Beginner to using the interface...

[Happycamper]

<edit: This is using the 5E D&D rules set...>

OK, after about a day poking around I'm finally beginning to understand the interface. It appears to be powerful for running games, and possibly somewhat for setting things up, but I feel the entire "creating a PC" interface is woefully confusing and anti-intuitive..

That said, I have some questions:

1) How do I get a PC that I made (an important NPC in the story, so I made him up as a full character) imported into an encounter?

2) I have lots of the books open (Out of the Abyss, LMoP, etc...) it's cool they each have their own tab on the encounters window. I have made my own tab (and tricked it out with my symbol and color) but how do I label it? The others show a label when I do a mouse-over. If I put together sets of encounters for my campaign it would be nice to keep those in separate tabs (like LMoP has four tabs)... if I do that, it would be good to have them labeled...

3) Can I reorder things in lists? Too often things are always just alphabetized... (Encounters in the encounter list, spells in spell lists, etc...) I can hack around the encounter listing by putting a number in front of each encounter... can't really do the same to a list of a character's spells.

4) When I was making a half-elf character, it automatically added +2 to charisma. However I found no option for it to ask which stat to add the bonus +1 to... do I have to remember that and do it myself? (To look it up I had to open up the half-elf race window, scroll down to the ability score listing, then open that sub-window up, just to see that I was given +2 Cha and the option for another +1 of my choice... not exactly..)

Basically, I acknowledge the program gives a lot of freedom to DMs to do whatever... I'd prefer _less_ freedom in many cases (especially in PC creation) having the program provide rules to guide my use... (for example the +1 stat mentioned above, some way to remind me of how many spells I should have known - I see it provides how many I can cast - things like that... ) even the skill stuff is a bit tricky. I have to have multiple windows (of multiple depths) to keep track of skills granted by backgrounds, class, and race... just to try to keep track of my options without doubling-up...

Any advice/assistance of the above would be great. (Now that I've conquered some of the interface, I'm looking forward to using it to run games...)

[LordEntrails]

1) You can add the PC to the combat tracker and change them to a foe, but, the better method is to create them as a NPC (what I do is create them as a PC, then make an NPC and copy the important stats to the NPC object). Then typically what you do is make a Story entry, put the description and such in it. Then make an Encounter, drag the encounter to the story entry, then drag the NPC to the encounter. Then you drag the story entry to the map or other story entries to link them together. Note, that when the NPC is in an Encounter, their is a button (looks like a down arrow) that you can use to send all of the NPCs in the encounter to the combat tracker.


2) To label a tab, type the label into the chat window, but DO NOT hit enter, then you can select and drag the text from the chat input window onto the tab.


3) Lists are alphabetized, so if you want to control the order, then number everything. That's one reason you see numbers in all the modules etc. Don't know a way to do this for spells.


4) Not familiar with this one, sorry. See what others say, it might be a bug you can list in the 5E bug thread.


Their is a really good thread in the 5E forum with best practices for character creation. If you do it the way the thread suggests, it limits the difficulty etc. I'll look for the thread, but having connectivity issues atm.

[LordEntrails]

Here's the creation guide I was thinking of; https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/5E_Character_Sheet

There is a video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nurEMR4JJeU

Another thread with good info on 5E character creation; https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?28273-Question-about-new-character-creation-from-a-newbie&highlight=character

And, here's a thread you should bookmark and come back to after you get the basics down; https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?24644-Advanced-Fantasy-Grounds-Usage-5E-Ruleset-Edition&highlight=character

[dulux-oz]

Also, remember that FG is NOT a character generator, its a Virtual table-top. Yes, in the 5E Ruleset there are a few extras that aid in the manual creation of a 5E character, but FG does not market itself as a character creator - as Doug and Moon have said on many occasions in many threads.

[damned]

<edit: This is using the 5E D&D rules set...>

OK, after about a day poking around I'm finally beginning to understand the interface. It appears to be powerful for running games, and possibly somewhat for setting things up, but I feel the entire "creating a PC" interface is woefully confusing and anti-intuitive..

That said, I have some questions:

1) How do I get a PC that I made (an important NPC in the story, so I made him up as a full character) imported into an encounter?

Drag it from the Characters window into the CT. Most GMs will only use the NPCs as NPCs. To have a full PC sheet for your NPC you would do it that way. Also make sure that you login using a second instance of FG on the same computer and connect as GMTest or something and select the NPC. This will disappear the NPC from the PC selection window that the players see.


2) I have lots of the books open (Out of the Abyss, LMoP, etc...) it's cool they each have their own tab on the encounters window. I have made my own tab (and tricked it out with my symbol and color) but how do I label it? The others show a label when I do a mouse-over. If I put together sets of encounters for my campaign it would be nice to keep those in separate tabs (like LMoP has four tabs)... if I do that, it would be good to have them labeled...

This is one of those really simple - once you know how - but not at all intuitive things... drag the text label from the Chat Window on to the new tab.


3) Can I reorder things in lists? Too often things are always just alphabetized... (Encounters in the encounter list, spells in spell lists, etc...) I can hack around the encounter listing by putting a number in front of each encounter... can't really do the same to a list of a character's spells.

All lists are alphabetized. Why dont you want your spells alphabetized? In the PHB they are ordered the same way.


4) When I was making a half-elf character, it automatically added +2 to charisma. However I found no option for it to ask which stat to add the bonus +1 to... do I have to remember that and do it myself? (To look it up I had to open up the half-elf race window, scroll down to the ability score listing, then open that sub-window up, just to see that I was given +2 Cha and the option for another +1 of my choice... not exactly..)

FG cant teach you the rules and cant teach you how to play D&D. You need to still read and learn how these things work. I learn new stuff every time I play. Thats whay there are so many hundreds of pages of rules and even more hundreds of pages on the internet discussing those rules :)


Basically, I acknowledge the program gives a lot of freedom to DMs to do whatever... I'd prefer _less_ freedom in many cases (especially in PC creation) having the program provide rules to guide my use... (for example the +1 stat mentioned above, some way to remind me of how many spells I should have known - I see it provides how many I can cast - things like that... ) even the skill stuff is a bit tricky. I have to have multiple windows (of multiple depths) to keep track of skills granted by backgrounds, class, and race... just to try to keep track of my options without doubling-up...

Most game tables have some sort of house ruling going on. Whether its a tiny rule or huge swathes of rule changes. FG doesnt enforce rule adherence or legal character builds. If it did it wouldnt be the right table for most users. RPGs have always encouraged you to change the rules to suit your own table. This is a major reason why FG doesnt force legal builds. That and its a whole world of complicated programming with exceptions and exceptions to the exceptions.


Any advice/assistance of the above would be great. (Now that I've conquered some of the interface, I'm looking forward to using it to run games...)

Have fun! Dont ty and do EVERYTHING that FG allows you to do on day one. Its too much to learn and juggle. Learn how combat works and build on that.

[Happycamper]

Wow, thanks for the help. (I would never have thought of typing in chat to label something in a completely different window.

I'll check out the video (as much as I hate watching videos... I prefer the information density found in the written word...) I did break down to reference the youtube video on creating a character in order to find how to export a character. (Did not occur to me to click on a tiny red button to reveal a tiny blue button that would then allow me to export...)

Couple details:
I wanted my spells in my character displayed in the order I was most interested in them... (combat spells first, for example... although I'm fine with them grouped by level..) I suppose I had attempted to clean up the display by sorting into spells that had a second line of effects and those that didn't. (I found the display messy when spell names were indented but their following effects were not... made it hard to tell at a glance where the spells were - or even if the spell name was the one before or after the effect line.)

I did come into the program thinking it would be helpful as a character generator. If I let go of that and think of it as a game running system will make it make more sense. (And I now see that in all the press releases they never really mention it as a character generator... I just assumed any digital offering would want to do that.)

As for PC/NPC... I think my best option is just to add in the PC to the combat tracker directly as a PC whenever we have combat. (Hopefully that will be somewhat straightforward...)

------------

Off to check out the mentioned threads/videos..

Thanks again.

[Zacchaeus]

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

Spells in the PC are listed in the actions tab by level. If you want to reorder then then you'll need to rename them; however I suggest you not do that. Fantasy Grounds looks at the names of spells and automatically adds those into the actions tab with all of the appropriate affects needed to run those spells in combat. If you start messing with the names then you'll end up with a non-functioning character sheet, or at least cause FG to get confused.

What you could perhaps do is create a new Power Group (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/5E_Character_Sheet#Powers) called Frequent spells and add your frequently used ones to that group and add the others to the normal groups. Spells will still be listed by level in the power group you create. (You need to know the level of the spells anyway so you need them listed this way).

If you prefer written instruction then the wiki entries linked above are the place to go since virtually everything you'll need to know is contained there. You may also benefit (as a new user) from having a look at this (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?28150-New-5E-Sample-Campaign-Tutorial-Available) and there are links to all of the tutorial and other helpful information here (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?27296-Guides-videos-and-other-helpful-information).