Castles & Crusades PHB 4th printing now available on FGI

[Sakusammakko]

...and version 2 of the ruleset looks fantastic. It's much easier and more fun to use than the previous version.

I know there are free options out there for online gaming. Some of them may offer great C&C support and do exactly what you need to game with your friends. I doubt you'll be tempted by Fantasy Grounds II.

If you've tried a free option and feel that it doesn't quite do what you're looking for, you may wish to know what's in the new version of C&C for FG II. Let me warn you about the costs first, before you get to the changes.

If you already have a dispersed gaming group and don't need to find new players, you can run a campaign as the CK if you buy a Full license. This will cost you $40 and the ruleset costs $10. Your players will need a Lite version to play ($24 each, less if you buy in bulk). Each gaming group will need to decide if this is worth it. If you plan on playing a few times a month, I'd say it is.

If your gaming group is small, unwilling to buy anything or you don't have a gaming group already, another option is to buy an Ultimate license. It's $150 plus the $10 for the ruleset. I know. In this case, you front the cost and none of your players need to buy a license. Of course, you could always pass the hat or ask for PayPal donations later. The benefit of this license is that you can invite strangers from around the world to game with you. More people can take a flyer on your game.

Okay, for those that have rolled their save vs. fear, let me see if I can give you an idea of what it can do:
Character Sheet

Imagine taking the recently published 4th printing character sheet and being able to interact with just about every field. The FGII character sheet has 6 tabs: Main, Combat, Abilities, Inventory, Spells and Notes.

The Main tab is where you record your bibliographic info, ability scores, primes and hit points. Each of the ability fields are 'clickable'. That is, if you want to make a SIEGE check, you double-click on the ability and the 3D dice roll in the chat window, automatically calculating your level and ability bonus. Fast and easy.

The Combat tab is where you record your armor bonus (DEX bonus is taken care of for you), your BtH bonus, movement and weapons. Once you list your weapons, the program calculates all of the melee/ranged bonuses for you. You can double-click the init field and it will roll a d10 (with any modifiers). You can also double-click the attack and damage fields. There are even better improvements in version 2 which I'll get to in a sec.

The Abilities tab is a free field for you to record your racial and class abilities. You can also put in modifiers for the abilities and these can be added to SIEGE checks or combat rolls as needed.

The Inventory tab does what the Posessions section does on page 2 of the official character sheet and adds up EV for you if you like. It can also keep track of things inside a container (backpack, for example).

The Spells tab keeps track of both prepared and cast spells. You can also add lines that add to the RP flavor when you cast a spell.

Finally, the Notes field is a free field for players to record notes including their last will and testament if desired. Players also have a Notes button, which allows them to share info with other players-- their character's description, for example.
Reference Material

CKs and players that buy the ruleset have access to the latest editions of the PHB and M&T.
Adventures

If you want to use existing Troll Lord adventures in the FGII environment, more and more are becoming available for purchase. You get all of the maps, the descriptive text and the monsters with their stats all prepared for use. The Rising Knight comes with the ruleset and I used it to start my first online campaign, which is still going.
Combat

If your campaign is combat-heavy, it has just gotten easier to use C&C on FGII to run those encounters. As a CK, your primary tool is the combat tracker.

combat tracker-- The combat tracker is a list onto which you drop all combat participants. If you've prepared an encounter in advance, you

can add all NPCs/monsters at the click of a button AND roll their initiative at the same time. The CT keeps track of initiative, hp, wounds, attacks, AC and special, temporary effects. Whenever it is a character's turn, the info comes up in the chat window. Attack and damage rolls can be double-clicked or dropped on their target. Hits and misses can be recorded as well as wounds.

Players now have the possibility to see some of this info or not as the CK desires. If activated, PCs can see the general health status of their mates as well as get an idea of the health status of the creatures they're fighting. The CK can also allow PCs to drop attack and damage rolls directly on the creature they're fighting.
Role Playing

You can, of course, use VOIP for RP. In our campaigns, we use the chat window exclusively. You're able to distinguish between in-character chat, describing character actions, ooc and now 2 types of whispering. You can communicate directly with the CK to ask questions, exchange secret/private info, etc. Version 2 allows the PCs to whisper to each other. Very handy.
Creating Homebrew Materials

For those CKs that prefer to use their own materials, how easy is it to do this work in FGII?
Maps and Images

If you prefer to draw simple squares and rectangles, this can be done in FGII. You can also create a .png file of any map, size it correctly, drop it in a folder and it will appear directly in FGII. Interaction with the map is adequate to the task and not especially limited. You are NOT going to get fog of war lighting sources or be able to show different PCs different perspectives if they split up. It's just not that kind of program.

You can also add to the drama of your game by dropping .png images into the FGII folder and pulling them up when desired. I haven't done it yet, but you could also create playing card tokens or game tables if you ever wanted to do some gambling or fortune telling.
Descriptions

Text can be typed directly into FGII or can be cut and pasted from other sources. The text can be for the CK or tagged as boxed text or spoken by a specific NPC. Somewhat easy to work with.
Encounters

If you like lots of combat, you can set up encounters ahead of time and with a click of the button, add those creatures to the combat tracker. All of the stats get pulled into the CT and initiative can be re-rolled as often as you like with one click.
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Running two C&C games. Check them out at http://candc.forumotion.com.

One is a monthly affair on Saturday nights, 8pm EST (Company of Delvers).

The second is an historically-inspired campaign with players from around the world (Legio Campaign).

[alcyone]

Thanks for the review. I've been waiting to see if this would happen; my finger has hovered over the "buy" button in the past. The cost is still pretty astronomical; I get that it does a lot of stuff, but I could get a pretty nice armload of stuff from my FLGS for that.

One thing that bugs me; maybe I can get my players to pay for the lite licenses, but I can only get the discount if I somehow coordinate it so we are all buying at once.
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Sir Aergraith Aethelmar of Cyrswud, CaCS,OotF

[Sakusammakko]

I'd say talk to Doug Davison, the owner, and explain your situation. Ask him how you can get the most licenses for the best price. I imagine that it's not a hierarchical organization. He will probably want to find a way to help you begin using it.

I've exchanged emails with questions and concerns and he's been really responsive. The forum over there is pretty active, friendly and generally helpful.
_________________
Running two C&C games. Check them out at http://candc.forumotion.com.

One is a monthly affair on Saturday nights, 8pm EST (Company of Delvers).

The second is an historically-inspired campaign with players from around the world (Legio Campaign).