I signed up for the Shard Tabletop VTT, and this has the best Tales of the Valiant support I have ever seen. The entire system is built around supporting 5E, so the VTT is highly focused on 5E and only 5E, ensuring that everything in the 5E system works perfectly. This one is worth dropping Roll20 over, since the development team has their act together regarding variant 5E versions and system support.
It is a little strange at first, but it becomes second nature once you learn the system. Don't let the sample starting adventure throw you; once you get everything set up, it looks just as good as Roll20, and the entire interface is more straightforward.
Tales of the Valiant Subscriptions
They have player and GM subscriptions to the entire ToV Kobold Press library. This is a great way to start, but it can get a little pricy. With all you could buy, this is the cheapest way to enjoy a lot of books, and find the ones you want to purchase and keep permanently on the system. Bite the bullet for a few months, subscribe, find all the books you want to use character and monster options from, and concentrate on collecting those first. Then draw down your subscriptions and focus on the best of the best.
With other VTTs? Forget it, buy the books up front, or you don't play. Roll20 is expensive in comparison, and it does not currently support Tales of the Valiant.
Source Tools!
In Shard VTT, you get access to the same editing tools the developers use. Want to turn a 5E race into a ToV Lineage? It's not hard, and you can simply port it in with about 30 minutes of work, allowing all the special features to automatically add themselves to the character sheet. Your changes and mods are tracked in a special "My Content" area so you can manage your changes easily. If you find an error in the data files, you can edit them - even in the books you purchased.
You can create spells, lineages, heritages, backgrounds, monsters, equipment, and anything else in the game with these tools and add them to your games. This is a level of power many VTTs will never let you have, yet Shard makes it easy to mod in and add your own content to your games.
For Tales of the Valiant, this is critical. While the Drow are not in the game until Player's Guide 2, I added my own custom lineage using an earlier Kobold Press book for 5E. When PG2 releases, I will simply delete my custom lineage and swap in the official Drow in each character. It was easy to add, and it will be easy to update. You can even choose the art!
You can easily port in your favorite non-ToV and third-party content into your games this way.
I am using Shard's Esper Genesis 5E system to run a Star Frontiers 5E campaign, and I can add that game's races as custom 5E races, with all the game's abilities programmed into each entry. This "custom content" stays with my Esper Genesis game selection, so I do not see it in my ToV characters. I can create and add 5E versions of the Star Frontiers monsters, robots, equipment, weapons, and aliens, too. If I want to pull in the 5E SRD or any other bestiary on Shard, and reskin those monsters, I can, too. There are videos available on how to import classes and utilize the conversion tool built into the VTT, so adding complete character classes, with all their tables and options, is not difficult.
I have the power.
Game System Switching
You can create custom game systems with your core books, and even create "starter set only" or "core book only" rule sets. If you have another version of 5E on the system, such as Esper Genesis, which is also supported as a rule system, you can switch to it, view your characters, and access all the books you want right there.
Also, you can edit the rule systems, so if there are duplicate entries or things you don't want, you can disable them, and they won't show up. You can enable or disable features on a book or even an individual item, so if you have a monster book you bought but don't want in a rule set, you can turn it all off with one checkbox. You can re-enable it at any time, too.
In my Esper Genesis Star Frontiers 5E game, I can turn off the Esper Genesis races and just have the core five Star Frontiers ones, if I want, and these will be the only allowed and displayed selections when you create a character. If I add races later on from the adventures, like the ones in the Volturnus series, I can make those and enable them as options.
I talk about Star Frontiers a lot, but this is a game without a 5E implementation, and the fact that I can hack that in and make it work speaks volumes. Tales of the Valiant has native Shard support, so hacking things in is even easier. If you have anything in 5E you want, adding it is easy once you watch a few videos and learn where things go.
Printable Character Sheets and PDF Exports?
Hero Lab is struggling to support anything more than the basic books for Tales of the Valiant and has gone months without releasing a new book on their store. Additionally, they have not yet implemented the printing or exporting to PDF functions in ToV. Custom content is not well supported. I like Hero Lab online, but their ToV implementation is struggling and needs more attention, as well as additional content to purchase.
In Shard VTT, I can print any 5E character sheet, including ToV. Using Windows' "print to PDF" option, I can export a Tales of the Valiant character to a PDF and have that for myself. All of the options from my owned or subscribed content export just fine.
Compared to Hero Lab, with Shard VTT, I have character creation tools, a full 5E VTT, mod-ability, a content store, custom content, characters that instantly import into games, and multiple game types supported, all in one place. I also have printing and PDF exports.
There is little comparison here in functionality, and the strength of a 5E-only VTT shines through. Even as a tool to support printing PDFs to play on the tabletop, Shard is superior to many character-sheet-only apps.
Downsides
The subscription fee and rental fees are downsides. The interface is not as intuitive as Roll 20, at least to start. The sample starting adventure is confusing and complex. There is a little more to learn with the custom content tools. I would like a few more character organization tools (or I have yet to find them), such as folders. There is a lot to buy (a good and bad thing, honestly). The system only supports 5E.
I am still on Roll20 for other games, but for 5E, Shard is my home virtual tabletop (VTT).
A Solid VTT that Allows You to Mod
If you are a Tales of the Valiant player with a lot of third-party 5E books, and you want to mod those options in and "have it all," Shard is the VTT for you. There will be some work involved, but it is not difficult and does not require programming. Since ToV is 5E adjacent, you can keep your physical library, and any books not on Shard yet, you can simply port in the best-of-the-best and have it.
If you solo-play ToV, Shard VTT is a dream come true. Even if all you do is print PDFs for your tabletop games, the tool is well worth your time and money.
If you run multiple 5E-style games, such as Esper Genesis, alongside ToV, this is also the perfect VTT for you. While other VTTs have EG as a ruleset, Shard lets you get in and hack and mod the system to create your own custom science fiction universe. You get much more than just the rules on Shard; you get the developer tools and can customize your rulesets to your heart's content.
The highest recommendation for ToV players and 5E rules hackers.
No comments:
Post a Comment