Bought all the books now have FG Ultimate! HELP!!

[Hicer]

Hi All!!

I am new to FG and D&D.. i bought all the books in physical form for 5E so Player's Handbook, DM Guide and Monster Manual..
Now i bought FG Ultimate so that i can play with my friends even if we are not together..

My Question is how can I use my books in the programm?? is there a way to include them without buying the packs in the store? or do I have to include them manual which means typing in all the content???

thanks for your help :)

[Zacchaeus]

Hi, Hicer and welcome to FG and to the community.

You have a couple of options. The first is to buy the FG versions of the books which is probably the best and of course most expensive option.

The second is to just use the material that comes free with FG, namely the basic player rules, the basic DM rules and the SRD. Together this gives you about 80% of the content of the PHB, MM and DMG but does miss out on quite a bit of the detail like character backgrounds, character archetypes, artefacts, sentient weapons and other interesting stuff.

The third option is to try and use this tool (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?27297-Par5e) to get your paper copy of the PHB etc into FG - but that's going to be very time consuming.

Using the second option will allow you to get a pretty fair amount of automation into characters and you should be able to enter the missing bits manually yourself.

[Hicer]

First of all thx for the fast reply. So u say that i either use Par5e which i saw already but was to complex for me. Isnt there someone who already has used Par5e and is able to upload the .pak files?

And when i use the second option u listed am i able to edit some of the content? Or the last idea is to use a combination and look up some things in the physical books my self and post them ingame.

I also saw on youtube some videos where people have thirdparty content included like d20prfs which has a 5E edition but i dont know how to download or include it in FG

[Zacchaeus]

You can only use par5e to parse content that you already own. It cannot be shared because of copyright.

Yes, you can edit some of the things in the SRD same as you can if you had the books.

I don't know what a d20prfs is so I cannot advise about that. I can tell you that there is no third party 5th edition stuff available in FG that isn't in the store.

[ddavison]

There is no need to include content from the SRD5E since that is limited to only having the SRD and we've already included all that content as part of the program. For PFRPG games, you can get the additional modules that the community has built that contains OGL content. Check the threads stickied under the game system of your choice to see a list of modules which can be shared. Nothing beyond OGL content can ever be shared.

[Hicer]

Okay... That helps alot.
Now my very very last question. How do I edit the content? :D i do not see where and how.. I think i am blind :D

[ddavison]

You can edit some of the content, but not all of it. Look for a lock icon on the upper right of windows, such as for NPCs, items, etc. This will unlock those sections so you can edit them. You could drag them to your campaigns to edit them further within that campaign, for instance. I suspect you might be interested in editing the classes and races to add in new archetypes or subraces, though, and these are not editable within FG. That doesn't mean you can't have your players play those options, it just means that they will need to manually enter the text into their sheets where appropriate or manually add abilities, etc. as they gain them instead of having the leveling process be automatically applied.

[TMO]

Hi All!!

I am new to FG and D&D.. i bought all the books in physical form for 5E so Player's Handbook, DM Guide and Monster Manual..
Now i bought FG Ultimate so that i can play with my friends even if we are not together..

My Question is how can I use my books in the programm?? is there a way to include them without buying the packs in the store? or do I have to include them manual which means typing in all the content???

thanks for your help :)

Hicer,

I'm responding a bit late and I think you got great advice from one of the most active and knowledgeable members of this community and from one of the developers of FG. You really can't go wrong following their advice.

I'll just add my own personal preference. Like you I had pre-purchased all of the physical books, including the adventure modules. I then purchased an Ultimate license for Fantasy Grounds. When I purchased Fantasy Grounds it was before the SRD material was released, so my following decisions were made without the ability to consider this as an option. However, I think I would have stayed the course regardless. That is, I have opted to purchase the official FG material alongside my physical books. While it seems like this is redundant (and certainly pinches the pocketbook), it really has provided the best of both worlds.

Both media are optimized for their respective game formats (i.e., physical books for table top, FG modules for virtual table top), but I have also benefited from having both for either types of games. For instance, it is nice having FG running as a tool to help manage table top games. Likewise, I really like have the physical books on hand for quicker reference during VTT play.

The same benefit also works for the published adventures. Again, it's an expensive solution, but if you can manage it, it's a worthwhile solution. Also, as I have rightly seen others' comments on this issue, on the whole D&D is a relatively inexpensive hobby compared to the mileage you can get out it over the long run. I know...I've had some very expensive hobbies before.

One final comment. You should also put a value on their time. If you have to spend several hours manually converting content for FG use, will that be redeemed? This could be a tough call since it depends upon one's financial means. Personally, my time is far more valuable (I'm self-employed, so I charge by the hour) than the cost of FG modules. So, I buy the product and devote my time elsewhere.

[epithet]

Since you are new to D&D, my advice would be to buy the D&D starter adventure, Lost Mine of Phandelver, from the Fantasy Grounds store:
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store/product.xcp?id=WOTC5ELMOP

This module comes with the Basic Rules, and will give you and your group a very good introduction to both D&D 5e and Fantasy Grounds. Once you have run that adventure, you'll be more than ready to incorporate the core and optional rules into your game, and you'll be more familiar with the resources available here to enable and automate those rules within Fantasy Grounds.

Another suggestion I have would be to participate in a game on Fantasy Grounds run by someone else. Even a one-shot or playing in a single session will give you an idea of how other people use Fantasy Grounds.

[Nylanfs]

The Basic Rules and the SRD are now included free with FG. :-)