Black Friday Sale

[Nylanfs]

<cough>https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store/</cough>

[mattekure]

https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/005/574/takemymoney.jpg

[Squeak]

Yes, it is a very nice discount especially for people that want the Standard edition.

[mattekure]

It really is a great discount. I took the chance to finally complete the 5e adventure bundle, saved a ton over buying them individually.

[Whaley]

Anybody know how long the sale is going on?

[SilentDragon64]

Hard to complain about the D&D 5e and Pathfinder 1e sale. Nice to pick up some of the stuff I don't have.

[LordEntrails]

Anybody know how long the sale is going on?

Monday, I dont know the time zone though.

[Valatar]

But bear in mind, any purchases of FG now will have to pay to upgrade to FGU in a few months, it would be cheaper to wait and buy FGU directly even with the current sale prices. So if you don't have a campaign at the moment and can wait a couple months, you'll save some money.

[mattekure]

Also consider this, if you purchase FG Classic with the Black Friday sales, then later upgrade to FG Unity, you end up with Both a Classic and a Unity license, at only slightly above the cost of just a Unity license. While my groups will eventually be moving over to Unity, we will stick with classic for the near future until we feel Unity is ready.

[SilentDragon64]

I believe any content purchased, will be available in both. Is that correct? It's merely a Fantasy Grounds License that is less useful. Probably the reason for such great deals.

Looks like they did Option 3 here: Poll Early Access or Pre-Sale in December (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?52185-Poll-Early-Access-or-Pre-Sale-in-December&p=462935&viewfull=1#post462935)

[mattekure]

Yes, anything you purchase will eventually be available in both, as they are busily working on converting maps and such, and making sure they work right.

[Weissrolf]

As a potential new user I would have preferred to get early access offer to Unity for the price instead. Too bad.

[Weissrolf]

Bought Ultimate via Steam sale (Full + Upgrade), because it was even cheaper in Euro compared to the FG shop sale in Dollar (conversion rate and everything). No idea if the sale on Steam was connected to Black Friday or not.

[JohnD]

Bought Ultimate via Steam sale (Full + Upgrade), because it was even cheaper in Euro compared to the FG shop sale in Dollar (conversion rate and everything). No idea if the sale on Steam was connected to Black Friday or not.

Depending on your currency Steam may give you a better exchange rate than you'd get through PayPal and, hence, the FG store.

Welcome into the fold.

[Weissrolf]

The Steam discount is still active.

Unfortunately I just noticed that FG Classic cannot print Pathfinder (2) character sheets. Ugh. I mostly bought this for table play to replace Hero Lab's non-existant PF2 Tactic Console. I may or may not try to do some online session with friends, the VPN thing will hold some of them back, though.

Not being able to print Character Sheets is a major drawback, which Unity is supposed to solve. This makes the sale not offering a Unity pre-release (or late Beta access) even more unfortunate.

[JohnD]

The Steam discount is still active.

Unfortunately I just noticed that FG Classic cannot print Pathfinder (2) character sheets. Ugh. I mostly bought this for table play to replace Hero Lab's non-existant PF2 Tactic Console. I may or may not try to do some online session with friends, the VPN thing will hold some of them back, though.

Not being able to print Character Sheets is a major drawback, which Unity is supposed to solve. This makes the sale not offering a Unity pre-release (or late Beta access) even more unfortunate.

VPN should only be an issue if for some reason you can't port forward, and even then, unless you use Himachi your players should not have to worry about any of it - you as the GM would be the only one to have to worry about the VPN (at least as far as I understand it).

Any printing of character sheets... well if everyone has FG, even around the table, you/they can access them directly.

If any of that is an issue, I know Smiteworks has a 30-day money back guarantee, no questions asked. Although I do understand that Steam has a much smaller window.

[LordEntrails]

The Steam discount is still active.

Unfortunately I just noticed that FG Classic cannot print Pathfinder (2) character sheets. Ugh. I mostly bought this for table play to replace Hero Lab's non-existant PF2 Tactic Console. I may or may not try to do some online session with friends, the VPN thing will hold some of them back, though.

Not being able to print Character Sheets is a major drawback, which Unity is supposed to solve. This makes the sale not offering a Unity pre-release (or late Beta access) even more unfortunate.
Did you look to the Print Utility from the forums? https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?48045-Utility-FG-Print-Tool-(Print-campaigns-or-character-sheets)

I haven't looked to see if anyone has posted a DTD for PF2. But as Bidmaron implied, their isn't often much use for actual printing since most people just run everything from FG. Let us know how we can help.

[Trenloe]

Not being able to print Character Sheets is a major drawback, which Unity is supposed to solve.
Do you have a reference for that? I'm not aware of character sheet printing being committed functionality of FG Unity, but I may have missed it...

[Weissrolf]

... you as the GM would be the only one to have to worry about the VPN (at least as far as I understand it).
Others still have to set it up on their computers, which can be an obstacle.


Any printing of character sheets... well if everyone has FG, even around the table, you/they can access them directly.
Most players don't stare on their computer screens when we do face-to-face around the table playing. Not everyone has a laptop to begin with. For Pathfinder 1 I manage character sheets in Hero Lab and then print for everyone, it also functions as a tactical console and encounter library. For PF2 the computer aided options for GMs are much more limited, which is why I came to FG.

[Weissrolf]

Did you look to the Print Utility from the forums? https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?48045-Utility-FG-Print-Tool-(Print-campaigns-or-character-sheets)

I haven't looked to see if anyone has posted a DTD for PF2. But as Bidmaron implied, their isn't often much use for actual printing since most people just run everything from FG. Let us know how we can help.
Unfortunately there are no printing options for Pathfinder 1 or 2 with the Print Utility. None of my players ever even looked at FG and we usually don't sport a full complement of laptops at the table. So printing would have been useful and I was not prepared for it not being an option, so will have to wrap my head around that.

[LordEntrails]

Others still have to set it up on their computers, which can be an obstacle.
.

Not true with PureVPN. I use it when I travel and my players never know when I use it or I dont. And they dont have anything installed. They just always use my alias and that connects regardless of what my external IP is.

[Weissrolf]

Do you have a reference for that? I'm not aware of character sheet printing being committed functionality of FG Unity, but I may have missed it...
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?27390-Universal-Character-Sheet-Printer-for-FG


If we like this general approach, then we can look to include this functionality as a built-in component to Fantasy Grounds once we complete the move to Unity.

[JohnD]

Unfortunately there are no printing options for Pathfinder 1 or 2 with the Print Utility. None of my players ever even looked at FG and we usually don't sport a full complement of laptops at the table. So printing would have been useful and I was not prepared for it not being an option, so will have to wrap my head around that.

Is there anything specific that led you to believe that printing character sheets would be officially supported? If Smiteworks is giving an incorrect impression, I feel sure they would want to correct the verbiage in question.

Edit; OK I see the link. Well Doug said they could look at it after moving to Unity, not as part of the initial feature package. So, maybe down the line aways it will be there.

[Weissrolf]

No, I just automatically assumed that a program that allows to build RPG characters would also allow to print them out. It did not cross my mind that this would not be possible. A quick web search revealed that Roll20 seems to suffer from the same drawback for years already.

[JohnD]

Well, I don't know what to tell you. Perhaps there isn't anything.

As someone who has gamed on-line since about 2001, give or take, it strikes me that if FG, roll20 and Hero Lab all don't offer something, then there might be a really good reason. Perhaps it's been judged to be too much work for the benefit it would provide? Perhaps the contracts are such that they need the IP holder to sign off on anything that makes physical copies of their digital content?

FG is a great program. That doesn't mean it meets everyone's needs though. Only you can decide whether you can get what you need/want out of it for yourself - a change in perspective/approach might help but again, only you can decide that.

Hope you find what you're looking for.

[Trenloe]

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?27390-Universal-Character-Sheet-Printer-for-FG
That's a very vague statement from 4 years ago. I most certainly wouldn't take that as any sort of commitment that FG Unity will have character sheet printing. It's not a case that FG Unity will "solve" this issue - it still needs to be coded and implemented, just like it would have to be coded and implemented in FG Classic. FG Unity doesn't suddenly give us character sheet printing automatically!

[Trenloe]

No, I just automatically assumed that a program that allows to build RPG characters would also allow to print them out. It did not cross my mind that this would not be possible. A quick web search revealed that Roll20 seems to suffer from the same drawback for years already.
Fantasy Grounds is a Virtual Table Top that allows you to play RPG games with other people over the Internet. It facilitates that through providing in application representations of character sheets, NPC statblocks, etc.. It is not designed to be a general RPG character creator, nor is it designed for face-to-face play (although many people do use it for that). Implementing character sheet printing is a large undertaking - with data differences for each ruleset meaning that there will have to be multiple code bases (even if just a XSL file) for each - so it's not something simple. Maybe it'll come in the future, maybe it won't - it definitely hasn't been committed.

I think part of the idea behind the post from 4 years ago that you link was that it was hoped the community would develop the XSL for different RPG systems. However, that never happened - probably for two main reasons: 1) It's a nice to have for most people, but not a must have (for most people). 2) It's fairly complex to put together a XSL sheet that covers all of the data that FG stores in a PC sheet.

Like I've said, and JohnD said above, Fantasy Grounds is a Virtual Table Top - with functionality aimed at that gaming environment (virtual table top). When using Fantasy Grounds try not to bring assumptions and preconceptions with you from other RPG related applications.

[Weissrolf]

Like I wrote, it was my assumption and expectation that some sort of print functionality would "just be there", which is mostly my own fault then. Too bad that it is not and that it also is not strictly planed for Unity, but that's the way it is even if it means double the work for us physical table users.

That beind said, the demand seems to be there in the VTT community. Character printing is one of the most viewed and discussed feature requests for 5 years on the Roll20 suggestions forum, so it's not like I am the only one wishing for it to be possible. There seems to be less frequent demand on the FG forums, though, so I accept that limitation until I see what the (hopefully soon) coming Hero Lab Online tactical console feature will bring to the table (pun intended).

Not knowing what Unity will bring (very soonish) while shelving out money for the older version is quite a dilemma for use new users that missed the Kickstarter but need some sort of (half)working solution.

[Nylanfs]

I'd suggest PCGen, but we're still working on the PF 2e data.

[Weissrolf]

Using an external tool like PCGen still means to enter the same data twice. I am currently trying around with doing screenshots of FG's character window, but it's rather fiddly and ugly. Later I will look into the FG print tool again to see if I can hack together my own PF2 sheet out of the conversion process.

Knowing now that printing does not seem to be planed as a soon to come feature to Unity makes it more worthwhile to invest the time and effort into this. Again new users starting in between Classic and Unity are somewhat at a disadvantage, because they pay for an "old" system with the new implementation being just around the corner. This is why I would have preferred a discounted pre-sale of Unity instead.

[LordEntrails]

Not knowing what Unity will bring (very soonish) while shelving out money for the older version is quite a dilemma for use new users that missed the Kickstarter but need some sort of (half)working solution.
FGU is only bringing a few new things from a user perspective; Dynamic Line of Sight, map effects, map building from assets, more dice strings, and new network protocols that means less/no port forwarding. If you look at the KS front page, this is pretty well all detailed there and their are demo videos of it all too. Nothing else is expected. UI will be the same, rulesets will be the same, etc.


Using an external tool like PCGen still means to enter the same data twice.
I believe both PC Gen and Hero Labs have the ability to export convert and import the character into FG. Might not be for all rulesets, and at times such might break, but the capability is generally there.