Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 shadowoflameth2 May 23, 2015 15:53:00	OK It's been a while since I brought this up, and I see nothing on Wizards about either Online Tools for the New Edition or what plan they might have. There are members of my group who want to switch to 5th but also those who will not unless an online facility for character building a compendium and so on are available.    If Wizards wants us to switch editions, the 4th edition tools will no longer be an attraction to subscribe, and if we do not switch because there are no online tools, there will be no 5th edition book sales for Wizards. Either way, the publisher looses money by not coming through with something. Either we switch, buying all the new books, and cancel DDI which we would then no longer use, or we don't switch and therefore don't by books for an edition that we don't play.   I understan that there are only a couple of core books right now, and the new edition doesn't demand a compendium yet, but as time goes on, and more canon material is added, that will be less and less true.   Has anyone heard anything on what future tools supporting 5th are planned?
#2 BoldItalic May 23, 2015 16:20:48	http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/news/play-dd-fantasy-grounds-virtual-table
(Reply to #2) shadowoflameth2	BoldItalic wrote:
#4 BoldItalic May 24, 2015 0:08:06	shadowoflameth2 wrote:
#5 Grazel May 24, 2015 16:52:02	You can make a character with it, but it's not really a character builder in the sense of the 4e one. Instead you fill out the sheet by using the modules (books) you've gotten. You can drag an element from the reference library onto the sheet. In the case of a character if you drag a race onto the sheet it'll fill in the racial abilities, adjust the default ability scores (10s in all by default), add fixed languages known or put a "choose two" type note in them.   If you click the magnifying glass icon by class and level (I still think it looks more like a lasso) you can drag a class onto the new window and it'll give a level in that class and any abilities the class gets at that level. If you drag the same class more than once it'll add new abilities as they are listed as available including noting "ability score increase" in the abilities section of the sheet at the right levels. It'll also auto-roll HP each time you add a class level in this manner.   If you drag a weapon onto the inventory it'll create (and do most of the math) on the actions tab of the sheet for that weapon.   It's far from a fully automated process but Fantasy Grounds is more of a VTT than a character builder and the 5e ruleset is still new and not every function of the game and certain feature interactions are supported, at least currently. For example you can pick a dragonborn but it doesn't ask you to pick an ancestry and the breath weapon and resistance features don't get factored in to the math during combat or actions section.   I'm hoping future updates to the modules will enhance the functionality and cover the more intricate interactions and options (racial attacks, special movements like for aarakocra, etc.)   Overall though I do find FG to be useful for encounter/combat tracking and for mapping even at the table as I run it in DM mode on my laptop and have a desktop set up with a monitor laying flat in the center of the table in player mode so they can see maps and I can uncover the map as they go (again still a bit blocky manner and missing some features of some other VTTs but still better than drawing out maps by hand or not having any at all for the players to visualize where they are).   I do hope we'll see some other online tools in time but I suspect it'll take someone or a company to make them and approach WotC for licensing rather than WotC reaching out to contract a developer of the tools. My understanding is both Dungeonscape and Fantasy Grounds were this way, they approached WotC with their idea/product and worked on licensing. Dungeonscape fell through (small company biting off more than they could chew) on a fully new product, while Fantasy Grounds had a solid baseline module for 5e that worked with their existing product.
#6 Torg_Smith May 24, 2015 18:51:14	Yeah, don’t buy Fantasy Grounds for a character builder. It is not one. Fantasy Grounds is a virtual tabletop (VTT) tool. It has a rudimentary character sheet to help with automation of game play.   Now if you are looking for VTT to play with, I like the software and think it is good.