Which Virtual Tabletop Do you reccomend?


Pathfinder Second Edition General Discussion

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I've been using roll20 for a while but adding custom classes and houserules is a pain in the backside in it.

So for my groups first PF2 game I thought I'd try something new and hopefully better.

So which virtual tabletops do you think work best? Especially for a group that does a lot of homebrew feats/classes/monsters etc?

I've had a look at Fantasy Grounds and Tabletop Simulator but I don't know anyone with experience with them. Are there any others I should look at?

Any advice would be appreciated!


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Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path Subscriber

Astral is absolutely fantastic in my opinion. It still has some roughness around the edges, but overall it's really great. Plenty of great features currently such as dynamic lighting that is available on their free tier, with plenty of new features coming up on a regular basis. Their Discord is really helpful, and the devs are super responsive. Honestly, in another like 6 to 12 months, I think it has the potential to be a Roll20 killer.

FoundryVTT also looks fantastic, though I haven't bought it myself. They just has their big, initial launch, and the community made module for PF2e is really most of the way there with active work on it. It looks really cool with lots of great features.

In general, this person has a fantastic write-up on the different VTTs out there.


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Fantasygrounds, its homebrew elements are super flexible and easily shared with players and it is a very very strong framework for people who are willing to put in the minimum effort to learn.

I have tried foundry and used r20 (as well as being a community dev for a sheet) for years. But FG despite faults gives the best overall experience imo.

Tabletop simulator is garbage and messy for ttrpg imo.


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I've switched from Roll20 to Foundry about a month ago, and my experience with Foundry has been awesome so far. Great features, especially for map drawing and lighting, and the support, both from the creator and the community modders is absolutely amazing. I've had features and fixes I suggested for the PF2 System added in a matter of 2-3 days.


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Add me to the foundry chorus. It is great.


Never heard of Foundry before. How is it with homebrew? Easy to add?


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Foundry is amazing. For homebrew, you can just... you know. Type in what you want. Simple as that. Eventually things will be configured so you can actually set up different buffs and whatnot, but it's not QUITE there yet - but macros can get you that last little bit there (plus roll dialogues).


Thanks for the answers all

My group and I appreciate it


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I am using Maptools and I am very happy with it. But I have not tried other VTT so I can´t compare.

Good things about Maptool: It is free, open-source, you don´t depend on an outside server (the GM hosts the game). For homebrew things you can develop your own macros/framework, freedom to do whatever you want. There are frameworks/macros already developed for lot of things.

Not good things: There is not a framework for PF2 right now (there are some userers working on it). You have to invest time on the program to learn how to do a macro to get the full potential.

Dark Archive

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Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I myself use roll20, but here is pretty detailed guide on matter

https://paper.dropbox.com/doc/Cyanomys-Guide-To-Playing-RPGs-Online-v2.1.0- Ef83ststlhPqW0LELrgye#:h2=Foundry-VTT

I do think writer of that guide is probably little biased on some matters(e.g. they don't feature open source VTTs presumably because they think they are too niche for newbies), but it is really detailed guide on pros and cons


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I'm using Maptool: it's far from perfect, but it's very customizable and it's completely free.
About the others, my take is definitely Fantasy Grounds. For two main reasons: it's offline, so you actually own your work; and you can buy it once without having a subscription fee (which is a thing I really hate!).
I must admit that I don't know about Foundry, I'll have to take a look at it.


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Interesting thread, thanks for bringing this up. I've used r20, but I'm not tied to it. I'm interested in learning more about Astral and Foundry.

One feature I've been looking for is Dynamic Lighting combined with Fog of War. I dislike how all Dynamic Lighting features I've seen hide the darkened map when light source players move on. I like the concept of map-as-you-go and assume a character is in charge of making a map, so I don't want to hide the rooms players have been in. I just want to hide monsters.

Does anyone know of a VTT that has this option?


Plane wrote:

Interesting thread, thanks for bringing this up. I've used r20, but I'm not tied to it. I'm interested in learning more about Astral and Foundry.

One feature I've been looking for is Dynamic Lighting combined with Fog of War. I dislike how all Dynamic Lighting features I've seen hide the darkened map when light source players move on. I like the concept of map-as-you-go and assume a character is in charge of making a map, so I don't want to hide the rooms players have been in. I just want to hide monsters.

Does anyone know of a VTT that has this option?

Foundry does have this option. I think it's enabled by default, actually. The areas you haven't explored at all are completely black. The areas you aren't currently seeing, but have had vision of them before, are darkened, but still visible (you don't see the tokens there, though, of course).


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I used to use Maptools, actually. It was a more robust system, and it was free. But the interface is awful and it complicated to learn. What's worse is that your players need to learn it too, or at least install the specific version you have and then learn how to join your server.

Foundry is only 50 USA Bucks for everything. You pay once and never have to pay again for subscriptions or new content. It has a great interface, and installing a premade game system or community made module is really easy. Most importantly, players don't need to pay for anything, install anything, or even make an account. You just send them a link and they click it. It is pretty idiot proof. The only pain in the butt is setting up port forwarding on your internet router so you can host your own server. But you have to do that with maptools as well, and maybe Fantasy Grounds. And once you do it you aren't dependent on a server everyone in the world is using right now like roll20.

Setting up macros is pretty simple too. You can drag and drop weapons into the bottom of the screen to quick select their attack rolls, for example. It can compare attacks to AC rolls to AC. It can track most condition effects with the exception of status penalties on attack rolls and buffs. It can apply damage to creatures with a click, and quickly roll reflex saves for a group and tell you who got what tier of success based on the spell DC.

And the PF2 system is constantly improving with nearly daily upgrades. The most glaring thing it still needs is better multi property rune support. But I have no doubt that is coming. Probably when one of the community developers reaches the level where they can have multiple property runes.

Oh, did I mention it has the stats of every monster in the game built in already? Well, not Bestiary 2 last I checked, but give that one a little time. It doesn't have the art due to copy right issues, but you can pretty easily add that yourself. I use a free program called GIMP to make tokens using existing images on the internet and I make the backgrounds transparent. Oh, and this is only a temporary thing, as a community member is working on original art for it.

Oh, and if you own the PDFs for PF2 APs there is a way to bulk upload it into Foundry. All the maps get plugged in and you don't have to futz with grid sizing. Though sizing your own grid is also easier than anything else I've tried.

To sum up, Foundry is cheaper than Fantasy Grounds or Roll20 and only needs a single purchase. It has a better looking interface than maptools and fantasy Grounds. It is more intuitive than fantasy Grounds, maptools, or even roll20. It has all the content you can dream of and is approaching total automation. Of the 4 VTTs I've tried, it is far and away the best despite being brand new.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

When the pandemic started the group I play in switched to Arkenforge + Discord. It works out pretty well. The animated maps are a neat touch.


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My group has been doing Roll20 but I have tried Astral Tabletop and it is very good. Astral is trying to fill in the graphical niche that other VTTs require you to pay for. The only initial issue I had with them is there dice roller isn't quite up to par but there are so many ways around that.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber

Maptool has been my go-to for the last 10 years. A bit of a learning curve, but then the sky is the limit.


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Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Captain Morgan wrote:
Foundry is only 50 USA Bucks for everything.

USA Bucks is such a lame name for a currency. I wish I lived in Australia with their dollarydoos.

Anyway, as a long-time MapTool user (last decade) who has written a fairly functional PF2 framework with light automation, I feel that exhaustion at having to do literally everything myself. Even where I'm using other people's macros, the integration is more of a hassle because frameworks are built on weird mixes of tokens with massive lists of interrelated macros and campaign properties that are treated by the tool as immutable. The more sophisticated the automation in my framework gets, the more prep work (in the form of data entry) I end up needing to do.

I've been looking into alternatives a little bit, and this pushes Foundry up the list for me to check out. Thanks.

Playing a bunch of Roll20 over PaizoCon, I definitely missed the flexibility, and I've been unimpressed with their official implementations of stuff considering the cost.

I played in one game of Fantasy Grounds Unity where the GM left the server up ahead of time so we could create our own characters without buying anything, and man, somehow even that tool's UI felt wildly unintuitive. And I've built my career on learning new systems quickly. There are just weird things, like players being able to update their character's portrait, which updates the token, but not update the token separately (even though the GM interface lets that be done separately). Like, why? But actually playing the game with a GM familiar with the tool was easy and appeared to take some of the heavy lifting off the GM.

One thing I've always liked about MapTool is the ability to zoom in and out to a ridiculous degree. Tossing map images onto an essentially infinite space and being able to stitch them together or scale them however I want is something that lets the virtual tabletop add an element of long distances to encounters in a way that a real tabletop can't. It doesn't seem like that's a real option with Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds Unity (and Roll20 won't even put the map in the middle of the window if you zoom out a bunch and have a wide window, which is just annoying).

And since I've spent a year and a half tweaking things for my game, a lot of things in MapTool work just how I want, like the automation for death/dying, changing tokens' initiative when they get knocked to zero, the images for the different conditions, having a one-click button to toggle rage and add/remove temporary HP, group checks where I can override the skill or DC on a per-character basis, etc.

Anyway, in years past I would have a more ringing endorsement of MapTool, and it's legitimately getting new features on a regular basis now (they just added support for html5 frames and arbitrary interface overlays), and somewhere on the list for the future is revamping framework distribution. It's a good tool, with a good community, but...not for everyone.


Add me to the folks saying Foundry VTT is worth it.

I'll elaborate a bit even: when I first found a need for a VTT, I checked everything I could find at the time (it was probably like 15 years ago at this point, I don't remember time though so I'm kind of guessing on that - it was when D&D 4th edition was still brand new, when ever that was). Of the options I tried out, MapTool was the one that most impressed me.

I used it to supplement in-person games with good-looking maps on a big TV and have lighting/vision spell effect measurement and the like, but constantly ran into networking issues with it - I would literally set up everything as a test a few hours before a session so I'd have time to fix anything if it was broken, and it'd work fine, but be broken come session time. So I gave up on using it.

Fast forward to just a few years ago now and circumstances made it appealing to start doing the TV-supplemented thing for in-person games instead of using physical props on the table. I went straight to MapTool, but continued to have the same issue with it. So I went looking for other options. I ended up begrudgingly using Roll20; zero connection issues, but many of the features that drew me to MapTool sit behind a paywall, and numerous other issues (character sheets breaking, UI agitation, default options always managing to be exactly the opposite of what I'd want them to be, strict enough file storage limitations that I had to constantly be rotating things in and out - or pay, which I couldn't justify doing when the free-version agitates me).

So I kept looking for other options, which can be hard to find because of how monolithic Roll20 is on account of being free and working well-enough that people would actually respond to my complaining about it's issues with "yeah, but it's free, what do you expect?" Eventually I found Astraltabletop.com and switched to that - it has it's own set of issues (the character sheet UI can be a real pain for example) but it gave more file storage and vision/lighting features in the free version so it was a complete upgrade from my point of view.

But my players, now that I'd started online groups and pandemic isolation caused my in-person games to move online as well, were really getting the rough end of using the software so I kept looking for another option.

Which is when I found Foundry VTT. It feels more intuitive to me, and the one-time price is much easier for me to justify paying than a monthly sub price. It has all the features I wanted, plus can do even more than I'd imagined being possible (such as setting walls with different traits so you can have illusory walls, one-way windows, and walls that make it so you can see a terrain object's art but not be able to see what's on the other side of that object from your character - and that's without getting any of the numerous plug-ins available for free that can add functionality like setting tokens on a patrol route so they are in motion while the players explore the map, enabling them being encountered at a different location based on when the party gets there)

As with anything there is a learning curve, but thus far (been using it about 2 months) every time I've hit a snag I have been able to say "I'll figure that out before next session" and actually achieve that goal and not have the answer be "that's just a thing that's going to happen" like it frequently was with Roll20.

And not that it's a huge factor, but Foundry is also aesthetically nicer than the other options I've used so far.

Envoy's Alliance

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As someone whose VTT journey has been:

OpenRPG -> Maptool -> Roll20 -> Maptool -> FoundryVTT

I can tell you without any hesitation that FoundryVTT is the best VTT I've touched so far. Seeing its potential inspired me to jump in and start contributing to the PF2E system implementation. Combats in it are buttery smooth, bestiaries, feats, actions, spells, items are all freely incorporated into the compendiums -- no extra charge there.

As far as a breakdown:

Maptool: Performant, and very powerful, but there's a lot of initial setup you have to do. Great if you are on a $0 budget and have time on your hands. You can meet and far exceed the feature set of roll20 here with sufficient effort, sans being able to connect via browser.

Roll20: Character sheet is half hearted, and it only gives you basic functionality. Its biggest selling point is how easy it is to connect. Features like line of sight and dynamic lighting are so poorly optimized they will probably crash player browsers (which is what got me to unsub so fast). It's also not nearly as powerful as maptool or foundry.

Foundry: Blows the above two out of the water, beautiful ui that's getting better by the day, functionality I hadn't even dreamed of, and a plethora of external modules you can use to make the game that much smoother. We on the system implementation team are hoping that FoundryVTT and Paizo can work out a deal to offer world packages so that people can pick up and play bounties/quests/scenarios/adventures with no effort. It's mostly a liscensing problem at this point. We also have plans to build out best-in-class PFS support. To top it all off, players can connect right through their browsers.

Also, a note on Fantasy Grounds:
I can't speak for how easy FG is to run, or how good its combat automation is or isn't. All I know is when i was planning to join a fantasy grounds game during paizocon I was apalled at the UI. My initial plan, since I strongly preferred running and playing in FoundryVTT at this point already, was to prefer VTTs in the order of

Foundry > FantasyGrounds > Roll20

However, upon starting to create my first FG character after not having really looked at FG before... within 15 minutes that preference became:

Foundry > Roll20 > Literally anything else > Fantasy grounds

How Fantasy Grounds got as far along as it did with its UI being in that state is a mystery to me. I can 100% understand why people are annoyed that with FGUnity not updating its ui.

Finally let's talk price.

Maptool: Free.

Roll20: Free* But you have to buy the CRB (again, for many of us) and you have to subscribe to use features like lighting which may crash your player's browsers.

Foundry: Flat $50 -- Rules based things like CRB and Bestiary content provided for free. Things like adventures not yet worked out.

Fantasy Grounds: I've heard estimates of like $300 for everything you need to play PF2e. It's like $130 for the GM to be able to host to free players, and then an additional large sum for the content. I cannot recommend anyone get into fantasy grounds.

----------------------------------------

All that said, if anyone's wanting to get into PF2e on foundryVTT, the all-volunteer PF2e system implementation team and the community as a whole are happy to get you ramped up and running on Foundry. Idk if dropping links to discord is allowed here, so someone tell me to delete this if not :D

https://discord.gg/gBsjFsd


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Oh my god, foundry is amazing...

... thanks for sharing it


I’ll add to the Foundry chorus. I am pleasantly surprised by how many Foundry users have chimed in on this thread. I would have thought it would be dominated by Roll20 and to a lesser extent FG.
Instead of expounding on the positives of Foundry, if you are interested I’d just hop onto the Discord server or watch the Twitch streams and YouTube videos. Foundry’s creator is very active with the user base.

Unfortunately the team behind PaizoCon Online chose to only have Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds as specifically named options for VTTs. The rest were lumped into the “Other” category so you had no idea what VTT you we’re agreeing to play in if you were signing up for “Other”.

I decided to stick with one of the named VTTs instead of having to create characters on, and learn, multiple platforms. I chose Roll20 thinking that it would have the most games listed. After using it throughout PaizoCon, I would never choose it over other options.

Fantasy Grounds is even more antiquated and less intuitive. It has tons of automation for a few of the most popular rule sets, but that is it’s main draw. Updates and modernization of the base software is slow, to put it mildly. All of the devs time is used adding auto-mated modules and supplements to their biggest selling rule systems.

The benefit of Roll20 is that it has a large built in user base. One that just hasn’t bothered to move on to one of the better options that have been created over the last year or two. It has a similar issue to Fantasy Grounds in that updates to the core software aren’t frequent. Both platforms have been lapped by newer entries into the VTT market.

Something that should be pointed out is that Astral is a purely subscription and web-based model. They make everything for the VTT, but have a market for things like maps and tokens.

Foundry is open. Users can make their own rule sets and it is a very collaborative environment. It is not web based. The GM will be running it off of their computer, unless they choose to use a third party server platform like Forge, which was made for Foundry and has been pretty reliable in my experience. This is nice as it gives you the option to go with whichever route works best for you.


Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path Subscriber
CryAxe wrote:
Something that should be pointed out is that Astral is a purely subscription and web-based model. They make everything for the VTT, but have a market for things like maps and tokens.

True, they are subscription based. Worth pointing out that most of the features that I think an average user would look for are available on the free tier.


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When this thread popped up, I first looked at Astral. The website was slick. The demo pages are top notch. Functionality looks polished. I didn't try it out, because it didn't look like they had the Dynamic Lighting + Fog of War mode I'm after.

Next I looked at Foundry and wow. I'm sorry. I see a lot of positive feedback on here, but the site looks really crude and outdated. For a product that costs $50, they're not "selling it." When I see this kind of poor attention to their main website, I have flashbacks to all the old sites that have gone extinct, never to fulfill their promise, and I wonder if this one's the same. Obsidian Portal had a killer community, too. I would like to give it a try to see for myself, but that's a steep entry point.

Ultimately, most of these features are nice-to-have's for me. I just want to share a map, tokens, initiative, handle dice rolls, secret messages, and do voice and video. Roll20 handles that fine, and it's free.


What's wrong with the website? It's got all the info you'd need and a couple videos.


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Maybe nothing wrong, but I've never seen it before. I went there after playing on Astral here.

By comparison, it looks like a 90's page.


I too am confused as to what the Foundry website is lacking... everything is organized, clearly labeled, and readible.

Plus, I'm buying a virtual table-top from them, not a website, so it'd seem kinda like if I were to have judged which mechanic to take my car to or which lawncare service to hire based on their web site design - which is to say not entirely useful to me, or fair to the product actually on offer.


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I'm being fair based on my limited knowledge of each VTT's product. When I go to the Astral website, I see clearly what the experience is like just scrolling through their demo space. It's slick. They clearly know software and UI, and they're modern.

When I spent the same time on Foundry's website, I didn't get answers on the functionality I asked about on here. I didn't see what the UI looked like or the features. I saw an outdated webpage. As a consumer, I'm left wondering how good these guys are, how vested they are, and whether the product has any more effort in it than the webpage.

I'm not knocking you guys for liking Foundry at all. I'm being honest about my experience coming to Astral and coming to Foundry to see what they're about. A website shouldn't have to be defended. It failed to impress by comparison to Astral's. Maybe Astral's product is lame, and Foundry's is awesome. I don't know. I'm a consumer trying to learn more. That's what I thought.


If you click "web demo" there's a web demo available that would inform you of all that.


Plane wrote:

I'm being fair based on my limited knowledge of each VTT's product. When I go to the Astral website, I see clearly what the experience is like just scrolling through their demo space. It's slick. They clearly know software and UI, and they're modern.

When I spent the same time on Foundry's website, I didn't get answers on the functionality I asked about on here. I didn't see what the UI looked like or the features. I saw an outdated webpage. As a consumer, I'm left wondering how good these guys are, how vested they are, and whether the product has any more effort in it than the webpage.

I'm not knocking you guys for liking Foundry at all. I'm being honest about my experience coming to Astral and coming to Foundry to see what they're about. A website shouldn't have to be defended. It failed to impress by comparison to Astral's. Maybe Astral's product is lame, and Foundry's is awesome. I don't know. I'm a consumer trying to learn more. That's what I thought.

I suggest you to create an account for astral, then try the tutorials ( which explains you some of the tabletop features ).

It takes 5 seconds to register and start the tutorial.

I am trying it even if I'd probably go with Foundry ( I am currently watching "Encounter Library" tutorials on yt )


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

I heartily endorse Fantasy Grounds, personally. It's definitely on the pricier side, and the user interface can be very obtuse at first.

What has me sticking with it, however, is the incredible community and the people developing the PF2 ruleset in particular. Trenloe, the main person behind the PF2 modules, will frequently answer questions on the forums in a matter of minutes, and is very patient with new people and getting the same question over an over.

And very dedicated to making the ruleset the best it can be.

Just for a recent example - a fan-made extension was broken by a recent update. The person who made the original extension doesn't play 2e anymore and had no plans to update it. Just on the strength of myself and a couple other people on the forums commenting that was a shame and the extension was quite handy, Trenloe decided to just straight up incorporate the extension into the base ruleset.

You can argue 'till the cows come home about particular features, but a rapport with the community like that is hard to find and definitely has earned my support.


I like FGU for the automation. When the crunch is handled by the VTT your players can worry about other things. It's a bit of a curve to learn, especially on your own. The cost is similar to r20 or D&D beyond but you get more from it. So if your looking to speed up combat and have modular building blocks for prep work, then give it a try by joining someone else's game for free or looking into some videos about prep work with the ultimate edition.

Only other thing I've tried is R20 and I think that's only great for niche systems that aren't supported elsewhere.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Yeah, that too. Being able to let the program do the math for me frees up a lot of headspace for actually running the game.


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I actually agree the website is lackluster. Trying to find how a specific tool works (or such a tool doesn't currently exist) is harder than it should be. That being said, I feel like the time they could spend upgrading the website is time they could spend upgrading the VTT and they opted for that approach. I really can't stress enough how frequently the PF2 system updates.

That update rate is probably part of why FAQs are lacking. Hard to put a comprehensive list of features when new ones are added several times a week. That being said, they are incredibly responsive on discord. I rarely have to wait more than a few minutes for an answer. (Credit where credit is due, Fantasy Grounds also has an incredibly helpful team on discord. Perhaps more so than foundry.

I only briefly looked Astral, and I can't remember why I decided to pass on it. It either didn't do something I wanted or it was locked behind a paywall. I'll also note I got in on foundry when it was still on beta, so I only had to pay 5 bucks a month on patroeon, and that got pro-rated tto my eventual purchase. So I was able to play with it before spending that much money.


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I'm very much a Maptool user; that said, I don't expect it to do anything than properly manage dice and tokens, supply a chat window and roll dice; while its capable of handling other mechanics with Macros, but that's beyond my current capability (and honestly, my interest, I don't feel a need for that much automation).

As said, it can have something of a learning curve, but its free, fairly customizable, and has the virtue you aren't dependent on someone else's server.


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I am fully on the foundry wagon; and this is despite trying multiple different vtt's. And here's why.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I'm all in on Foundry as well. I could write a huge list as others have done but there's a few points that I really want to underscore:

One time purchase. I bought Foundry and none of my players need to have a license to join my server. I don't have to pay a huge license fee to do this like I would with Fantasy Grounds either. $50 and it's yours. You also don't have to pay to bring in the PF2e rules, the community built them into the PF2e game system which is freely available.

Self hosted. I've used Roll20 off and on for a few years when my group couldn't meet physically, and at the beginning of the lockdown this year before I got Foundry set up. The number of times we would all have to refresh Roll20 was ridiculous. That rarely happens with Foundry. When I did pay for the dynamic lighting years ago on Roll20 it lagged things and was generally a pain to set up. Foundry runs on my computer which has the horsepower to avoid being bogged down by more than 40 walls at once.

Active community. The community is super helpful on Discord and the devs of the PF2e game system are rapidly making improvements. In Discord the other day they said Bestiary 2 might be done as soon as next week. If there is some aspect about the system you don't like odds are there's a module that changes it. I didn't like the lack of a ping like roll20 has, well there's a module that adds one. I didn't like how dark the revealed fog of war was once it left direct line of sight, and there's a module for that too.

Ease of use, with a high skill ceiling. It's easy to just drop things in and go like you would with Roll20 (I think easier actually, since the tools to make walls are very well done). But it's also got a ton of depth to it as well. Want a macro that toggles rage on a character? How about one that rolls medicine against the chosen DC and gives the result? Or one that pulls a will save for the whole party? All doable once you learn the macro system. One other thing that I don't see many people say often is that the GM can just drag select a bunch of tokens, then roll initiative for all of them. Anyone who's played on Roll20 knows the annoyance of not having your token selected when the GM asks for initiative.

Like I said I really could go on, but others have said it already and those are my big 4 categories for why it's the preferred choice.


RicoTheBold wrote:
Anyway, as a long-time MapTool user (last decade) who has written a fairly functional PF2 framework with light automation, I feel that exhaustion at having to do literally everything myself. Even where I'm using other people's macros, the integration is more of a hassle because frameworks are built on weird mixes of tokens with massive lists of interrelated macros and campaign properties that are treated by the tool as immutable. The more sophisticated the automation in my framework gets, the more prep work (in the form of data entry) I end up needing to do.

I was hoping you would show up on this thread, Rico.

I have downloaded your Maptool framework for PF2, and I'm trying to understand how it works and how I can modify/add the things I need. But before I start to do that, I would like to know if there are any updates on your part, or if you stopped working on that.
Feel free to pm me if you want. And thanks a lot for your effort!


Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Megistone wrote:

I was hoping you would show up on this thread, Rico.

I have downloaded your Maptool framework for PF2, and I'm trying to understand how it works and how I can modify/add the things I need. But before I start to do that, I would like to know if there are any updates on your part, or if you stopped working on that.
Feel free to pm me if you want. And thanks a lot for your effort!

Yeah, I'm still working on it, although it's back to the slower pace where I'm mostly "evolving" features rather than trying to add lots of new pieces of functionality at a time. In fairness to me, the whole thing started while running the playtest rules to just manage the visual indicators of conditions, initiative, HP tracking, and death/dying. With PF1 I just did all that stuff in Hero Lab Classic's combat manager rather than in the VTT at all.

The thing I've been tinkering with lately is attack/damage macros for NPCs (the statblock token type), which are like halfway implemented - they work decently well, but *don't* respect the status condition modifiers like my other checks. E.g., if you frighten or enfeeble something it doesn't modify the check. A bunch of the prereqs are put in place to support that later, but there are just so many edge cases with attacks I'm just kind of letting them pile up to know what else I need to anticipate. It definitely has sped up a lot of combats for me (previously I was mostly rolling real dice).

I don't know if you're on the Maptool Discord, but one of the things that they've been talking about is what kind of things can/should be done to make framework distribution easier, and I've posted a bunch of strong opinions there.

I did spend some time this morning playing around with Foundry (and submitting a bug report for a module) and ... there's stuff it seems to do well, and some stuff that just isn't there. The way Maptool supports states is pretty flexible (even just the options for the different types of icons/graphical overlays), and it doesn't look like that's a thing that Foundry VTT does with status conditions right now? Also, I've got like a hajillion macro buttons in Maptool, and one little hotbar at the bottom of the screen for Foundry doesn't feel like a big leap forward.

But hoo man, Foundry's modules and systems are great. Foundry makes adding those absolutely effortless for the user (GM). Maptool's approach is just ten years of really clever workarounds hacked together by users that have gotten tiny bits of official support. It's nearly impossible to collaborate on systems/frameworks in any kind of organized way, and the fact that FoundryVTT has such a well-developed community-driven PF2 system and Maptool has like 4 different people with 4 different frameworks independently trying to do the same thing is a good indicator of that.

And that's part of why my framework updates aren't posted online - they're all in my active campaign. I have to carefully strip out all my stuff, remove/replace any commercial assets (images), clean up my "working drafts" for macros and whatnot. All of that has to compete with the time it takes just to prepare maps and whatnot for my actual sessions (which is what I spent most of this afternoon doing, in Maptool).

Anyway, rather than chat about it in DMs, it's probably better to post in the RPtools forum thread so everyone else gets the answers... and oh, shoot, it looks like I'm at least a month behind noticing posts there.

Grand Lodge

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I started on Roll20. I’ve paid for a Roll20 sub. And I’m spending a lot of time learning the nuisances of Roll20. Not to mention it is the most widely used VTT for OP which increases the likelihood I can both play and GM using that app. If in the future another VTT becomes the #1 choice of OP and it’s as inexpensive as Roll20, and it’s as easy to learn, then I might be inclined to change. Until then, I’ll stick with what I’ve already got.


Like many before me, I have several hundred dollarydoos invested in roll20 and I am quitting this year.
Foundry is the best VTT I have seen so far, constantly improving, and customisable to infinity. I opened the website once and forgot about it after purchase so I'm not even gonna touch on its quality - the VTT is an independent app, so I don't care.
It includes a magnificent PF2 interface, a massive database that's just a little behind the SRD, huge ability to add custom items / spells / feats (including implementing effects), actual support for prepared spellcasting (spells can be known, unprepared, prepared, or expended), and whenever I needed a feature I couldn't add myself I basically asked and received it.

Now if you'll excuse me I have just learned how to allow my players to use stairs to teleport from one section of the map to another and I have to retrofit a few maps.


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My only experience with Foundry for playing thus far ended in a TPK. However, the speed at which we got to that TPK because everything on the UI was so well done and the enjoyment for exploration and such. Just, Foundry all the way.


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BlessedHeretic wrote:
My only experience with Foundry for playing thus far ended in a TPK. However, the speed at which we got to that TPK because everything on the UI was so well done and the enjoyment for exploration and such. Just, Foundry all the way.

"lets you TPK smoothly and in absolute comfort. 10/10 would get slaughtered again"


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I often feel Roll20 gets a lot of criticism because of its status as leader.

I spent A LOT of money on Fantasy Grounds when my group considered switching - but when we all realized I had to have the game running for my players to access any of the info in the game, we instantly stopped (FG was fantastic about giving a refund, and their support was great).

We jumped back to Roll20...and it was like we all remembered what we liked about it. I love Roll20. I'm not a computer, tech guy - so its interface, accessibility, and learning curve are perfect for me.

That being said: I wish they had more Paizo products on there! I don't understand why they dropped Return of the Runelords support...

(I had never heard of Foundry until I saw this thread. Just poked around the website...and I'm just confused. Do they have actual content from modules/APs that can be input into a game. It's not an accessible website for folks like me.)


Another vote for Foundry. I switched our game over from Fantasy Grounds after being very discouraged with their rate of development for PF2 and general lack of UI changes the Unity update brought. Foundry has been everything I wanted from a VTT. It's extremely intuitive and the rate of progress is insane. I've watched the core program and the PF2 module get progressively better on a weekly basis the last few months. I'm extremely excited about what the future holds.

In terms of hosting, self-hosting is a bit of a chore to setup, but completely hands-off once it's running. If you don't want to deal with the technical aspects there's a great third-party company offering hosting called The Forge. Very affordable plans and basically one-click setup.


gonzosports wrote:

I often feel Roll20 gets a lot of criticism because of its status as leader.

I spent A LOT of money on Fantasy Grounds when my group considered switching - but when we all realized I had to have the game running for my players to access any of the info in the game, we instantly stopped (FG was fantastic about giving a refund, and their support was great).

We jumped back to Roll20...and it was like we all remembered what we liked about it. I love Roll20. I'm not a computer, tech guy - so its interface, accessibility, and learning curve are perfect for me.

That being said: I wish they had more Paizo products on there! I don't understand why they dropped Return of the Runelords support...

(I had never heard of Foundry until I saw this thread. Just poked around the website...and I'm just confused. Do they have actual content from modules/APs that can be input into a game. It's not an accessible website for folks like me.)

Foundry does not have actual official module content as of yet. There is a large amount of community content that pulls from the OGL stuff that's out there. For instance, there are Fall of Plaguestone and Age of Ashes bestiaries.

I ran Fall of Plaguestone in Fantasy Grounds with the official module. It was pretty great to have all the maps and encounters setup. But I found that the time I spent wrangling the un-intuitive UI and dealing with quirks of the system basically counteracted any benefits of having it pre-made. Switching to Foundry for Age of Ashes has been a huge improvement, despite having to setup my own maps.


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Here's another who's switched to Foundry and doesn't want to go back to any other VTT. I'd say that for anyone playing PF2 it's currently the best VTT out there. It's being developed at high speed, with multiple updates every week. Most of the stuff you need is there and what it lacks in official modules it makes up for with some QOL, automation and that absolutely beautiful PF2 character sheet.

I'm a GM who loves to do his own prep. Setting up my own maps, designing my own encounters, expanding on adventure path content. Foundry is by far the easiest to manage and offers the most immersion to my players.

Roll20 has god awful PF2 support. Fantasy Grounds is just a huge money sink. While Astral is good, Foundry is just a little bit better.


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I'll throw in that our group is loyal Fantasy Grounds users and mostly from the time aspect. The premade adventures takes tons of time off the setup and gets us to the table more frequently in a week as opposed to using hobby time for setup time. The interface is wonky at points, but I've got a couple players who love the automation and once grasped, seems to really make the effects and everything fly. It's got a learning curve that's for sure, and after 100+ table sessions, we're pretty well there in high level usage.

Unity has been nice, it's more stable and faster is our experience. But, it's not really a total reimagination of the product, more like next generation of the same product. True LOS is a bit funky yet, but the recent patch made some good improvements. The forum wizards there are very impressive and good fan support.

I fully admit it's a pricey endeavor, but the price support with the Paizo products from my subscriptions makes it less painful. I'm trading time for dollars, which I get is not for everyone.

After these review, going to check out Foundry, seems like it may be an upcoming wider use product. Never got Roll20 right in our group, so a backup for con play is always an option.


I converted to Foundry from Fantasy Grounds and I'll never look back. There are well over 20 community developers for the PF2 system in Foundry and the UX is in the middle of an upgrade that you'd think came from a full time paid dev team. The sheer number of volunteer developers means they can roll out features that the community wants on a release schedule that the paid VTT's can't compete with.

Also, the PRD content is included for free. You don't have to buy anything to play PF2 other than the base VTT.

While there may not be a "marketplace" to buy all the premade content there are devs working on ingest modules for the official Paizo .pdf files. The initial version, which I believe is currently available, works with Age of Ashes volume 1. I used the alpha version of it and within a couple minutes I had every thing I needed from my official .pdf right there in Foundry. I had to tweak it a bit to get everything in the order I wanted but it saved me dozens of hours of not having to copy/paste the text in.

This community is absolutely amazing and we're adding new developers every day! Opps, I just went back and checked the latest count and we're up to 33 volunteer devs on the PF2 system. Even the pro's are going to have a hard time competing with that! If you want to get involved stop by the FP2E channel on the Foundry Discord and drop us a line!


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Foundry all the way for me. Going from one session of roll20 into using Foundry was a revolutionary experience for me. When I was running a game using roll20 I hated every second of it - the servers were being super sluggish which may or may not have been a one-time thing, but having it be that bad even once still soured me on it. I was basically accepting that quarantine DnD was going to have to be a compromised experience until we could start getting together weekly as a group again.

Foundry has been the completely opposite experience. I'm not considering switching over to online for at least some sessions, or incorporating Foundry at our table somehow.

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