D&D 5E DM: overwhelmed with creatures

[Nebulous]

I scribble a letter denoting the monster and its max hp above it, and then ADD damage as it accumulates, that's easier math for me than subtraction. Sometimes I fudge it if it's a hit point or 3 shy of actually killing it.

 

[Pickles III]

In my live 4e games the players track damage inflicted either by writing on the play mat or using tracker dice.

In g+ game 5e game I tend to write it on scrap paper. I lose track all the time but it doesn't seem to matter much for mooks. Bosses get more attention.

 

[iserith]

Last night I was DM'ing a session and I was overwhelmed with creatures hp I had to keep track of. I was wondering how other dm's keep track of them. I normally use a grid and just white, black, clear or red counters. (I use them for MTG) but I found my self more focused on trying to keep track that I missed some of the story I was supposed to give them. Any advice is appreciated.

I name everything and then just make a list of those names with hit points next to it, adjusting as necessary.

If the monster isn't likely to have a proper name, I'll give it a descriptor in the form of an adjective. So if there are some wolves fighting the PCs, I'll note them as "Vicious," "Rabid," "Feral," and "Alpha." So when the players say what it is they are attacking they can say, "I swing my sword at the vicious wolf" or "I disengage and fall back away from the alpha wolf." This both helps me keep track of how to manage hit points, conditions, and other issues, and helps the players with their descriptions.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I use the scratch paper + additive hp loss method. The only issue is keeping track of exactly which monster is which. Sometimes I have "oops" moments when damage gets dealt to the wrong monster when dealing with identical monsters. Since I like to be able to just throw random monsters at the party and have the fight go fast (ie, I don't necessarily want to mess with a map setup) I still haven't figured out how exactly to keep them all straight.

One thing that works some of the time is to write in the initial of the PC that the monster is engaging to the left of the monster's name. So if Garrik is fighting goblin B, it looks like:

G Goblin B -5

I can cross off initials and move them around also. Still doesn't work in every situation, especially if multiple monsters and PCs are in a mixed situation.

If the monsters are relatively stationary and I have a map, I can label them based on their position from the top of the map. Goblin 1 is the one closest to the top of the map. Again, that doesn't always work, especially when the monsters are mobile.

But, other than the issue of keeping track of which is which (yeah, kind of a big issue), the scratch paper method works pretty well and is very fast.

 

[georbit]

I've been using the iPad app Game Master 5, and I imported all the MM from dropbox tools. So I have the encounter with all the creatures right there, and it's easy to just subtract damage from each monster as the players do the damage. It's been a real time saver.

 

[practicalm]

I use 3x5 cards for each player and monster. Player cards have AC and some information including this combat's initiative value.
Monster cards have stats, attacks, AC and HP. Multiples of the same monster I keep HP in separate rows.

This way I can stack all the players and monsters in order by initiative and move through each card as the turn goes.

 

[Sunseeker]

I use my "Generic foe template".

Monster: *stats*
Monster +1 *stats +1* HP +10
Monster -1 *stats -1* HP -10 (to a minimum of 1)

Then on my paper I simply have the base monster and a a HP chart along the lines of:
HP1 / HP2 / HP3 / etc..
-----------------------
-X / -Y / -Z / etc...

With a notation on which monster is a +1/-1

Honestly short of keeping it all in my head this was the best I can do. I try not to create much variation in fights with complex monsters though. Running multiple intelligent, spell-casting creatures is enough work, I don't really want to remember which is which.

 

[Quickleaf]

Last night I was DM'ing a session and I was overwhelmed with creatures hp I had to keep track of. I was wondering how other dm's keep track of them. I normally use a grid and just white, black, clear or red counters. (I use them for MTG) but I found my self more focused on trying to keep track that I missed some of the story I was supposed to give them. Any advice is appreciated.

Many people just aren't equipped to multitask beyond a certain threshold. For some its a high threshold and others the threshold is lower. And DMing I think asks a fairly high threshold of multitasking from the DM.

If you've noticed this is an issue for you, you might try reducing the number of enemies you have in combat and see if the problem persists.

Alternately, if your story calls for fighting large groups of monsters, try the mob rules from the DMG where you total all the monsters' HPs into an aggregate HP value, and then have a monster die whenever damage equal to an individual monster's HP value is reached. Sure, it means that sometimes a monster that is "at full HP" goes down "before it should", but really in such large melees is that any surprise? And it suits spathe source material (e.g. Lord of the Rings). A bit of pre-game prep can make keeping track even easier:

Group of 10 Goblins
Total HP: 70
A Goblin Dies when Total HP drops to 63, 56, 49, 42, 35, 28, 21, 14, 7, and 0.

 

[KarinsDad]

I use 3x5 cards for each player and monster. Player cards have AC and some information including this combat's initiative value.
Monster cards have stats, attacks, AC and HP. Multiples of the same monster I keep HP in separate rows.

This way I can stack all the players and monsters in order by initiative and move through each card as the turn goes.

But if a PC attacks a monster, don't you have to thumb through your cards to find that monster?

 

[Inchoroi]

In my case, I just use a small whiteboard, both for HP and for Initiative. There's an Android app called Combat Assistant that I've used before, as well, but its for 4e, so its really only good for Initiative (actually, its amazing for it) and for HP. Without the Android, though, just stick with a small whiteboard, maybe letter sized (8.5 x 11 inches). I always used a format like so:

[Monster Name] [Init] [Hit Points Total] [Hit Points Remaining]
[Monster Name] [Init] [Hit Points Total] [Hit Points Remaining]
[Monster Name] [Init] [Hit Points Total] [Hit Points Remaining]
[Player 1] [Init]

Etc, etc.