Looking for advice running my first Pathfinder 2nd game using FGU - Hellknight Hill

[gameraspinning]

I'm going to be running my first online game using FGU Pathfinder 2nd - Age of Ashes 1 - Hellknight Hill, and I was wondering if anyone had any general or specific advice to share, in particular regarding Pathfinder 2 on Unity, and Age of Ashes. I've run many different face-to-face tabletop games before, but FGU is new to me. We plan to run a session zero soon to create characters using the Ashes of Ashes Players Guide included with Hellknight Hill to help narrow things down.

[Decade]

If you're the GM, have you made a few practice characters & run them through a practice combat from the AP ? In fact, it would do no harm at all to make a practice Party & run an hour or 2 of the AP just on your own. That will get you practiced at both the AP & help you work out common things that you might not yet know how to do. How well do you know PF2 ? I recommend using the macros along the bottom of the interface to map rules that you know you will frequently need to look up. For PF1, I put shortcuts to things like Universal Monster Rules, Knowledge Skill check (for monster ID), Creature types rules, Grapple rules etc. For PF2, the exact things will vary, but put shortcuts to the crunchy stuff you suspect you'll need to look up. The DCs table might be a good one, maybe the glossary with all the traits, the conditions page appendix etc.
Also, just to calibrate expectiations Fantasy grounds isn't as fully automated in character creation as a dedicated character creator like Hero Labs or D&D Beyond. Many things are automated, but not everything. Off the top of my head, weapon proficiencies need to be manually entered per weapon on the actions tab, Racial feats may require some delition of non-used options, some skill bonuses from feats or abilities might not be auto-calculated. The character tracker is your starting point for character-building & make sure to pay very close attention to the text output in it, it contains lots of instructions or warnings when things need manual input.
A good exercise, if you have time, is build a few characters with the free Pathbuilder android app, then build them in FG & make sure all the numbers match up - that's going to teach you what things are automated & what things you need to add manually.
I can't go much deeper on specific advise because all my GM-ing is still Pathfinder 1 with FG Classic, I have to wait to finish the campaign before I get really deep on PF2, although I have built about 6 practice characters.
In general, remember with Fantasy grounds you can either spend more time up front automating many of the class abilities & powers, or you can just run it old-school & work out most things yourself & just use the 'Modifier' box to enter the modifier for the specific dice-roll, just like you would at a real table. And you can do every shade inbetween from hghly automated to mostly manual. You can move over time to adding more automation as you understand the programs more, but you can run old-school straight out of the box.
Anyway, hope this gets you started, there are far more experienced people who can chime in here.

[Larsenex]

I am currently GMing this adventure path. We have played two days a month since launch of Pathfinder last year. Hell knight hill was fun but the intial fight/encounter was ..meh. I kept it intact but did not penalize the players with the time issue (get out of building or it burns down).

I also plotted a few extra encounters before they reached the actual citadel. I had some 'bandits' over hear the proclamation to send them and decided to try and rob them. I added these encounters to keep them party 'slightly ahead' of the curve in exp. Some of the encounters such as the tree house and the Barghest were a bit more doable at lvl 4. Over all I like this path and it is well organized.

My group plays this Saturday and they are lvl 9 and will be doing the final push in the next ap on that Path which is the Cult of cinders. After my group finishes this module I am going to discuss moving the campaign over to Unity. There are likely to be some speed bumps but the next one 'Tomorrow must burn' will be a clean start on the new engine.

[gameraspinning]

Thank you! There's a lot of good information here. I sincerely appreciate it.

[bigdummy]

I'm currently running this AP (and this module). I have a little advice.

1. Make mistakes. It's OK. Don't be afraid of it. We play every other Thursday, and if questions arise that I can't answer quickly (a quick Archives or book search) I'm likely to make a judgment call. Then on Friday or Saturday I'll find the real answer, and we'll discuss what I did wrong in the next session. (I'll only retcon if absolutely necessary.)

1.5. Get a session zero in. Help them create the characters. Or learn alongside them. Our first session was literally character building -- and in the remaining time, I just let them explore the town where they started, to meet people they might encounter throughout the module. I held the first encounter until the next session.

2. Get this module: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?50802-Pathfinder-2-Drag-and-Drop-Actions-Powers-and-Spells/ Use it. Get to know it. It makes a lot of things SO MUCH easier. Your players can cast a spell and actually roll their target's save without you interfering. My mind was blown last night when I learned that.

3. FGU is a LOT to learn. You won't be perfect the first session. (I'm 5 sessions in and still learn new stuff.)

4. The dice tower is a godsend. Need players to make a check but only you know the result? Dice Tower. Make them do the rolls, and you can continue to concentrate on storytelling. (I learned this one last session.)

5. Ask questions in this forum. Or the discord. This isn't easy to learn, but the community overall is pretty dang patient and helpful.

6. If you have time, watch youtube videos about Fantasy Grounds. That helps too.

[ShadeRaven]

I'll toss in some advice here, too, though what you see above is all pure gold!

Another thing I suggest is to get to know the little [Options] box in the upper righthand corner. Looks like a little gear. There are many features in there that make GMing a lot easier. If you want to know what I/others use, feel free to ask and I am sure you'll get some input, but at first, just read them.. toy with them.. see what they do and what works for you. Some are almost essential for play, in my opinion, so give them a good look.

Get familiar with the grid (for encounter/exploration maps). From what I remember, all the maps in Age of Ashes were gridded, but just getting familiar with how it works, what you can do with it, etc., helps. This includes playing with the right-click options on a map. The ability to put down pointers, area of effect shapes, clicking on tokens to lock (or release them), etc., can really be a boon to game play. Players can use the pointers/shapes, too, to play out their Burning Hands or Fireball attacks. There's also a Mask (e.g. fog of war) feature that allows you to hide maps areas until characters come up on it (not needed with Line of Sight use in Unity, but still worth getting familiar with - more on this below).

So.... Line-of-Sight. It's pretty awesome, but also very tricky. I am almost 100% sure there have been some videos to demonstrate how this works in Unity. I do know, even as a long time Fantasy Grounds user, it was still something it took a little time to get the gist of. Not saying don't use it, but get the basics down on map functions/features before you tackle it. I find LOS pretty awesome, once I got used to it, but it's not for everyone (probably) and the game is playable without knowing how to use it. Still, my advice is eventually give it a go. You might find it as fun as I have (and it'll only get better as it's developed!).

As a GM, I suggest going in and setting the Library radio button to [All]. This will give you all the tabs on the right hand side. I find that much more useful than [GM] because I need to reference Skills and Spells, Feats and Traits, myself quite often.

I am sure other things will pop in my head, but as others said.. just get in and get your hands (and the player characters) dirty! There's a learning curve, but there are so many good, responsive people on these forums, never hesitate to come in and ask for advice. I learn new things about FG all the time myself, and I've been using it for a long time now. FG is simply an amazing product, though, which will bring a lot of life to gameplay even from day 1.

Otherwise, Enjoy!

[gameraspinning]

Thank you! I appreciate the advice. I wasn't aware of the Dice Tower. I'm going to look into that.

[gameraspinning]

Thank you very much! That helps.