Initiative Tracker?

[RefinedBean]

Some of us even find this "Initiative Tracking System" in our company supply cabinets.

"What're you doing in that cabinet?"

"I'm getting some ITS forms. Doing some work at home tonight."

One of my groups uses Paizo's board, which works well. Another group has moved to using white boards and dry-erase markers, which have the benefit of being bigger and able to track more information (ongoing spells, conditions, etc.)

Paper, of course, is always awesome, and cheap.

 

[Asmor]

I swear by Turn Watcher. Not free, but worth every penny.

Save and load things, roll monster's initiative while still letting players roll their own, keep track of HP, show players a HUD with as much or as little info as you want on a second monitor, and keyboard shortcuts which let you use the program quickly without using the mouse make this great.

Only downside is that every once in a while it will crash (been using it almost a year, has happened a small handful of times), but even then it seems to save its state frequently and as soon as you start it back up you're back where you left off.

 

[El Mahdi]

I swear by Turn Watcher. Not free, but worth every penny. ...

Oooh! That looks really cool. I usually just use an Excel sheet and re-sort by column, so I can have a new initiative each round (I like to work that in as a random factor to combat). And apparently that program can also do that. Sweeeet! Looks like a very useful program.

I don't like the idea of it crashing though. Do you think that maybe they've worked the bugs out of it?

 

[SteveC]

I downloaded an Initiative tracker right here on Enworld, and it works great for me by rolling my critters for me. I have the players roll their initiative at the start of the session or immediately after a battle for the next one, and we get to jump right into things.

I also play with a GM who uses the Combat Pad, but he moved to a larger magnetic whiteboard, which he has one of the players maintain. That also seems to work very well.

--Steve

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I've been using index cards for about twelve years now. It's not only fast, easy, and cheap, it also allows me to pull out cards when people delay/ready actions and track monster hit points independently.

I agree. Since I started using them I'd never go back.

 

[malraux]

GameMastery Combat Pad by Paizo.

I got one a couple years ago when some small start up first came up with it and it's really handy. We originally used either the "write everyone on the dry erase board" method or the "write out on a bunch of index cards" method. But this board is handy because it's pretty easy to avoid having to re-write the PCs (as long as you're carful, I haven't had trouble with the PC names wiping off too often), and there's room for status effects and so on.

Overall, very useful product.

Because it works with both wet and dry erase, what I've done is write the players' names in wet erase, then everything else in dry erase. The dry erase stuff comes off easily, while the players comes off with water. I love the Combat Pad.

 

[catsclaw227]

I swear by Turn Watcher. Not free, but worth every penny.

Is there a 4e "ruleset" or dataset that you can use? I noticed that the screenshots all had 3.5 rules info, but I didn't get to spend time looking deeper at the application.

I wonder if it is XML based....

 

[Asmor]

Is there a 4e "ruleset" or dataset that you can use? I noticed that the screenshots all had 3.5 rules info, but I didn't get to spend time looking deeper at the application.

I wonder if it is XML based....

Well, I only use it for tracking HP and initiative, which are pretty much system-neutral. The latest version also has the ability to add custom columns, so for example you could add a perception or stealth column pretty easily.

 

[Betote]

Another vote for Paizo's Combat Pad here. I bought it recently and used it both in my BECMI and my Pathfinder games, and it is really handy. I used to write it down on the battlemat or use index cards, but this method won me over

 

[catsclaw227]

Another vote for Paizo's Combat Pad here.

I bought the combat pad and we used it for about 4-5 game sessions. Then when we switched to 4e, with the condition tracking, we decided to go with whiteboards.

I have two hand-held sized ones, one player does initiative, another does condition tracking.