Essential Assets and Resources?

[Yehudah]

(If this belongs in customer support feel free to move it.) Apologies ahead of time for poor grammar structure. This was written as It came to me rather than making it attempt to flow.

My potential budget is extremely small, so I need to know what I should know about essential assets I need to run a 5e campaign (designed myself).

I have the Ultimate License and Player's Handbook. I'm guessing it's required for me to buy the MM and DM guide. (I actually have these assets in DnD Beyond so I'm hoping not). I do not know what I need for proper automation.

Are there any assets outside of those manuals I should get?

A rough idea of the setting is generally not aesthetically that similar, unfortunately, to Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, etc. Roughly speaking, 400-800s AD, but fantasy. Late antiquity / early middle ages. It would have dinosaurs/dinosaur-like fauna, along with “giants” of the Biblical variety (see Goliath), dwarves who are more like Neanderthals (they actually would get an intelligence BONUS. They are tinkerers.), an empire which is based off of the Byzantines, many mountains, rivers, and topographical features which facilitate a large number of kingdoms, city-states, and polities. The setting is a fictionalized Mediterranean, possibly with time travel back into an ancient era roughly 2000-600 BC aesthetically where there was lost technology imparted by divine beings which the heroes may be collecting to triumph back in the current era.
Most likely I’m going to simply hollow out everything and just use the setting. I would just use the forgotten realms fauna, and maybe take full plate armor stats and just change the look to something like extremely heavy multilayered lamellar+chainmail.
These are just some ideas of how to make the campaign work without having to literally rewrite D&D because there’s no way I can do that. Things are subject to change.

I wanted to put out this information here so anyone who has suggestions for what I need to buy, and please keep in mind, I am nearly always broke, and I have money to spare only on occasion and not enormous amounts of it.

[Trenloe]

This thread might help: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...eed-to-play-5e

[Yehudah]

Okay so based on that thread it's essential for me to get those manuals.
I assume I cannot import pdfs into FG?
@Trenloe

[Trenloe]

The main thing to look at is "What comes with the license?" - this mentions the SRD and D&D Basic rules modules that come with the license. Open those up and see what's there - especially in terms of monsters. Is this enough for you?

And, remember, as you own the MM and DMG elsewhere, you can always enter details from those manually into FG. OK, you may not get all of the automation the others provide (and don't think that FG official products give you 100% automation - nothing in FG has automation for every eventuality). If you're looking to minimize expenditure using the included libraries and entering other stuff manually is the least cost option.

EDIT: and you don't *need* everything in FG. Run with it - just like you would at the table, roll the dice, make calls on the fly - you don't need everything in FG in order for you to play with your group.

[Yehudah]

I'll purchase the MM and DMG as soon as possible.

[Trenloe]

Okay so based on that thread it's essential for me to get those manuals.

I don't think it's "essential" - as you can enter the data manually. It'll save you time having the MM and DMG, but as you've mentioned you're concerned about expenditure, so it's really down to how much is your time worth to you?

I assume I cannot import pdfs into FG?
@Trenloe

Not automatically, but you can do it via copy/paste for the records you want in FG.

[Yehudah]

I don't think it's "essential" - as you can enter the data manually. It'll save you time having the MM and DMG, but as you've mentioned you're concerned about expenditure, so it's really down to how much is your time worth to you?


Not automatically, but you can do it via copy/paste for the records you want in FG.

I've NEVER done this before and am only beginning to learn how the 5e rules work. 99% of my experience with D&D is Baldur's Gate 1/2E, and NWN 3E. I haven't played table top since middle school, and that was 3e. Some other more ancient AD&D computer games as well.

I need all of the assistance I can get. So I will when I as soon as I can.

[Yehudah]

Okay, what about aesthetic stuff?

Maps, Art, Avatars, sets of player and npc icons... anythign at all? I don't even fully understand the store GUI yet.

[Trenloe]

Maps, Art, Avatars, sets of player and npc icons... anythign at all? I don't even fully understand the store GUI yet.

Depends what you're looking for.

None of that stuff is "essential", unless you're looking for a very specific map/token that is already on the store, or running a pre-made adventure.

My advice would be don't buy stuff just for the sake of buying it. Wait until you know you need something specific then go looking. You'll also find many, many map/image resources on the Internet - and you can import maps and tokens into FG. Just try to keep maps/images to 2048x2048 pixels and less than 1MB in file size. Tokens are usually good at 100x100 for medium creatures.

Start by looking for maps and tokens in the Armory sub-forum: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...ps-and-tokens)

[Yehudah]

Depends what you're looking for.

None of that stuff is "essential", unless you're looking for a very specific map/token that is already on the store, or running a pre-made adventure.

My advice would be don't buy stuff just for the sake of buying it. Wait until you know you need something specific then go looking. You'll also find many, many map/image resources on the Internet - and you can import maps and tokens into FG. Just try to keep maps/images to 2048x2048 pixels and less than 1MB in file size. Tokens are usually good at 100x100 for medium creatures.

Start by looking for maps and tokens in the Armory sub-forum: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...ps-and-tokens)

I mean "essential" subjectively from the experience of veterans of Fantasy Grounds, VTT, Table Top, and Table Top gaming in general!