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Post by friartook on Jun 9, 2015 16:35:27 GMT
I had my own little light bulb last night during our D&D session. We decided to head over to the local Student Union for this session. They have a big outdoor terrace and the weather was nice. So, I brought candles and lights and such, but both my lights ended up having dead batteries.
Normally, I have a laptop with my PDF of the Monster manual on it, then some scrap paper and a DM screen to hide it behind. Due to the lighting situation and limited space on the tables, I just used my laptop last night.
The light bulb came when I thought about tracking initiative and enemy HP. I pulled up Notepad at first, then started up Excel instead. Excel works great for this purpose! I was able to set up a spreadsheet on the fly that allowed me to track and sort initiative. Then I made columns for the HP of each enemy in the encounter, and put the name of the character engaged with it as the header. This was all done in about 30 seconds. If I had had a spreadsheet already created for this purpose, It would have taken even less time.
If I make a template I like I'll post it here. If anyone else has one they use, I'd love to see it. I really only have a basic to intermediate knowledge of Excel.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2015 18:03:00 GMT
Good stuff, glad to hear you found a handy solution in a pinch.
Personally, I think I will always prefer tracking combat stats on paper. My notebook is something like a hunter's trophy wall. Though it's full of shorthand indecipherable to anyone but myself, I can skim over it and recall crucial details in each fight. If I were to use a spreadsheet, it would need to be setup so that values changing from round to round don't overwrite the history.
Also, I track PC resources (HP, HD, spell slots, etc). It sounds like a lot of extra bookkeeping, but I'm pretty quick and discreet about it (again, shorthand notes). My players didn't even realize I was doing it until the wizard tried to cast a spell when he was out of spell slots. My players aren't cheaters, just forgetful!
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Post by friartook on Jun 9, 2015 18:11:53 GMT
I keep pretty good mental track of where the players are, but I rely mostly on them to track HP and spell slots. I have one or two players who aren't above taking advantage of any forgetfulness on my part, but no outright cheaters.
The thing I have the most trouble keeping mental track of, since we don't use minis or a grid currently, is who is engaged with which monster. The spreadsheet helped out on that. I could change a column heading above a given monster's HP count as the dynamics of the battlefield changed.
In the format I used, I could have kept track of the HP progression, but I didn't bother. I just overwrote the number as it changed. I only make an effort to track such things long term if we happen to stop a session in the midst of an encounter. I work hard to avoid that; I'll call the night earlier or later just to avoid or finish an encounter.
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Post by joatmoniac on Jun 10, 2015 0:41:05 GMT
I have been using an Excel spreadsheet for some time because I have six players at my table. I often put in the monster stats into the spreadsheet so that I only have one thing I really look at.
My Headers: Name - Init Mod - Init - Stealth - Percep - HP - AC/Touch/Flat - Fprt/Ref/Will - CMB - CMD - Atk - Bluff - Diplom - Sense Motive
As you can see, mine is for Pathfinder and brings with it most things that I could roll in secret for the players based on what they choose to do. It also has just about anything I would need to run a monster. Then when initiative happens I just sort in descending order. I also run two sheets in the workbook (Current and NPCs.) Current has all of the Players and I just bring over whatever monster or NPC is in the fight and off I go!
For both HP and and spells I leave that to the players as well, but will probably note their HP going forward to have a general sense of what they have, so as not to have wool over my eyes at any point.
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Post by dm_mainprize on Jun 10, 2015 15:40:09 GMT
Nice trick. I have in the past recorded session with my players and afterwards used excel to track fun stats like hits, misses, crits, critfails, who killed how many creatures etc. My players really enjoyed hearing these stats at the next session.
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