Question before I buy....

I am looking into using FG with my old tabletop group that hasn't been able to play together for 10+ years due to all living in different locations. I am trying to price out how much I would spend and how much my friends would be required to spend for us to play together again. We would play D&D 5e.

I will more than likely purchase the Ultimate license. It comes with the data libraries of D&D 5e SRD , D&D 5e Basic Rules , D&D 3.5E SRD, FATECore, and Pathfinder SRD libraries. I am not sure exactly what those are. Would I have to also purchase the PHB and the DMs guide in order to play? I would purchase some pre-made modules. What can you do without purchasing the PHB and DMG?

What would you suggest as a minimum investment to make sure everyone likes it and will continue to use it? I dont see my friends joining any random game to try it out, they would only invest the time if it was with people they know.

Thanks for any info you can provide.

Hi Seayn, welcome to FG.

This post here will likely answer all of your questions; but if it doesn't come back and we can help. https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...eed-to-play-5e

If you have an Ultimate license then your players won't need anything apart from the demo version of FG

Welcome to the FG forums Seayn!

This thread should cover most of what you ask: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...eed-to-play-5e If you have any other questions after going through that please let us know.

EDIT: I'm getting slow in my old age... ;)

When I first started with Fantasy Grounds I just used the 5E Basic Rules. It has the core four classes and enough to see the in motion with minimal investment. It now comes with the license so you don't need to buy that either. You can throw together a quick game or get a module (I like Lost Mine of Phandelver as a good starter for FG) and give it a whirl.

On the other side you can buy the PHB, DMG and MM and try it out for 30 days. If you don't like it they have a good no questions asked refund.

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Originally Posted by Seayn

I will more than likely purchase the Ultimate license. It comes with the data libraries of D&D 5e SRD , D&D 5e Basic Rules , D&D 3.5E SRD, FATECore, and Pathfinder SRD libraries. I am not sure exactly what those are. Would I have to also purchase the PHB and the DMs guide in order to play? I would purchase some pre-made modules. What can you do without purchasing the PHB and DMG?

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Zacchaeus' post (linked to above) is very helpful, and I recommend that your read it all! To answer your questions directly, you don't need to purchase the PHB and the DMG to be able to play. In particular, if you are purchasing pre-made modules and running those, they will contain all the material you need to run them successfully in Fantasy Grounds. The only area in which you might fall short is your players' characters (unless they are making characters that only use materials in the 5E SRD and Basic Rules - which is unlikely). Even so, the character sheets in Fantasy Grounds can be manually adjusted to show any information you like - much like a paper character sheet in face-to-face gaming. However, in this case, they won't benefit from some automation that is built-in to the Fantasy Grounds conversion of the Player's Handbook, and you will have to manually enter details of feats, abilities, spells, etc, that your players are using but aren't in the 5E SRD or Basic Rules.

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Originally Posted by Seayn

What would you suggest as a minimum investment to make sure everyone likes it and will continue to use it? I dont see my friends joining any random game to try it out, they would only invest the time if it was with people they know.

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You can definitely play with just the Ultimate Licence. If you really want to make sure that your players like it, you should consider also purchasing the Player's Handbook, for ease of character creation.

PHB makes things easier playing and I would recommend buying it. Gives you a lot of automation. Other books can wait.
I prefer having the adventure in a physical copy but thats maybe just me. I have trouble following an adventure by the story entries in FG. I can make my own maps or buy them as it is mostly the only thing from a module that the players will notice anyway.

Most DMs will find having the adventure in FG extremely useful, if not essential to playing in FG (@RunningHill seems to be the exception here) - it will contain FG prepare maps, handouts, NPC/monster records ready for use, items, treasure parcels, encounter monsters lists and token placement, etc., etc..

That said, I do like having the actual adventure in "normal" format - purely for reading through before playing. But you will also have the adventure in a readable format in FG, in two forms: Reference Manual (similar layout to the book) and individual story entries. It all depends on if you're OK doing your first read-through on a computer whether you may have the adventure in it's physical form as well as having the FG version when actually playing.

Also something to consider is are your players likely to want to run a game? If they are it might make sense for everyone to buy a standard license that way everyone can still play together without the new GM having to buy an ultimate license. There are 4 for 3 priced license packs in Steam to help with this.