Light Sources - how do you track

[dogoftheunderworld]

Question (with Poll to follow):

How do you track PC light sources/radiuses in your campaign? If you don't currently, would you if it were easier to do?

Thanks,

Brian
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[Obryn]

I occasionally ask, "OK, who's got a light source," and then move on and forget about it.

In 4e, sunrods cast bright light in a 20 radius (100'), so it can be safely ignored a lot of the time. Failing that, Wizards can throw light spells as often as necessary.

-O

 

[El Mahdi]

If an encounter is relatively static (as in not moving around) and if the area of light is small enough, I'll use marks on the battlemat. If they are moving I basically just adjudicate it myself (in my head). As an aside, I used to keep track of areas of darkness by using a big plastic mixing bowl of about the right radius. I cut a small wedge out of one side and then just place it over the area on the matt that's covered in darkness. I could see through the open wedge to know exactly where PC's and monsters/NPC's were, but the players couldn't. I'd have them describe their actions and then I'd adjudicate the action, even moving the players minis to reflect the action.

The Virtual Gametable on DDI is supposed to be able to do this (track lightsources and PC area of visibility and line of sight), but it may be a while yet before anyone sees it (and I'm not buying a sub anyways).

If someone came up with a cheap and easy way to track areas of light on a battlemat, I'd definitely be interested.

 

[Wormwood]

I occasionally ask, "OK, who's got a light source," and then move on and forget about it.

In 4e, sunrods cast bright light in a 20 radius (100'), so it can be safely ignored a lot of the time. Failing that, Wizards can throw light spells as often as necessary.

Initially, I was thrilled with the 4e sunrod's (fairly ridiculous) illumination. One less thing to track and all that.

But last week a couple of my players started commenting that the whole 'portable sunlight' thing was straining even their rather flexible sensibilities.

So a nerf adjustment may be in the offing.

edit: to address the OP's point: I usually track mentally. 4e is cool and all, but adding one more 'counter' to a tabletop full of hunters marks, fighter/paladin marks, and bloodied indicators would be problematic. At best.

 

[dogoftheunderworld]

Thanks for the responses so far.




<bump for the weekend>

 

[Tewligan]

I'm running a 1e game, and light source is definitely something I take into consideration. If they're in a large darkened area, they just don't know what's there until they move so it's within the light - I keep in mind the radius of light put out by their various sources, and describe the setting accordingly. My players are really good about it too, which helps - they keep track of the number of torches they have, and mark them off as they burn down or if they have to pitch one down into a pit or a darkened room to get a good look around. I heart my players!

 

[howandwhy99]

I don't think it's that hard to track in one's head. Shorter stuff uses 10 minute turns, other stuff uses hours, longer still are days, weeks, months, etc.

It's all about the scope of what you're focusing on at the moment. Though this stuff may get lost in the shuffle with all the other items requiring tracking in 4E. Not much out-of-combat though, so I don't see it that big of a challenge for a DM.

 

[Jhaelen]

Well, currently 4 of the pcs in my 3E campaign have darkvision and two have psicrystals with psionic vision, the rest has continual light sources.
So it's rarely an issue. But if it comes up it's very fun. We had one extremely memorable session when they were caught in an ambush and someone cast darkness on the party and shortly after that we had a (real) black-out!