Adventures without core rules?

[Snacky]

Hi, I've been enjoying my time with fantasy grounds playing Edge of the empire campaigns. But next time i want to buy a prepared adventure and see what that's like. Problem is i already own most of the core rule books for DnD 5e and don't really have the money to buy them again for fantasy grounds. I'm wondering if anyone here have any experience with playing a prepared adventure without also having player handbooks and dungeon masters guides (etc) on fantasy grounds? Is it worth it? Does the automation still work?

[Trenloe]

Welcome to the FG forums!

I've moved this thread to the 5E subforum, as it's specific to 5E on FG.

This thread might help you: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?32987-What-do-I-need-to-play-5e Short answer - yes, you can play 5E without buying all the other books, SRD and "Basic Rules" data is provided, and if you purchase one of the WotC modules from the FG store you get all of the NPC stats included. You'll just have to manually enter some data if players are using the PHB, etc. for their characters. Look at Lost Mine of Phandelver as a good adventure to get you into it.

[LordNova2]

Yes, the automation will work just fine with or without the PHB and other modules. All the NPCs (stat blocks) and items used/referenced in the adventures are included in the FG "adventure" modules.
More than anything it will be during character creation and when the PCs level-up is when you, and your players, will find it handy to have those extra resources outside of the SRD.

Unless you restrict character creation to SRD materials only than completely disregard the following! :p



The automation in Fantasy Grounds is supported by entering in information in a precise manor that FG can recognize and parse, this parsing format becomes more prevalent with entering in the information on spells and NPCs. Typos, spelling, punctuation, and spacing all come into play here, but as long as you enter it in exactly the way you see it in the books, it should work. As an example in my session last night one of my players was trying to figure out why he could not read/understand what I wrote in Elvish (in the chat), turns out he typed in "Elven" instead of "Elvish" for the known language, so FG's parser did not cue in on that.
A good read through the Fantasy Grounds User Manual (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/filelibrary/FantasyGroundsUserManual.pdf) will help you and your players understand how to manually setup and enter this data in so that FG's automation will work, you can also reference similar SRD entries as examples to figure things out as well.


By the time you have finished your first published adventure, you and your players will have most likely pooled your resources together to get some of these other materials just to make life easier.
And when you get to that point you will find yourself understanding the fine-art of Fantasy Grounds automation. You will also be exploring and adding useful extensions (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?22975-5E-Community-extensions) to your arsenal as well; to list a few that my group finds useful: Druid Wild Shapes (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?46890-Druid-Wild-Shapes-(for-5E)), 5e Advanced Effects (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?40833-5E-Advanced-Effects-(items-npcs-characters)), Weapon Handling (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?47341-Extension-Weapon-Handling-Versatile-and-Offhand-attack), Current HP Remaining (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?38183-Current-HP-HP-Remaining-Extension), Attunement Tracker (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?44638-Extension-5E-Attunement-Tracker)...
And with some things, such as magical item abilities, feats, and traits, you will find yourself having to cheat and code them into spells in order to get them better automated. Rob Twohy has coded allot of these things already in the 5E Coding Package (https://www.dmsguild.com/product/226590/Fantasy-Grounds-5E-Coding-Package) and the 5E Items Coding Package (https://www.dmsguild.com/product/231973/Fantasy-Grounds-5E-Coding-Package-ITEMS), and has them for sale, but again once you get a group going I am sure you and your players will start slowly adding to the collection, especially once they see how much simpler it makes things.

Also if you are in the US SmiteWorks, or PayPal rather, offers financing options with the Bill Me Later (https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/paypal-credit/bill-me-later) feature. So if you can pay it off in six months or less, that is an option to look into.

[LordEntrails]

The only slow down, as Trenloe mentions, is that unless your players have the FG books, they will have to manually build any parts of their characters that are not available in the SRD or Basic Rules. It's not tough at all, so it;s not a big deal.

Tge second thing to be aware of, is IF you like to modify prepared adventures by adding new monsters etc, you are going to either have to create the monsters yourself (not tough to do a handful) or use the ones from the SRD.

Again, neither are show stoppers or even that big of a deal. But, just so you know :)

[GavinRuneblade]

I'll also chip in to say it isn't too bad. When I got started we were officially testing FG and we played for 3 months before I bought any of the books. So it does take a bit of effort to manually create NPCs and items that are not in the SRD, but it is not a big deal.

Also, you can go crazy on the DM's Guild with free books (https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?&pfrom=0&pto=0&filters=0_0_0_0_0_45462_45545_0&pwyw=true) for fantasy grounds including a lot of class and race options, plus monsters, that will help you out with adding more automation.