FGU and Syrinscape prerequisites

[RasJay]

I have some questions after watching the "FGU 4.4 Feature Update" video:

1) For the FGU link packs, does Syrinscape have corresponding content to match? For example, the Players Handbook states 512 sounds. I don't see anything on the Syrinscape store labeled Players Handbook to match. Same goes for the Monster Manual. If not, is the expectation that we purchase whichever individual packs from Syrinscape that would contain said 512 sounds? I see the alternative are their monthly subscriptions. I am not a customer of theirs and would like to understand the "requirements" before purchasing the FGU link packs.

2) The triggers for player sheets are great. Is there an equivalent for NPC sheets? If not, I will need to continue to manually trigger sound effects as I do now.

Edit: cas206 explains that triggers are executed automatically based on the text ion the chat window. If that's the case, then when a goblin attacks with a scimitar, then I should expect a scimitar sound effect to trigger?

3) The linked story sounds are displayed in a second "Sounds" window. Are there plans to embed the sound effect play buttons in the story and or reference window? Meaning I could place the sounds effect play buttons next to key words in my story so I could play them seamlessly instead of pausing and looking at the second window to play the particular effect. "Thunder rolls [click sound effect here] across the cloudy sky as you make your way east towards the castle. Nearby, howls from wolves [click sound effect here] close in as they call out to one another."

[Zacchaeus]

1. You need a Syrinscape account in order to play sounds through the Syrinscape web player. All of the sounds that are in the FG packs are taken from various sounds from various Syrinscape packs. As far as I know there's no specific packs for the PHB or Monster Manual (there are specific spell packs); the sounds are scattered throughout the Syrinscape packs. The FG modules are just handy triggers based on the content of the PHB and Monster Manual. If you do not have a Syrinscape account you can still play local sounds but you'll need some more software to enable that to happen. See here for more information https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?78180-Useful-threads-for-using-Animated-maps-and-tokens-and-using-Sounds

2. If you place an NPC on the Combat Tracker then the triggers for those NPC sounds are added to the Sound Context window - provided you have Syrinscape open and you have the FGU sound pack. Triggers for things like HIT and MISS and the different weapon sounds will be played whether it's an NPC or a PC provided that you have the PHB sound pack open. You can, of course, manually create all of these triggers yourself - the FGU packs just conveniently have it all done for you.

3. You can link sounds to story entries now by dragging the 'Play' symbol from the Sound Context list and dropping it into the story entry. However this just creates a link - like any link in FGU - it's not embedded into the text such as in your example.

[cas206]

I'm fairly certain you need the supersyrin monthly subscription. That's the only plan from Syrinscape that allows access to the web player that your players need to hear sounds. I had a D&D 5e monthly subscription and some of the links worked to produce sound on my PC, but not all of them worked. I had to upgrade to Supersyrin.

You are not using the word "trigger" correctly. Trigger links are designed to automagically go off when a certain text pattern appears in the chat window, like sword hits, bless cast, etc. "Context" links are what show up in the sound window based on what is in the combat tracker. It's the context links that are under DM control.

[RasJay]

Thanks for the help cas206. I see Syrinscape has a D&D 5e specific subscription with tons of effects that may suffice. I edited my post asking about story sound effects as "trigger" was not the correct term to use in that use case. I meant to state I would like to click a play button right within the text as I am reading.

[cas206]

If that's the case, then when a goblin attacks with a scimitar, then I should expect a scimitar sound effect to trigger?"

Yes, but it's not 100% (yet?). For example, the Slam attacks from Zombies and Stone Golems don't have a sound associated with them, out of the box. But you can add your own Slam attack trigger and pick a sound to associate with it.

[RasJay]

Testing results:

I paid the 20 bucks for the PHB and MM sounds and I signed up for the Syrinscape trial. Many of the sounds effect play as described in the video. For example a spear attack and damage from a players sheet, as well as a goblins attack and damage from its npc sheet. (they must have targets in the combat tracker for sounds to trigger). To cas206's point, "slam" has no sound. Couldn't FG at least map it to something similar?

Spells are another result. The ones with a d20 icon to cast work well. Others such as Cure Wounds and Detect Magic do not. Even though Cure Wounds is listed as an FG Sound Set. I found the issue with these two spells are similar yet different.

Cure wounds does not have a d20 dice icon to roll obviously and instead has a d8 to roll. Since the the output in the chat window is [Heal] instead of the expected [Cast], no sounds trigger. Changing the sound set to "chat" instead of "cast" fixes the trigger when rolling that d8.

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Detect magic has the similar issue since there is no d20 icon to cast and instead is just an "effect" you click to represent the spell. Changing its sound trigger to "chat" does not resolve when clicking the effect. However it will trigger when clicking the "use power" icon which basically display the spell name in the chat.

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Detect Magic I can see the technical issue of why it doesn't work however I was able to make Cure Wounds trigger my changing it to "chat". I paid my $20 and don't expect to have to go through and fix a bunch of these.

[Moon Wizard]

Non-Weapon Monster Attacks
This was just brought up during the last day or so. We'll need some time to look at how we might approach this. The main goal of the sound packs was to get the product feature kicked off, and figure out where to go from there.

Spells
As a workaround, you can add a Cast action to the spell, by right clicking on the spell name, and selecting Add Action->Cast. You will have a button that will output [CAST] Spell Name to the chat window which will trigger the any sounds configured.

This is on my list to discuss internally next week. Up to this point, Cast actions weren't needed for spells unless they had an attack roll or saving throw attached to them, so they aren't created automatically unless needed. Also, maybe we can brainstorm a way to make it simpler than that.

Regards,
JPG

[RasJay]

Thanks Moon Wizard. Adding the cast action to each of these two spells does work however I found another method:
1) Cure Wounds will trigger using chat when I change the sub type to "chat" and the pattern to "Heal" which is case sensitive. Now when clicking the red cross icon and [Heal] is displayed in the chat window, the Cure Wounds sound triggers.

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2) Detect Magic worked similar and by two different ways. Changing the sub type to "chat" was a requirement. Changing the pattern to "Effect ['Detect Magic; (C)']" which matches the chat window works. Or leave the pattern as "Detect Magic" and tick the box for regular expression. Both of these methods triggers the sound when clicking on the effect icon in the players sheet spell section.

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I am going to spend some time fixing these in my "custom campaign" where I make edits. Export the module and ticking the box for "Sound Sets" may not work. I loaded the module in my other campaign and do not see changes to these two sound sets. I am DM'ng for three groups and would like to utilize the new 4.4 features. Using 5e rule set.

[Moon Wizard]

You're basically making triggers for the results of the spells vs. "cast" of the spells. That should work fine as a workaround as well.
We'll probably look at a more general approach long-term.

Regards,
JPG