Please help us.

[veematoo]

First of all, I hope this is in the right place... if it's not, I'm sorry.

We are a group of 8 people who are trying to make this work as several of us have moved out of the area but wish to continue playing... I have a million questions to which I can find almost no answers so I thought I'd come ask here. I'll just start with one or two...

Is it possible in FG to set an attack or weapon to force a fortitude check and then apply an effect if the check is failed?


sort of related... The only way we seem to be able to get spells to work is to roll each individual component of the spell... is this intentional? eg; when casting Flare, you first click to force the fortitude check... Then if the saving roll fails, you click to add the dazzled effect. This seems so counter intuitive because it doesn't appear to show the PCs if the save was a success or a fail... so they click to cast the spell and then I have to tell them it was a hit so they can apply the effect? Wouldn't it be more fun if I as the GM simply described the target being dazed instead? Maybe I'm just not seeing how this works... hopefully someone can help us out.

Thanks in advance.

[viresanimi]

Hey, welcome to Fantasy Grounds!

I am pretty sure, that most of the things you ask about can be done in FG, but I've not played D&D for months, so I tend to forget stuff (and there will be a lot of helpful people answering you during the day I am sure). What I can say, regarding spells, is that you can right click on spells and add "spell actions". These cover most of your needs regarding spells in FG.

The FG wiki also has some great user guides, that are worth your time.

Happy gaming.


Vires Animi

[Valarian]

Worst case, you can do it like you would at the table. Roll the attack. Ask for a Fortitude check. Apply the effect.
The 3.5e ruleset does have a lot of automated tricks though, so the whole thing may be possible with an attack if somebody more knowledgeable (I don't use 3.5e, Pathfinder, etc.) can come along.

[Malkavian_Andi]

The best trick for your first question would be to set up a spellcasting class called "combat". You set it as a spontaneous casting class with 1 0-level-spell. Then you can just add 0-level-spells to reflect the special stuff you can do in combat. I, for example, like to have such things there as charge, flanking, total defense, sneak attack, power attack, etc. (On most of those, you should click the little button on the effect labeled "Trgt", changing it to "self". That way, you don't have to change your targets to apply effects to yourself.)
Then you simply create your weapon effect as on of your 0-level-spells. Give the spell the name of the weapon so everybody will know what you're rolling. Right-click on the spell and add a spell action. First, add "cast" and edit that action. Click the saves box until it shows "Fort", then add a misc. modifier so the DC is set to the correct value. Next, add an "effect" spell action. Edit that effect and its duration to what you want it to do. When you later use your weapon, simply attack as usual, and if you hit, click the cast button of your weapon "spell". The GM will have to tell you if the save was successful and if the save failed, you click the effect to apply it to the target.

On your second question, in most cases, you'll have to ask the GM if the save failed. Of course, he can just describe the resulting behavior, which will tell you it's time to apply the effect
If you're casting a spell with multiple targets, FG will automatically un-target any targets that made their save, so you only have those left who failed.

[Callum]

The only way we seem to be able to get spells to work is to roll each individual component of the spell... is this intentional? eg; when casting Flare, you first click to force the fortitude check... Then if the saving roll fails, you click to add the dazzled effect. This seems so counter intuitive because it doesn't appear to show the PCs if the save was a success or a fail... so they click to cast the spell and then I have to tell them it was a hit so they can apply the effect? Wouldn't it be more fun if I as the GM simply described the target being dazed instead? Maybe I'm just not seeing how this works... hopefully someone can help us out.

This is how it's designed to work, more or less. If a spell has multiple targets, then FG will remove the targeting from those that make their save; this lets you then roll the damage for a spell and automatically apply it to everyone who failed. You can then apply half damage (or none) to those that made their saves.

As GM, I do just describe any visible effect of a spell, as you suggest. That hopefully gives the players enough information to tell whether the spell has been effective or not (although in some cases they may not be able to tell straight away).

Note that you can control how much information is made visible to the players using the "campaign options".

[dulux-oz]

Let me put my $0.02 worth in (as well as a Shameless Plug(TM) ):

Check out the Tutorial Videos on the Wiki (obviously, I'm including mine ) - they really seem to help people with learning FG - or so people tell me.

And of course, keep asking questions - the boards are full of people willing to help out

(Another Shameless Plug(TM) brought to you by Dulux-Oz's Shameless Plugs(TM), a division of Dulux-Oz)

Cheers

[damned]

Because there are so many different spells and variations, for the most part, spells are not automated out of the box. you need to learn some tricks as described by Malkavian and slowly build these up.

[Moon Wizard]

As one of the developers, I will say that there are a large variety of opinions on how things should be handled in a virtual tabletop environment ranging from no automation to full rules automation. My goal in building features is to provide automation in a optional manner, which means that most rolls tend to be granular and not linked. This allows users to provide all of their bonuses for each roll, before the roll is initiated; and to handle special cases without having to roll back conditions or damage.

Save results shown to players
When the saving throws are displayed in the chat window, there is a tag on the end of the roll description specifying whether the saving throw was a success of failure. Also, if the "Target: Remove on Miss option" is set for the user, the target will also be removed.

Regards,
JPG