A free Pathfinder 2e virtual tabletop

Step 1: Start a session on the Pathfinder 2e ruleset

Sign in, open Sessions and choose Start new session. Give it a name and pick Pathfinder 2e under Ruleset (optional). The ruleset is what fills the session's Quick Reference menu with the PF2e catalog: during play you pick Conditions or Spells, search for “frightened” or “electric arc”, open the card and share it with everyone or with the players you choose.

The session gets a join code. Send it, or its link, to your group. Each player needs a free Nat20 account to join (signing up takes a minute, with an email or a Google account), and there is nothing to install: phones, tablets and laptops all work in the browser.

For a longer campaign you can instead set a Nat20 campaign to the Pathfinder 2e ruleset. Its scenes and notes can then mention spells, feats and conditions inline, and you start the live session from the campaign page.

Step 2: Bring the party in as session units

When a player joins, they add their character as a unit: either a copy of a Pathfinder 2e character they already made in Nat20, which they can then edit freely, or a new one created on the spot. A PF2e character in Nat20 has an ancestry, a class and a background (each linked to its catalog entry), a level from 1 to 20, six ability scores, Hit Points, Armor Class and Speed.

Take the goblin fighter. The Goblin entry gives 6 HP and a Speed of 25 feet; the Fighter entry gives 10 HP per level. With a Constitution modifier of +2, the character starts with 6 + 10 + 2 = 18 Hit Points. Nat20 calculates each modifier from its score as (score − 10) ÷ 2, rounded down, so a Constitution of 14 shows +2. If your group writes modifiers only, as the Remaster books do, enter the score that produces the modifier you want: 16 for +3, 18 for +4.

Nat20 stores these numbers, it does not derive them. AC, HP and Speed are what you type in, and proficiency bonuses, item bonuses and level-ups are worked out by you, the same way you would on a paper sheet.

Step 3: Lay out the fight on a 5-foot grid

Open the map and set its size: anything from 5 to 60 squares a side. Each square is 5 feet by default, which is exactly Pathfinder's grid, and you can change the scale or switch to metres. Upload a background image of the forest road (PNG, JPEG or WebP up to 2 MB) or keep the plain grid.

Place a token for every combatant. Tokens span 1 to 4 squares, which covers Pathfinder sizes: Small and Medium creatures take 1 square, Large 2×2, Huge 3×3 and Gargantuan 4×4. Players place and move their own tokens, zoom, measure with the ruler and ping a square to say “I go here”. The goblin fighter's 25-foot Speed is 5 squares per Stride.

There is no fog of war and no dynamic lighting, so players see everything on the map. Place the bandits' tokens when the party spots them, and describe what darkvision reveals instead of relying on the map to hide it.

Step 4: Roll initiative and fill the tracker

Start combat in the tracker. In Pathfinder 2e, initiative is usually a Perception check (your ambushing bandits might roll Stealth instead). Under Roll into initiative, each player selects their unit, enters current and maximum HP and presses Throw for initiative: a real d20 tumbles in the shared dice box, and they can edit the result to add their Perception modifier before pressing Add to combat, so a 13 on the die with a +5 becomes 18.

You add the bandits yourself: a name, the initiative they rolled and their HP. The tracker sorts everyone from highest to lowest, and when two results tie it keeps the combatant added first ahead. Pathfinder's rule is that on a tie the adversary acts first, so roll the bandits and add them before you call for the players' rolls.

Say the order comes out as: goblin fighter 18, bandit A 16, wizard 14, bandit B 12, cleric 12, rogue 9. Bandit B was added first, so it sits above the cleric. Press Next Turn to move the highlight down the order; after the last combatant the round counter goes up and the order starts again.

Step 5: Play out three-action turns

Every Pathfinder 2e creature regains three actions and a reaction at the start of its turn. Nat20 does not count them: the tracker shows whose turn it is and which round, and the table keeps track of actions as it would in person. A good habit is to name each action out loud as you spend it.

The goblin fighter opens with Sudden Charge. Open the feat from Quick Reference and the card reads two actions: Stride twice, then make a melee Strike if you end within reach of an enemy. Two Strides of 25 feet cover 10 squares, which the ruler confirms. The fighter rolls the Strike in the dice tray with their attack bonus, for example 1d20+7, and spends the third action on a second Strike at the −5 multiple attack penalty.

On the wizard's turn, Electric Arc: a cantrip, two actions, range 30 feet (6 squares), one or two targets, 2d4 electricity damage with a basic Reflex save. Roll the 2d4 once in the tray; each bandit saves and takes nothing on a critical success, half on a success, full on a failure and double on a critical failure. Lower each bandit's HP in the tracker, which never lets HP drop below 0 or rise above the maximum.

Share the cards you rely on: Electric Arc's full text on every player's screen ends arguments about range mid-fight. Reactions stay with the table too; the fighter's Reactive Strike is in the catalog, but Nat20 does not prompt for it. Players nudge their own HP up or down one point at a time from their combat panel; for a bigger change, such as the cleric's Heal (1d8, or 1d8 + 8 at 30 feet when cast with two actions), you type the new total with Set HP in your tracker.

Step 6: Track conditions and checks

The cleric casts Fear on bandit A: two actions, 30 feet and a Will save. On a success the bandit is Frightened 1, on a failure Frightened 2, and on a critical failure Frightened 3 and fleeing for 1 round. Say it fails: in the tracker, add a status effect named “Frightened 2” to bandit A with a duration of 2.

Nat20 counts status effects down once per full round, when the last combatant's turn ends, not at the end of the affected creature's own turn as Frightened does. Treat the countdown as a reminder: when the bandit ends its turn, remove the effect and add Frightened 1. The Frightened card states the rule itself: a status penalty equal to the value on all checks and DCs, dropping by 1 at the end of each of the creature's turns.

Players do not see status effects. Their combat panel shows the round, the turn order with everyone's initiative and their own HP, and the combat card you can share adds an HP bar for every combatant with a maximum HP. So announce conditions out loud, or share the condition's card: Off-Guard, for example, is a −2 circumstance penalty to AC that the player flanking a bandit should not have to look up.

For checks, you can request a roll from a player's unit: you pick an ability modifier and an optional DC that only you see, the player rolls a d20, and Nat20 adds the modifier and reports pass or fail. Pathfinder checks also add proficiency and level and have four degrees of success, so for saves and skill checks most tables roll in the dice tray with the full modifier and compare it with the DC themselves, where 10 or more above the DC is a critical success.