5 difference ($40 + $115 = $155 vs $150).

>>Falantrius>> The reason I said this was when I went to purchase it said "Ultimate License - $149" and "Ultimate License Upgrade - $115" - that's on the store page. The $40 price - I thought was for a client. I didn't see anything that listed "Lite" or "Full" on the store page. What you say makes sense - but what is on the store is what confused me.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "updating their characters" as you then mentioned leveling up separately

>Falantrius>> Updating means the players buy things, use charges, potions, etc and update the character with those changes. Leveling happens about once a month in my game and the characters will level up - add spells, hp, etc. then buy equipment and make adjustments. To load the players correctly in FG, each time I do an import - I have to redo updates that don't import from PCGEN. For example, all the Oracle spells are not loading - Clerics, mages, etc seem fine but the Oracle isn't. So I have to add all the spells in and then update all dmg, effects, etc for the character. Other characters that DO load the spells, end up wiping out the changes I made last time and I have to redo those as well. Its just a hassle that I wish I could find a simpler solution. Ive had some DMs tell me here that load once - then don't reload - just manually make all the changes on the new sheet. My players like time to think about what they are going to purchase - so they do alot of that out of game and over email - for me to approve. Which is probably the direction I'm going to go - but it would be nice if it was easier.

I would like to learn more about stores and parcels - that sounds interesting.

For leveling up, it's something that (in my games) tends to be somewhat less frequent.

>> Falantrius >> Mine is similar - we don't even track XP - they level up at story points in the game. This dissuades characters from grinding for XP also. The goal is to have fun - not try to race to next level. Early on - they level more but later on after 9th - it could be 3-4 sessions before the next level.

Lastly, I'd like to chime in on your current use case. If you are meeting face to face, you might be better served by utilizing your software a little differently. You may wish to run a normal local setup for Fantasy Ground (1x GM and 1x PC instance) just to manage the story elements (handouts, images, your notes, NPC dialog, etc.) and use physical battle maps and POG's along with HeroLab to manage combat, inventory, leveling, etc. I know that may seem like I'm saying "Hey, just don't use the $150 software you bought" but I'm not. I'm saying the way you are wanting to use the software is not really what it's designed for and resultantly it's not the softwares strength. With that in mind Fantasy Grounds would still be very useful in preparing and managing the story. So basically with your setup, you'd have one of the monitors private for the GM Fantasy Grounds session, the second horizontal monitor viewable by the players with the PC instance of Fantasy Grounds, and then the vertical monitor have Hero Lab open with the party's portfolio. Hero Lab has a reasonable encounter builder and from what I can tell a decent combat tracker (although I've never actually used it in a campaign because we just did combat by hand using Hero Lab as a digital character sheet, which it does extremely well). Anyway, try it out and see if it works better for you, then run a campaign remotely (since everyone can connect to your game for free) and I think you'll grow to appreciate how much easier Fantasy Grounds makes GMing.

>> Falantrius >> Just to be clear also - I understand - however, as a DM, I am more happy with one stop shopping - a solution that meets 90+% of the players needs - both remote play, VTT, etc. FG provides the tools and the users decide how to use it. I'm sure people would have loved us to say VISTA works as designed - you're not using it right - its not designed to do that. - believe me doesn't fly - Low and behold Windows 7 fixed most of those customer complaints and then MS gets more to do. Its an evolution

For FG, I know its not the plan but I'm saying not only do I HOPE people change their minds but know how much better it would be for everyone if it supported:
1) Undocking windows
2) Better cut and paste
3) Better resizing of windows (you cant resize smaller than width of design or tabs - for example, my character selection screen has two char in it but it wont let me resize the bottom up to them. Its like it designed for 6 minimum and you cant make the window smaller. Let it go smaller - use scroll bars, etc.
4) Work out a license with Pathfinder so they can provide you the data files every 6 months from them - OR Contact a group (which I know how to do) and pay them to create solid Library files for all the pathfinder content - use what has been created as a starting point. Then list those files for sale along with the D&D files in the STORE. Then setup a deal for regular updates every 3-4 months.
5) Look into dynamic lighting and 3D TOKENS on the map.
6) Work with someone like PCGEN to integrate it better with FG - and if not integrate it - just buy it out and add it directly into FGs as part of the product and skip all this XML importing.

You have a great product and I'd like to see it squash all the other products out there - do what everything else can do so there will be no need for Hero Lab, PCGEN, or any other solution - FG does it all.
Dream big and rule the world - (maniacal laughter here) - just my thoughts.

Good Luck and have fun,
-PopinFRESH


Comments inline above - thanks for the well thought out feedback.

[PopinFRESH]

For FG, I know its not the plan but I'm saying not only do I HOPE people change their minds but know how much better it would be for everyone if it supported:
1) Undocking windows
2) Better cut and paste
3) Better resizing of windows (you cant resize smaller than width of design or tabs - for example, my character selection screen has two char in it but it wont let me resize the bottom up to them. Its like it designed for 6 minimum and you cant make the window smaller. Let it go smaller - use scroll bars, etc.
4) Work out a license with Pathfinder so they can provide you the data files every 6 months from them - OR Contact a group (which I know how to do) and pay them to create solid Library files for all the pathfinder content - use what has been created as a starting point. Then list those files for sale along with the D&D files in the STORE. Then setup a deal for regular updates every 3-4 months.
5) Look into dynamic lighting and 3D TOKENS on the map.
6) Work with someone like PCGEN to integrate it better with FG - and if not integrate it - just buy it out and add it directly into FGs as part of the product and skip all this XML importing.

1 - 3) As previously note by Doug these types of things are things that will likely happen after the move to Unity.
4) I don't think the mechanics thing is really a licensing issue and as Doug also mentioned previously that most of those things are available already from the link he provided (included here again). I think UC are the only things not there? https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?16074-List-of-Modules
5) again, this is the threads topic and has already said it's something that is at the top of the list for after the move to Unity.
6) Thats not really how things work in the real world. SmiteWorks doesn't control those other parties so while SmiteWorks may be willing to work on better integration to Fantasy Grounds (i.e. something like plugin support as I mentioned before) it's upto Lone Wolf if they want to do that or not for Hero Lab (same for the creators of PCGen). As for "just buy it out" again, it's up to that other entity if they are willing to sell. Thats also assuming that SmiteWorks has the money to invest in buying another company like that. It's not as simple as you seem to think it is.

Regardless, lets try to keep the thread more on the topic (which pretty much has been answered?) and stick to discussions about how to use the masking system currently with the knowledge that SmiteWorks is well aware of the desire for dynamic lighting and it's something that is on the table for after the move to Unity.

Kind Regards,
-PopinFRESH

[seycyrus]

1 - 3) ...and stick to discussions about how to use the masking system currently with the ...
Kind Regards,
-PopinFRESH

Someone in one of these threads posted a link with the comment (paraphrased), "Here are some good examples of revealing the map during play sessions."

Does anyone recall the link, or who made the comment?

[Callum]

One thing that's worth thinking about when putting characters into FG is whether to apply their long-term effects (such as from magic items) to their character sheets or to the Combat Tracker. The advantage of the former is that the character sheets will look more like the paper versions. The advantage of the latter is that FG will do a lot of the calculations for you, and take account of bonus types when stacking them. For that reason, I prefer the latter method. Here's a partial screen shot from my high-level 3.5E campaign, as an example:
9821

[yeknom]

Oh I think money always helps. The model where you sell a one time license in a niche market means you are gonna run out of money somewhere!
This will be possible in the Unity Engine and probably there will be an upgrade fee to go to FG 4 when it arrives.



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Out of curiosity is there any idea of what that upgrade fee will be? Also will players who do not have FG 4 be able to connect to GM's who do?

[yeknom]

Out of curiosity is there any idea of what that upgrade fee will be? Also will players who do not have FG 4 be able to connect to GM's who do?

Same question.

[Trenloe]

Upgrade costs have been mentioned but not set. Some info here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?35724-Version-Purchase-questions But, nothing set in stone as yet.

FG 3 users will not be able to connect to the GM running in FGU and vice versa. The big reason for the move to Unity is to change the underlying architecture, the two versions won't be compatible.

However, one of the top goals in the FGU migration is that current material (campaigns, PCs, modules, etc.) will work in FGU - so you won't lose your purchased DLC, community content or years worth of gaming data (campaigns, PCs, etc.).

[yeknom]

Thanks Trenloe!