GM'ing Mines of Phandelver + Extra FG noob advice

[manukosta]

Hi, I'm new to Fantasy Grounds, any videos or advice on DM'ing Mines of Phandelver?

I'm actually starting part 4 of the campaign, when I decided to give this VTT a shot. I like that everything seems to be pretty much laid out in terms of ready content.

I particularly like the pins and being able to drag an encounter to the combat tracker.

My party currently is a 4th level monk, 4th level cleric, 4th level paladin and 4th level fighter/rogue. Given that, any advice on power/spells that I may have to adapt in terms of their usability? Or is everything ready to go?

Also, the party is very, very sneaky. How do I treat stealth + surprise within fantasy grounds? I understand the stealth vs perception checks, but how does VTT deal with attacks from stealth or surprise? If the NPCs/monsters are surprised, do I add them to the combat tracker or wait a round?

Thanks,

Manuel

PS: There a way to change my display name in these forums? I kind of messed up and put my username = one of my e-mails, lol. EDIT: Fixed! In like 5 minutes after sending an e-mail to support team, record time! Thanks.

[Griogre]

Welcome to the forums, manukotsa. Sent [email protected] an e-mail on the user name and explain what happened.

On surprise, you can see all the party's passive perceptions on the party sheet to help you figure out if any of them are surprised. Mechanically, for monsters its usually easier to add the encounter to the combat tracker. There is a link back from the tracker so you can open a monster up and see it's passive perception so you can compare that to the party's stealth checks.

Also you still need to roll initiative for the monsters on the first round even if they are surprised since after their turn in the 1st round they can use reactions - which can be important occasionally - so you need to know when their reactions could kick in.

Personally I don't actually reveal monsters on the combat tracker until they actually take an action, so if the party surprises them I wouldn't show the monsters on the combat tracker - but I would reveal the monster tokens on the map of the monsters they could see so they can attack the tokens by targeting them or drag and dropping on them.

[neologiker]

I haven't DM'ed with FG yet--that's happening this weekend!--but I'm also picking up an in-progress game of LMoP.

One thing I've noticed while prepping is that you'll want to carefully review the actions tab on the character sheets and make sure your players' actions are all there and that they work as intended. Although a good number of the effects parse alright, quite a few are missing or incorrect. They're working on bug fixes as we speak, however! If you don't catch them all before the game, just manually roll the dice in FG and apply the effects on the combat tracker, I think. Also, somebody wrote a module that includes all of the Conditions, which allowed you to simply drag them into affected creatures in the tracker. Sorry, i don't have the link handy but it's probably within a few posts of yours in this forum! Edit: Here it is, module courtesy of Trenloe, https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?23720-5E-Conditions-module

Another thing I've noticed is that some loot or encounter XP rewards are different or wrong in LMoP, at least compared to my printing of the module.

All in all, though, I'm extremely happy with FG so far! Sure beats manually entering the data!

Good luck with your game, manukosta!..

[manukosta]

Thanks for the advice Griogre and neologiker!

As for bugs, I'll have to see, but having a ruleset ready at your fingertips is pretty neat, esp. since my players are all kind of casual gamers, none of us know the new D&D rules by heart so I'm pretty sure we will also find "errors" in the way were were playing previously just by comparing to the system. I also didn't know about not using reactions on the 1st round.

By the way, which voice/video device do you suggest for playing along with FG? Is Google hangouts the only one that supports video and voice?

Also, how do I delete a campaign after it's created?

Thanks.

[Griogre]

For audio there is a community TeamSpeak server you can use for free. This is the one I use. Info here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?17071-Voicechat!-Community-TeamSpeak3-Server
I don't use webcams so I can't comment on the best one.

Make sure you *really* don't want the campaign anymore before you delete it. :p The easiest way to get rid of a campaign is to start FG. Above the version number on the top right of the launcher is a file folder button. Press it and that will open a window that shows the FG data folder. Go into the campaigns folder and delete the one you don't want.

[Griogre]

Another thing I've noticed is that some loot or encounter XP rewards are different or wrong in LMoP, at least compared to my printing of the module.


Please make sure you mention any problems in the bug tread.

[manukosta]

Cool, I'm also collecting some things for the bug thread.

I have a doubt about armor class, couldn't find it here in the forum yet. I accidentally dragged the +12 AC from a studded leather to the AC shield, now the PC has 27 AC lol and I'm not sure how to adjust it back, as the magnifying glass does not do this. Any help?

[Trenloe]

I have a doubt about armor class, couldn't find it here in the forum yet. I accidentally dragged the +12 AC from a studded leather to the AC shield, now the PC has 27 AC lol and I'm not sure how to adjust it back, as the magnifying glass does not do this. Any help?
The magnifying glass to the left of the AC "shield" on the main tab of the PC record will give you access to where you go. I'm guessing you'll see a "+12" in the Armor: Shield entry. Click on that entry and press the delete key.

[manukosta]

The magnifying glass to the left of the AC "shield" on the main tab of the PC record will give you access to where you go. I'm guessing you'll see a "+12" in the Armor: Shield entry. Click on that entry and press the delete key.

9642

Don't see the +12 with the magnifying glass. No idea how to revert this.

EDIT: OK, I can change the studded leather armor to give just +2 AC, and drag it again to the AC shield. However, it won't appear in the magnifying glass, so I guess I'll just leave it with 0 armor on the magnifying glass.

Ah, I can also reset it by dragging a 0 AC to the shield, which will leave the shield with a + sign to the right of it.

[Trenloe]

Do you see the bubble with the number on the main AC entry? This means that CTRL+ mouse-wheel has been used to add a temporary blanket bonus to the AC. Hold down the CTRL key, hover the mouse over the AC entry and use the mouse wheel to reduce the bonus down to 0, where the bubble will disappear.

See the "temporary modifiers" entry at the bottom of the Number Fields section here in the Wiki: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/The_Basics#Number_Fields

[Thegroo]

To correct this hover the mouse over the AC, press ctrl, and scroll the mouse wheel down.

This seems to be for temporary adjustments (works on init and speed too)
I didn't even know that this functonality was there, until i tried to recreate what you have done.

[Trenloe]

I didn't even know that this functonality was there, until i tried to recreate what you have done.
Not all fields have it. The little plus sign in the top right of the field indicates if the field is of this "temporary adjustment" type.