Effects in Fantasy Grounds: An introduction and some advice.

So you've played a game or two of D&D 5e on Fantasy Grounds.  You've clicked on all of the UI buttons, and see what they do.  You know how to open up the Calendar, change the color of your Dice, how to drop dice in the Dice Tower (unless your DM doesn't use a dice tower).  You can find a map that was shared and you closed.  You know how to drag and drop inventory items from the Party Sheet Inventory tab to your Character Sheet Inventory tab.  You know how to roll initiative, ability checks, attacks, and damage dice for weapon attacks.

The list of things above are things a bright person can pick up with some experimentation and some free time.  You're playing D&D, you're a bright person.  If you don't know how to do these things, spend some free time and experiment.

But there is the whole effect thing.  This is something that non-programmers will not pick up by experimenting.  If you *are* a programmer, then check out:  http://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/5E_Effects

For the rest of us mere mortals, recognize that this will be a long process.  I've been playing in FG for almost a year, and there are still lots of things that I don't know about effects.

If you're not really a spell caster, you might be able to do with very few effects.  And most of the spell effects will automatically populate.

Most of the class ability effects (and other awesome info) can be gotten from:
http://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?27296-Guides-videos-and-other-helpful-information

So for example if you've got a Barbarian, and want a rage effect, you can go to the "A Barbarian" page, download the *.xml file and drag and drop from the "A Barbarian" actions tab to your character's actions tab. Be sure that you read the original post because even more important than the effect is information about what abilities and traits *can't* be automated in FG.  That will save you a lot of hair pulling.  Also note that you'll probably have to adjust most of the effects because they're set up for a Level 20 character, not a Level 1-3 character.

But if you're a Ranger with Hunter's Mark or a Rogue with Sneak Attack damage or a Great Weapon Master/Sharpshooter feat person.  I suggest that you *don't* create effects.  Instead create separate Weapons for each of the things you'll be trying to do.  Here is an Example:

This is from my Fighter6/Ranger2 with the Sharpshooter feat.  I've created four separate weapon attacks instead of applying effects for the Sharpshooter feat and for my Hunter's Mark.  Why did I do that?  Because I can decide before shooting which situation I'm in, and then just roll the Attack, and if it hits, the damage.  When I had effects, I would make an effect mistake about 33% of the time, and when I would it would mean that the DM would have to remove my bad effect, or adjust the damage.  This setup makes mistakes much less likely.  If you know about the Oathbow, then you know that once per day I can name someone my "Sworn Enemy" and do a *lot* more damage.  I decided to keep my Sworn Enemy as an effect.  I only use it rarely, and when I do, the fact that I'm using it is foremost in my mind, so having a Sworn Enemy effect doesn't create errors the way that Hunter's Mark or Sharpshooter effects would.  It may be the case that creating all possible combinations of damage options is too unwieldy, but for the type of damage effects that are linked to weapon attacks that will occur almost every round -- creating separate weapons for each of them can create a smoother time for you on your round, and for your DM.