Will it play 4e?

[Kinrove]

Greetings,

As an alternative to paying $10 monthly for the use of the DDI tabletop, I was directed to this software. Looks great. My question is, will I be able to play 4th edition with it? And how soon after June 6th?

This is essentially the only requirement that will influence my decision to buy, everything else I will explore and deal with as it comes.

I should mention I shy away from 'fiddly', and the more out-of-box the whole thing can be, the better. Not to sound lazy, but I just don't have the time.

Finally, failing this software as an alternative, would anyone be so kind as to suggest alternatives.

Great thanks to anyone who offers any help :)

[Griogre]

FG is really a dice roller, chat program, and battle mat with tokens. From a structural viewpoint the real question are the basic 3rd Ed d20 character sheets going to be close enough to 4th Ed character sheets to work.

Generally, I would say the odds are very good you will be able to use FG to play 4th ed on the 3rd ed character sheets the day it releases. This is because most parts of the character sheets are like a paper character sheet where you can write anything you want on the sheet. Where there would be problems is in the automatic parts of the character sheet. For example if WoTC changed the +1 or -1 stat modifier for every two points a stat is different from 10. There may also be problems with saving throws if they change Ref from being based on Dex or something similar. If there is a problem with FG’s default d20 character sheet so it doesn’t work well I would expect it to be fixed almost immediately because the fast fix would be to just fix the character sheet so it didn’t calculate stat mods or saving throw mods and it would be very simple and fast to rip out the calculation links on the character sheet.

Where FG - and any other virtual table top - will be burned is it doesn’t appear you are going to have the equivalent of the SRD for 4th edition with spell, feat and skill descriptions. WoTC has made it clear they won’t do that for 4th Ed. If you have the 4th Ed PH this should not be much of a problem, even now this is a common problem with any references to anything right now not in the SRD like spells and feats out of the splat books – and most people just open a book or PDF and look if they have a question.

After D&D Experience we will be able to know a lot more specifics of 4th ed and will have a better sense of whether the changes will affect the character sheet much. You are about a week early for a good answer to your question. :p

[Nylanfs]

There's also the issue of what the wording that WotC is puting into the GSL also. :(

[kalmarjan]

Bottom line... you will be able to play 4E on FGII. You may not have all the bells and whistles right out of the box (as the aforementioned SRD/GSL issue..) but...

There is nothing that will stop you from using the FG II platform to conduct your game over the internet. You will not have the "nifty" 3D effects. (Right. nifty. Not.), or the character designer. (Again, yuck. Gross.)

You will be able to chuck dice around, use the map, send images, use tokens (*and those can be made for free!) and play with your buds.

So, yes, you will be able to use FGII to play 4E. Just not like the DDI. You may have to actually plug in your info... but the good part about that is you will NEVER have to actually pay "twice" to "unlock" the use of the information from a supplement in an FGII game. (Barring a ruleset... but that is a different story altogether.)

Cheers,

Sandeman

[Griogre]

There's also the issue of what the wording that WotC is puting into the GSL also. :(
True, but regardless they have said they will not pull the 3rd Ed SRD and OGL. My best guess is the 3rd ed character sheets will work fine. The biggest convience thing people are going to lose if they use the old default d20 character sheets for 4th edition is the ability to drag and drop spells into the spell book and have them linked to spell descriptions. But since you can add your own spells you would just do that instead. The next thing is skills are being simplified so the skill list will be different. However once again, you can add your own skills to the skill lists. For tidiness you would want to mod the skill list to get rid of the old skills, but lets be honest - having a few extra skills on the skill list is hardly a show stopper. Depending on how the GSL is written, you might need to actually clear all the skills and just have 20-30 blank skill lines but this should not be that hard and it should fit eaily into the 3rd Ed OGL.

In most case, it seems that by making the 3rd Ed character sheet more generic and simple, you would allow it to be more compatible with 4th ed. Typically it is a lot easier to rip out functionality rather than add it.

[Ablefish]

I've been soaking up the reports on EnWorld about 4E and from the sounds of it, very little of the 3.5 character sheets will remain intact (skill points gone, passive & active abilities, healing surges, action points, etc) . For FG's sake, I really hope that a 4E ruleset is ready for release the moment DDI goes live.

While I already have every intention of getting a subscription for access to the book data, character creator, etc... I won't use the virtual tabletop if it doesn't give as good an experience as FG.

For new players, however - and these are the people that inject new money into FG - it's kind of hard to ask them to use a half-functional ruleset when they have access to the virtual tabletop of the DDI. Especially considering it will be hardwired into the character creator, mini-generator, etc.

Anyways, I really hope FG is a viable alternative to the virtual tabletop as it has really brought my playgroup a couple of years of enjoyment.

[ElementEvil]

I'm Interested in getting Fantasy Grounds. but same worries are 4e.

Gnome is a monster, Tiefling and Drow are core races. Lots of rule changes, lots of feats and skills changed. core classes now go to level 30. lots of spells gone, some new ones. Class abilities re-arranged.

While many of these dont directly affect FG. They present a problem of everyone having the rulebooks in Real Life for reference.

Yet im confident that the people at fantasy grounds will have an update inside 2 months that addresses these problems.

The only things that really has me worried were rumors of 4e being d30 instead of d20 based. Which basically makes half of FG useless.

[sloejack]

They present a problem of everyone having the rulebooks in Real Life for reference. Yet im confident that the people at fantasy grounds will have an update inside 2 months that addresses these problems.

This actually probably won't ever happen. Unlike the 3.5 SRD (which the default d20 ruleset derives it's library modules from), the 4th Ed SRD won't contain the actual rules themselves, just references to where to find the rules about this topic or that topic in the official books.


The only things that really has me worried were rumors of 4e being d30 instead of d20 based. Which basically makes half of FG useless.

On the other hand, this issue is trivial to resolve for FG. In short I would expect to see a character sheet ruleset sometime shortly after the players handbook/DMG/Monster manual come (not neccessarily from SmiteWorks, but I'm sure someone will do it) out that will include an 4e compliant charactersheet (naturally), updated NPC records, and should the d30 become a standard die, some sort of allowance for that.

[Sorontar]

Gnome is a monster,

Okay they're ugly, fat halflings with big heads but monster is taking it a bit far :)

I have little hope for 4e, the moment I heard them group their classes into things like Tank, Defender etc I cringed and could see them dumbing it down for the MMO masses.

Note: Not all MMOers are dumb but there are a lot of muppets who need hand holding through every little thing ;)

[sloejack]

I have little hope for 4e, the moment I heard them group their classes into things like Tank, Defender etc I cringed and could see them dumbing it down for the MMO masses.

Note: Not all MMOers are dumb but there are a lot of muppets who need hand holding through every little thing ;)

I thought the exact same thing about 4e taking a turn for the MMO route as well. I think what convinced me most about 4e being written by a pack of rabid care bears was the healing burst things. Sure it might make things a little more cinematic and all but goofy mechanics do not make for better story telling.

[Griogre]

I've been soaking up the reports on EnWorld about 4E and from the sounds of it, very little of the 3.5 character sheets will remain intact (skill points gone, passive & active abilities, healing surges, action points, etc) . For FG's sake, I really hope that a 4E ruleset is ready for release the moment DDI goes live.

While I already have every intention of getting a subscription for access to the book data, character creator, etc... I won't use the virtual tabletop if it doesn't give as good an experience as FG.

For new players, however - and these are the people that inject new money into FG - it's kind of hard to ask them to use a half-functional ruleset when they have access to the virtual tabletop of the DDI. Especially considering it will be hardwired into the character creator, mini-generator, etc.

Anyways, I really hope FG is a viable alternative to the virtual tabletop as it has really brought my playgroup a couple of years of enjoyment.
Frankly, I think WoTC is going to make it difficult for the developer to do a 4th ed sheet. However, many of the changes would seem able go into the Special Abilites tab which is perfect for keeper track of uses on it's own mini sheet - I was just looking at the released 4th ed sheets at D&D experience and that was my impression.

WoTC really seems to have botched the release of the GSL - they still have not released it and it is almost too late for many publishers to push out paper books to take advantage of their "early" jump at GENCON. If they botch the launch of DDI as badly as the GSL, FG won't have anything to worry about. Separate group though, but certainly the GLS is a symptom of bad management.

Edit: Fixed a buch of typos. :p

[DrClarke]

Here's a sneak at 4th Edition character sheets.

https://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/02/first-look-at-n.html#previouspost

and

https://picasaweb.google.com/gertiebarden/4eCharacterSheets

I admit I'm a fan of 2nd edition ... I can stomach 3rd edition, but 4th edition really looks so much further away from I knew as D&D. It looks like it's starting to become an MMOPG on paper and characters don't really die.

If I'm understanding it right, every character can pretty much heal themselves.... multiple times? :)

Anywho, this isn't meant to be a rant... just a link so you dev types can see what the new character sheets might look like in regards to FG2 usage with 4th.

[Griogre]

Here's a sneak at 4th Edition character sheets.

https://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/02/first-look-at-n.html#previouspost

and

https://picasaweb.google.com/gertiebarden/4eCharacterSheets

Enworld also has a download of the PDFs.

I admit I'm a fan of 2nd edition ... I can stomach 3rd edition, but 4th edition really looks so much further away from I knew as D&D. It looks like it's starting to become an MMOPG on paper and characters don't really die.

If I'm understanding it right, every character can pretty much heal themselves.... multiple times? :)

Anywho, this isn't meant to be a rant... just a link so you dev types can see what the new character sheets might look like in regards to FG2 usage with 4th.
Not exactly. Each Character may heal himself once per encounter. A cleric may cause other characters to use a healing surge (which appears to be a very important for keeping other's alive). When characters are not in an encounter they may use up to their limit in surges per day to cure themselfs. Here is the 4th Ed rule primer cheat sheet used at D&D experience: https://www.urkana.com/NU-Logs-08/4E-Rules-Primer.pdf

As far as FG2 goes from what I have read we will be able to use either the Abilities tab or the Spellbook to keep track of the 4th ed powers from day one.

[Malovech]

I'm not entirely sold on 4e yet, but I'm also not ready to condemn it. The stuff on healing seems a little weak to me, as does the concept of 'powers'. Wait and see is my current attitude.

[Griogre]

I kinda feel the same way. The powers are just an combining of feats, magic items and spells served up as class abilities. Personally I doubt the healing is a problem judging by the comments and TPK's that happened at D&D Experience.

The devil will be in the details of the powers per class per character and how broken balance wise any of them are. I don't think there is really any way to tell that short of trying it or waiting until the game has been out 6 months or so.

[Xorn]

I'm going to try not to come off as a fanboi, because I just finished running a playtest adventure of 4E over the weekend.

But I don't know how I'll keep playing 3.5 till June, seriously. We had so much fun--even though my players have run through the adventure twice now, they want to switch characters up and go again. Something to note about the "surges". You get to use one surge (heals 1/4 of your HP) per encounter, and it requires you to blow a standard action. Any more than that has to come from a healer. As far as blowing surges between encounters?

If your characters don't keep a couple of Wands of Cure X Wounds in their backpacks, bravo, because that's what my group does. Finish encounter, break out the wand. Hell my group doesn't have a cleric, the bard is the main healer!

The combat was fun, and there's lots of options, and it's fast and furious. The synergy was really great, and the encounter balancing (so far) looks pretty cool--but the biggest thing for me... running NPCs is really fun.

All those cool abilities my players have? My NPCs get them too! All my kobolds can shift for a minor action, and my skirmishers get +1 to hit for every kobold adjacent to their target. My kobold slinger has all kinds of fun sling ammos (like slinging a fire pot at someone, great!) and that's just the first encounter! The adventure I ran them on (in FG2) ends with a fight against a young black dragon (which is supposed to be a challenge for a level 4 party) and stomps them around. They got her to bloodied (half health) and I had her flee, but if I hadn't written that into the adventure she would have killed all that didn't run like hell.

Anyway, like I said, there's things about 4E that I'm waiting to see more on, but I'm excited as hell about playing it. I'll be buying the core books, and my players will all be getting the PHB.

The gallery has a quick look at 2 of the screenshots from the game, and I posted a cleaned up, easier to read chat log of it all at:

4E Fan Playtest Adventure (https://www.eugee.net/4e_preview)

I'm thinking about inviting people from this community to try the game out in the near future, so I'm going to start another thread, post if you're interested.

[Malovech]

If your characters don't keep a couple of Wands of Cure X Wounds in their backpacks, bravo, because that's what my group does. Finish encounter, break out the wand. Hell my group doesn't have a cleric, the bard is the main healer!



That's the thing, in my games we never really handed out magic items like they were standard pieces of equipment. With that in mind, the very idea that a character can suddenly just heal 1/4 of their hp, spontaneously, to some extent solidifies that very play style. At the same time, hp are a fairly abstract concept and don't necessarily translate 100% into the actual physical well-being of a character. They could easily be seen as a mixture of physical health, luck, experience and ability to avoid serious injury.

[joshuha]

As far as the rules system itself, the more I read it the more I like it. I posted a big summary of my opinions so far on my private wiki but I will put it in a post here later tonight.

But essentially I like where the rules are headed. Not sure on the worth of their online initiative but as far as just 4th edition itself I have definitely moved into the planning to buy stage.

[kalmarjan]

I have to admit, I am in the same boat as Josh here. I do like the rules that I see.

I like the fact that the classes now have "powers" or whatever they are called that level up with the characters. While it will probably be rare that the fighter will just "swing his sword", and will instead opt for some cool power... it just seems more... cool.

I think the focus will be taken away from magic items in this version of D&D, and that will be a good thing. In my mind, there is not a lot that is truly heroic about a level 20 guy with a smashing load of HP that really is not much when he is without his trusty +5 longsword.

As for the healing... I like it. It is about time that the game got away from the whole class that does nothing but act like a bandaid for the party. I remember a friend of mine back in the day who was tired of his druid sacrificing all of his daily spells because the party needed healing. He was not able to... be a druid.

While it may be a slap in the face to most old time gamers (I am one BTW), I can make the adjustment and move on.

If the new system makes the game easier to run, and more fun, I am all for it. While a lot of people will hang onto 3.5, I will not, as I have tired of it from about 2 years ago.

One thing I find funny is the loudest complaints that I have heard so far about "NERFing" is from the same fanboys of the "spiked-chain" builds. Seriously, crying about the rules fixing a loophole in 3.5 is just borderline manic/ironic in my book. One of the things that turned me off about 3.5 was the huge list of PrC's, feats, weapons, tricks that basically made a player "beat" the game. The other was the so-called "optimization" boards where people would go on about their stupid characters that "could not be touched".

I am glad to see the pendulum has swung the other way. If you have a spot for the 4E trials that fits within my time frame, count me in.

Sandeman

[Sorontar]

Well I know my issues with it are tainted by what was going to be the best MMO, that would be DDO, being spoilt by moving away from D&D rules to fit into the typical MMO model. As soon as I started to hear MMO lingo I kinda turned right off it.

Having said that I have just re-subbed to DDO for the 6 month deal and I am loving getting back in there (maybe they didn't implement Gnomes as a playable race in DDO for a reason :D )

I think I will have to look at 4E long and hard. In our current Eberron campaign I am playing a shield specialist but also in the group is a Crusader (Tome of Battle) and he always seems to have something new and cool to play with whilst I just have a 20 level plan with mundane stuff on it. From what I can gather ToB was a dip in the water for the direction of 4E so it may be worth it in the end.

[Xorn]

Gary Gygax (rest his wonderful soul) at some point in time "borrowed" ideas from a lot of fantasy worlds. At some point in time, MUDs started "borrowing" those mechanics into their game, and at some point in time MMOs grew out of MUDs. I don't really care who had the good idea (such as: it's a lot more fun for the warrior to have special attacks than watch his auto-attack go off all day), if it will improve my game.

Something to think about with 4E hit points--you have four defenses. Attacks will attack various defenses. Hell the warlock sample character can hit all four defenses--like they are feeling out your weak spot! So the idea that you can regain 1/4 of your HP with a surge once per battle? You're a hero, pushing on to do heroic things. (Did I mention that spider just hit you for over half your HP? 1/4 of your HP might not last too long, heh.)

I also really like the cleric--his heals basically let you burn one of your surges as a free action, and then he boosts the heal amount. So in effect, his heals will SCALE. Plus the cleric can heal as a minor (read: swift) action, leaving him time to crack skulls with his mace--and he's so inspiring doing it, the guy next to him gets +2 to hit on his next attack!

I love 3.5. Loved 3e Loved 2e(okay, love is a strong word). Loved 1e. OMFG loved BECMI. Appreciate OD&D (I wasn't old enough to read at the time) for what it started. And I can see I'm going to love 4E if the preview shows anything.

[Moon Wizard]

Xorn, thanks for the write-up on your playtest session. I'm looking forward to seeing what 4E will bring once it's all out in the light.

Also, I was wondering what the grid was for that was below the main map? It looked like it had icons for each character along with letter tokens as some sort of indicators.

Thanks,
JPG

[joshuha]

I didn't want to clutter up this thread so posted my thoughts on the 4th edition rules and what I like so far about them here https://fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8078

[Xorn]

Xorn, thanks for the write-up on your playtest session. I'm looking forward to seeing what 4E will bring once it's all out in the light.

Also, I was wondering what the grid was for that was below the main map? It looked like it had icons for each character along with letter tokens as some sort of indicators.

Thanks,
JPG

If you look in the gallery there's a thread on it--but that's a player condition tracker. The C next to the Warlock was a reminder that she had concealment, the L was a lance of faith boost to attack roll, etc. I also use that to track marching order. The players can move their tokens without me needing to mess with it. It's just a handy spot to track little stuff. If you like the idea, Griogre suggested to me, so I can't take credit.