Potential new player question: How difficult is it to find a FG D&D 4e group?

[Llyle]

Hiya guys!

I plan to get into playing D&D 4e online, one way or another. I love 4e, played it for years, DM moved away, so it's time to look for an alternative. I'm not sure if I should go for Roll20 or FG, never played either, but right now I lean towards FG. I watched a bunch of tutorials and gameplay examples and I just like the style of FG more.

Before purchasing anything though, I wanted to scout ahead and look where the paths would take me, so to speak. I looked through the LFG section of this forum and most seem to play 5e or other systems completely.
So my question:

How difficult is it/how long would it take to find a FG group for 4e?

I know this would be tough to answer in days/weeks etc, so I'm not looking for answers like "That would take 9 days" or anything, but any comment, your experience in the matter, suggestions, tips etc would help decide if I go for FG or not.

Thanks in advance for any helpful reply :)

Llyle

PS: I'm new in the forum, so Hi all!

[damned]

Hey Llyle - I dont see a lot of 4e games being advertised. There are still a large number of 4e games being played but it seems they are in well established groups. spite runs some 4e stuff and he advertises every now and again.

[Zacchaeus]

Hi Llyle welcome to FG and to the community.

If you are going to be a player then you do not need to purchase anything. Provided your DM has an ultimate license then you can join their game with the demo license only. Different story if you want to DM. I can't answer your question because I don't watch the LFG forum all that closely but like damned I don't see a lot of 4e games advertised, and I think that would be the same wherever you go. You are in the minority who liked that iteration of D&D. So all you can do is closely monitor the LFG forum and perhaps join a few games of another RPG or edition of D&D Meantime. Also don't forget FGCon coming soon (click the link in my sig for details). Joining a game there will really let you see how FG works and you can see if you like another system.

[Llyle]

Hey Llyle - I dont see a lot of 4e games being advertised. There are still a large number of 4e games being played but it seems they are in well established groups. spite runs some 4e stuff and he advertises every now and again.

Hiya damned! Thanks, I will try to keep an eye out for spite! Thanks for the reply!


Hi Llyle welcome to FG and to the community.

If you are going to be a player then you do not need to purchase anything. Provided your DM has an ultimate license then you can join their game with the demo license only. Different story if you want to DM. I can't answer your question because I don't watch the LFG forum all that closely but like damned I don't see a lot of 4e games advertised, and I think that would be the same wherever you go. You are in the minority who liked that iteration of D&D. So all you can do is closely monitor the LFG forum and perhaps join a few games of another RPG or edition of D&D Meantime. Also don't forget FGCon coming soon (click the link in my sig for details). Joining a game there will really let you see how FG works and you can see if you like another system.

Hiya Zacchaeus! I don't really have the time to DM... but maybe that's what I'll be ending up doing, if nothing else goes...
The FGCon doesn't seem to host 4e games, or I missed them in the schedule. For other systems, I'll consider it, if only to learn about FG mechanics. Thanks for the welcome and the reply :)

If established groups lose a player (which by all reasoning should happen now and then) do they look here in the forum for replacements?

Any other comments, ideas, suggestions?

[spite]

Hey man! Glad to see another person looking for 4e games.
As the others said, there are still a fair few groups that play, but most of them a long-running groups that very rarely recruit for new members. The LFG forum is good to hover, but I've seen little 4e advertised in my time here. You may have more luck looking on the Reddit /lfg subreddit, and advertising your interest in 4e using FG (there are still groups that advertise there).

I run a few games of 4e, but currently they're all well underway with fullish groups, but I'll always post on FG forums first when I am setting up a new one (and there are always more games of 4e I'm willing to run ).
Also, if you want a West Marches style of 4e pickup games, I know of one run through Something Awful, if you're a member on there (4e is also extremely popular on SA's trad-games forums for PbP and other formats).

[Llyle]

Alright, seems I might have found a group already. :D

So I downloaded FG, installed it, parsed the entire compendium but ran into some questions. My first session will be this coming Saturday, thus I have only a few days to figure this stuff out, so I thought I might as well just ask in the forum, before I spend hours searching and reading on the chance that the answer is out there. If anyone can help me find answers, that would be really helpful.

Questions:

1) Often (but not always) when I open a link in FG (item or feat for example, stuff that I parsed) it opens a window with that link, as it should, but it also opens another window with this message:

Console ()
Copy to Clipboard
Ruleset Error: windowcontrol: Database mismatch for control (cost) in windowclass (item_stats_other)

or

Ruleset Error: windowcontrol: Database mismatch for control (flavor) in windowclass (power_stats)
Scrip Error: [string "power_stats"]:1: attempt to index global 'flavor' (a nil value)

It's not really much of a bother, because I can close the window and all is well, but I wonder what it's all about?!

2) All the feats have the text doubled of what they do (benefits), but nothing is mentioned about prerequisites needed to get them as in Strength 13... or Wizard Class etc, is that a mistake from parsing? What could be done to remedy that?

3) How can Weapons/implements/armor be combined with their "mundane" form, as in I have a link from the items module I created to a Frost Weapon +1, how do I make it a Frost Longsword +1, or a magic wand +1 to an accurate magic wand +1 (superior implement) or masterwork armor enchantment etc?

4) All mundane items seem to be weird as well, the links only show their weight and nothing else, which could be fine with let's say a rope or with a climbing kit, but also with regular weapons it's kinda wrong to have a link in your module that says nothing but the weight. How can that be dealt with? Do I have to do all the mundane weapons manually?

5) From all the tutorials and videos, it seems that my character needs to be on the system of the DM, can I export it somehow, bring it "to the table" and import it there, do I have to send a file in advance or something, or do I have to send him all the details and he has to built it from scratch on his system? How does it work?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide,

Llyle

[Moon Wizard]

1A) The first error indicates that the data module you are using has a different data type (such as number) than the 4E ruleset framework accepts (string). It's been this way for some time (years), so not sure why a recent parser would be generating the incorrect data.

1B) The second error is an error in the ruleset framework, and is fixed in the v3.3.0 release, which is currently in beta.

2) Both powers and feats will appear to have double text in some scenarios. This is because different parsers built the modules differently over the years. There is a formatted text field, and a simple string field. They may contain the same data. The string data is required for the automated highlighting of rolls to work. I had to leave both fields visible, in order to make all data visible regardless of which parser was used potentially years ago.

3) If you create a generic item type, such as "Magic Weapon +1", and drop a link to a weapon on that item detail window, then the many of the weapon fields (weight, damage, profbonus, range, group, properties, type) will be copied to the record, and the "Weapon" text replaced with the name of the weapon. It works similarly for "Armor".

4) The mundane items in my module have full text descriptions, but mine were built with a parser I used when 4E first came out. You'll have to review the parser output to see why it isn't putting it in the right XML format.

5) When you log into a GM's session, you can choose to import a "Local" character that you built in "Manage Characters" mode. Also, in Manage Characters mode, you can press the edit mode button (brown slash button) on the Character Selection screen to export your character as an XML file, and send to the GM over e-mail in advance of the game.

Hope that helps answer your questions.

Regards,
JPG

[spite]

I'll answer what I can, but I'm just another user so I could be wrong/correctable

1) That's just an error due to the way lists are now handled within FG, it doesnt break anything, just a minor annoyance. The error can be closed each time and there shouldnt be any more issue

2)


Dammit Moon beat me too the rest. :)

[spite]

Also holy crap I did NOT know that dragging the armor/weapon onto the enchantment piece will fill in the information!
Life changed!

[Moon Wizard]

It works for Pathfinder and 3.5E as well.

Cheers,
JPG

[Llyle]

Wow thanks, almost everything solved!



4) The mundane items in my module have full text descriptions, but mine were built with a parser I used when 4E first came out. You'll have to review the parser output to see why it isn't putting it in the right XML format.


Now for answer 3 to work, I still need to have mundane items in my modules to work with, to drop them onto the enchantments. None of the mundane items work here, so that brings me back to question 4...

Review the parser output... how do I do that and how do I see why it isn't putting it in the right XML format?? I'm not sure I'd understand any of it, real noob here, sorry. :confused:
I used the latest version of the parser that is linked up there (from Valeros)... should I just parse the mundane items again into another module, would that help?

[damned]

Wow thanks, almost everything solved!



Now for answer 3 to work, I still need to have mundane items in my modules to work with, to drop them onto the enchantments. None of the mundane items work here, so that brings me back to question 4...

Review the parser output... how do I do that and how do I see why it isn't putting it in the right XML format?? I'm not sure I'd understand any of it, real noob here, sorry. :confused:
I used the latest version of the parser that is linked up there (from Valeros)... should I just parse the mundane items again into another module, would that help?

Because Fantasy Grounds is constantly evolving sometimes awesome tools like Valeros's parsers become broken or partially dated. Ive seen some discussion in other threads and I think he has some plans to tweak this again (but maybe after 3.3.0 releases?).

[Llyle]

So I guess for the time being I'm stuck with just filling in the details manually?

[spite]

It's weird I did a full re-parse <2 weeks ago and mine work correctly. Might be worth trying again?

[Llyle]

Ok, trying again now, just under 500 items, shouldn't take too long, let's see if this works now...