I. Need. Help.

[Berenost]

Hello all!! First off, i would like to say hello and that this is my first post on here. So, to get to the point, i need your help.

I am a DM, or hopefully gonna be tomorrow night, and i am falling short. in what way you ask? i cant find a single combat tracker sheet anywhere. 3 days of scouring the web just to find program after program, but no hard copy PAPER combat trackers. i am old school, i want paper under my fingers. i am NOT computer savvy in the least, so making one myself is out of the question if i would have it by tomorrow night.

so here's what i ask of you fellow dungeons crawlers. if anyone has a good combat tracking SHEET, could i have the link to download it please?

to me a good sheet would keep track of INITIATIVE, NAME, HP(and damage), AC, and DEFENSES, on one or two sheets.

thank you in advance.

 

[OnlineDM]

Well, in this blog post I describe and show pictures of what I did for a paper combat tracking sheet for my first session as a DM. Since then I've moved to using software for everything, but I kept it simple for that first game.

For initiative, I used half index cards, one for each PC and one for each monster group. I'd write the initiative number on the card and then sort them. If someone delayed or readied, I'd set the card aside and put it back in place as appropriate. I had pre-rolled the monster initiatives for each battle, so they were ready to go.

For hit points, I pre-wrote each monster and its starting HP on a sheet (as well as the bloodied value), one page per battle. As they took damage, I crossed off the old HP and wrote the new one. I also noted ongoing conditions in the margins for each monster as they came up.

Monster defenses were written on the printout I was using to run the adventure (which had the monster stat blocks).

Players kept track of their own hit points.

It worked beautifully, and if it weren't for the fact that I just love MapTool so much, I'd still be running games with exactly that system.

 

[Kzach]

There are so many solutions to this it's hard to suggest just one.

For your problem I'd highly recommend OnlineDM's solution. It's probably the simplest and most accessible to you right now.