FGU or Foundry for Pathfinder 2.0

[Plaindog]

Hi all

I am a very experienced FGU DM who have spent a lot of money on 5E books, maps, Forge items etc. Fantasy Grounds Unity runs in my veins and I truly love it when it comes to playing DnD 5E.

BUT

How good is it for playing Pathfinder second edition?

Are there any DM's here who have used both extensively who might answer this question?

What are the PRO's and CON's of playing Pathfinder second edition in either systems?
Which do you prefer and why?

I have a license for Foundry already but I wanted to get some insight from DM's who might have used both system before I start buying books somewhere. I am also a tech nerd so I' not afraid of learning new systems.

Hope someone can answer this. Thanks in advance

Best from Norway

[MaxAstro]

Personally, the thing that sold and continues to sell me on FGU for PF2e is the extensive and ever growing automation. FGU does so much for you, and it saves me and my players an incredible amount of time at the table. Having talked to people who have run PF1e with FGU, my understanding is that this level of automation is somewhat unique to the 2e module, and is in large part due to the work of people like Trenloe and Shaderaven.

Being able to resolve the entire effect of spells in just a couple clicks is something I really couldn't live without.

[Trenloe]

Personally, the thing that sold and continues to sell me on FGU for PF2e is the extensive and ever growing automation. FGU does so much for you, and it saves me and my players an incredible amount of time at the table. Having talked to people who have run PF1e with FGU, my understanding is that this level of automation is somewhat unique to the 2e module, and is in large part due to the work of people like Trenloe and Shaderaven.

Being able to resolve the entire effect of spells in just a couple clicks is something I really couldn't live without.

Thanks for the kind words. There'll be a lot more automation in Release 19 - a teaser video from early in the development cycle is available here: https://youtu.be/K3vomDTseB4 The activities functionality if probably a couple of weeks off going into test - I'll be using it for the first time in a gaming session this weekend as a final alpha test from my side.

[Bolorokenpay]

I Second what MaxAstro said. PF2E automation is very good. I would definitely recommend FGU to run it. Kind of funny, sometimes I will see some calculated number that I don't expect and I think I found a bug, then realize I forgot something or got a rule wrong. It will certainly keep you honest, lol.

[MegaWizardGuy]

Hello, new on the forums, where would I find more about the automation in PF2e? Or do you mean that once you set it up it is smoother?
Me and my friends are running an Outlaws of Alkenstar module, and I have to manually create a lot of the Inventor abilities even though we own the guns and gears book.

[MaxAstro]

My understanding is that the upcoming Release 19 is supposed to include prebuilt automation for a lot of those kinds of abilities, but "once you set it up it is smoother" is definitely true of the stuff that lacks prebuilt automation. Just the option to add automation is very powerful in terms of how long it takes to set up vs the time it saves.

Regardless, it has certainly been my impression that it is Trenloe's ultimate goal to have prebuilt automation for everything, eventually, which I greatly appreciate.

[esmdev]

An off the shelf comparison of automation is pretty easy, FGU has tons and Foundry has as little as possible. The thing to keep in mind is both of these were design decisions. Foundry wants you to have the DM and player tabletop experience no matter how difficult that makes it, while FGU wants you to have a tabletop experience with a side of computer game. Both designs are great for the people that want them. Myself, I've thus far found FGU an easier experience.

One thing that Foundry does that FGU doesn't is support the Gamemastery guide optional rules.

Foundry is a prettier base experience but not so much that I've cared that much. FGU is steadily moving forward in closing some of the gaps, I'm not sure the developers know what can be done without breaking a decade or more of backwards compatibility limitations. However they have shown some pretty neat features.

Some of the newer books are still not supported fully on FGU but that's just a matter of time. At the moment the big disadvantage for FGU is that Foundry seems to have picked Pathfinder2E as a major focus. They have internal, third party and community developers working on adventure paths and other things (tokens, sound effects, maps, etc.) but those things seem to add time as Roll20 already has Kingmaker up and released, FGU has it in testing, and Foundry is saying sometime this quarter maybe, hopefully, well see...

Anyways, I find most games that are supported on FGU to be easier to run.

[Atreides Ghola]

I've used both Foundry and FGU to run PF2nd pretty extensively.

While Foundry works well, there's a base design decision that only the owners of tokens are permitted to apply effects, damage, conditions, etc. to tokens during a game. This creates a forced stop point whenever there's an attack, a spell cast that does damage or imposes an effect/condition, or affects another actor in any way. Because of this, the GM is responsible for applying these to every actor affected (players can do damage to themselves and apply effects and conditions to themselves).

Additionally, Foundry only has an initiative tracker - it does show what effects are on a token, but there is no comprehensive way to manage encounters similar to the CT that FGU provides. After running the Beginner Box, and parts of Abomination Vaults in Foundry, I made the decision to move back to FGU for the amazing, comprehensive automation provided by the system. The CT in FGU and the simplicity and directness of its syntax allows you to manage encounters much more efficiently. It helps greatly that FGU has excellent documentation for the system as well. Foundry has next to none.

Personally, I find that asking questions about the system and getting help to be much easier for FGU (Thank you, Trenloe!). Trenloe is always responsive and helpful, something I can't say of the development community for PF2nd on Foundry.

In the end, I found Foundry to be somewhat prettier than FGU, but PF2nd in Fantasy Grounds is much more functional, and the automation is excellent. It is great to be able to purchase all of the available PF2nd content as well, and get all of the artwork, text, tokens, and more. Foundry has a very limited selection, and requires much, much more prep time to get into shape to run.

I spent about a year running PF2nd on Foundry after initially beginning with FGU. Moving back to FGU was the best decision I've made regarding PF2nd games - if you are a long time FGU GM, regarless of the system you've previously run, you will be right at home running PF2nd in FGU.

[Trenloe]

I've used both Foundry and FGU to run PF2nd pretty extensively.

...

Thanks for the comprehensive information. I've briefly looked at PF2 on Foundry, purely from a "professional" interest. I agree, it does look pretty; but I found it lacking in some areas - which your post highlights.

We've been working to try to make the FGU PF2 implementation easier to use, with Release 19 bringing a lot of new functionality with activities - both in terms of carrying out activities and reporting the results; which will hopefully make the game easier to play both from a player and GM perspective.

For example, here's a PC doing a grapple action. Their Athletics check is made vs. the target's fortitude DC and the result is reporting in the chat window - along with the relevant text for that result. And the relevant effect can be applied with the press of the "Apply All Effects" button. This is upcoming Release 19 functionality.



Don't know what the Grabbed condition means? Double click on it in the Combat Tracker. This is current functionality.



This double-click to see more information functionality is something I've put in a number of places - most notably the traits field of various records. Just double click on a trait field to see information about each trait. For example, want to know what all of those traits in a spell record mean?

[MaxAstro]

Ooh, that Favorites button looks tasty. I almost wish we could have something like that for spells. For most classes it doesn't matter much, but Clerics and Druids with their giant spell lists - it would be nice to have some way to pare that down, without having to actually remove the spells from your sheet.