New, not yet owner, general Qs!

[soulkeeper]

Hello all, as title says I am new, looking to consider purchase, and have some general questions.

I use PCGen, I see CMP has a co-op on some stuff.

I play D&D 3.5 Eberron, so question one is, does FG support it natively, or are their modules for download/purchase to add the Eberron rules and classes?

Second question is that I have dial-up, sadly lost my broadband when my provider went defunct and no one has taken their place. How well does FG work over a slow 2.6 to 3.0kbps connection?

Thanks in advance!

[richvalle]

The only thing 'built' into FG is the d20 SRD. The character sheet is setup to handle 3.5 DnD characters.

I think you could do Eberron right out of the box (so to speak). Race, class and feats are just free text lines that you can type anything into.

Dialup could be a problem. You might be able to get away with it as a player but I wouldn't try it as a dm. Unless you and your players don't mind sitting around for a long time waiting for maps and stuff to update. Even as a player this is going to be a problem. Heck even with everyone in my group having broadband we still sit for a min or two waiting for some big maps to open up.

:(

rv

[Griogre]

Second question is that I have dial-up, sadly lost my broadband when my provider went defunct and no one has taken their place. How well does FG work over a slow 2.6 to 3.0kbps connection?

I often have a player on dial up and we use voice. I think you can be a player on dial up if the DM keeps the size of the transfers down (low bandwidth voice codex, small sized maps and images).

I'm am not sure about being a DM. It may be possible if you manage you bandwidth carefully. I think it may be possible if you were to use very simple line drawing maps from something like the old Dungeon Crafter Software set to original Black and White TSR and then converted to a gif. Either that or make the players draw their map on the fly like they have to do in many face to face games instead of sending them a map.

I would suggest you try the demo and see what happens. I suspect you are going to have a problem with the included maps, but try making a map or two on the fly and see what happens.

[Snikle]

Could also try (though might ruin some of the fun) sending the maps to the players before hand and instructing them to place them in the campaign's images folder.
Not sure on how the updating the token positions and drawing are done though. Dont think it updates by sending a complete redraw of the map, but you never know.

[Griogre]

Not sure on how the updating the token positions and drawing are done though. Dont think it updates by sending a complete redraw of the map, but you never know.
My guess is it only sends the difference, because the map is locked to one person drawing at a time and the lock clears when drawing is finished.

[Azrael Nightstar]

As far as Eberron add-ons, this gets asked a lot, and it seems CMP and WotC have no plans on making/allowing such an add-on any time soon. However, you don't need an add-on to play. I assume you have books and such, and that's all you need. You'll just have to reference any Eberron-specific rules out of the books. I know "Action Points" have come up, and someone over at Four Ugly Monsters (https://www.fouruglymonsters.com) made an addon to keep track of them.

[soulkeeper]

Thank you everyone for the information.

I did grab and solo play with the demo to see it, but as many of you have said, my darn dialup will probbaly kill me, even as a player.

:)

[Cantstanzya]

Thank you everyone for the information.

I did grab and solo play with the demo to see it, but as many of you have said, my darn dialup will probbaly kill me, even as a player.

:)Unless you plan on always being on dialup you should pick up the full version and start making modules or even making custom rulesets. This way when you do get highspeed you are ready to go.

[Kalan]

Unless you plan on always being on dialup you should pick up the full version and start making modules or even making custom rulesets. This way when you do get highspeed you are ready to go.

FG also makes a great "Campaign" Manager type programming - allowing you to keep all your notes, stats, everything in one place, along with the rules :) So that alone is worth the investment imho.

And once we can get an exporter so that you can use your stuff outside of FG if needed, that'd be even better :D