6 Must-Have Foundry VTT Modules
Written by Mo20s
Welcome to round 2 of our recommended Foundry modules. If you’re new to Foundry VTT mods or are curious about more mod recommendations, round 1 covers the Top 10 Foundry VTT Mods for Beginners. We highly recommend checking it out if you missed it.
Foundry VTT modules bring even more amazing tools for DMs to give their players amazing experiences. These modules focus on making the DM’s job easier. Some of these modules are robust and have increased customization options to adapt to you and your players’ needs, so we have included a couple of simple ones that are great combinations.
Increased options and customization make setting up and maintaining them a bit more complex. This might include installing additional modules as a prerequisite, troubleshooting on the Discord servers of the respective module developers, or even subscribing to a Patreon for enhanced features. For those more complex modules, take the time to read the developer pages and play with the settings.
Now, let’s get started and enhance your table experience, one module at a time!
Module #1: Midi Quality of Life Improvements
Link to the Mod: Midi-QoL
Description and Recommendation:
What the mod does: Allows for automation of most combat functions with a robust degree of customization.
How it helps: The ability to click and automate the combat rolls, spells, and even saving rolls of the creature or player being attacked allows a DM to focus more on the story and immersion versus adding up and adjudicating rolls. It speeds up gameplay significantly.
Why you recommend it: This module really opened my eyes to Foundry being my preferred VTT. I was a 10+ year user of Fantasy Grounds, and I couldn’t find a VTT with the automation and customization that Fantasy Grounds had until Midi-QoL. I love that, as a DM, I can click a button to roll my attack and damage and push a save to the player with minimal effort. Want to roll the attack and have it auto-check to hit? No problem! Auto check for damage resistance and adjust damage? You got it! It also allows the players to set their own automation for their roles. It has so many options!
With that said, this module has A LOT of customization options, and it is recommended that you take time to sit down and look at all the customizations available. It took me a good four sessions to find the right balance and settings to meet our table’s needs, so be patient and be prepared to invest the time to get it where you want it. This, plus the next on our list, has saved me so much time that it has allowed me to focus more on the things I love when DMing.
Module #2: DDB-Importer: A D&D Beyond Integrator
Link to the Mod: DDB-Importer: A D&D Beyond Integrator
Description and Recommendation:
What the mod does: Allows you to import your content on DnD Beyond to Foundry. Items, spells, and characters are available out of the box, and with a Patreon membership, monsters can be imported to your game. You can also import your adventures using their Adventure Muncher.
How it helps: It allows you to take advantage of all your owned content on DnD Beyond without having to create it manually. You can also add some optional modules that increase your automation within the game.
Why you recommend it: Most character creation for my 5e players starts in DnD Beyond before any of us meet. With a couple of clicks, a DM can import their characters into their world in minutes. Additionally, the DM can import every creature they have in their world into a searchable list and then add it to their map. Those two features alone have saved a ton of time! This is another module that allows you to add additional functionality when adding optional modules.
The Adventure Muncher allows you to import journals and scenes from your owned adventurers into DDB. This is an amazing option if you are a DM with a lot of content on DnD Beyond, but take time to read the developer’s page and FAQ to understand your options and how other modules can enhance your experience.
See DDB-Importer in action!
Module #3: Monk’s Combat Details
Link to the Mod: Monks Combat Details
Description and Recommendation:
What the mod does: It adds multiple enhancements focused around combat and the combat encounters tab.
How it helps: For the players, it gives visual notifications and plays sound effects when they are up next or at the start of their turn. Additionally, it shows the starting location of your token in case you change your mind mid-move.
For the DM, it adds automation during combat by switching tabs, managing the combat tracker, and automatically “popping out” the Combat Tracker at the start of combat. It also has a CR calculator for the encounter and a difficulty estimate against the player characters in the current combat.
Why you recommend it: It wouldn’t be a proper list if a Monk’s module wasn’t on it. This is nowhere near as complex to use as some of the other modules on this list, but it packs some features that add simplicity when running combat that keep things moving. The turn notification to the players was the main reason I recommend this. The screen notification that shows when the player is up next and when it is their turn keeps combat moving.
Additionally, you can change settings that freeze token movement when you trigger combat and get notifications if a player changes prepared spells mid-combat. Finally, the Combat Tracker can calculate the CR of the creatures in your encounter. These are just a few features that add simplicity to keeping your game moving.
See Monk’s Combat Details in action!
Module #4: Foundry to Discord
Link to the Mod: Foundry to Discord
Description and Recommendation:
What the mod does: Just as the name implies, send messages (chat and dice rolls) that occur in Foundry to your Discord Server using Discord webhooks.
How it helps: It allows you to access your chats or roles outside of Foundry. This is the perfect solution when performing downtime activities away from the table. If you are looking for a viable alternative to Avrae and Tupper (a great bot that allows you to create multiple actors in Discord) for a full play-by-post (PBP) campaign, this is it!
Why you recommend it: This is a must-have if you are performing any activities outside of Foundry that require access to rolls or chat. If your players are like mine, none want to lose table time for shopping or social interactions they aren’t involved in. We started using this to help my players access content for those situations, and the results were overwhelmingly positive—particularly its ability to push the character art of the actor talking to really give it that additional immersion.
Additionally, it became clear that this could be an alternative to Avrae (another great tool but very complex and sometimes frustrating for newer players in combat) and Tupper in PBP formats. I am currently running a game that uses a combination of Avrae (to allow for rolls from DnD Beyond), Foundry (to facilitate the combat tracking), and automated rolls (Midi-QoL) with Discord as our Virtual Table. The experience has been amazing, especially as we use a combination of the DDB-importer and the next module to help with the immersion.
Module #5: Speak As……
Link to the Mod: Speak As……
Description and Recommendation:
What the mod does: Gives you a drop-down menu that allows you to select a specific actor and speak as them.
How it helps: This enables the DM to have an easy-access list of actors they want to have dialogue with without having to access the token on the map. No more fumbling around looking for the actor tokens.
Why you recommend it: Another module that is amazing because of its simplicity if you use chat to communicate among your actors. As a DM, navigating multiple actors in those formats can feel overwhelming. Having a one-stop list eases that pain! Additionally, combine this with all of your actors imported from DnD Beyond, and your players will be impressed with your ability to create compelling dialogue with multiple actors at a rapid rate.
See Speak As…… in action!
Module #6: Monk’s Enhanced Journal
Link to the Mod: Monk’s Enhanced Journal
Description and Recommendation:
What the mod does: Adds several enhancements to the journal for ease of use, including searching, bookmarks, tabs, and more.
How it helps: Allows the DM to better search and manage content within the journals. Spend less time trying to find your content and more time playing!
Why you recommend it: For the DM accessing content within the Journals, it can feel overwhelming trying to navigate back and forth between multiple journals. This module is a lifesaver for that DM as it gives the ability to bookmark a journal and keeps it front and center for the DM to access with just a quick click of a button.
You can also open multiple tabs at the top of the journal, giving you another single-click access to other journals you stage in the tab. The search feature brightly highlights the keyword you are looking for, allowing you to find it quickly. Finally, a shop feature lets you create a vendor shop for your players. These are just some of the great content in this module. Check out the developer page to see the full list of enhancements it can bring to your table!
See Monk’s Enhanced Journal in action!
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