Here is a thread I thought that could be useful for tips and tricks running the game on Foundry VTT.
I have a question about how people use Foundry to simulate Pathfinder 2e Darkvision. Are there any modules or settings that can be recommended?
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"Perfect Vision" module will do the trick. Easy peasy.
I also use the "Torch" module, which makes it easy for players to activate/deactivate a torch so the GM doesn't have to. For extra fun, set up their torches to have a light animation and a slight yellow tint. Personally, I put the light intensity at 0.25, light animation is torch (of course), animation speed and animation intensity both set to 3. This way, you get the effect without it being too distracting.
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the pdf import has a bunch of poor LoS implementation so I suggest giving it a look over and fixing it.
I also really like using quick encounters rather than preplacing tokens everywhere.
Oh and use tokenstamp 2 to make tokens of all the npcs. I would share it here but I am pretty sure paizo doesn't want me sharing book art even if it is tokenified
(Amusingly I have swapped back to FGU again, I kept getting distance LoS issues, will try again when we have 7.5 foundry as it is getting a lighting rework)
"Perfect Vision" module will do the trick. Easy peasy
I am having serious brain farts today, I cannot - for the life of me - wrap my head around this module haha
I have a goblin PC, who should have darkvision. But with the mod on all PCs have the same vision, I also don't get how to simulate no illumantion zones like in the first level of the dungeon. Could you maybe explain to me what settings you are using?
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"Perfect Vision" module will do the trick. Easy peasyI am having serious brain farts today, I cannot - for the life of me - wrap my head around this module haha
I have a goblin PC, who should have darkvision. But with the mod on all PCs have the same vision, I also don't get how to simulate no illumantion zones like in the first level of the dungeon. Could you maybe explain to me what settings you are using?
Not a problem! I don't believe I had to change any settings for the module itself (make sure it's set to Pathfinder 2e, though) so I wonder if the issue is with the illumination within your scenes.
For the underground levels of the dungeon, these are the settings I'm using:
Token vision - checked
Sprite Limit (distance) - unlimited (default)
Global Illumination - unchecked
Fog Exploration - checked
Daylight/Darkness Color - both default
Darkness Level - 1 (all the way to the right)
Global Illumination Threshold - unchecked
Apart from that, I would check to make sure that the PC actually has darkvision listed under their senses on the first page of the character sheet. Also, under their token's vision (character sheet -> token (top of the sheet) -> vision tab) make sure they have a value for Bright Vision. I just use 300 for all necessary vision values because there's no specific limit to darkvision or low light vision in PF2e IIRC. Of course, for PCs with low light vision, put the distance value under Dim Vision instead. (Sorry if you already know all this stuff, just trying to cover all the bases!)
I hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other problems and I'll see if there's anything else I can figure out.
By the way, for other modules I recommend:
Forien's Quest Log - this has been a huge help with all the various side quests throughout the campaign.
Health Estimate - shows different health identifiers when you/the players hover over an enemy token (Uninjured, Barely Injured, Near Death, etc.) so that you don't have to constantly answer the "how does the enemy look" questions during combat or just show off the actual HP.
Monk's Token Bar - does a lot of stuff but I'm mostly just using it to be able to always see the PC's AC and Perception at the bottom of my screen, and for requesting skill checks or saving throws.
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I hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other problems and I'll see if there's anything else I can figure out.
Thank you so much, very nice of you to write so much instruction! I finally got it, haha
Just started book 2 after having done the first book on roll20, and lemme tell ya: foundry is way more in depth but SO worth it. I don't know if anyone else has this issue but some of the monsters weren't in the compendium for me so I had to manually roll the creatures in B3 but it wasn't an issue. Heavily recommend the mods previous people have recommended, as they make it so sleek. If you're skilled enough at running the program you can honestly make combat feel almost like a turn based mmo which is... Actually very cool imo. Really enjoying foundry.
I can recommend the Multi-Level Tokens module for this AP, since the maps are linked in many places. The module makes it possible for players to send their tokens from one scene to another, to specific points pre-set by the GM, just by walking onto specific squares. Which is great for not only the stairs but also for the teleport circles (once the players activate them).
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Another great module, similar to Multi-Level Tokens but simpler, is Stairways (link).
Stairways allows you to create clickable connections between scenes (stair icons working a bit like door icons, but teleporting a token between two places that can be on the same scene or on different scenes).
Multi-Level Tokens is more powerful though, since it also allows you to insert a copy of an area from a scene into another scene (e.g., insert the area "central courtyard" of the ground floor scene in the first level scene, because people standing on the first level would see tokens that are in the courtyard).
I also found that Token Magic FX and the lightning options are quite useful to visually represent Otari's manifestations.
Question regarding Foundry, as I know very little about it. I'm not great with tech, so wouldn't really want to mess with Port Forwarding. I see that Foundry has Hosting Options and see that they have a number of partner options with this. Out of the partners, I was looking at Foundry Server.
Does anyone have experience with them? How reliable are their servers compared to the servers of Roll20? Do I lose anything by doing a Partner Server rather than running it off of my computer (other than money?)
The Cons mention "Partner hosts offer more limited flexibility on server setup -- there's limited customization on the underlying server."
But I'm not very tech savy with things like this, so I don't really know what this means?
Thanks in advance!
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Personally, I use Forge for hosting Foundry on a server, because my ISP can't get port-forwarding to work it seems.
I can't compare the reliability of Forge to Roll20, as I haven't used Roll20 much. Forge's servers worked every time I needed them.
What you lose is a bit of speed: For example the PDF import module takes much more time to work through an AP-PDF, than it takes if Foundry is running on my machine.
Also, you have to think about how much data you use on the server, at home your disk space is the only limit.
Personally, I use Forge for hosting Foundry on a server, because my ISP can't get port-forwarding to work it seems.
I can't compare the reliability of Forge to Roll20, as I haven't used Roll20 much. Forge's servers worked every time I needed them.
What you lose is a bit of speed: For example the PDF import module takes much more time to work through an AP-PDF, than it takes if Foundry is running on my machine.
Also, you have to think about how much data you use on the server, at home your disk space is the only limit.
Thanks! Do you know what they mean by "Partner hosts offer more limited flexibility on server setup"?
How did you folks light the top floor, with the keep and the outside area on the same map? I've had some problems with it, as Foundry (it seems) lacks a good setting for "daylight outside, darkness inside".
My current setup is darkness on the whole map, with a lot of local lights outside representing daylight, and darkness inside with sporadic local lights representing holes in the roof. It doesn't look that good though, at least in the outside areas which are kinda hard to see.
Anyone found a better solution? I have the Perfect Vision module installed but that doesn't seem to do anything with this problem (besides helping with GM vision).
I let the top floor be entirely lit. Most of the rooms have little or no ceiling to begin with and for me there's not enough significant encounters in the apprentice's outbuilding for it to be worth finagling the light situation for me.
Hmm yeah that's probably the smartest, thanks. I'll just turn up the darkness on the whole scene a bit when they'll go inside.
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What's the status of this AP on the PDF importer module? Is it pretty much up to date? Manually putting everything into Roll20 is a lot of work. Especially since my group is clearing a level every 3 hours.I know up to book 2 is done. I haven't checked to see if 3 is completed yet.
The encounters for Vol 3 are done (separately as part of PF2 main) but the issue that I expect is the main problem necessitating some delay arises because of the Hunting Grounds on level 9.
That map resolution at 10' square is highly problematic for use in a VTT. The map resolution supplied by Paizo in the Interactive Map Pack is TOO LOW. Foundry requires a minimum of 50 dpi per grid square. The code does not support less.
So extracted, this map has to be upscaled by 200% first to even get it to work in Foundry. Fryguy has been quite adamant in not messing with images extracted from the PDFs -- to date, that is.Hitherto, the idea of PDF2Foundry is that you get what you bought, in exactly the same form as Paizo made it and sold it to you.
My guess -- and it is only a guess -- is that this technial problem is requiring an upscaler to be built in to the code. Or fryguy is just tired from working on Bestiary 3 and "we'll see".
But anyways - yeah - there is a technical issue here caused by the map on level 9 of Vol 3 of AV.
The encounters for Vol 3 are done (separately as part of PF2 main) but the issue that I expect is the main problem necessitating some delay arises because of the Hunting Grounds on level 9.
That map resolution at 10' square is highly problematic for use in a VTT. The map resolution supplied by Paizo in the Interactive Map Pack is TOO LOW. Foundry requires a minimum of 50 dpi per grid square. The code does not support less.So extracted, this map has to be upscaled by 200% first to even get it to work in Foundry. Fryguy has been quite adamant in not messing with images extracted from the PDFs -- to date, that is.Hitherto, the idea of PDF2Foundry is that you get what you bought, in exactly the same form as Paizo made it and sold it to you.
My guess -- and it is only a guess -- is that this technial problem is requiring an upscaler to be built in to the code. Or fryguy is just tired from working on Bestiary 3 and "we'll see".
But anyways - yeah - there is a technical issue here caused by the map on level 9 of Vol 3 of AV.
That's weird to read, because for a bunch of maps in Age of Ashes (particularly in book six) the module took the images and saved them as larger files (more pixels) to get around this and still use 100 pixels per square. It didn't necessarily work super well, and I ended up making changes because it was actually giving errors on some of my players' browsers because the canvas size was ridiculously huge. I think part of the ridiculous sizing was also to slightly change the proportions to make more reliable squares than Paizo's raw image.
I ended up manually extracting the images from the interactive PDF and redoing large portions of the maps because the walls get messed up when you edit the map size, and they were better quality images than the ones from the main PDF.
I have redone the book 1 maps at a decent quality, and included them in a module for Foundry.
https://foundryvtt.com/packages/av-maps-remake-by-narchy
Currently working on book 2!
Awesome Work!
I have redone the book 1 maps at a decent quality, and included them in a module for Foundry.
https://foundryvtt.com/packages/av-maps-remake-by-narchy
Currently working on book 2!
Awesome maps, Narchy! I'm using them and they made getting the game on FVTT so much easier (and prettier.) Having the walls done is really nice.
I bought you a couple of beers (or coffee, or another gaming book...okay, a cheap one. :) )