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Yes, I know there will be an official Foundry module sometime next year, but I know a lot of groups are starting before that. Wanted to start gathering tips/tricks/modules that make running this AP easier. Some may still be useful with the official offering, some may be superseded.
I'm still early in my exploration of these tools, so I'm only listing things I've heard about, or thought about, rather than any definitive suggestions in this opening post.
Hexploration & Kingdom Building Map Tools
- Simple Hex Map with Hex Token Actors covering each hex
- Simple Hex Map with party token visibility/fog of war/view distance
- Supe's World Explorer module to have an overlay layer that reveals hexes
Can even mix and match the token visibility with either of the other two listed for a bit more nuance -- helps with difference between seen/known about and fully reconnoitered, etc.
Probably need drawing tools to handle claimed by the kingdom and some hex improvements. Token visibility for settlements to show influence should work as well.
I suspect the fancier you want to be here the more value you'll have in making your own solution. If you're not too opinionated here, I suspect the eventual official offering will handle your needs and just pick whatever is easiest for now.
Settlement Layout, Settlement Stats, Kingdom Stats
Haven't seen any custom character sheets yet for settlements/kingdoms. Might start looking into coding something up myself, but this is extremely likely to be superseded by whatever the official solution offers.
For Settlement layout, background map for the grid, with tiles for the buildings should work from a graphics standpoint. Getting a little fancier you can set up walls/viewing area for the areas that are currently usable; might not be worth it.
Treating buildings as inventory items on a custom character sheet should work well for that side of automation, but probably a bigger project than I would start on solo in advance of the paid offering. Don't know enough to think of how to possibly link the purely graphical view (of maps/tiles) to the stats.
Might want all settlements on a single Scene, just to minimize jumping between scenes when comparing different settlements. I know from the CRPG all the loading screens jumping around between settlements is annoying. Unless you're playing weekly or more, you probably won't be up to anything too complicated until the paid module is released.
Kingdom or Camping Turn Aids
I'm thinking I might make a scene like a worker placement game, for tracking the invested positions and kingdom activities. But the growth of activities might make such a thing a bit too sprawling/less useful. Having the Kingdom, Settlements, and PCs/companions all as Actors on this scene would be good.
Camping might benefit from something similar, but as I think you'll do fewer multiple camping days in a row than you'll do kingdom turns in a row, it might not be as useful. I also think Camping might evolve a "standard" routine that can be expediated.
Quest/Bulletin Boards
I'm currently looking at Forien's Quest Log to help PCs handle all the side/companion/kingdom quests. I'm not sure its meshing well with Monk's Enhanced Journal I also tend to use, though. I need to play around a bit more and keep double checking the player view to see if its working.
I'd also like to play around with a more bulletin board/graphical style presentation, though I suspect the journal/log based presentation is more useful as it doesn't take you out of the current scene. The graphical one feels more useful for picking up quests (such as the flyers posted at Oleg's) but not really as the mechanisms for referring back to them.
Have y'all been playing around with other customizations beyond what a normal AP needs? Areas I forgot to mention, cool tricks you'd like to share?
For the Hexmap, check out the module World Explorer.
I created was a sketch overlay image, and as they explore, the real map under it will appear.
Turned out really cool. Then I just created "Journal" icons on the map for each location.
Thank you for the tips as well. I was not even aware of Foriens Quest Log module, and after looking it over, I will be using it extensively in my games now.
I've been working on my own project like that for months now and to see how elegant and well done Foreins was made was awe inspiring.
I also feel like you make very valid points about how to improve on the AP tools. I have similar ideas as well and will be following this post to see how things progress.
I'd be very interested in keeping a discussion about this open.
Is there an official statement about the estimated release for foundry?
And is it gonna be availeble for 5e also?
Sometime next year is all I know. I would recommend joining the PF2e Foundry Discord Server for future information. As for the availabilty for 5e, that one I couldn't tell you about because I would imagine that the majority of that is gonna have to come from within Foundry's 5e development team. The PF2e crew has a pretty good working relationship with various Paizo team members, but I don't know how well the 5e crew have realtions with both Paizo and WotC.