Combat utility?

[Knowledge Sinkhole]

Hi there. I was just wondering if anyone could recommend a free
program for running combat? I don't need anything that makes rolls for you (that would sort of take the fun out of it, wouldn't it ), but something that keeps track of NPC/PC life totals, stats, initiative, etc would be very handy. I'm trying to find something like this in order to speed up combat.. right now, our group is EXCEEDINGLY large (6 PCs, 2 NPCs [our clerics]), and going through five rounds of combat can take an hour or more. And no, we can't just cut the group size down

 

[DMFTodd]

There's DM's Familiar but it's not free. If you really want to speed up your combat though, you owe it to yourself to check it out (it's my product so I have to push it).

There's RolePlayingMaster, it's free for now (Luke keeps talking about an alpha, beta, and final release. I don't know if that means he's going to start charging or not). Link for that is on the main page of ENWorld.

There's a product called Helge's DM Screen that I think did some of what you are looking for. I think a link for it is at Jamis Buck's Generators. Link to Jamis is on the main page of ENWorld as well.

I've seen an Excel spreadsheet or two floating around that did some real basic initiative tracking. Jamis may have links for those as well.

 

[Mean DM]

Sinkhole,

Helge's DM Screen can be downloaded at http://home.jps.net/~helgem/DMScreen/

You gotta at least give DM Familiar a look see, though. Well worth the price IMBiasedO.

Mean DM

 

[Luke]

I'll put in a word for RPM at http://www.enworld.org/roleplayingmaster (thanks for the mention Todd).

The highest goal of RPM is to provide the most automated in-game mechanics possible. This includes the following:

- Dice rolls are automatically done for quick NPC/monster processing if you want, but you call always enter in manual rolls (especially for player characters).

- Keeps full track of the status of all creatures, and constantly recalculates stats and abilites, according to game rules (necessary to quickly and properly automate the mechanical side of things).

- full adventure and creature preparation capability, which can be used in-game.

- quick reference to full rules descriptions for currently selected actions (skills, attacks, spells etc).

- the combat manager (managing initiative, action selection, XP allocation etc), also takes into account conditions (entangled, cowering, blinded etc), and the effect that it has on capabilities. This is integrated to the BattleMap, where you can position and move creatures, and take advantage of automatic distance calculations.

The philosophy behind RPM is to enable better actual roleplaying, by taking care of the mechanics for you, as much as possible.
To this end, RPM is very specifically not just a tool that manages information that you enter, but rather allows you to enter minimal amounts of information, which it knows exactly what to do with.

 

[Eternalknight]

I have an excel spreadsheet that I made that I use during combat... it does a bit more than that too, and although the other features aren't quite finished, if you want to have a look, PM me

 

[CRGreathouse]

There are lots of programs out there, most notably RPM. Personally, I use pencil, paper, and dice...