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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Noumenon" data-source="post: 4745721" data-attributes="member: 70102">Hey, that's a good one, Pbartender!  I always thought it was a great tip to write the players and monsters on index cards, and use those to keep track of initiative order.  But what sometimes happens is I pull out the monster card to check its AC, and I skip part of the order.I also have an "end of round" index card with the numbers 1 through 20 and a paper clip that I slide from number to number.  If you cast blink in round 3, I write next to round 7 "blink ends," if you get poisoned I write in round 13 "bartender Fort 13."  I can keep track of twenty-round combats that way, including the bugbears that are supposed to arrive on round 10.I am a DM who draws the whole map in advance on a big battlemat, and I'm in good company; Beginning of the End from <a href="http://www.thealexandrian.net" target="_blank">The Alexandrian</a> does it too.  He writes about the advantages:The Alexandrian is also the place where I got the idea of rolling for initiative after combat, when things are low-key, instead of at the beginning of combat, when it kills the excitement.Right now the thing I am most excited about is the <a href="http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=29006&it=1" target="_blank">Fiery Dragon Counter Collection</a> I bought.  All of a sudden instead of aquarium stones or Magic art that almost matches, I've got exactly the token for every encounter.  Cool art for just about every monster in the MM and summoned monster.  I can print out ten skeletons if I want instead of mix-and-matching minis.I started out printing them on paper and sticking them to pennies, then I started printing them on 3x5 index cards, which were heavy enough all on their own.  Then I started printing them in two rows and folding them in half so I have stand-up monster tokens a little shorter than a mini.  If anyone wants the Word document I paste them into, I'll mail it to you.  There are some free counters <a href="http://enworld.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=56039&filters=0_0_0_0&manufacturers_id=14" target="_blank">here</a> that you could use to try it out.The trick I am most committed to that I don't expect anybody else to try out is putting everything on an index card.  Everything!  You put the monster's AC, its attacks, its resistances, its spell-like abilities, its round-by-round tactics. The downside is it takes a lot of time to figure everything out.  The upside is, all that stuff is figured out!  I'm sure not capable of remembering and calculating how much AC a 6th-level cleric gets from shield of faith on the fly, or all the different bonuses death knell gives.  Maybe a normal DM wings it, or figures out which spell to cast first and then looks it up in the PHB at the table.  That seems momentum-killing to me.  With all the tactical information on the monster's initiative card, you can play him as efficiently as the PCs are playing their characters.  That means faster combat and more of your brain space left for description and improvisation.Here's an example card for a <a href="http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii95/noumenon72/Cleric6b.gif" target="_blank">6th-level cleric</a> out of a module.  The stats are on the front, the spells are on the back.  Things I looked up that I never could have figured out in real time:* The module just tells me he has a spell-storing dagger with bestow curse.  It's up to me to figure out what save that is (Will) and what the DC is.* He has a lot of spells I've never cast before, like wind wall and death knell.* He has Combat Casting in the feat block.  I put that +4 next to his Concentration skill because that's where I look when it's time for a Concentration check.* He's disguised as a drow.  I put a reminder to myself to pretend he's making spell resistance rolls next to each of his saves.  I'd be sure to forget in the heat of combat (probably never would have thought of it either).Now a lot of people are thinking I'm crazy for wasting that much prep time on pure crunch.   I know it doesn't really make sense to trying to handle all the insane complexity of D&D 3.5 -- it would take a computer.  But to me, it's really worth it!  Two reasons:* Monsters in 3.5 are built like PCs, with all the levels and feats.  I didn't played that many PCs before I started DMing -- only two.  So playing monsters in their true complexity is like building eight or ten new characters a week!  It's fun.* Monsters who really use all their abilities and master them are interesting and unique -- just like PCs.  I don't want to be a <a href="http://blog.microlite20.net/2009/03/31/confessions-of-a-lazy-gm/" target="_blank">lazy GM</a> and run an entire campaign off one Orc statblock with different fluff, when I could be running something like a Salt Mephit who's got an entirely unique set of attacks and spells.  Even if I have to do almost as much homework on those spells as a wizard needs to memorize them himself.</blockquote>

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