In my 3E campaigns, I've always used a deck of regular playing cards to track initiative. The first time we played, every PC was assigned a face card from either hearts or diamonds (red being the "good guys"), and I assigned spades and clubs as the bad guys in any particular fight. (So a fight with 3 skeletons and 2 zombies might use A-2-3 of spades and A-2 of clubs.) We'd roll for initiative, I'd put the cards in order, and then flip through them as each character took his turn. As monsters were killed off, I removed their initiative card from the deck until the battle was over.
Before too long, we decided the PCs should have their own cards, so I traced a playing card onto an index card, cut it out, and had each player draw their PC on it. We even went so far as to color it with colored pencils and cover it with ConTact Paper to preserve it.
I recently started up a new campaign with my youngest son, a friend of mine from work, and his youngest son (and shortly thereafter, my friend's wife). We did the "PC Initiative Card" thing again, but this time they found images on the Wizards site and downloaded them for their PCs. Since they were black-and-white ink drawings, we standardized and my son drew his PC in pencil but didn't color it. I still used regular playing cards for the monsters.
Recently, I decided to go one step further and start applying the same effort into monster cards as we were doing for the PCs. As part of my prep for each adventure, I make a list of each monster type they'll be encountering, find a decent black-and-white image on the web somewhere (or save a color image in grayscale), print it out, trace a playing card over the image to get it the right size, cut it out, glue it to an index card, cut it out again, and cover it in ConTact Paper.
It sounds like a lot of work, but it's really not. Like I said, I just do up cards for the monsters I'll need for the next adventure, and from that point on I've got that card ready for any other time that type of monster might show up during any given game day. So far, I've amassed the following cards:
Air Elemental
Arrowhawk
Corpse Rat Swarm
Dog
Eagle (animal companion)
Ghoul
Gynosphinx
Half-orc
Ice Mephit
Jermlaine
Krenshar
Magmin
Monstrous Spider
Ogre
Rust Monster
Skeleton
Spider Swarm
Stirge
Treant
Zombie
Besides being useful for determining initiative, they also serve to allow the players to see what it is they're fighting without showing them the open Monster Manual (and often revealing a good chunk of their stats). As a character takes his action, his card goes to the bottom of the deck; if he delays annd readies an action, his card goes sideways so you can easily see that he still hasn't taken his last turn (and when he does so, his card goes back to its normal orientation).
The other advantage is that I've been able to pick and choose what the monsters look like in my campaign much easier. I've never been a fan of the 3E ogre makeover; I found an image more to my liking, printed it out as a card, and now the players can visualize an "old school" ogre instead of the ones from 3E. Since I wasn't able to find an air elemental drawing I really liked, I used the cyclonic ravager from MMIV (cropping out the human so I could use it at any scale).
Anyway, we've been putting the monster cards to good use in our game, and I just thought I'd share.
Johnathan
Before too long, we decided the PCs should have their own cards, so I traced a playing card onto an index card, cut it out, and had each player draw their PC on it. We even went so far as to color it with colored pencils and cover it with ConTact Paper to preserve it.
I recently started up a new campaign with my youngest son, a friend of mine from work, and his youngest son (and shortly thereafter, my friend's wife). We did the "PC Initiative Card" thing again, but this time they found images on the Wizards site and downloaded them for their PCs. Since they were black-and-white ink drawings, we standardized and my son drew his PC in pencil but didn't color it. I still used regular playing cards for the monsters.
Recently, I decided to go one step further and start applying the same effort into monster cards as we were doing for the PCs. As part of my prep for each adventure, I make a list of each monster type they'll be encountering, find a decent black-and-white image on the web somewhere (or save a color image in grayscale), print it out, trace a playing card over the image to get it the right size, cut it out, glue it to an index card, cut it out again, and cover it in ConTact Paper.
It sounds like a lot of work, but it's really not. Like I said, I just do up cards for the monsters I'll need for the next adventure, and from that point on I've got that card ready for any other time that type of monster might show up during any given game day. So far, I've amassed the following cards:
Air Elemental
Arrowhawk
Corpse Rat Swarm
Dog
Eagle (animal companion)
Ghoul
Gynosphinx
Half-orc
Ice Mephit
Jermlaine
Krenshar
Magmin
Monstrous Spider
Ogre
Rust Monster
Skeleton
Spider Swarm
Stirge
Treant
Zombie
Besides being useful for determining initiative, they also serve to allow the players to see what it is they're fighting without showing them the open Monster Manual (and often revealing a good chunk of their stats). As a character takes his action, his card goes to the bottom of the deck; if he delays annd readies an action, his card goes sideways so you can easily see that he still hasn't taken his last turn (and when he does so, his card goes back to its normal orientation).
The other advantage is that I've been able to pick and choose what the monsters look like in my campaign much easier. I've never been a fan of the 3E ogre makeover; I found an image more to my liking, printed it out as a card, and now the players can visualize an "old school" ogre instead of the ones from 3E. Since I wasn't able to find an air elemental drawing I really liked, I used the cyclonic ravager from MMIV (cropping out the human so I could use it at any scale).
Anyway, we've been putting the monster cards to good use in our game, and I just thought I'd share.
Johnathan
Oh, and a pdf of Necromancer's Tome of Horrors (bought from DRT Games) and you're set!
