Here is a video you might reference for a walk-through:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD3fpNlYV6M&t=1s
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I checked the prices on Fantasy Grounds, and damn they are insanely expensive. Yeah it makes it so you can play on VTT, but seriously? $59.99 for RotRL Anniversary Edition on FG? Come on guys, you're killing us.
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Why Fantasy Grounds instead of Roll20? Fantasy Grounds is crazy expensive and not particularly popular- as much as I'd like to use this, it's waaaaaaaay out of my price range.
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3.. 2... 1.. blast off! Okay, maybe living on the Space Coast is starting to rub off on me. Either way, I think you'll agree that this is an exciting new chapter in the history of SmiteWorks and Paizo. Fans of Fantasy Grounds and Pathfinder can look forward to a steady stream of great gaming content to play online or to enhance their in-person play.
Three ways to buy!
All new releases will be available from our website, from Steam, and in the near future, from paizo.com. In addition, you can get a PDF for free with your purchase if you buy from fantasygrounds.com or from Paizo. To do so, check the instructions below. ...
If you already own the corresponding PDF from Paizo, and you purchase the add-on for Fantasy Grounds on paizo.com, you'll get a discount equal to the price of the PDF. Then follow steps 2 and 3 above and Retrieve paizo.com Purchases. Once you do that, those purchases will automatically be linked to your account and will get picked up and installed when you run your next update.
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I checked the prices on Fantasy Grounds, and damn they are insanely expensive. Yeah it makes it so you can play on VTT, but seriously? $59.99 for RotRL Anniversary Edition on FG? Come on guys, you're killing us.
Just FYI, buying the adventure for Fantasy Grounds includes the PDF from Paizo (via a link between Paizo and FG's site). Already owning the PDF will allow you to get a discount on the FG version. Unfortunately, not all of this functionality is working quite yet, though.
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Why Fantasy Grounds instead of Roll20? Fantasy Grounds is crazy expensive and not particularly popular- as much as I'd like to use this, it's waaaaaaaay out of my price range.
Because the good folks at Smiteworks have put in the work, attained the licenses, and otherwise done everything they can to make this available.
Paizo has not yet licensed Roll20. They have Fantasy Grounds and D20Pro.
Fantasy Grounds is the first to launch.
At some point, Vic said to "have patience" regarding Roll20 Licensing.
It may or may not come to be. Likely the prices would be similar in any case, based on the 5E product they've released so far (which is the only apt comparison.)
Fantasy Grounds has some of the best rules automation available on VTTs.
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Why Fantasy Grounds instead of Roll20? Fantasy Grounds is crazy expensive and not particularly popular- as much as I'd like to use this, it's waaaaaaaay out of my price range.
Well, there's the fact that FG is an officially licensed partner with Paizo and many other major RPG makers, so you can legally get entire adventures and sourcebooks into your game with just a click of your mouse. So it depends greatly on how much you value the time it takes you to do all of that work yourself.
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Why Fantasy Grounds instead of Roll20? Fantasy Grounds is crazy expensive and not particularly popular- as much as I'd like to use this, it's waaaaaaaay out of my price range.I'm also curious where the data for Fantasy Grounds not being particularly popular came from, or if it is an assumption. Fantasy Grounds is plenty popular, especially with those that play the latest edition of the D&D.
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Why Fantasy Grounds instead of Roll20? Fantasy Grounds is crazy expensive and not particularly popular- as much as I'd like to use this, it's waaaaaaaay out of my price range.Well, there's the fact that FG is an officially licensed partner with Paizo and many other major RPG makers, so you can legally get entire adventures and sourcebooks into your game with just a click of your mouse. So it depends greatly on how much you value the time it takes you to do all of that work yourself.
$40 per player is already a pretty absurd price I can't afford to pay, especially when most of the same functionality is already available for free on Roll20 or MapTool. If I wanted to play Rise of the Rune Lords with only Core Rulebook and Advanced Player's Guide materials, and only Bestiary 1 monsters to pick from for modifying encounters for the number of players, that would run me $235, plus $40 for each player in my group. I usually play with 6 other people, so that puts the price at $475. If I wanted to use anything else (like, say, all the stuff that's free on the PRD), I'd have to code it myself, instead of just telling my players to write it on their character sheet and handling it like we would at a table. Even dividing the cost up evenly, that's $68 each and only I'd be able to GM with it instead of just being able to trivially pass it over to someone else.
It seems like you'd have to be wealthy for this to be a viable choice, when it's really not hard to just alt-tab into a PDF or character sheet, or write some basic macros for MapTool or Roll20.
Why Fantasy Grounds instead of Roll20? Fantasy Grounds is crazy expensive and not particularly popular- as much as I'd like to use this, it's waaaaaaaay out of my price range.I'm also curious where the data for Fantasy Grounds not being particularly popular came from, or if it is an assumption. Fantasy Grounds is plenty popular, especially with those that play the latest edition of the D&D.
Last I checked, Roll20's last industry report put them at ~175,000 active players and 2 million total users. SteamSpy suggests Fantasy Grounds has about 28,000 owners, who probably aren't all actually playing with it anymore.
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...Why Fantasy Grounds instead of Roll20? Fantasy Grounds is crazy expensive and not particularly popular- as much as I'd like to use this, it's waaaaaaaay out of my price range.I'm also curious where the data for Fantasy Grounds not being particularly popular came from, or if it is an assumption. Fantasy Grounds is plenty
And the large majority of owners end up purchasing through the Smite Works store. Steam Spy doesn't account for that, heh.
And the large majority of owners end up purchasing through the Smite Works store. Steam Spy doesn't account for that, heh.Why Fantasy Grounds instead of Roll20? Fantasy Grounds is crazy expensive and not particularly popular- as much as I'd like to use this, it's waaaaaaaay out of my price range.I'm also curious where the data for Fantasy Grounds not being particularly popular came from, or if it is an assumption. Fantasy Grounds is plenty...
You can double their numbers and they're still getting smoked.
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Also, your pricing for playing with 6 players is missing several key notes: Ultimate license can run for any number of players without player licenses/the srd material is available for free with FG through community support downloads- and actually functions well with FG/there will be a discount if you already own the pdf and buy here on Paizo's site once they have it running (which is why I was asking for an ETA).
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Doug has now got the account link set up for purchasing on the Fantasy Grounds Website.
For those interested the prices with discounts for already owning the pdfs are:
1 x Pathfinder RPG - Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition ($18.01)
1 x Pathfinder RPG - Core Rules Pack ($39.99)
1 x Pathfinder RPG - Bestiary 1 Pack ($29.99)
1 x Pathfinder RPG - Advanced Player's Guide ($34.99)
1 x Pathfinder RPG - Kingmaker AP 1: Stolen Land ($6)
1 x Pathfinder RPG - Kingmaker AP 2: Rivers Run Red ($6)
1 x Pathfinder RPG - Kingmaker AP 3: The Varnhold Vanishing ($6)
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Once the products are available here on paizo.com, they will be listed at the print price minus the PDF price if you already own the PDF.
We have just updated our website so that if you follow the sync instructions in the link below, you can notify our site with a list of the PDFs you already own and get the full PDF price discounted from the final price you pay on our website. That means that the Rise of the Runelords FG version will only cost you $18 if you already own the PDF.
http://mailchi.mp/fantasygrounds/official-pathfinder-launch-for-fantasy-gro unds
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Building your own content from PDFs is still fully supported. We just added more functionality to allow you to build your own class and race data since there is obviously a huge back-catalog of PDFs available for Pathfinder and we only have the Core Rulebook and Advanced Players Guides ready. The same is true for NPCs.
There is a video up on each of our store pages that shows you a walk-through and you can decide if the convenience and nice to have features makes it worth getting the FG version done for you already.
If you are new to Fantasy Grounds, here is a quick primer on licenses available for the core software:
Ultimate license - DM pays either $149 or $9.99/mo and players pay nothing (players run Demo client)
Standard license - Player pay $39 or $4.00/mo and any of them can DM if they choose.
For Mac users, we have a new simple installer available on our website and also from Steam. Choose Downloads > Mac OSX Installation from our website menu. http://www.fantasygrounds.com
Will there be any sort of discount for owning the PDFs already? It seems costly to have to buy both.
Yes, you get the PDF for free or the full cost of the PDF off from your purchase if you buy from our site directly or from paizo.com once they become available here. Steam won't support the discount price.
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That means that the Rise of the Runelords FG version will only cost you $18 if you already own the PDF.
As someone who spent the dozens of hours needed to completely enter RotR into FG, I can tell you that this is one of the best deals in gaming.
Good news. I hope we can get Hell's Vengeance in Fantasy Grounds someday, too, as well as all the others.
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$40 per player is already a pretty absurd price I can't afford to pay, especially when most of the same functionality is already available for free on Roll20 or MapTool. If I wanted to play Rise of the Rune Lords with only Core Rulebook and Advanced Player's Guide materials, and only Bestiary 1 monsters to pick from for modifying encounters for the number of players, that would run me $235, plus $40 for each player in my group. I usually play with 6 other people, so that puts the price at $475. If I wanted to use anything else (like, say, all the stuff that's free on the PRD), I'd have to code it myself, instead of just telling my players to write it on their character sheet and handling it like we would at a table. Even dividing the cost up evenly, that's $68 each and only I'd be able to GM with it instead of just being able to trivially pass it over to someone else.
It seems like you'd have to be wealthy for this to be a viable choice, when it's really not hard to just alt-tab into a PDF or character sheet, or write some basic macros for MapTool or Roll20.
Like I said, it depends on how much your time is worth to you. If you make minimum wage, then it's not worth it - you'd be better off using free tools, I won't even begin to dispute that. I used to code my own stuff into PCGen and used MapTools back in the day.
However, if you are working a salaried position, your definition of what your free time is worth changes completely in my experience. When I have to work to carve out time to play, the idea of having to spend hours in prep time in addition just to allow that to happen becomes really unappealing in a big hurry. Your mileage is really going to vary a lot here based on your priorities. My priority is playing, not spending hours doing work so that I can play, so FG makes a lot more sense to me than Roll20. I know I am not alone in this opinion.
As for those costs, well, your examples are a bit "worst case scenario". I assume you are paying for the books/adventures anyway (unless you are using less than legal means of obtaining them), so the costs for them being built into the purchase price at FG ends up being a wash. The FG licenses themselves, well, if an average group of 5 pitches in on an Ultimate license, they pay $30 each. In your group with 6 players, that drops the price even lower. That's how I got my Ultimate upgrade, my group pitched in for it instead of buying pizza one week.
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Where is the support for Roll20 from Paizo? That's where the majority of the VTT gaming is at. If Paizo plans to blow off Roll20, then it will lose me as a customer and I will go play D&D 5e which is addressing the needs of its customer base by putting products in Roll20.
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Where is the support for Roll20 from Paizo? That's where the majority of the VTT gaming is at. If Paizo plans to blow off Roll20, then it will lose me as a customer and I will go play D&D 5e which is addressing the needs of its customer base by putting products in Roll20.
I would suggest asking the owners of Roll20 that question. Obviously Paizo is willing to accept partners, so the issue isn't on their end.
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If Paizo plans to blow off Roll20
Don't be so passive-aggressive. They already said to "have patience" regarding Roll20. So just have patience and hopefully they'll announce something soon. If I were working at Paizo, people assuming I was planning on blowing off Roll20 would make me not so excited to work on a deal with Roll20. So please give them the benefit of the doubt.
If I'm DM and a player wants to play Oracle from Advanced Player's Guide, will the APG need to be bought by
1) DM
2) DM and the player playing the Oracle
3) DM and all the players so they can see the Oracle
4) Just the player playing the Oracle
You can do any of the options below:
1) DM buys the APG and marks it as shared. Players can use it while connected to the DM's game but not outside of the session2) Player buys the APG and can access it while in the DM's game if the DM allows it (they will see a prompt). DM doesn't even need to own it. Player can access it offline. In this case, the player needs their own license or subscription.
3) The player or the DM can enter the Oracle class by copying and pasting the relevant data from the PDF.
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You can do any of the options below:
1) DM buys the APG and marks it as shared. Players can use it while connected to the DM's game but not outside of the session
Thanks Doug, this seems like a good way to handle it.
Does Fantasy Grounds have some sort of character sheet system? I remember once trying Roll20 and you needed to make up your own character sheets and everything if I recall correctly.
Like I said, it depends on how much your time is worth to you. If you make minimum wage, then it's not worth it - you'd be better off using free tools, I won't even begin to dispute that. I used to code my own stuff into PCGen and used MapTools back in the day.
However, if you are working a salaried position, your definition of what your free time is worth changes completely in my experience. When I have to work to carve out time to play, the idea of having to spend hours in prep time in addition just to allow that to happen becomes really unappealing in a big hurry. Your mileage is really going to vary a lot here based on your priorities. My priority is playing, not spending hours doing work so that I can play, so FG makes a lot more sense to me than Roll20. I know I am not alone in this opinion.
As for those costs, well, your examples are a bit "worst case scenario". I assume you are paying for the books/adventures anyway (unless you are using less than legal means of obtaining them), so the costs for them being built into the purchase price at FG ends up being a wash. The FG licenses themselves, well, if an average group of 5 pitches in on an Ultimate license, they pay $30 each. In your group with 6 players, that drops the price even lower. That's how I got my Ultimate upgrade, my group pitched in for it instead of buying pizza one week.
This entire post is ON POINT
I buy this stuff and Hero Labs because ultimately it saves me time and provides utility. I used to do sh*tloads of data entry in my youth so yeah it's time consuming and I'd rather spend my time actually playing and running games. I work a salaried full time job (and not even remotely close to being wealthy) so I can actually afford this as long as it's part of my budget for gaming. Maybe not all at once but by July I should be able to get the main things that I want.
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Will there be any sort of discount for owning the PDFs already? It seems costly to have to buy both.Yes, you get the PDF for free or the full cost of the PDF off from your purchase if you buy from our site directly
Does this mean that if I buy RotRL on SmiteWorks, I will also get the PDF of RotRL on paizo.com?
Where is the support for Roll20 from Paizo? That's where the majority of the VTT gaming is at. If Paizo plans to blow off Roll20, then it will lose me as a customer and I will go play D&D 5e which is addressing the needs of its customer base by putting products in Roll20.
'Bye.
Does this mean that if I buy RotRL on SmiteWorks, I will also get the PDF of RotRL on paizo.com?Will there be any sort of discount for owning the PDFs already? It seems costly to have to buy both.Yes, you get the PDF for free or the full cost of the PDF off from your purchase if you buy from our site directly
Yes, although I think there might still be a few kinks getting worked out of the system. We have two-way communication from our sites via the Sync Paizo Account option on our site, so both sites know which products are purchased. The intent is that you will get the PDF whenever you paid full price on our site. We do have the discount working the other way, so if you have the PDF now, you get the cost reduced by the PDF price on our end.
Does Fantasy Grounds have some sort of character sheet system? I remember once trying Roll20 and you needed to make up your own character sheets and everything if I recall correctly.
Here is a video showing the character sheets built into the PFRPG ruleset. They work with manually entered class and race info or with the official add-ons. In this video, I focus on using the add-ons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD3fpNlYV6M
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Also, regarding the character sheet, etc on Fantasy Grounds.
With weapons and armor, if you drag them to your character sheet, it aiutomatically calculates your base attacks and AC changes.
It autocalculates your encumbrance changes (still don't have base sets for larger or smaller equipment, but you can just drag a copy and then change properties and rename "Small X" pretty easily.)
There are equipment "parcels" the GM can create (or which are included in most modules) that the GM can just drag to the "party sheet" and then the PCs can drag from there to their own sheets, complete with links with full descriptions of the items. The GM can sell off the rest with a click of a button, divide the moneys evenly between the PCs with another click... it's really amazing for keeping track of loot.
XP can be handled similarly, drag the encounter to the xp tab, press button to award, done.
Conditions can be set with a duration, so you don't need to remember bless, just create a condition, apply it, and it automates the math- and most of pathfinder's conditions are preloaded and can be applied. Are you blind for a round? Click. Now it'll adjust your attacks, roll your miss chances.... it is superb.
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Damn.
What's the purpose of buying the core rules or Bestiary if the PRD is already included for free? Just the images?
Images, tokens, flavor text, etc. - basically a lot more detail and clickable links. In the screen shots below, the Bestiary is on the left, the SRD on the right:
http://i1089.photobucket.com/albums/i356/illrigger/Aasimar%20Page%202.png
http://i1089.photobucket.com/albums/i356/illrigger/Aasimar%20Page%203.png
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The images, the reference structure, and some of the drag and drop functionality. Honestly, much of the work was already done by some very talented members of the community.
With the Bestiary, you get images and tokens, also spells and special abilities have links that are missing with the community versions. Community version, you will have to add your own tokens, and will not have ready access within the monster 's entry. No big deal if you've got srd open, but with FG, the less extra windows you have to have the better.) Also, the random encounter charts are automated with the official version so you can generate random encounters with a few mouse clicks,
Additionally, with the reference material, you can click a rule, and then click to share it with players so everyone sees what you're looking at (this is a new feature of the updated references, to my knowledge.)
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Interesting. Thanks.
Just FYI, the core books modules are not needed to play the adventures, you can get by with the free SRD for the base rules. The adventures include all of the things you need to use them built into the encounter. So long as you stick with what's in the books, you will be fine.
However, if you are using the core books' drag and drop functions for everyone's toons, more automation is going to be done for you and things will run smoother - it's going to be a faster, more easy to use experience.
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I tried downloading the demo but couldn't install it because I don't have admin access on the computer I'm currently at. Is it possible to make an installer that wouldn't require admin access?
The default installation locations are usually the cause of that. If you set the app and data directories to somewhere under your user profile where you have rights, it should run. I have mine pointing at directories under my OneDrive share, so they get backed up to the cloud constantly while in use.
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I'm curious. A long time ago I had a player license and played some 4th edition D&D games on Fantasy Grounds. I really liked it as a tool.
Does that player license count for this at all? Or was it specific to 4th edition? I found my old purchase email and it says it was a Fantasy Grounds II Lite License.