Pre-made D&D Campaigns

[HarryPotter]

Hi All !

My friends and I are taking the plunge and learning D&D together. I'm going to DM and have purchased the ultimate pack.

Our question is regarding the premade campaigns. If I purchase one of the campaigns say " Storm kings Thunder " I understand it gives the campaign dialog, monsters, maps etc. So as the DM I control what map the players see and if I click to share a map that is now the game board everyone sees. With these premade maps do they automatically place monsters and npc / animals etc automatically or do I as the DM still need to read through the campaign and pre place these things before we start our session?

The reason I ask is because I'm trying to decide the benefit to having the Digital copy Vs Hard paper copy that I would like to buy locally. I understand the Digital copy comes with the maps in the game which is helpful. If I were to buy the paper copy of the campaign would I have to create these maps myself or are there online versions I can download or buy? My guess is that I'd have to buy a generic map pack and try to create each scene the best I can using these generic maps vs the pre created ones that come with the digital campaign. Does this sound accurate?

Just wondering if I can buy the paper copy of a campaign and download maps for that campaign or if I have to hand create them in the game.


Thanks guys !

[damned]

Welcome scarhead.

The FG modules contain everything that is in the book including all the maps that come in those books. All encounters that use those maps are pre-prepped and pre-placed.
Often though there will be several encounters that you would think would have a map but the Wizards didnt supply any!
In most of these cases there are many options available on the web and Zacchaeus has done free map packs for many of the modules.

[HarryPotter]

Hi damned ! Thank you for the welcome :)

So if I choose to buy the paper copy of an adventure there is a chance the maps for that pack might be online for free or to purchase? I'd like to read out of the paper book and have the digital maps for everyone to see but I don't want to purchase the campaign online and hard copy :) If any of the map packs for download provide the official digital campaign maps that would be perfect !

[damned]

My opinion?
I buy adventures only in FG format. I do miss not being able to pick them up and read them easily while not in front of the PC but otherwise - I get waaaaay more use from the FG format than the physical.
You totally can find maps online or make your own and enter the material as you go.

Here is a screenshot from Curse of Strahd.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=21645

21645

[JohnD]

Hi and welcome.

Personally with 5e I made the choice to only buy the FG versions. I prefer having a physical copy myself, but when I'm playing 95% of everything I need to access can be found quickly within FG, and the FG versions of the adventures are fully functional with pre-placement of adversaries, etc.... I also miss being able to crack open the book and find a rule the group is trying to decide how to apply, but this really only happens rarely.

It really comes down to a time vs money trade off.

[HarryPotter]

That looks very cool ! So that map came with the digital campaign correct? Did you have to place the monsters yourself or does the digital campaign come with the maps setup for you?

[HarryPotter]

Hi and welcome.

Personally with 5e I made the choice to only buy the FG versions. I prefer having a physical copy myself, but when I'm playing 95% of everything I need to access can be found quickly within FG, and the FG versions of the adventures are fully functional with pre-placement of adversaries, etc.... I also miss being able to crack open the book and find a rule the group is trying to decide how to apply, but this really only happens rarely.

It really comes down to a time vs money trade off.


Ah alright I understand now. Preplaced objects etc is a huge benefit! Perhaps I should use digital versions and purchase hard copies for when we play locally. Otherwise, like you said it will take a lot of prep adding in monsters manually.

[JohnD]

Well, you can use FG even when you play locally too.

[HarryPotter]

Well, you can use FG even when you play locally too.

What would be perfect to me is buying the book locally and then finding the campaign maps online if possible but I don't know if that exists.

The map packs that are forsale separately are those just for custom campaign? Or do they include the maps for the official D&D campaigns too?

-the boy who lived.

[damned]

The map there is included.
The map has pins on it.
When you click on a pin it pops up all the story for that location including encounters and other info.
When you open the encounter you ca modify it before loading or just load it and it will place all those tokens on the map in the correct places.
It really makes things so much easier at game time.

[Callum]

You can buy the hard copy and put all the information into FG yourself - but it will take quite a lot of time. If you have plenty of time available for preparation outside of actual play time, you may prefer to do that - it can help to get you familiar with the material, and you can also make adjustments and personalise it, if you want to. I've been doing it that way for years, mainly because the adventures I wanted to run weren't available to buy pre-prepared in FG. However, I was able to scan the original materials in, and (later on) buy pdfs of them. I think it's very unlikely that you'll find versions of the D&D 5E maps available to use in that way. If I was starting a new campaign now, I would be inclined to buy the FG version of the adventures.

[Zacchaeus]

You'll find some additional maps for Storm Kings Thunder here (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?34534-Storm-King-s-Thunder-Maps).

Just to reinforce what has been said above all of the maps that are in the hard back copy of the adventure are included in the digital module with the considerable advantage that all encounters have been pre-placed on the map and all of the maps have player versions which do not show room numbers, secret doors, traps etc and DM versions which do.

[Bidmaron]

Since you are just getting started, if you go to Pathfinder instead of WOTC, you will get free copies of the PDF, which you can then print if you think you must.

However, as these posts have said, but I don't think is really that obvious, no matter what you buy for digital version, it will only contain what is in the book. The part that maybe isn't obvious is that you are not going to find ANYTHING (at least PF or D&D 5e) that has EVERYTHING you need. You are going to do a little map mining because for some reason, the publishers always seem to leave out some of the encounter maps in the book, and they are therefore not in the digital version either.

The WOTC stuff is great, but since you are new to the game, you won't know the background of why people should avoid WOTC. After creating the industry-reshaping open gaming license, WOTC prohibited the distribution digitally of their 3rd and 3.5 edition when they went to 4e. I had spent over $1000 on PDFs of their stuff, and when my hard disk crashed (I know, I should have had a backup), I had no legal way to re-download all the material I had purchased. Not only that, but they then issued legal threats to the entire publishing community that they had to stop selling materials that advertised 3rd and 3.5 edition compatibility (in fairness, some of these publishers reprinted them as "D20" or "OGL", but reprinting is a huge expense). They gave them a few months to sell their stock. The digital outlets like RPGNow and DriveThruRPG had to stop selling the digital versions (and took down all their PDFs of 3 and 3.5 materials, which is why I could not re-download my legally purchased materials). WOTC did this (I believe) so as not to threaten their D&D live program they invested a huge amount of money into. Not only that, they dumbed-down 4e to be more video-game-like and make it easier to program. That program colossally failed, and WOTC eventually abandoned their lousy 4th edition to return more to the roots of D&D with 5e.

There 3rd and 3.5 edition materials are now available again, which is actually pretty awesome because they are very PF-compatible. But you still cannot get PDFs of their 5e material!

Now, would WOTC do something unethical like that again? I hope they learned their lesson, but you never know.

In fairness, SW only got their PF license to distribute official materials once their own attempt to build PF on-line (well, actually it was a licensed third party) was officially declared dead. The difference is that Paizo allowed people to collectively build the Pathfinder Society materials and share them legally.

I am not trying to start an edition flame war. I have scanned 5e. It looks very good, but I believe people should think twice before pouring money into a company that did what WOTC did with 4e.

[damned]

And you have painted a very one sided picture of a situation coloured very heavily by your own personal circumstance.

At the end of the day Pathfinder would not have existed if the Wizards didnt create a free SRD and OGL for D&D.
At the end of the day if you had bought physical books and had a fire and lost your books no one would have replaced them for you. As much as it sucked to lose your digital copies it was not someone elses responsibility to keep them safe for you. I somehow missed the ethical violation that happened here?

Not only did the Wizards enable Pathfinder to exist they have released 5e with a new SRD and OGL allowing more collaborative and competitive products to exist. In fact - even more is possible under 5e than was possible under the 3.0/3.5e ecosystem.

[Bidmaron]

damned, you are right about PF, but you are painting one-sided picture as well. Paizo had a legal license for Dragon and Dungeon magazines. As part of the legal deal that let WOTC shut those publications down so as not to threaten D&D Beyond, they allowed Paizo to spin-off Pathfinder from their 3.5 edition. I am not privy to the terms of that deal, but that is what happened. Paizo had a legal license that WOTC could not shut down without some kind of mutual compromise.

As to what is unethical, I agree that my failure to make a backup is my own fault. However, a standard in the digital market has been that you can always go back and download materials you have purchased. In fact, you can do it with materials that are no longer even sold! In my opinion, that is unethical (and, let's face it, unethical is always a matter of opinion).

Furthermore, I believe it was unethical to pull the rug out from under the industry that depended upon 3.5 e with very little warning.

damned, you are a treasure to the community, and I am not trying to pick a fight with you. I just think people should have a chance to know what kind of company they are pouring their hard-earned money into. What I stated were facts. Yes, it was one-sided: that was my entire point. I did acknowledge that the 5e materials were very good. Heck, I'd still be with WOTC myself if they hadn't pulled their 4e abortion.

Oh, and I did admit that Paizo did a slightly similar thing with not issuing their license to SW until they finally buried their own attempt to take PF online. So it wasn't entirely one-sided.

[JohnD]

This is kind of dragging the OP's quest for information off the rails.

[Bidmaron]

His question has been answered. I am supplying additional information that he might be interested in before he pours an investment into the company, especially when there is an alternative.

[LordEntrails]

I've got no problem with investing in 5E, in fact it's my preferred system at the moment. Like John D, I only buy the FG versions of things and though the Reference Manuals are not as natural to read as a printed book, they are completely useable and easy to read.

As for PF vs 5E. They are very different systems. They play differently and the comparisons above are emotionally based and have little to nothing to do with playing the games. I actually do not enjoy 3.5 or PF.

[HarryPotter]

I appreciate everyone's information and suggestions. I think what I will do is purchase the digital version of campaigns we are going to play with my online group and I'll start collecting some of the campaign books for my group who I will be playing with at my home. I was trying to see if there was a way to just buy paper copies and use them in Fantasy Grounds without loads of DM prep to setup each individual encounter and create my own versions of maps etc. I will just have some campaigns I'll purchase for online play and some for in person play. I've got quite a nice board game table my friend built for me last year when we were playing " Descent 2e ". Really looking forward to adding to my table top collection !

[Bidmaron]

Have a blast, Harry. You are in the right place with FG!

[HarryPotter]

Hi guys

I've purchased Curse of Strahd and loaded it up. My party has all connected to my game and begun the character creation ( were flying off the seat of our pants here ). They have been working on that for about 3 hours figuring it out and so far what we have learned is - I've shared the basic D&D 5E rules, Curse of Strahd modules. They were able to drag and drop classes to the character sheet and it seems to pre-fill the character sheet, minus the stat distribution which we have learned the basic stats are 15,14,13,12,10,8 which can be arranged however the player wishes to stat their hero. ( Are we on the right track so far? ) This is among selecting skills, gear etc to start with.

The scary part for me is once they have finished creating the characters they are simply waiting on me to get their journey started -- this is where I'm having a bit of a panic attack. I've navigated to the "Story" tab and I can see all the chapters here and I imagine from here I can post up maps that correspond with the specific area of the campaign we are on?

I'm sending out a plea for help here if anyone knows of some video guides that will be able to help me out with starting the campaign from the Tarokka deck reading to the introduction and where the players start off. We are all fresh to D&D. To me I would imagine I click on the story, chapter one and start from there along with the map for this area.

I can see this being loads of fun once we have it all figured out but as of right now its a large learning curve especially for the DM running the game.

Thanks again !

[JohnD]

Don't let yourself feel crushed by the learning curve. You will work through it, although the FG university in Discord would be helpful to you.

[Zacchaeus]

You can find a walkthrough on character creation here (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/5E_Character_Sheet). (Put the stats in first before you add race, background and class in that order).

Before you start running your campaign - read through the module at least twice. Start with the first Story entry (called (Curse of Strahd)) and keep that window open since it is handy index of the contents. Each story entry will have links to maps, encounters, NPCs and parcels. Use the maim map to navigate the story. Use the pins on the map to open the story entries for that particular area.

And - most important - before you jump into your campaign proper have a couple of sessions where you just play around with encounters and other things so that you can work the CT properly and the players get used to rolling attacks and damage and saving throws etc.

You might also be interested in catching some classes at the FG College (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?40020-Join-Fantasy-Grounds-College-Learn-Fantasy-Grounds-learn-D-amp-D-and-then-play!)

[damned]

Hey scarhead the buys above are giving good advice.
Get Character creation in the right order and you will get a better result - even if it means running up your characters again (this time it will take less than 30mins).
Then do have a couple of practice fights so you and they get used to targeting, using attacks and using spells.

As for the adventure... you picked a good one!
It is a big adventure and does require the GM to have a big chunk of knowledge and understanding of the adventure.
I dived right in on CoS and have made a few errors along the way...

I would read the following -
00
01
02
03
17
18
21
And that will take you some time...

Then when you play dont work from the story - work from the maps starting from Map - Barovia and let the pins guide you around.

[Axoid]

Coming in late to the game here, but I wanted to give my 2c.

Curse of Strahd is a fantastic campaign book, probably the best one out there (Storm King's Thunder is in that running as well IMHO). But it's probably not the best way for players and a GM that have never played 5e before to learn how to not only play the game, but play using FG.

My suggestion is to start with something a bit easier, like Lost Mines of Phandelver. This has some similarities to CoS, in that it has some sandbox elements to it (freeform story that let's you explore stuff organically and not as a must follow story path). You can still use the characters you created and once you finish LMoP, you could port everyone into the Mists, maybe in the final fight in the Wave Echo Cave some magical vortex opens and sucks the party through.

You'll learn a lot about both D&D and FG by starting with something easier, and not feel like you are missing out on all the cool stuff Strahd has to offer (or feel overwhelmed with all the story options available).

[damned]

LMoP is a much better starting point!

[HarryPotter]

Thanks again guys I'll take a look into LMoP. I've saved the character creation guide and will forward this to my players.

Also a good bit of info -- I will start with the Map ! I for some reason had it in my mind that I was going to be starting with the story. Its a bit more pressured for me because my group is very anxious to play and I can't blame them I too am quite excited to get into the world of D&D :)

[Trenloe]

@Harry Potter - if you don't have them already, I'd recommend scanning through the D&D Basic Rules - PDFs available here: https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules The mechanics of these rules are in the Basic Rules modules in Fantasy Grounds, but you may find it easier to go through these documents in order to learn about playing and DMing D&D.

Additionally, when you first start with a FG adventure module (well, any module in truth) look for the "Reference Manual" entry for that module in the library. This is usually a nicely formatted layout that mimics the original document and is much easier to read and step through. Then look at the story entries - I wouldn't recommend jumping straight to the map when you're first learning an adventure module.

For example, here's the beginning of the Reference Manual for The Lost Mine of Phandelver:

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=21684

There are also Reference Manual entries for the Basic Rules modules which have a similar layout to the PDFs linked above.

[LordEntrails]

LMoP will be much easier for you to start with, as players and a DM. It's really good for first time players and DM's as it doesn't railroad the adventure, but has a limited set of things that can happen and leads to follow. Not too many moving parts :) Do note, that it doesn't mean they can successfully follow any lead, but just make sure to give them outs or ways to know they shouldn't continue on their current path*.

It is also relatively short (shorter) that means you can say to everyone, "Hey, we're going to play this adventure so we can all learn how everything works. Any ruling and houserules are for this campaign only as we all learn, when we do our next campaign we will all know what we are doing and can do things right (or more right!)."

!! LMoP spoilers!!
*example: My son is a first time teen DM running our group through LMoP. Our group retreated from the goblin hideout after getting our butts handed to us due to poor tactics and went into town, still first level. Found out about the thugs terrorizing the town so we decided to waylay some of them between the tavern and their manor house. Because we were so outclassed, he said they were drunk, which gave them the poisoned condition and gave them disadvantage on attacks. Because of that we won, but we also knew because they were able to make two attacks each round and such that they way outclassed us. So, we left the others alone, left town and went back to the goblins (who had since setup new defenses). We were more cautious attacking the goblins this time (and were now second level) and slew them all, but it was still a good hard fight. Now we have to go back to town and see if the thugs are looking for us or what.

[HarryPotter]

@Harry Potter - if you don't have them already, I'd recommend scanning through the D&D Basic Rules - PDFs available here: https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules The mechanics of these rules are in the Basic Rules modules in Fantasy Grounds, but you may find it easier to go through these documents in order to learn about playing and DMing D&D.

Additionally, when you first start with a FG adventure module (well, any module in truth) look for the "Reference Manual" entry for that module in the library. This is usually a nicely formatted layout that mimics the original document and is much easier to read and step through. Then look at the story entries - I wouldn't recommend jumping straight to the map when you're first learning an adventure module.

For example, here's the beginning of the Reference Manual for The Lost Mine of Phandelver:

There are also Reference Manual entries for the Basic Rules modules which have a similar layout to the PDFs linked above.


More great advice ! I've got the players handbook here with me today at the office so I'm reading through it to learn some more of the basic D&D rules. I will also be reading through the DM guide. One question I do have regarding the red pins on maps -- I shared a map with the group last night so they could get an idea of how I'm going to be displaying portraits and scenes throughout the campaign.

These maps had red pins for me to see which they confirmed they cannot see and upon clicking one it tells me some dialog along with an encounter. This probably be answered in the DM & player hand books since its a general D&D game play question but do these pins get activated only when the players move near them or perform an action that would expose the pins events?


Thanks again folks I can't wait to get home and open up FG so I can thumb around with the new ideas and get my bearings for the campaign. I can tell D&D mixed with FG is fairly complicated to learn BUT once the learning curve is over we are going to have loads of fun.

[Trenloe]

Everything is driven by you, the DM. You're controlling the story and what you share with the players. If you want to share something, you have to share it. There is no auto sharing of information based off player proximity or anything like that.

As you are just starting out with role-playing games in general I would strongly recommend you read the D&D basic rules before the Players Handbook (PHB) or Dungeon Master's Guide (DMG). The basic rules are better laid out and introduce more starting concepts than the PHB or DMG. Plus you'll have less text to read through, etc..

The recommendation for anyone is *don't try to run before you can walk*. Keep it simple and expand as you and your players gain more experience.


Play using the basic rules - they are free from the Wizards website and so your players can read the player info as well, without any purchases. https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules
Run Lost Mine of Phandelver - this is specifically designed for beginning DMs and has lots of useful tips to get going. Read through the first few sections and thin through how you're going to


***SPOILERS***
Here is a overview of The Lost Mine of Phandelver in Fantasy Grounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrQ3jHv3-so

You can see a play though here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YyGfv-oa1M (Plus the following parts). This should give you an idea of how the players and DM interact and what to show in FG.

[LordEntrails]

...
These maps had red pins for me to see which they confirmed they cannot see and upon clicking one it tells me some dialog along with an encounter. This probably be answered in the DM & player hand books since its a general D&D game play question but do these pins get activated only when the players move near them or perform an action that would expose the pins events?...
Nope, the players can never see red pins. Remember, FG really doesn't know where the players are. Yeah, they might have tokens on the map, but their no no sense of location etc.

If you want the players to be able to see a pin, and the story that is linked, right click and Share the pin. This pin will then turn green on your map so you know they can see it and it will show up on the players map too and they can then click it to open the story entry.

Generally you don't want to them to see the pins or read the entries that go with them. But, I do use it for things like;
- "You are Here" story entry. I may update this story entry with the boxed text / read aloud text from the location they are at.
- On overland maps, I may make party story entries for areas they have visited and pin and share them on the map, such as "Bandit Camp" with some info on what they know. Or "Langer's House" with info like he is their Lord's Alliance contact and a retired adventurer etc.

[Zacchaeus]

The Reference Section in Lost Mines of Phandelver is fully linked at appropriate places to the Basic Rules (or PHB if you have that). It is designed for first time DMs and has a lot of great advice for running the game and walking you and your players through the rules. I would highly recommend that you start with LMoP rather than Strahd.

[JohnD]

Yeah 5e, LMoP is a way better starting point.

[SirGraystone]

LMoP as been created as an introduction to the game and is always a good start.

Another option is to run the Death House, found in Curse of Strahd (I seem to remember it being in one of the Appendix), either as an introduction to CoS, or just to try learning the game before jumping into the larger campaign.

This website have lots of interesting information about Curse of Strahd
https://thecampaign20xx.blogspot.ca/2016/03/dungeons-dragons-guide-to-curse-of.html

[damned]

@Harry Potter - if you don't have them already, I'd recommend scanning through the D&D Basic Rules - PDFs available here: https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules The mechanics of these rules are in the Basic Rules modules in Fantasy Grounds, but you may find it easier to go through these documents in order to learn about playing and DMing D&D.

Additionally, when you first start with a FG adventure module (well, any module in truth) look for the "Reference Manual" entry for that module in the library. This is usually a nicely formatted layout that mimics the original document and is much easier to read and step through. Then look at the story entries - I wouldn't recommend jumping straight to the map when you're first learning an adventure module.

Hi Trenloe you might notice that I advised to read goodly chunks about the story and then...

Then when you play dont work from the story - work from the maps starting from Map - Barovia and let the pins guide you around.

Once the game has started I pretty much always run every thing from the map. I find that way easier than running from the story.

Most adventures (including Curse of Strahd) dont come with a reference manual. In the future these big name ones will more likely also have reference manuals perhaps but most dont.

[HarryPotter]

Hi guys

I'm currently tinkering around in FG and getting to know the program a bit better. We are going to test out the " Death House " in Appendix B to get our feet wet here and level from 1-3. Death house says to start with the "creeping fog" module from chapter 1 to rope the players into the Death house. My question is -- Am I to just start the dialog here? This is where the game begins and I describe to them that they are camping in the forest ( I won't write word for word just because of the potential spoilers ) but ultimately it says to " refer to chapter 2 for Area A " I'm lost here and I think once I understand what they mean by Area A or C etc.. I'll know for every chapter of every game. Is this telling me to use the map of Barovia for this portion? I'm looking for Area A in chapter 2 and I just don't know where to navigate to.

I'm such a bonehead and I know that please forgive me.

[Trenloe]

Have a look on Youtube for some play through sessions - search for "curse of strahd fantasy grounds" and look through how others are playing it.

But, as you are all beginners to RPGs, not just Fantasy Grounds, it's been recommended by a number of experienced people in this thread to try Lost Mine of Phandlever first - this is targeted at making it easier for beginning DMs and players to get started. Get your teeth sharpened playing that first, then move onto Curse of Strahd which is a lot less newbie friendly. The Death House is designed to get beginning characters going, it's not specifically designed for beginning players and DMs - which is what Lost Mine of Phandlever is designed for - and it's a really good mini-campaign too! Find it here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store/product.xcp?id=WOTC5ELMOP

[HarryPotter]

Lost mine of Phandlever it is. I just relayed this to a couple of our party members and expressed my own concern with moving forward in Strahd and they have agreed to begin in LMoP. Just a quick question -- Will this adventure guide me through navigating scenarios as well so situations like I ran into with Death House in Strahd will be better understood?

[Zacchaeus]

Yes, LMoP has many links. In fact I updated it recently to include even more links to make it even more user friendly. Find the reference manual from the library list and you can read through that just like it was a pdf or a book.

[HarryPotter]

Yes, LMoP has many links. In fact I updated it recently to include even more links to make it even more user friendly. Find the reference manual from the library list and you can read through that just like it was a pdf or a book.

So you work on the campaigns within PG? That's very cool ! I am determined to learn the PG program and how to navigate through campaigns properly. My group is taking turns buying campaigns so the expense doesn't fall on me every time so tomorrow its LMoP !

[SirGraystone]

Curse of Strahd had 4 possible adventure hooks to introduce the campaign, I started with "werewolves in the mist" myself and used "The Dancing Fire" story when they visited the Vistani camp.

But you can have your group just traveling on the road to Baldur's Gate (or any other city), get lost in the fog and end up in the Town of Barovia.

The real important introduction to Death House is the meeting with Rose and Thorn, make sure they look scared and sad, to hook your players.

Read also the "Mark of Horrors", small thing like the wind blowing out a torch, or one player seeing an old or evil version of himself in a mirror, hearing the nanny whisper... can make the story more interesting.

And remember to have fun :-D

[HarryPotter]

hey guys !

Just wanted to post an update and also a couple questions.

We just had our first session of LMoP with 5 players and it went fairly well -- Slow but fairly well. We're all learning the rules of D&D and also the PG program at the same time which does make it a slower learning process. We all had a really good time and heard multiple times our party say they can't remember the last time they laughed so hard. We really did have fun with it and tried to make light of the fact were all green green green to D&D and PG.

First mistake I made as DM was I didn't add our party to the party tracker which I did figure out after the the battle and was able to award the encounter EXP to the party ( thankfully ! )
We were using The Sword Coast map to kick off the campaign and I followed the story line as guided. When we reached the first surprise attack this was our very first battle -- leading up to this we weren't really sure how to track our players movement in this big map and how far they were traveling each turn so for the sake of having something happen we just had the players move without any real guideline leading up to the first ambush.

Once combat started one of the players asked if there was a smaller grid map we should be using for the battle since it was just the big hex grids. No one really knew until after the battle we saw under the party sheet there is a tab called " Order " and one of our players recognized it from a video they watched. It seems we can use that grid for our combat -- is this how we are supposed to do battles? Its a generic grid, no paths or buildings -- is there a way to load one of the game maps into this grid for combat scenes?

Another question I have is : Our Wizard cast sleep on one of the enemies and we read that when a target is sleeping you will crit guaranteed on them? We weren't sure if Advantage and Disadvantage rolls are being calculated automatically either or if I / We have to manually add this in the bottom left somehow?


We all realize this will be a learning experience and the more we play the more fluid our games will become but we just want to make sure we are doing it right :) So far we are loving it and can't wait to play again !

[Axoid]

Sounds like you are off to a great start. Don't worry about making mistakes, just go with the flow and correct them next session.

As for battle maps and the Order tab. The order tab is just for marching order, o you know who is in front/back/middle of the party. Sometimes this is important for traps or surprise attacks.

For actual battles and exploring locations, most locations have a player map you will share with the party. For the ambush attack, there isn't one included in the module unfortunately. But you can use this map.

https://sites.google.com/site/tabletopsimulatorlinks/_/rsrc/1432641023038/home/00.%20Goblin%20Arrows.JPG

This is how I get these "custom" maps to show up in my module, others may have an easier or better way but this works for me.

1. Save it to your computer, on your desktop for example
2. Open up FG and your module
3. Switch back to your desktop and copy the map
4. switch back to FG
5. Open the IMAGES window, and select the sub-category where you want the map to be (For Phandelver use the category "Maps - DD Lost Mines of Phandelver")
6. You'll see a small "FOLDER" button near the top, click on that. This will open the images folder in your campaign
7. Paste the map there. When you close the window, you will now see the map listed in the IMAGES window.

You will need to apply a grid to the map, but I will let you YouTube how to do that.

If you look ahead to the Cragmaw Hideout section, you will see there are already encounter maps included for that, one for the DM (whcih has the room numbers on the map) and one you share with the players, where they move their icons around and you place and move the monsters.

Hope that helps.

[Axoid]

There's also this map which someone made.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/78/58/9e/78589e930783eb93537d24a2b92fbe12.jpg

[Trenloe]

And maps here: https://forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=4700 One for the first encounter and re-skins of most of the maps that come with LMoP.

[HarryPotter]

AWesome ! thanks for the map link guys. Is there a way to change the theme in Fantasy grounds after a campaign has been started? Currently we have a bright white one -- not even sure how we set it but I've seen a darker more brown tone theme yesterday. I can change the little picture in the center of the program no problem.

[Moon Wizard]

The bright white one is the official D&D theme extension. The brown one is the default theme which is shown if all custom theme extensions are turned off.

Regards,
JPG

[HarryPotter]

Hi guys

We had our second session tonight which lasted 4 hours. We decided to start over since yesterday was more of a trial run. Combat went smoother today and everyone getting a bit more comfortable with role playing their characters. As the DM i'm getting more comfortable as well with my role playing and navigation of FG.

We do need to brush up on "hide" skill. We understand you can use hide as a rogue for instance but you must not do it in the open. How you get detected is what we need to read up a bit more on. When a monster is in a hide state am I supposed to remove vision from the players? I read about being able to attack around you within 5 feet guessing where the monster or player is.

Perhaps I'm tired and what I just wrote is too much.

[Andraax]

We do need to brush up on "hide" skill. We understand you can use hide as a rogue for instance but you must not do it in the open. How you get detected is what we need to read up a bit more on. When a monster is in a hide state am I supposed to remove vision from the players? I read about being able to attack around you within 5 feet guessing where the monster or player is.

I've done this - hidden the token - but it's a pain. I now leave the token on the map and apply a defensive effect (+5 to AC for hide +10 to AC for invisible, which is effectively -5 or -10 to hit). This simulates the players listening for movement, feeling the air move, etc.

[The Hawk and Sparrow]

Dude. I'll shoot you a PM and will make some time to go through a session prep with you if you would like. Just let me know what makes sense for you.