Tips for managing large combats

[SniperDM]

In particular, I'm referring to combat in which the PCs fight a large number of the same kind of enemy. Last night my players faced off against a goblin raiding party. I wasn't prepared to running such a fight though, and the combat took longer than I expected. In particular I found it hard to keep track of which goblin was which. Though the tracker and the combat map were linked, it was still hard for me visually use the two together. It was easier during the goblins turns, because of the small border that highlights a token during that creature's turn, but my screen is a tad blurry these days and I still found the border hard to spot. Even more difficult was during the PCs turns--when they hit a goblin, I couldn't figure out which goblin on the tracker to add the damage to.

I had one idea to rename all the goblins I had put into the tracker by number. (IE Goblin 1, Goblin 2, Goblin 3, etc...) That would cut down on my troubles immensely. But I wondered if any of my fellow DMs had other tricks for managing massive melees such as these in Fantasy Grounds II. Also, I'm curious if there's a way, via scripting or otherwise, to have FGII automatically name similar enemies in the tracker by number. Thanks for your time!

[Oberoten]

Assign them into identical groups, just keep track of who/what has been slain.

[SniperDM]

I appreciate the response. However, since it was 13 goblins, all completely identical save for hps, I'm not sure how your advice applies. My PCs are still low level and not super-strong, so a hit on a goblin isn't a guaranteed kill. I need individual entries in the tracker to keep track of how much each goblin has been hit for. Grouping just isn't feasible unless I want to fudge the rules for the sake of brevity. Not usually my style really. Still, thank you.

[Toadwart]

Using different tokens for each goblin helps, if you have that many unique goblin tokens (or scaled-down ogres/orcs)
However, I pretty much always number them and label the tokens with that number so the PCs know which is which. The players then simply state which number they are targeting.

[joshuha]

Well did you roll seperate initaitive for each? I keep mine as a group and use different tokens on the map (A-G, 1-10, etc) and just use the notes to the side in the combat tracker to keep track of HP for individual goblins.

You lose targetting but we use Vent/OOC to denote which one you are targetting and I find it speeds up combat enough to be worth it.

[Griogre]

In FG2 tell your players to *target* the goblins by clicking on the token of the creature they are attacking - that will tell you which one they are swinging at because it opens up the creature on the tracker and puts their icon next to it. Doing this makes it easy to tell who the PC's are swinging at.

I, on the other hand often have a hard time finding the active monster token on some backgrounds. I have gone to just putting a number or letter in the name so I can tell them apart.

[joshuha]

I know how the functionality works :). I was stating that the loss of that functionality is worth it when doing multiple groups of multiple combatants. I don't like having to put 14 seperates entries in the combat tracker for some of the combats I run, its tedious and I would rather group all the goblins in one entry, all the wolves in another, etc. and just use different token to make it easier for PCs to track which one they are hitting.

[SniperDM]

In FG2 tell your players to *target* the goblins by clicking on the token of the creature they are attacking - that will tell you which one they are swinging at because it opens up the creature on the tracker and puts their icon next to it. Doing this makes it easy to tell who the PC's are swinging at.

I, on the other hand often have a hard time finding the active monster token on some backgrounds. I have gone to just putting a number or letter in the name so I can tell them apart.

This is exactly what I needed, thank you! Just when I thought I knew all the tricks FG2 did I keep finding more...

[acmer]

If I am ever facing a situation where I have to do a large combat, I'd probably create tokens with white background and a large red number or a letter in them. Would make it easy to see who's who.

[Griogre]

Why go to the effort, Acmer? The A-Z tokens work great for that type of thing. ;)

Joshuha, I often do the same thing with a pad and paper and only have one creature in the tracker. Normally that is because if you have a ton of creatures they are very weak compared to the party.

[richvalle]

I did something like this last night (image up in the Gallery).

Party was fighting a lot of little demons (close to 40 all total) and several big boss type ones. I had just one entry on the init tracker for the weak guys and then one per the big guys. For the little guys I had a sheet of paper I was keeping track of HP's if I needed too. For the most part it was a one hit/one kill or one spell/kill many (13 hp mooks vs 11th level characters...).

As they cast spells I didn't even roll for reflex saves... just made sure their 1/2 damage was > 13 and remove all the guys in the area of effect.

Helped to keep the init tracker uncluttered (well, at least not more cluttered).

rv

[ldyparadox99]

I'm a bit more of a traditionalist when it comes to my large scale combat. I number each token, only have one entry on the tracker, then keep track of everything else on paper in my campaign notebook as I would at a regular table game.

[Valgard]

There was a role playing game called Bushido by FGU that introduced the concept of 'extras' to help with just such combats. These NPC's only had 1 hit point, no matter how skilled they were; they were there to provide the usual mob of villains to be mowed down by the normal Japanese hero. I often use this concept for large scale combats and only bother tracking hit points for the 'major' villains in the combat.

Ian

[darkivel]

If you drag a token into the circle that's part of the entry in the combat tracker, then drag that token from the tracker to the board, whenever you click on that entry in the tracker, it will highlight on the board, and when a PC clicks on that token, it will highlight with their die color and also show their face on that entry on the tracker.

I've found FG II's combat tracker to be an amazing tool that makes large combats a breeze. I've had my PCs fighting upwards of 20 identical foes and had no trouble keeping track of which was which by utilizing the full features it presents. I love it.