Ideas for versatile condition markers

[Flynn]

Cut-up pipe cleaners is an old standard from historicals miniature war gaming. Cheap and a multitude of colors are available.

I'd second this suggestion. Make little rings that can hang on the mini, and you should be good to go.

With Regards,
Flynn

 

[Zander]

A small Post-It note will do it - either a pre-cut one or one cut to size. You can stick it to the underside of a mini's base so it protrudes and write a letter code on the projecting tab to indicate status, e.g. "B" for bloodied, "P" for poisoned. Alternatively, you can colour-code the Post-Its.

Many groups use combat mats so they have wet-erase markers handy. Wet-erase pens can be used on paper too (but can't be erased).

 

[SteveC]

One thing that the whole Texas Hold-Em Poker phenomenon has done is make a lot of different styles of poker chips available. When I was in Las Vegas, they had a number of places that would custom make them for you with initials and so forth. My FLGS has small collections of them in dozens of different colors.

My thought is to get a small number of different colored chips to mark conditions or, well, marks and so forth.

--Steve

 

[Dr. Confoundo]

You can buy sheets of 2mm foam in loads of colors at any art or craft supply store (like Michaels), and each sheet is less than a buck or so. Get a big hole punch, or a pair of scissors, and you've got ready made tokens for marking.

 

[Nytmare]

To represent flight, I've been using these for the last couple years (which you can buy atany craft store); and I had inheritted a half set of these neat, marbalized, "they don't really look like poker chips", poker chips that we had been using for different status effects.

After I saw an article with the aleatools, I realized that though I liked the poker chips, I wasn't happy with their vertical profile and I didn't have anywhere near enough colors. I spent a couple days wandering around a bunch of different shops looking for inspiration and finally landed on just cutting a 1 inch dowel down to 1/4 inch chunks and staining them different colors (stripes for marks).

 

[Glowing Glyph]

My company is developing inexpensive markers called Condition Crowns. We hope to release them soon.
Here they are in action at a GenCon delve I played with SlyFlourish.
Yfrog Image : yfrog.com/83h4bnj - Uploaded by slyflourish
Yfrog Image : yfrog.com/n479kj - Uploaded by slyflourish

The particular prototypes you're looking at attach to medium, small, and tiny minis. They stay on and move with your mini but you can remove them easily. Condition Crowns also stack on each other (and stay on when you lift and move your mini).

And this is my partner on Twitter.
Raven John (GlowingGlyph) on Twitter

Follow Glowing Glyph on Twitter for updates on Condition Crowns.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

Re: pipe cleaners -- I haven't tried them but I suspect they would be good for outlining zones and walls too.

 

[Stumblewyk]

You can buy sheets of 2mm foam in loads of colors at any art or craft supply store (like Michaels), and each sheet is less than a buck or so. Get a big hole punch, or a pair of scissors, and you've got ready made tokens for marking.

I've been doing this for about 4 months now.

I started with poker chips, but they were too big. So I took a tip from one of my players and cut up a 1" dowel into 1" by .125" "chips" and spray painted them various colors. That proved to be sloppy, slow, I found the paint would rub off after repeated usage. That's when I was dutifully following my wife through Michael's while she was shopping for scrapbooking stuff and I saw the foam sheets. I grabbed white for marked, red for bloodied, blue for movement conditions, green for ongoing damage conditions, and black for hunter's quarry/warlock curses/etc. And I snagged a 1" hole punch. I went to town. I now have 15 markers for each color, and it's done the trick for all of my 4e groups.

For other conditions that come up (things like being blinded, -2 to defenses, other oddballs) we just substitute one of the blue or green foam chips and you're reminded that you have something strange on you that you need to take into account.

For large(r) creatures, we just find a way to put the chip on top of the mini's base, or pile them up next to the mini when we have to.

 

[knightofround]

Lately I've been thinking about this, and I think the best kind of reusable condition marker would be those re-adhesive stickers.

Putting condition modifiers below minis makes them hard to see and is a pain to fiddle with. But with a sticker, you can easily slap a "marked" condition on the opposing mini's sword, and remove it just as easily afterward.

Heck, you could do the same thing for buffs too. Your buddy warlord can simply slap a "+3 attack" sticker on your mini so he doesn't have to pipe up to remind you of the mods =P

For zones though...yeah I think something poker-chip-y would better there.

 

[Klaus]

Fiery Dragon has the 4e BattleBox quite full of stuff like condition markers and tokens:

Fiery Dragon » Battlebox: 4th Edition

PC Counters and "marking" tokens:

Stand-up condition markers with plastic bases:

Tokens to mark action points, daily item uses, second winds, altitude, failed death saves and more:

Spell effect acetates: