Looking for advice on what else to purchase...

[MattTheHall]

Hello all,

I'm new to Fantasy Grounds and have just returned to DnD after a 15 year hiatus. My kid and her friends are now old enough to enjoy the game, and so I purchased the DM guide, the PHB, the MM, and a campaign (Out of the Abyss). Then, Coronavirus happened...

So, I stumbled upon FG and bought an Ultimate license, which is really cool. I also bought the same campaign that I have in book form. Right now I am using the 5E SRD and Basic Rules modules, along with the Out of the Abyss module. It is going ok, but I notice that character creation can sometimes be cumbersome, and I am wondering if purchasing the additional modules might make things easier.

For instance, my kid wanted to be a Dragonborn Monk today, which can be found in the modules I listed above. However, a lot of the character set-up still had to be done manually, such as the Monk's unarmed attack and the Drabonborn's breath ability. I also noticed that, for spells I have to manually add in the attack and damage information, if I want those spells to be usable from the player's character sheet.

I guess I am trying to balance the fact that I have already paid a fair sum getting all the hardcopy books, and then getting set up with FG. I want to make sure that, before I purchase anything else, I know what I am getting into. Any advice, tips, etc., would be appreciated. Thanks!

[LordEntrails]

Welcome

First, FG can't automate everything about character creation. So adding books may not be the solution to more automation. There are lots of resources here, on the wiki, YouTube, and at FantasyGroundsCollege.net that can help. On the site here look at the stickied posts at the top of the 5E forum. Of particular interest is the "Complete xxx" series to help with creating effects for abilities.

I'm surprised the SRD isn't automating spell actions... The PHB and SRD spells are no different... or not supposed to be. If Mr. Z doesn't see this soon (he should be asleep now, you know those Scotts!) you can post screen shots and someone can help test (I need to be getting back to work or I would do more troubleshooting with this myself) . The PHB etc aren't going to add more automation (except the DMG which adds a magic item forge) but they do add more content, classes, races etc.

For more details see here; https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...eed-to-play-5e

[GavinRuneblade]

On the DMs guild there are a ton of items for "pay what you want" and "free". you can do searches for just those. Here on the forums we have a post full of community mods that you can use:
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...munity-Modules

Specifically to help you with characters and coding, check out this:
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...-them-for-FREE!
Rob2e is a wonderful FG expert who makes a lot of products for the DMsGuild. In this video he codes all the powers for every combination of class and archetype and he made it available for free so you can just copy the coding via drag and drop into your son's character or any other character.
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/206...ate_rem=878507
The video is really informative (26 minutes, not too long), and he has a spreadsheet where he shows which books have what you need for the class.