Player Characters

[Danimal66]

I've been using Fg for over a year now and one thing has always confused me and it's PC creation. We only play 5E but i thought the questions better served here.

For my group when we play I start a new campaign and have my players join and roll up guys. My understanding is these PC's live in my campaign. However I was told it is possible for players to roll up PC's and bring them into a campaign but have access to them even when the campaign is not in session. Is this correct?

What is the benefit of this? What is the standard way of creating a PC for use in a FG campaign?

Thanks

[Trenloe]

What is the benefit of this?
PC's having access outside of the GMs campaign is just like the players taking their character sheet home - allows the players to become more familiar with their character, and also helps if they need to take more time to work things out when they level. In FG terms is also allows the player to familiarise themselves more with their PC in the FG interface, maybe adding some effects/notes that will help them during the game.

Having access to a PC when not connected to a GM can also be very handy for organised play, like Adventurers League - players can update their PC and have it ready to upload when they join the next AL one-shot that might well be with a different GM.


What is the standard way of creating a PC for use in a FG campaign?
It's entirely up to the group. Some groups like having a session 0 where the players all roll up characters during a session while connected to the GM. Some groups do their character creation separately and upload their PCs to the GM when they connect or email the GM their PC XML so the GM can upload it to the campaign and check it out.

There's a number of ways to do it and FG provides the flexibility to access character data while not connected to the GM, not just while in game.

[GarthGiantbane]

There are some caveats to using the characters offline so to speak. This is the biggie: If the characters were made on a GM's server who had the PHB and the characters were created with the drag and drop functionality then the players would only have working links on their sheet if they also have the PHB installed and opened in their library otherwise all of the shields or dragon heads would pop an error when clicked.

[Danimal66]

Ah thanks well since I'm the only one with the PHB that settles that.

Just so I know how does one create a character outside of doing it in session? Or is it done in session but made available offline and if so how does one do that?

[GarthGiantbane]

See this thread, it covered it pretty well.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?36221-Player-character-managment