DM Tips: Tracking damage

[SlyFlourish]

In my constant drive to find better ways to do things, I thought I'd ask how other DMs track damage for monsters. Right now I number each mini with a silver paint marker and track it using a 3x5 card. This works well except for a couple of problems:

1. I have to paint on my minis. Most aren't expensive so I don't really care.

2. I often have a lot of scribbles in a small space on the 3x5 card.

3. My players often can't or don't tell me what number they hit.

So what methods do you guys use to track monster damage?

 

[Hejdun]

In our group, our DM has delegated damage tracking to the players. Specifically, one of us has a spreadsheet open and keeps track of the damage on each enemy. After someone hits a creature, we might ask the DM for an update (i.e. "the orc chieftain is up to 78 damage, how's he look?) to which he'll respond with something like "he's scratched/bloodied/near death" to give us a better idea on when we need to bug him again. As in, if the guy's taken 20 damage and he's only scratched, we might not ask him again until he's up to 80 or 100 damage.

It seems to work well for us. One of us always has a laptop open anyways, so it's not that big of a deal to use it for hit point tracking.

 

[chaotix42]

Initiative tracking is done on a big white board by the players. When a monster is damaged the closest person grabs the dry erase marker and writes the damage down next to the monster's spot on the initiative track. Same thing with bloodied, statuses, etc.

 

[Truename]

I use one post-it note per monster. I label each post-it with the letter provided for that monster in the adventure. (B for Orc Bombardier, S for Orc Seargant, ...) If I have multiple Orc Bombardiers (for example), I arrange the post-its to match the relative positions of the monsters on the map. When a monster changes position relative to the others in its group, I move its post-it. This allows me to easily match up post-its to monsters.

My players can see the post-its, so I track how much damage the monster has taken rather than how much hit points it has left. (In other words, I count up from zero.) This has had the unexpected advantage of being easier arithmetic, and it requires slightly less prep.

The other nice thing about the post-its is that there's room to write down effects. We use condition cards for most effects, but I'll write down regeneration and ongoing damage on the post-it. I also keep track of ammo on the post-it when necessary.

When a monster dies, I crumple up its post-it and throw it away.

 

[Fede]

Initiative tracking is done on a big white board by the players. When a monster is damaged the closest person grabs the dry erase marker and writes the damage down next to the monster's spot on the initiative track. Same thing with bloodied, statuses, etc.

That's the way we do it. The only difference is that it's the DM (me) that keeps track of everything instead of the nearest person.

 

[darjr]

I use one of those giant mats, a corner is used to keep track.

I don't calculate and record how many they have left. I just record how many they have lost. Yea, it's a minor step, but it all adds up .

on the mat I put the current damage, in my little private corner of the mat, at approximately where they are on the battle mat in play. Nothing exacting or perfect. Then initial them with enough characters to identify the monster and a number for which one if there are more than one.

I'll underline, circle, square, or triangle them if they need to save.

I'll fudge a bit if I screw it up. Usually in the players favor.

I lean on the players to keep me honest.

It's worked so far.

Oh yea, I'll have a list for intiative next to that section.

 

[Aristotle]

I track damage on paper or a blank sheet of laminated paper with a wet-erase marker, rather than paint on my minis. I use tiny little round stickers (the smallest dots they sell in office supply places to mark manilla folders) to mark various minis of the same design.

I use Alea Tools miniature markers for various conditions including Bloodied. The Bloodied marker is the only real indicator I give during a fight as to the full condition of a standing enemy. This is largely because I don't feel that every deduction of hit points indicates a physsical wound, and loss of endurance or morale aren't quantifiable mid-fight unless they have a skill, feat, or power that lets them gather that kind of meta information.

 

[Asmor]

I use Turn Watcher to track initiative and damage. It's ideal for me because it has a player HUD I can display on a second monitor which shows the players the initiative order and what percentage of health everything's at.

As far as differntiating similar minis, I have two tactics. Preferably, I don't use identical minis. So if they're fighting lizard men, I might use a greenspawn and a redspawn and an actual lizardman.

When I'm too lazy to pick out a bunch of different but close minis, or for whatever reason can't, I use Alea Tools to differentiate them, e.g. in my last game I had Leaping Statue (blue), Leaping Statue (red), Leaping Statue (green) and Leaping Statue (yellow).

 

[Mark]

In my constant drive to find better ways to do things, I thought I'd ask how other DMs track damage for monsters.

I keep track openly on a big white board.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

I use methods like darjr describes. Easy to put on a piece of paper. Don't need to worry too much about the numbers matching up either. The one thing I do that seems to help is to build encounters (for the most part) out of different types of opponents. So there might be one vampire, three wights and seven ghouls. I label them on the sheet V, W1, W2, W3, G1, G2, G3, G4, G5, G6, G7 (arranged roughly in a semicircle relating to where they start on the board). Then I tally hits underneath (also not tallying how much they've lost.) Once one is dead, I strike it out on my sheet and remove it from the board. This helps more than you might know.