Bring area-of-effect spells, auras, and targeting zones to life on your virtual tabletop.

AoE Effects enhances Fantasy Grounds by overlaying precise geometric area-of-effect shapes directly onto the battle map. These shapes are fully tied to the Fantasy Grounds Effects system, enabling GMs and players to visually represent spells, breath weapons, hazardous terrain, magical auras, and any other area-based ability with precision, clarity, and full automation.

Drop a token representing a spell (such as Entangle or Spirit Guardians) on the map and the extension automatically applies the correct conditions, damage, difficult terrain, bonuses, or penalties to everyone inside the area — and cleanly removes them when tokens leave.

Full comprehensive Documentation

For complete syntax, advanced shape parameters, dozens of ready-to-use examples, visual customization, GM settings, and best practices, please see the official User Documentation:

[→ Download / View AoE Effects v1.1 Comprehensive User Documentation (PDF)]

Updated June 2026

Why AoE Effects Exists

Many spells and abilities create ongoing areas that affect creatures turn after turn. Tracking these manually is slow and error-prone, especially with multiple overlapping effects. AoE Effects gives you a reliable, visual, and highly configurable system that handles it all automatically while dramatically improving immersion for your players.

What's New in version 1.1

• Major improvements to the Aura Visualization system with many new built-in animated visuals (webs, vines, fog, spirits, bonfires, etc.)
• Expanded advanced shape support including full parameter control for 3drect (walls, lines, projecting effects, true 3D cubes), cylinder (with height and ring options), and cone
• Retirement of the older standalone “Auras Visualized” extension — all of its functionality (and much more) is now built directly into AoE Effects
• New GM options for visualization toggle, default border colors, transparency levels, and global aura size adjustment
• Significantly expanded and reorganized documentation with richer examples, tables, and in-game screenshots
• Numerous stability improvements, better conditional logic handling, and refined token intersection behavior

Key Capabilities

• Automatic effect application & removal based on proximity and configurable token overlap rules (Quarter, Center, Near Edge, or Edge)
• Advanced 3D shapes: Sphere, Cube, Cylinder (vertical tubes with optional height and ring support), Cone, and highly flexible 3D Rectangle for walls, lines, and projecting effects
• Powerful built-in visual rendering — players can actually see glowing auras, animated webs, thorny vines, fog clouds, spirits, and more directly on the map
• Custom visual auras — easily import your own images (darkness, runes, fire, energy fields, etc.) and use them in any aura definition
• Full concentration tracking using the simple (C) modifier
• Conditional logic with IF and IFT statements so effects only apply under specific circumstances (e.g., only shapechangers, only while the target is not dying, etc.)
• Broad ruleset support: Works with 3.5E, 4E, 5E, PFRPG, PFRPG2, SFRPG, and SFRPG2
• Extensive GM controls: Global aura size adjustment, master visualization on/off toggle, default colors, and transparency settings

Quick Start Example

 Entangle; (C); IF: !DYING; AURA: 20 all,!self,cube,entangle; Restrained; SPEED: difficult

This creates a 20-foot square Entangle effect (with animated vines visual) that applies the Restrained condition and difficult terrain to everyone except the caster. Concentration is tracked automatically.

Many more tested, production-ready examples (including recommended two-effect patterns for Web, Moonbeam, Spike Growth, Spirit Guardians, and more) are available in the full PDF documentation linked above.

How to Use & Advanced Syntax

The core syntax remains simple and powerful: define an area with the  AURA:  keyword, then specify what effect should be applied to tokens inside that area.
Full details on every descriptor (faction, behavior,  point  ,  single ,  sticky , etc.), advanced shape parameters for  3drect ,  cylinder , and  cone , conditional logic ( IF  /  IFT ), concentration placement, and dozens of practical examples are now in the comprehensive PDF documentation linked at the top of this page.

The PDF is the single source of truth for syntax and usage — it contains richer formatting, tables, and in-game examples that are easier to maintain and read than long web sections.

GM Options & Campaign Settings

All global settings for AoE Effects are found under Options → AoE Effects.

Key options include:

• Token intersection behavior (how much of a token must overlap an aura)
• Global aura size adjustment (+/- to all auras in the campaign)
• Master toggle for Aura Visualization
• Default border color and transparency for aura visuals

Complete descriptions, recommended values, and examples for every setting are included in the official PDF documentation.

Community & Support

Share your favorite aura strings, get help, and discuss advanced techniques in the official forum thread:

[Forum Thread – AoE Effects]
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?87522-AoE-Effects

For bug reports or direct support, please use the contact methods listed on the author’s profile or the forum thread.

Licensing Information

Copyright (c) 2026

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

"Fantasy Grounds" is a trademark of SmiteWorks USA LLC and is Copyright 2004-2023 SmiteWorks USA LLC.

The CoreRPG ruleset, all other official SmiteWorks rulesets, and all files included therein are copyright 2004-2023, Smiteworks USA LLC.

Aura Visualization Graphics License  

Graphics and visual assets used by Aura Visualization are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/