D&D 5E Managing 5e Monsters

[plancktum]

Hi,

I'm a GM and I've decided to use my Notebook at the gaming Table. I am doing this now for a few years and it always went nice, but now I want to play D&D 5e. The last game I've played was 13th Age and I'm used to have all Monsters as PDF. So I can just copy paste them to scrivener (which is a writing tool. I use it for preparing my sessions) and have them all at hand.

Now, as long as there a no mixed monster groups everything is cool. I just open the corresponing page and play. But as soon as the groups consist of different monster types things get more complicated. Flipping through the pages the whole time (even with bookmarks) is not very nice.

Typing the monsters into my Notebook is no nice way either... So... At the moment Dungeonscape seems like to best option. But 1) this tool is not available yet and 2) we don't know the pricing. If it's too expensive this is also no viable option.

So, instead of bringing up my own solution (which at the moment indeed involves typing the monsters into my text-programm ) i though I just ask for help.
Does anyone of you encountered a similiar problem? How do you handle Monster Management?

best regards

 

[Astrosicebear]

Most of the time I hate flipping as well. Usually I run initiative off a post-it, and put the init order descending on the left, with monsters # and HP on the right like :

Bandits - 1: 14

AC 15
+5 1d6+2 2: 14
_3: 15

Nothic 35

AC 16
2 claws +4 1d4+2
bite +4 1d6+2

etc.

For more complicated monsters, I would suggest snapping a pic on your phone maybe if you dont have the documents available.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I don't use any electronic devices at the table but I do during prep.

All the monsters that have been published in pdf format can be copied and pasted into a word document for easy manipulation and tweaking.

From there I just modify and arrange the stat blocks into what I need and print them for use at the table.

 

[Tormyr]

I am running a 3.5 to 5e conversion of Age of Worms. So I have to type up pretty much all of the creatures, so take this with a grain of salt. I have my Age of Worms bestiary in a word file. Since I am running an AP, I pretty much know what the party can encounter. I copy over creatures to a new document that is a list of the encounters for a chapter and print that out. Each encounter starts on a new page and contains all the creatures in the encounter. These go in a 3 ring notebook. I then print out spells for the spell casters using my spell card generator so that they are with the encounter and I do not have to flip through the PHB. http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1119

At one point, I kept each encounter on an Excel sheet. I could include the party members, get XP budget calculated, keep track of initiative, AC and hit points. However I found that I was missing out on a lot of creature abilities and having to look up damage rolls. That prompted me to switch to the 3 ring binder. I now have all of the information at my fingertips. My typical setup is a tablet opened to the adventure, a laptop and core rule books for looking up various stuff (seldom used), and the 3-ring binder. I have a small magnetic white board that one of the players uses to track inititiative. Each character's name is on a dry erase magnet. The player takes everyone's initiative and then arranges the names in order. That way, everyone knows where they come in the initiative order because they can see it, and someone else takes care of it so I can prep other stuff in the encounter.

 

[Trevalon Moonleirion]

Scrivener is awesome!!! Great program, though I don't use at the game table. Since the monster manual isn't out yet, and all we have are PDFs, I've been just using those or typing up a stat block and putting whatever block I'm using right near the rest of the encounter in my notes.

Edit- to clarify my short little post a bit more...

I take whatever monster from a current PDF I need, and screenshot just that stat block, and paste the image into my adventure outline. You could likely do the same in Scrivener. Also keep in mind, with scrivener, you could have more than one page open at once plus quick reference panes. (Assuming Mac version here...not sure what features the windows version has)