How to PLAY PATHFINDER 2e in FOUNDRY VTT! - Beginner Player and GM Guide to Foundry

[@redeux]

Great job, thank you! 9:06 - worth noting that Rolling Stealth for initiative flatfoots the creature specifically because the PC is a rogue who has the "Surprise Attack" class feature for that. Other PC's wouldn't necessary benefit from flatfooted by rolling stealth without that class feature or something similar.

[@alaustin.]

My pleasure! Thanks for watching! Yeah that would've been a good addition to the script just for clarity, though I'm hoping with my little disclaimer at the start most people who are going through this are generally familiar with the rules. Ah well. Pinned comment you become!

[@CooperativeWaffles]

Flat-Footed is now Off- Guard; same affects, just different name.

[@brianh870]

Coming from a long campaign in 5e, this was extremely helpful! I'm amazed at how much better Foundry is set up for Pathfinder 2e than it is for 5e.

[@alaustin.]

It's crazy stuff! The volunteer devs work insanely quick, though they do have the benefit of Paizo's considerably more generous license that allows them to actually include all the content. It makes setting up automation and convenience features significantly more doable. My groups have been loving the system!

[@BennyPino]

I've shared this with my players before they use Foundry VTT for pf2e. It certainly made them more comfortable and I'll use it every time going forward. Thanks!

[@thedagit]

We're going to have our first pf2e game this week and this video is so helpful. Sending this to all my players!

[@alaustin.]

Awesome, best of luck! Thanks for checking it out :D

[@Thunderdad974]

I have been playing with Foundry for only a few weeks and this video was SO helpful. Thank you so much.

[@successfulgeek]

This was super helpful. I am a new GM and I covered some of this stuff with my new players but just shared it with them because this explanation was way better!

[@alaustin.]

Awesome!! That's exactly what I was hoping this would be useful for - just a quick primer to send to players getting pulled over to Foundry. Glad you found it helpful! Good luck in your GMing adventures!

[@jamesdominguez7685]

I'll be bookmarking this to show all of future PF2E players. Thanks for such a helpful resource!

[@alaustin.]

That's awesome! Glad I could be of help!

[@reinmanyyc7626]

Awesome intro! I'm just migrating my campaign to Foundry, your channel looks like it'll be my go-to resource to orient my players

[@laserlemons1577]

Awesome tutorial. My group has been trying to learn Foundry so I will be sending this to all of them.

[@takogames9552]

And again, you did a great video and a great job. Really helpful for the community, and I'll go straight share this to my players! Thanks!

[@wiredkamikaze5831]

Clearly and concisely done. *tip of the hat to you sir* Now they need to do this for Starfinder in foundry and my life will be complete :P

[@andrewking539]

Very concise and well put~ Thank you for you putting this together!

[@alaustin.]

Happy to help! Thanks for the kind words!

[@lepusmalignis1628]

This is absurdly useful, thank you. So far, all of your videos have been easily understood and helpful. Keep up the good work!

[@camiloguadalupetorres2442]

This video is SO VALUABLE!!!! Thanks a lot!! 🙌🏽

[@Justgetmein]

What a great video. Straight to the point, clean and informative.

[@alaustin.]

Thanks! Always trying to strike that balance between information density and comfortable pacing.

[@StruggleBus07]

Instructive and straightforward with bookmarks added and helpful links. Thank you for this excellent video! I'm looking forward to the GM version if you're working on it!

[@alaustin.]

Thank you!! Definitely stay on the lookout, lots of ideas brewing

[@lorenzovaletti4951]

So professional! Very well done!

[@jacobwilliams3271]

Really great job - thank you!

[@Eschguy]

Great stuff, will definitely be showing this to my group.

[@chrispetersen4863]

Thanks for sharing this! Great info!

[@prebbles4931]

thank you so much, this was so straightforward and informative!

[@rhawkas2637]

Thanks for this. Very informative. =)

[@somecallmetimelderberries432]

Wow, great video, thanks!

[@LeChronicler]

Excellent overview

[@bl00dywelld0ne]

Showing this to my players, stat!

[@alaustin.]

I hope they find it helpful! Godspeed

[@bl00dywelld0ne]

@@alaustin. Thanks!

[@astrid2432]

I already know most of the stuff, but the shortcuts, specially for the chara sheets will help the most we use in our game more modules, like the combat carussel and smaller stuff still amazing video

[@alaustin.]

Sweet! I'm glad there are some tips in there even for the experienced players. Thanks for watching!

[@Brandon-zw3hw]

see that makes it seem so much easier than how it went for me last week when I used it for the first time

[@alaustin.]

It's admittedly a lot to learn! If you aren't familiar with the functionality of everything, it can be difficult to figure out where or why issues come up. I'm hoping these videos can alleviate some of that! It's definitely generally recommended to ease everyone in when trying things out with a throwaway combat encounter and empty maps until things start to make a little more sense, or some inconsequential one-shots. If you need any advice or pointers, I highly recommend checking out either of the community Discord servers, there's a ton of people who all have been through the stuff before and know how to get you sailing on the straight and narrow.

[@amikawi]

Very simple, thanks!

[@MK-un5qp]

Thank you so much!!

[@RicardoPM777]

Nice!

[@BrainwashingDetectiv]

Excuse me! That dragon token is sick at 12:07! How do you get that effect with it just popping right out?

[@alaustin.]

You can get that token and many many more from the Pathfinder Bestiaries Token Pack! It is an absolute boat load of them. But, if you wanted to make some yourself, what you would do is make a canvas in Photoshop (or whatever), say it's 500 x 500. Then, make the token ring perfectly in the center but only say 250 pixels in diameter (only half the canvas). Then, just slap your art into the token, edit it to look cool in the frame, and when you bring it into Foundry you would increase the Token Scale in the token's settings so that the token frame fills the grid square, and the rest of the art will be poking out like that! The Discord folks would easily be able to explain that a little more thoroughly if you ever give it a go.

[@BrainwashingDetectiv]

@@alaustin. Oh wow. Fantastic! Thank you for the in-depth explanation- I'm going to try this out. That pop out effect really feels like it would make a big encounter stand out with my players!

[@liquidsn8ke529]

I wasn't sure but did you have your token selected in order to buy items from the shop? It's saying for me to have the token selected and do this or did you already have it selected prior to this or was there an option to turn having your selected token off somewhere?

[@alaustin.]

You either need to have a token selected (this will always be the case if you're trying to do this as a GM), or it should work as long as you only have ownership permissions over one actor (which is the case for PCs 99% of the time).

[@liquidsn8ke529]

@@alaustin. awesome thank you!

[@ShadeKazin]

Something I noticed about Pathfinder 2e while messing with it, is that. Though rare, there are a few cases where an option was missing during character creation. Is this just an oversight or something I did on my end that was missing? My example at the time of writing this was adding Beastkin to a human ancestry, and then trying to apply one of the ancestry feats for Beastkin or that were unique to them. And not seeing it ever listed and having to add it myself such as "Quick Change."

[@alaustin.]

Usually things that aren't in are simply new, so if they aren't like brand new then the items are either in a place you're not looking or got overlooked somehow. Generally you can ask on the Discord and double check!

[@Napp2804]

I love it! So if I understand, the players don't need to own the foundry, they just join into mine?

[@alaustin.]

Correct! Only one person needs to own a Foundry license, everyone else can join for free. More info in the Discord if you need it

[@Napp2804]

That's so relieving to hear! We're still dipping out toes in and that makes getting players to try it a bit easier @@alaustin.

[@alaustin.]

For sure! Foundry also has an official demo server you can log into and play around with to see how the software runs on everyone's machines and get a feel for the controls. demo.foundryvtt.com/join@@Napp2804

[@vornsuki]

I've been playing PF2e on Foundry for a couple months and didn't know you could pop out the turn tracker or that you could path out/execute movement like that! like, comment subscribe from me learning for teaching me something new

[@alaustin.]

There is sooooo much you can do on Foundry! I swear I find out something game-changing every couple weeks or so, it's ridiculous. Glad I could shed some light on new features! (Also, you can right-click on ANY tab in the sidebar and pop it out. Very cool.)

[@Vepnamaji]

nicely done video, makes me want to pick up Foundryvtt to get our new pf2e game going!

[@CooperativeWaffles]

Is there an accompanying video showing GMs the settings to implement for Players to perform everything in the video?

[@alaustin.]

Not at the moment :( Although I think PF2e behaves very similarly to how its shown here out of the box. Outside of setting up general user permissions like giving them owned tokens (which is covered in a lot of general Foundry tutorials), I don't think I fussed with much while putting this video together. Most of this should just work, I believe

[@CooperativeWaffles]

00:33 Player Avatar How does a GM give permission to use the File Browser to change the Avatar?

[@alaustin.]

Settings (tab in game) > User Management > Configure Permissions. I think by default Trusted Players can do both of those things. @@CooperativeWaffles

[@EricHockridge]

Also, what did you use to make this map for the combat overview? Looks good

[@alaustin.]

I didn't make these ones, but the maps are made with the Forgotten Adventures assets! They are awesome, and free to use (until you want to sell the maps you make with them, etc).

[@EricHockridge]

I would like to switch to PF2E due to foundry support, 5e is proving to be a nightmare. However, I have no idea how to play PF2e. Where do I acquire the rules (Pdf) to learn to the rules to play this module. Also, I noticed it was going through a revamp, so what do I buy? any help would be appreciated. Cheers

[@alaustin.]

Heyo! Welcome! So there's a few things to note: 1) All of the rules for PF2e can be read for free on Archives of Nethys: 2e.aonprd.com/ 2) PF2e is in the process of releasing a "remaster," which are new versions of the core books with rules that are 90% the same as before with some nice quality of life changes to the remaining 10%. Right I believe only half of the books are released for purchase, but you can purchase them (including a PDF) from Paizo's website. Be warned, their website is terrible, lol. If you wanna buy PDFs, I recommend the Player Core book, and then the GM Core if you want it. Be warned that Player Core is only about half the classes that currently exist, the rest coming out this summer in Player Core 2. 3) Archives of Nethys doesnt quite have the remastered rules up yet, but they will on March 16th I believe! Buying the Beginner Box on Foundry is also a great way to dip your toes in - I have introduced 2 groups with that and they loved it.

[@Matt-sk6hi]

Does the system automatically handle flanking?

[@alaustin.]

It does! If a player targets an enemy with an ally flanking then it will automatically apply off balance

[@Matt-sk6hi]

@alaustin. Wow that is amazing. Very helpful video, it will be my goto for all of my players come this fall.

[@danield.r.5039]

I feel pathbuilder is way easier to build and manage a sheet, the challenge now is to manage the tokens along with Fvtt

[@alaustin.]

eh I find pathbuilder unwieldy personally. awesome tool but the foundry sheets work great. i wouldnt bother trying to split between the software its gonna be way more of a headache. just learn the sheet

[@jailsom8039]

The beginning of the video has some spoilers from Abomination vaults, that s sad..but the rest of the video it s nice! I cant show to my players yet

[@alaustin.]

Yeah, in a perfect world I wouldn't want to show ANY spoilers, but the premium content is the best stuff to show off in terms of visuals. Completely out of context, no one would know what it's a spoiler of without already having seen the adventure, and even if you do piece it together, I only included stuff from what you'll probably encounter in session ONE, so I gave myself a pass. I did explicitly exclude all footage of the Beginner Box though, as I guessed that's where most new players might be starting out at.