Initiative Cards

[JohnnFour]

Some other possibilities for initiative cards:

* You have a card for each player and monster. When a player Delays, give them their card and let them hand it back to you when they're ready to jump in again. Saves you having to track this yourself.

* Create fast NPC and monster cards by printing stat blocks (i.e. from a Jamis generator) or SRD info out on them.

* Note buffs and other temporary modifiers on cards to help you remember.

* [From the Game Mechanics set Use a beginning-of-the-round card. When this card comes up after cycling through your cards in initiative order, you know a new round is starting. Write tick marks on the card to track time quickly and easily.

* [From the Game Mechanics set Tap a card sideways to denote a readied action. Write the trigger on the card for fast reference (I tend to forget what the players announce as their triggers during combat).

 

[JDWiker]

I use these.

They are great!

Thanks, Paradigm. Glad to hear you're enjoying using them.

If you're going to be at Gen Con, drop by the Green Ronin booth (where we'll be). We'll have samples of the next evolutionary step of Initiative Cards on display.

 

[Belegbeth]

... Then, he takes down our initiative rolls, writing it on the appropriate card, and then sorts the pile from highest to lowest. It does help keep track of combats much easier than trying to count down verbally each round.
....

In my group I let one of my players keep track of initiative using this method. It speeds combat up A LOT, and it lessens the DM burden. (I find that there is enough to keep track of during combat -- "farming out" responsibility for initiative helps.)

 

[Rel]

For my last campaign I put stat blocks for all the enemies on cards as part of my game prep each week. Not only did doing so help to familiarize me with what the enemies capabilities were (such as spells they had selected, special abilities, magic items they had equipped, etc.) but I could keep them if the baddie managed to survive the battle. One NPC that I had no idea was going to be so durable had her card last for over half the campaign.

For the more generic baddies that they ran into multiple times, I kept the card and used it again next week.

 

[DaveStebbins]

Initiative cards are also excellent places to keep track of things like skills which get referenced often (like spot and listen). That way, I can make secret rolls for the one or two PCs in a position to notice something, without telling who they are and sending the rest of the party flocking over there for no good reason.

 

[JoeBlank]

For my last campaign I put stat blocks for all the enemies on cards as part of my game prep each week. Not only did doing so help to familiarize me with what the enemies capabilities were (such as spells they had selected, special abilities, magic items they had equipped, etc.) but I could keep them if the baddie managed to survive the battle. One NPC that I had no idea was going to be so durable had her card last for over half the campaign.

Thanks to this thread I finally downloaded the cards from the Game Mechanics. I have not yet used them in a session, but started prep for my next session by preparing cards for the PCs and NPCs.

Just the act of preparing reminded me of many of the abilities for both the PCs and NPCs. This is a great prep tool, even if I never used it in the actual game. It is nice to be reminded to tailor some scenarios that make use of the PCs abilities, and it is great to be reminded to use their opponents to full capacity.

 

[pjrake]

They work well when you are a little bit prepared. Thanee has it pretty much on the nose. The Game Mechanics site has a PDF format, but to my knowledge, people have been writing on 3x5 cards for years. I remember using 3x5, non-formalized cards back in the 80's. It's funny that this topic just came up since I am prepping a post for my personal forum explaining exactly how we will be using initiative cards in my current game.

Even though this post is a little old, can you post how you are going to use the initiative cards? Thanks

PJ

 

[IronWolf]

Even though this post is a little old, can you post how you are going to use the initiative cards? Thanks

I used index cards as init cards. I just had the player's roll their init and then I jot that down on the card. Then I sort them in descending order and cycle through them as the game goes on. It can work pretty well. Keeping some core stats on them helps too for quick and easy reference.

 

[EricNoah]

I appoint an "initiative captain" at the beginning of each session, usually someone sitting right next to me. That person is in charge of gathering the PCs' cards and putting them in order. While the players are getting their cards ready, I'm getting my monster cards ready. The captain then hands the stack of PC cards to me, I stick my 2 or 3 monster init cards in the right spot, and then I'm ready to rock and roll. As combat goes along, I announce who is up and who is on deck, placing the top card in the back of the stack when each person's turn is over. Rinse and repeat.

At the end of the combat, the captain sorts through the stack of cards and hands me my monster cards and makes sure each player gets his card back. We do as described elsewhere in the thread with held and readied actions (hand the card to the player, who then jumps in whenever he's ready).

I don't write anything but the initiative info on the cards, as I don't find it handy to sort through the cards for info during combat.

It goes very fast; last session I had someone "complaining" that combat was going "too fast" and he was constantly surprised that it was his turn to go.

 

[derbacher]

I'll echo Eric's comments. Initiative only on the cards, everything else on a seperate sheet (or PC screen) for faster access. When I filled out all the stuff on the initiative cards, I had to keep hunting through the stack to find the info on the opponent. It takes a huge amount of time (and is boring for eveyone involved, including me).