Totally confused on licensisng.

[rwillmore]

I'm a tad confused on what I need to begin playing PF2e on Fantasy Grounds. Other than the adventures themselves, do I need to re-purchase all the books in fantasy grounds format if I want my players to have all available player options or even to play at all? So is this an expense of FG *and* re-purchasing all content?

[Zacchaeus]

Welcome to FG.

You are not repurchasing content since the FG modules are not in the same format as the written books. You are paying for the use of the license and the hundreds of hours someone has spent converting the modules into a digital format.

[rwillmore]

I understand the difference. I'm just asking if it's a requirement when wanting to play PF2e to purchase that material for FG or is the base rule-set and options free? Foundry for instance does't have official content but does offer the basic rules for free.

[lostsanityreturned]

I understand the difference. I'm just asking if it's a requirement when wanting to play PF2e to purchase that material for FG or is the base rule-set and options free? Foundry for instance does't have official content but does offer the basic rules for free.

Foundry doesn't offer it for free, the foundry devs have no input on this. It is the PF2e ruleset developers for foundry that offer everything for free.

Fantasygrounds does the following:
- Gives you the ruleset with the purchase of the program, if you wish to enter in data yourself or a charitable user makes SRD modules you can use this (for instance shade raven has automated spell/feature databases and a bestiary and released modules).
- Gives you pdfs if you link the product to paizo, or gives you a discount equal to the cost of the pdf if you link the product to paizo and own it already (you need to manually click "send purchase data" or "retrieve purchase data").
- If you purchase a book you get everything from that book, and in the case of adventures every creature and magic item used in that adventure.
- It is very easy to add in all the CRB content yourself and share it/use it, just time consuming. If you are wanting a middle ground purchasing the CRB content and manually making modules for stuff like lost omens content or just copy pasting content into feats/spells/items/features when you need them from the srd is another option.

Foundry is better value for money, because it doesn't pay paizo anything (using SRD rules) and is reliant on community group efforts for rulesets like PF2e.
Buttttttt, if you have the money FG is significantly better for PF2e and 5e, both rulesets are far better developed for automation and play imo (I have and use foundry, but it needs a lot of work)

[rwillmore]

Thank you!

[MaxAstro]

Also, you absolutely can run the game just fine without purchasing all the books - you will just need to create the content your players actually end up using yourself, which is not as bad as it sounds. Copying the information over from Archive of Nethys is pretty fast, especially if you only copy the stuff that your players need.

Still, buying the modules is super good value, because a lot of automation is built into them and more by the day. The reason I have sunk as much money into FG as I have is entirely because of these great automation features, which I haven't seen in any other VTT. Trenloe is obviously very dedicated to adding automation for everything that reasonably can be automated, and the result is that the amount of work it takes me to run game is vastly reduced.

[vonBlashyrkh]

It's also worth noting that if you buy the physical books from Paizo, they usually include the pdf, and then that will qualify for the discount if you buy the FG version.

[Trenloe]

It's also worth noting that if you buy the physical books from Paizo, they usually include the pdf, and then that will qualify for the discount if you buy the FG version.
This is usually only if you buy a physical product via a Paizo subscription. If the product has already been released it's rare to get the PDF included in the purchase of the physical product.

[vonBlashyrkh]

This is usually only if you buy a physical product via a Paizo subscription. If the product has already been released it's rare to get the PDF included in the purchase of the physical product.

Ah, my bad, I must admit it's been a while since I bought direct from Paizo, different continent and all that, apologies for any misinformation

[Larsenex]

I want to chime in here. I purchased all the pathfinder 'books' and modules from Paizo.

I also purchased the exact same materials again here. Yes it can be a bit steep but....

The amount of automation built into the Pathfinder 2E system FAR FAR outshines any comparable virtual tabletop. It is hands down amazing.

Our group was playing 2x a month and its Fantasy grounds automation they love. It makes everyone's job (at the table) not just smoother but its FUN to see it in action.