FGU is awesome, just a reminder.

[Larsenex]

I have been using FGU since the launch of Pathfinder 2E and been DM'ing a group since that time.
I want to thank Trenloe and team for the work put into making FGU and the Pathfinder rule set so great.
I think this is truly the best platform to play via a virtual desktop.

[Trenloe]

Thanks for the kind words! It's very hard work sometimes and posts like this make it all worthwhile! :)

[Milke]

Not only do the guys do work coding, but they answer questions on the boards constantly. And I'm decently sure they don't get paid for doing that. They just reply on here to help out.

[Nyarly Dude]

Good to know. My group is nearing the ends of a D&D 5E campaign run in FGU, and I've been thinking of offering to run the Beginner Box adventure as an interlude, to see if it's something we'd like to play more of.

None of us are experienced with PF2e (I've spent a lot of time reading up on it lately, but haven't actually run through any non-solo adv.) and using a different VTT for it would just increase the already nontrivial learning curve. AFAICT FoundryVTT tends to be recommended more on e.g. Reddit, but I'm rather used to stuff like FGU's effect system at this point.

[Larsenex]

The automation for PF2E FAR FAR out paces anything you will find on Foundry. I am biased so ask around about the automation for both and if they are honest the award will be FGU hands down.

[myyra]

The automation for PF2E FAR FAR out paces anything you will find on Foundry. I am biased so ask around about the automation for both and if they are honest the award will be FGU hands down.

I have the same experience. I haven't used Foundry as much as FGU, but I was missing many of the automation features that FGU has. I'm eagerly awaiting for the PF2 updates Trenloe is working on.

[Minethulhu]

I believe Foundry VTT gets the general recommendation because it includes many core books with the price of Foundry VTT (which I think to many makes it seem like Paizo favors Foundry). If you only do home-brew campaigns, the initial included books may be enough to tip in its favor. However, there are about 4 times as many Paizo books converted directly to FGU products. This includes almost all of the adventure paths (I believe Foundry only has a handful).

I think some of the eye-candy features (animated maps and visual spell effects) also got people's attention. FGU has animated maps now as well as other features that are being rolled out over time.

As a consumer, I do like having competing products to drive both products to be better. I don't like that fanboys will be fanboys and are not able to see reason that each may have advantages and there is room for more than one platform. Heck, even super minimalist platforms like Owlbear Rodeo have their place.

EDIT: And if it wasn't clear, yes, FGU is my choice too for PF2E and look forward to using FGU to make that happen with my now largely remote group of friends. Will be getting my feet wet soon with the Beginner Box.

[Nyarly Dude]

It's true I suppose that even with the community Drag and Drop modules, not everything freely available just rules-wise comes with the ruleset. That said, it looks like just about all the already-published 2e books up to Highhelm are available, w/ the exception of the 2e Gamemastery Guide (at least, the only one I noticed in the store was PFRPG 1e one). Highhelm was published at the end of June, so it's not like there's significant lag time. So, at least it's possible to obtain if willing to spend more money to save time manually setting things up.

I've started running a small group through the Beginner's Box as an experiment (everybody involved had experience with D&D 5e but not PF2e, and one of the players was completely new to FGU meaning additional learning curve), with the additional self-inflicted complication that I briefed the players on the pregenerated characters but gave them the option of instead creating custom characters (with pointers to Pathbuilder, the Pathfinder Nexus, Archives of Nethys, brief descriptions of Otari and Starstone Isle region, which books might be reasonable choices. and some general guidelines about what sorts of characters would probably make sense to even go on the adventure), etc.

There are certain things that seems like it'd be a bit obnoxious to set up (was experimenting with some builds to familiarize, and in case the players -- three instead of the 'default' four -- decided that they would like to be joined by an NPC to help out); like a goblin alchemist with Burn It!/I] and [I]Bomber speciality seemed like it'd be a fair bit of extra work to track reagents, set up the recipe book, to properly set up attack rolls for bomb-throwing, and in particular to set up the various damage setups (e.g. for lesser alchemist's fire w/ Burn It! in play -- regular success on main target, regular success on adjacent, critical success on main, critical success on adjacent, persistent fire damage on primary, persistent fire damage on primary from a critical hit). Buuuut, none of the players wanted to build an alchemist; and, offered the choice, so far they've opted to not hire any NPC, so I don't actually have to deal with the mechanical complications of goblin pyromaniacs yet. There is one character with a familiar, meaning some mechanical complexity; but there's the Drag and Drop bit on the Forge that helps make that manageable (feature note: it might be sort of useful to be able to add a familiar or companion to the Party Sheet while somehow preventing it from counting as a party member for e.g. division of loot, just for cases where e.g. it'd be appropriate for everything in the party including animal companions to make a perception check or roll some save, but it's hardly a blocker bug).


The main issues that have come up so far in play (e.g. after character importing and setup) are really problems with the source material, whether due to plausibility issues (like the proprietor of the fishery seemingly oblivious to the tunnel complex directly beneath) or the adventure not anticipating various perfectly reasonable questions (e.g. how fast would spiderwebs burn, how much might an Otari craftsman charge to repair a damaged shield given that it's pretty quick work -- like, even if a character has a steel shield that was almost destroyed, a trained-but-not-expert smith who doesn't have Quick Repair etc. could repair it in twenty minutes with a pair of regular successes), how tall the barricades are and could they be climbed, could they just seal the tunnel and call it a day, how many arrows skeleton guards might happen to have available for looting, etc). These aren't FGU's problem in any way.

It would be nice if there were a simpler way to set up lighting for when players drop a light source on the ground (e.g. placing a lit torch on the floor; AFAIK, the primary solution is to edit the map's lighting setup to manually drop/move/remove a light source whenever they interact with such; I haven't yet experimented with an absolutely terrible theoretical hack that just occurred to me, like can I create an 'hidden' NPC that has a light effect attached to it ala equipped torch and just drop that invisibly on the map but still have it light up around it. Hrm.) but that's hardly specific to the PF2e ruleset.

[Trenloe]

Thanks for the feedback Nyarly Dude.


It's true I suppose that even with the community Drag and Drop modules, not everything freely available just rules-wise comes with the ruleset. That said, it looks like just about all the already-published 2e books up to Highhelm are available, w/ the exception of the 2e Gamemastery Guide (at least, the only one I noticed in the store was PFRPG 1e one). Highhelm was published at the end of June, so it's not like there's significant lag time.
As you note, all of the official Paizo PF2 products are available in the store, with the exception to the Gamemastery Guide, crit hit and fumble decks. Highhelm is available, it was released in the FG store on the same day that Paizo released it. More information on released PF2 products can be found in this sticky thread: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?61483-Pathfinder-Second-Edition-Official-Paizo-Product-Conversion-Status

Alchemists are probably the most complex PCs in the Core Rules - maybe why Paizo has moved them to Player Core 2 in the Remastered release? Better implementation of the alchemist class will be provided in the future - some of the additions in Release 19 go towards facilitating that.

[myyra]

As you note, all of the official Paizo PF2 products are available in the store, with the exception to the Gamemastery Guide, crit hit and fumble decks. Highhelm is available, it was released in the FG store on the same day that Paizo released it. More information on released PF2 products can be found in this sticky thread: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?61483-Pathfinder-Second-Edition-Official-Paizo-Product-Conversion-Status

This reminds me, is someone actually working on the GM Guide or are you just waiting for the remaster at this point?

[Trenloe]

This reminds me, is someone actually working on the GM Guide or are you just waiting for the remaster at this point?
As the Remaster GM Core will have some "stuff" from the Gamemastery Guide, we're going to look at killing two birds with one stone and do updates for both. This may result in a partial complete Gamemastery guide, in terms of coding for all of the alternate rules. At present we haven't looked at GM Core in detail and so haven't made any design choices - Release 19 is on out plate for the next 5 weeks.