Pre-Sale Questions

[LancerX]

I've been looking at FG2 to see if it's a good fit for an online 4E campaign our group would like to start, and I've got a couple of more detailed questions than the demo/feature list probably answers:

1) Is it easy to use a given ruleset for just the "basics" of a character sheet (hp, ac, saves, passive skills)? I'm concerned that you have to fully populate everything for the NPC's/Characters in order for the basic game functions to work.

2) 4E uses a lot of condition markers - is it easy to add a variety of flags/markers to tokens on the battlemap?

3) Is it possible to associate hyperlinks to webpages with various elements such as map locations, character sheets, NPC's, monsters, encounters, etc?

4) How difficult is to create a journal based on the session's events/chats, etc?

Any feedback appreciated, thanks!

[scytale2]

I've been looking at FG2 to see if it's a good fit for an online 4E campaign our group would like to start, and I've got a couple of more detailed questions than the demo/feature list probably answers:

1) Is it easy to use a given ruleset for just the "basics" of a character sheet (hp, ac, saves, passive skills)? I'm concerned that you have to fully populate everything for the NPC's/Characters in order for the basic game functions to work.

2) 4E uses a lot of condition markers - is it easy to add a variety of flags/markers to tokens on the battlemap?

3) Is it possible to associate hyperlinks to webpages with various elements such as map locations, character sheets, NPC's, monsters, encounters, etc?

4) How difficult is to create a journal based on the session's events/chats, etc?

Any feedback appreciated, thanks!

Ok, well different people will have different views on this, I would guess.

The (unofficial) 4E ruleset for FG2 is very good and has a lot of functionality and a great charactersheet. You certainly don't have to populate too much to get the game functions to work.

Condition markers are fiddly in 4e rules and they are handled in the 4e ruleset quite well, although it's still a bit fiddly.

3) I have no idea, but the module development system is quite user-friendly.

4) This is very easy, although you would do well to use some extra software that is available to edit the session log.

FG2 is not as strong as players would like with regard to token functionality, but maps, combat etc. it really is jolly good.

Buy it.

[EugeneZ]

I've been looking at FG2 to see if it's a good fit for an online 4E campaign our group would like to start, and I've got a couple of more detailed questions than the demo/feature list probably answers:

1) Is it easy to use a given ruleset for just the "basics" of a character sheet (hp, ac, saves, passive skills)? I'm concerned that you have to fully populate everything for the NPC's/Characters in order for the basic game functions to work.

2) 4E uses a lot of condition markers - is it easy to add a variety of flags/markers to tokens on the battlemap?

3) Is it possible to associate hyperlinks to webpages with various elements such as map locations, character sheets, NPC's, monsters, encounters, etc?

4) How difficult is to create a journal based on the session's events/chats, etc?

Any feedback appreciated, thanks!

1) The hardest part is finding the ruleset, but that's really not that hard. It's on the fouruglymonsters.com message boards, specifically in the 4e Group boards. The ruleset itself is excellent and enterring characters and NPCs is much easier and faster than on paper.

2) You can't add conditions directly to the tokens. That is to say, the tokens on the map have very few indicators of their status besides a change of color for bloodied/dead. However, this is the goal of the Combat Tracker, which is also very well done in the custom ruleset. Conditions are pretty easy to add, and they can be automated to automatically remind you about saving throws or to end automatically on someone's specific turn. Also, ongoing damage or regen can be automated.

3) Nope. You can only link between the resources you have in the campaign itself. Like, you can link to an NPC character sheet in the middle of a story. Or you can link to a town description from a map location (these are called shortcuts, they appear like pins on your map, only to the DM). But no links to websites.

4) FG2 automatically logs chat. There's a chatlog cleaner somewhere on these forums, you can easily search or google for it. This log will contain anything in your chat log, which will include all attacks, rolls, and so on.

If you're okay with spending a little time with Tenian's parsers, you can even create your own player's handbook and monster manual modules. So you can just drag and drop powers to character sheets and all the monster NPCs are ready to drop in the combat tracker.

[LancerX]

Great! Thanks for the thoughtful answers, I really appreciate it!

[Tenian]

Pretty much what EugeneZ said
#1:
It's going to depend on what you define as basic functions. The character sheet has a lot of math behind it. Entering your level for example adds the correct level bonus to your stat checks, init, etc.

If you aren't playing face-to-face and using FGII as a GM aid (some people do this), I would think at a minimum you'd want to enter all the stats (the main page) and probably the data on the combat page (movement, weapons, etc).
You could skip power entry, but really just punching in the power name and any attack information, isn't very difficult and would be well worth the effort.

NPCs are pretty similar, they have a sheet with the core stats (move, hps, init, ect) and a sheet with the monster attacks. You could put in as little or as much as you want.

I have provided several tools over on www.FourUglyMonsters.com that convert pdf data for monsters, powers, items, etc into game elements that support drag and drop which makes building characters/adventures very easy. They do have a bit of a learning curve so they may or may not be worth it for you.

#2:

Currently FGII does not have a large number of hooks exposed when dealing with tokens. This means doing something like adding conditions to a tool tip for a token, adding an overlay to a token, dropping damage on to a token, etc are not very easy to do. Some effort has been made on work arounds but they end up being limited (due to the lack of exposed functions) requiring tokens to be fixed sizes, only working on medium sized npcs, etc.

If a future update exposes more token functionality, then graphical marking, drop damage, etc would probably be added very quickly.

#3

You can't do hyperlinks to external resources, however you can create a story element and link it to other objects within the game (such as maps, encounters, npcs, magic items, other story elements, etc)
The effect is similar to what is shown here (https://dnd-4e.blogspot.com/2008/10/text-and-more-textand-some-graphics-too.html)
If you notice the grey box titled "Map" clicking on that opens the image.

Also formatting of the text is very similar to HTML (<p><b><i> etc) It doesn't have style sheets or any of your more advanced functions but you can build a decent output if you put the effort in and have some basic HTML skills.

#4
I've never tried. I have looked through the log once or twice and it seems like it has everything you'd need. I suspect it will probably depend on how fancy of a journal you want to make.

[Griogre]

1) One thing nobody has touched on is NPCs and Monsters have a different "Personality" sheet from the sheet for PCs. It is less elaborate and you need to fill in at least the name but the rest is optional, though if you have the rest in it can allow combat to run faster because you can drag and drop attacks from the combat tracker.

To be totally clear, you don't have to enter any data for FG to work. In that case it would be like a game around a table where people just roll dice and add the numbers in their heads. For sheer convience it is worth while getting the monsters input though.