HeroLab Online + VTT
 

I am looking to start an online game with friends and family long distance. I have all the PF2 Books and HLO can handle the book keeping, but I am looking for a good Free VTT to run with it. I have D20Pro and I have played with it a bit. But is there anything that would work better for me to learn to use. Guess I am looking for a simple map / grid / fog of war VTT that doesnt need to handle the system since HLO Does

Thanks for any assistance gamers.

There is a good summary here (a little dated but still valid) of Roll20 alternatives. You said 'free VTT' and Roll20 does have a free offering (albiet a bit limited). The author of the post is specifically discussing Roll20 alternatives, so doesn't list Pros/Cons of Roll20 itself.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Roll20/comm...ternatives_is/

Thanks for the List
Anyone have any play experience with any of the listed VTT tools?

I've used MapTool for years, and though it's admittedly quirky you can't beat the price. While it's capable of running advanced tools, I don't use the macro capability or game system frameworks, just the basic map capabilities (including Fog of War).

The main RPTools site appears to be under DDoS attack at the moment :mad: but you can download the latest version (1.5.14, not counting the 1.6 beta) at GitHub here and there is a documentation wiki available as well.

Hi All,

To add to this, have any of you figured out how to link HLO into any VTT, so that any changes that take place in HLO gets pushed into that VTT? I am thinking about starting a game and am looking for this feature for my players so we dont have to keep jumping back and forth, as well as updating. If so which VTT. I am not worried about price as I am of ease of use and functionality.

Can't be done. If you use HLC, you can do it, with fantasy grounds at the very least.

But no, HLO is all about the future, and that means using your phones at the gaming table in person only with a dedicated internet connection the entire time.

As has been established in other threads, @Nightstar doesn't agree with the path we've chosen for HLO, so s/he chose to be rather disingenuous in the post above. Alas, that was probably self-evident from the tone s/he used. :(

I have openly stated in various threads here that integration with VTTs is something very high on our priority list right now. We do NOT yet have something available, but we expect to have our end of it ready in the weeks ahead (not months, but weeks).

I'm not sure how much work is involved on the VTT side. I'm sure that will vary depending on the VTT and an assortment of factors. I do know that a long-time contributor to the aforementioned MapTools has expressed an eagerness to get the data from us and is anxiously waiting for the ability to integrate with that tool. That's based on his comments in one of the other threads where this subject was discussed.

So we don't have something in place yet, but we're working on it. And MapTool will likely be one of the first, if not THE first, to have some level of integration.

Hope this helps!

I would recommend putting effort in contacting the VTTs that have greater interaction and (Offical) support for Starfinder, PF2 and Shadowrun.

Astral - PF2
Roll20 - PF2, Starfinder
Fantasy Grounds - PF2, Starfinder
D20Pro - Starfinder

I am not seeing one that has official support with Shadowrun, but I could be missing it.

I'm fairly sure that this isn't an integration - it is export from HLC and an import to FG.

Proper integration keeps the character sheet in HLC/HLO and allows a VTT to interrogate and modify properties of the character on-the-fly.

If you already have d20Pro, I'd stick with that.
It isn't free, but if you've already paid for it, then it costs you nothing to use.
It's the VTT our group uses and works fine.

You can use Roll20 for free, but you lose some of the features that are included in d20Pro.
Namely the line of sight stuff, to be able to see what is visible from a character or NPC's perspective.
I like to be able to disable other people's sight, to see if a character has Line of Effect to something.
If the PCs are ever separated, it's also good to have each see what they see.

You can have those features in Roll20, but then have to pay their higher tier subscription.
And after three months of that, you could have bought D20Pro (that you already own).

If for some reason you don't like D20Pro, Roll20 is free is you don't need "Shadow Casting / Line of Sight".

MapTools is also free, but it is script based.
You may be able to find a script that is close to what you want.
Or if you're comfortable learning their scripting language, you can customize it to do what you want.
If you just want to play D&D and have no interest in learning to script it, it's probably not the best option.

One of the features I liked about Hero Lab Online, at least when it was announced was that you could have your character in HLO and check buffs there.
That would update the URL of your character.
And VTTs would have the option of reading the URL for an "active with current buffs/debuffs" of the character.
So we wouldn't have to either export from Hero Lab (into the VTT format) or import from the VTT (reading the raw HL format).
There isn't really integration yet.
Also for our group, there is no Pathfinder 1e version that runs in HLO yet.

So an update on what I have been doing.
I currently have 2 games running Pathfinder 2e and running them in Roll20 as a Pro subscriber. Still getting used to the learning Curve, But I have already started setting up some macros. Maps have been fairly easy to work with and set up. I will forever be a Table Top preferred gamer, but I am working with it.

I am actually a Founding Member of D20Pro, but I havent been able to get anything going with it.

My one concern with Roll20 is the lag I have been experiencing with dice roll macros. Also setting up has been getting a bit annoying with lag. While editing NPCs I click on a box and have to wait until I can actually edit it. With that said, it is the active community that drew me to Roll20. There are several already helping me learn how to set up macros. I do feel that Roll20 isnt giving Pathfinder 2E the support I have seen in fantasy grounds. Fantasy groups has many more books available.

Addition:
I am really excited about the chance that HeroLab (Supported for decades) could have VTT connections in the next few weeks to a month. Currently have to put up 2 screens, one with HLO and the other with Roll20. Oh and also Discord for Video Chat. I like seeing people at the table..... Old Schooler in me.

I am currently playing D&D 5E on roll20 with dndbeyond (and beyond20 browser extension). The integration of the character sheets from dndbeyond is probably what HLO will eventually be like with any VTT for pathfinder (2E) games. The dndbeyond set up is lacking some tight integration which hopefully HLO will be able to implement.

Astral now Supports Starfinder.

Great news. That's one down... Several more to go.

PF 2 Export to Fantasy Grounds Unity
 

Just making sure it is added to the list of requests. I know it is possible to go from the Classic version of HL pathfinder to the Classic version of FG. Working with FGU, Pathfinder 2E, and HLO now. Sure would be nice to be able to do a quick port over. Also would make it a much more attractive option if you want folks to purchase and maintain a HLO account (instead of just a free FGU account and use their GM's content).

Offering this as one of those GM's who has and will be maintaining all of the content ... but with players who like being able to go into HeroLab (and would love to do the same with HLO) and futz with various options and then use them in-game.

Just sayin' ...

Any word on VTT Support? or downloading content?
Every game I play is now online :(

Not in any of the recent patch notes.

Work on exporting the data in a clean manner is actively underway on our end. There are actually lots of pieces involved in doing this well, so it's not something we can just throw together quickly. Well, I guess we COULD, but then all the VTTs would be stuck with a quick hack solution, and nobody would be happy. So we're NOT doing it that way. :)

The mechanism is being designed to support consumption by both user-created tools (e.g. prettified character sheet output) and VTTs. The latter will likely be grabbing the data repeatedly during a session, so we're including support for reporting only deltas. It's a similar mechanism to what we use internally within the product to keep bandwidth utilization to a minimum.

When we have something ready in an early state, I'll be posting to let folks know about it here. I'm certain that @Jamz will want to take a look, and I'm pretty sure a few others will, as well. Then we can assess what adjustments are needed. My best guess is that an early look will likely be a couple weeks from now. Something final really depends on how much tweaking will be needed based on the initial feedback.

Will this include HLO pushing changes to the VTT (such as a change in HP), rather than the VTT having to continously poll HLO for changes?

That's great to hear and thank you for approaching this in a sensible, technically debt free (where possible) way,

Status update: Given all the complications that have accompanied Bestiary 2 and the chaos that is PaizoCon Online, it will be a stretch to have the initial stuff in place the first week of June. That's still the hope, but the likelihood is not high. It will much more likely start to surface the following week.

Not initially, but that's definitely part of the overall design. We already do that with the HLO client, and the goal is to do the same in conjunction with VTTs. We'll be deploying this stuff in phases and working through any kinks in those phases along the way.

Thank!
 

Greatly Appreciated the feedback and hard work put into the product
Long time Fan of HLC and really enjoying the evolution of HLO.

@Rob patiently waiting... :)

Not like I don't have a hundred other things to keep me busy in the meantime...

I *really* wish there was some way (like the Beyond20 plugin for D&D) that HLO would dump the rolls to Roll20 with a single click. It would be incredibly useful.

VTT support is really needed with the ability to show rolls
 

So do I.
An export of the sheet and tool to import in to Fantasy Grounds and other VTTs would be nice too.

Any news on this feature?

I'm specifically looking for HLO export to roll20 for Starfinder. I absolutely abhor the Roll20 character sheets and an export feature from HLO would be a godsend.

Yea better integration with a Roll20 would be great! Instead of doing roll20 charctermancers it would be great if Roll20 partnered with HLO but I am sure that will never happen for on e reason or another.

I 200% Agree HLO-Roll20 interface would be completely assume
 

I have been subscribed to both HLO and Roll20 for several months. It is a pain to have to hand re-enter a character/NPC into Roll20 then re-enter the changes back into HLO.

I have heard that a simpler interface is not in the offering any time soon (aka at all). I really hope someone hears our calls and changes the course of future history.

BTW: I play PFS 2e mostly, but also will soon be DMing a D&D 5e homebrew.

FYI - Fantasy Grounds is on sale for half off right now. Check Steam or their site.

How about Foundry VTT?
 

So I've been looking into a new VTT - Foundry, which supports Starfinder.
I'm a programmer and familiar with the technology used to create Foundry and the modules for the VTT are all open source. (which is refreshing and awesome).
The community is really catching on to this new VTT and building a lot out for it-- and the best part, it runs in-browser, which is the same direction HLO is going.

In Foundry VTT, Beyond20 already successfully links D&D Beyond character sheets to D&D 5e games, so you can roll on your D&D Beyond character sheet and it rolls it in the VTT.
Players don't have to download anything to play along and the games didn't lag or drop people (here's looking at you Fantasy Grounds Unity)...

On top of that, it has an export function (albeit, not automated).

Do the developers here have this great, promising new VTT on their radar?
It may be an easy win due to the way it's designed.
And being very affordable, it could help corner the market for online Starfinder games, as no other integration of this type seems to exist anywhere!

Some food for thought.

Pathfinder 2E in Foundry is already well beyond Roll20 and advancing quickly. 5E in Foundry is simply amazing, there is even "VTTA D&D Beyond" which allows importing of licensed content from D&D Beyond and the author has already been in talks to validate this with them.

Nethys was in the FoundryVTT channels just a day or two ago discussing Foundry and his actions. So it has actual traction and visibility as well as active and growing Dev Community.

All Wolflair needs to do is open an API or Export of the character sheet and the integration will be built.

I've tried using Herolab with Fantasy Grounds and the import is charitably described as "partially" functional.

Then again, that's the same description I'd apply to Fantasy Grounds as it's dog slow and dodgy crash prone software even on a modern machine.

I'm playing with d20Pro at the moment, but have been looking at Foundry.
At the moment, getting HL (Pathfinder 1e) into Foundry is what would hold me back.

But Foundry looks to be pretty good, based on the YouTube stuff.

Foundry looks really nice and I like the one price for everything, no tiers or anything, it's HTML, JSON, javascript and CSS based so it looks fairly easy to create modules and such. But it's still something I have to download and host games from my own computer.

I recently purchased Foundry, though I am still in the process of setting up a server for that. It would be amazing if there was a solid connection between HLO and foundry.

I've skimmed though this thread; am I correct in that (some of) HLO's API will be documented and made public in the near-ish-future, so that VTT-developers/ modders can integrate that in their software?

Would that mean that (if someone were to add that functionality to, say, Foundry) it would be possible to change health of characters in both HLO and Foundry, and that the changes would be propagated to the other? In short; that we have the strength of HLO's solid backend with the nice and extendable backend of any of our favorite VTT-application? (Given that the VTT developers implement their part.)

'Cause if so, that would be something to look forward to, for sure.

From watching YouTube videos, you can have the game hosted by "The Forge" and there's another site.

Check out videos by a guy named: Encounter Library.
He's got a good series of introductory stuff, and then quite a few videos that are related to Foundry, as well.

@Rob So, after playing in some PFS2E this weekend for GenCon and using Roll20 (so painful to have to recreate my sheet over to Roll20 or any VTT just to get dice rolls going) I had a thought...

For integration with VTT's, it seems if the first/main thing HLO could do via integration was to send it's dice roll results into the VTT of choice's chat, we could use HLO as our "character sheet" during game.

Now that the dice roller is really nice, it would be nice to just enable to push that result out via a webhook to MapTool, Discord, Roll20, etc.

Eventually full export/integration would be great but I *think* 90% of that integration need is really just so you can easily make skill/attack/save rolls and track HP.

Just getting the character sheet inputted into Fantasy Grounds would be amazing. We have yet to figure out how to input a character into FG, lol.

If you need help with FG, head to https://fantasygroundscollege.net/. Tons of help and very knowledgable folks. They also have a Discord server. I found Roll20 much more difficult to match my stats to HLO than FG. However, it's still another manual step and would love to have the import (and maybe even export) ability that HLC has.