D&D 5E D&D Beyond Announces Combat Tracker

"We're happy to announce the Alpha release of the Combat Tracker tool to subscribers of D&D Beyond! Try it out in your D&D games and your feedback will be used to make this the best it can be!"

D&D Beyond has just announced the alpha development version of a combat tracker. You can track monsters, initiative, and access quick reference information. This functionality is similar to that offered by Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds.

You can read more about the combat tracker here. The Alpha version is available to DDB subscribers.

"We have been using the Combat Tracker in our home games for a few weeks, and although it is certainly not in a finished state yet, we experienced enough value that we have decided to go ahead and release it now - even in its unfinished state - to both 1) let subscribers gain some of that value and 2) get feedback as early as possible.

Please keep in mind that this is not a finished product, and we invite subscribers to help us make it the best it can be!

Who can use the Combat Tracker?

All D&D Beyond Subscribers. The Combat Tracker is in full active development right now. We will be allowing early access to NEW Combat Tracker features to our Subscribers first, to prove out concepts and new functionality. We took the same approach with the Alpha version of the Encounter Builder with much success. This delivery method allows us to digest feedback in bite sized chunks and perform testing to figure out the best user experience possible.

What is a Development Alpha?

The Development Alpha of the Combat Tracker allows us to test features and user experience.

• Functional but expecting a lot of bugs
  • Should be no core functionality bugs
• Core functionality could change with feedback
• Functionality could appear or disappear at any time

We will be working on validating bug reports and cleaning up the Combat Tracker. Once these tasks have been completed we will release to Beta, essentially meaning the Combat Tracker tool is complete."

 

[practicalm]

Check out Improved Initiative. It is a gem.

That's looks pretty good. Seems to have similar features as to Lion's Den Gamemaster.
Is it easy to add your own custom creatures?
the work to get things into the XML for Lion's Den is the only thing that takes a lot of time.

 

[MNblockhead]

But FG has also had years to develop these features. D&D Beyond is a very new product.

And while I love the capabilities of FG, their user interface is a massive barrier for me personally. The FG Unity Kickstarter really missed a chance to modernize the user experience.

I feel the same. I played around with FG a couple years ago and decided it wasn't worth the effort to learn. Felt like work. Roll 20 is better and I'm currently testing Astral Table Top, which I am really like. But I don't think I'd use any VTT unless I am running an adventure that I can buy for those systems where all the work has already been done to prep the maps and content.

DDB is well-suited to my needs. It makes the rules easy to reference and even the app, which gets a lot of flack, is pretty good as an e-ready. I've read through entire books like Mordenkainen's, Eberron and Ravnica on the app. It was pleasant and convenient to do so.

A combat tracker would be a nice to have. You really don't need software for combat tracking in 5e. The easiest and most effective way to track combat in 5e is usually a sheet of paper. Angry GM has a great essay about this on his blog. Even the Paizo combat pad is too fiddly for my tastes.

 

[MNblockhead]

Perhaps, but they felt forward compatibility of all existing DLC and campaigns was more important than alienating a large part of their existing customer base to please a set of potential new customers.

Unfortunately, this could bite them in the long term. Competitors have come out with far more intuitive, more attractive, and easier to learn systems. I will probably give FG another chance because FG publishes their content for FG. If I could get Rappan Athuk with all the maps prepped and all the content and monsters entered, for 5e, I would buy FG in a heartbeat. But otherwise, it is just an ugly, difficult to learn platform that would require me to rebuy all my WotC content for a third time.

The best competitive edge for FG and Roll20 is their support for third-party material.

 

[MNblockhead]

That's looks pretty good. Seems to have similar features as to Lion's Den Gamemaster.
Is it easy to add your own custom creatures?
the work to get things into the XML for Lion's Den is the only thing that takes a lot of time.

I'm old and lazy, so nothing is "easy" for me when it comes to data entry. You can add creatures to your library easily, entering as much or as little info as you want. Certainly much much easier than creating home brew creatures in DDB.

It comes with all the SRD monsters, but the reason I started using it, is because someone put together the work of entering a bare minimum for all the monsters in Rappan Athuk (which is a massive megadungeon). Still, for more complicated monsters, it is a pain to enter in details if you want the attack and special-ability descriptions. I usually just have the book on PDF open to the stat blocks of the creatures and only enter AC and HP.

The "killer feature" of DDB is that they have all official WotC monsters and your player's character sheets in the system already. I am willing to pay for someone else having done the data-entry labor. The current iteration of DDB's combat tracker, however, doesn't yet fully take advantage of what they have in the system. I'd like more tight integration with the players' character sheets for example. I would also like to see more options for customizing monsters on the fly for just a specific encounter, without having to go through the entire hassle of making a homebrew creature. Sure you can add basic stats on the fly, but they won't link to the monster's description, which is one of the main advantages of DDB's combat tracker.

The main dealbreaker for me, however, is the lack of third party content and how difficult it is to input third-party content into DDB. No way in hell am I going to enter all of Kobold Press's Tome of Beasts into DDB as homebrews. But you can buy third-party material for Hero Labs, FFG, Roll20, and others. I get why DDB is focusing on making the best possible experience for just one system. But as they move away from charactersheets and rules and into tools, they getting into territory that others do much better and features that are much more effected by table rules and home brew.

My guess is that they will eventually integrate encounter builder and combat tracker into the adventure material. This will be great for those who only run WotC-published adventures. But not matter how good their tools are, they won't be much use for me if I have to spend huge amounts of time doing data entry to run my non-WotC 5e content.

 

[Mistwell]

I would love a way to somehow integrate DnDBeyond with Roll20. I am constantly pulling up DnDBeyond in a separate window to look up things like spell descriptions or item descriptions.

 

[Oofta]

I would love a way to somehow integrate DnDBeyond with Roll20. I am constantly pulling up DnDBeyond in a separate window to look up things like spell descriptions or item descriptions.

You just need more monitors.

 

[BigBadDM]

I used it extensively for 6 hours this past weekend. And as for me I was impressed and it was a very useful addition to the table. Being able to keep track of hit points, rounds; context aware for spells, abilities, etc, as well as clicking on enemies and see their stat block was nice. Importing the other characters from the campaign into the encounter was simple too.

I ran into one issue where clicking on a context item brought me to the page (rather than the popup as everything else). This reset the combat encounter with everyone's HP and initiative order. That was a pain but the battle was almost concluded at any rate.

I also wish there was an easy way to add a creature to the encounter on the fly once it starts. Had a couple monster summonings that meant I had to use scratch paper for a specific create.

Most of the other complaints I have seen posted were none issues for me as I usually have a few tabs open anyways (to the adventure or the player's handbook). I don't need to keep track of conditions in app as I have handouts for that stuff. No deal breakers and I will definitely use it again.

 

[MNblockhead]

Curious, @BigBadDM , do you stick to official published adventures and monsters? I would use DDB except that I'm using third-party material which makes the DDB combat tracker much less useful.

I used it extensively for 6 hours this past weekend. And as for me I was impressed and it was a very useful addition to the table. Being able to keep track of hit points, rounds; context aware for spells, abilities, etc, as well as clicking on enemies and see their stat block was nice. Importing the other characters from the campaign into the encounter was simple too.

I ran into one issue where clicking on a context item brought me to the page (rather than the popup as everything else). This reset the combat encounter with everyone's HP and initiative order. That was a pain but the battle was almost concluded at any rate.

I also wish there was an easy way to add a creature to the encounter on the fly once it starts. Had a couple monster summonings that meant I had to use scratch paper for a specific create.

Most of the other complaints I have seen posted were none issues for me as I usually have a few tabs open anyways (to the adventure or the player's handbook). I don't need to keep track of conditions in app as I have handouts for that stuff. No deal breakers and I will definitely use it again.

 

[BayesianBroccoli]

I would love a way to somehow integrate DnDBeyond with Roll20. I am constantly pulling up DnDBeyond in a separate window to look up things like spell descriptions or item descriptions.

Well, there actually does exist a way to integrate DnDBeyond, with a browser-extension called Beyond20. I've heard it's great, from people who use both. From what I understand it makes it possible to make rolls in Roll20 from your BeyondDnD content, and doesn't include any shady options that would enable piracy or anything else that would make it disallowed. Personally, I'm good with my physical books and what I have on Roll20, so never really looked into BeyondDnD.