D&D 4E The Essential DM Tool Unique to 4E?

[Joshua Randall]

Fiery Dragon's "condition counters" to mark status conditions like dazed, slowed, etc. They're part of the 4e Battlebox, and that page has a picture of 'em if you scroll down.

As much as I like 4e, the plethora of conditions that end up on PCs or monsters in combat is impossible to track without something like these counters. Hence, I consider them essential to my ability to play and DM 4e.

 

[Dysturbed]

Masterplan. Doesn't cost anything, tracks combat, plotpoints, skill challenges and shows everything I need to know on the fly. I wouldn't want to dm without it anymore. And the learning curve is way lower than you'd expect at first.

I still don't understand why Wotc doesn't have their own version. Every group needs 2 things. Players and DM's. I gather DM's are in way shorter supply. They spend the most time on the game, preparing and everything. Too put it bluntly, they should make the dm's life way more easy.

Masterplan program is made by people in their spare time for free, how come wotc still hasn't something like this? If they make an actual adventure builder they could let people upload created adventures to the website of the WOTC. In that way, there are way more adventures available for everyone. Through a ratingsystem the most popular adventures can then become real adventures. Anyway, drifting off. Check out masterplan:

Masterplan

Ditto

 

[TikkchikFenTikktikk]

Regarding conditions, as DM I find I miss them (and the effects that end them—Affected Character's EOT, Save, EOT of Character That Applied, etc.) much less often when I can note them besides their name on the Combat Pad.

That doesn't help the PCs much. For that I have become a huge, huge, huge fan of Gale Force 9's "DM Tokens": Boxed Set that comes in a nice wooden box; More condition "scales"; more dry-erase-friendly "scrolls"

I run almost exclusively tokens instead of minis on the battlemat; these stack tidily on top of the tokens.

Each "scale" and "scroll" is really well designed so you can easily determine which effect is which by color and picture without having to necessarily read or look up a legend.

My only minor quibble is that none of the DM token sets come with the "dying" or "light source" tokens that come with the PC sets. The PC sets only cover the PHB classes. And their is no "prone" token, though an upside down "bloodied" or other token usually works just fine.

These are the condition tracker tokens you should strive and wish for.

The pictures at gf9.com don't do these justice. They are about 1/8" thick acrylic with black felt backs. These are super high quality products that will last forever.