Question about Combat Tracker

[alloowishus]

So it seems there is only Movement, Attacks and Defense as actions. What about static maneuvers for things like Preparing spells, loading and drawing weapons? How is that indicated in the combat tracker?

[Dakadin]

Hi allowishus,

There is a field, Act %, for each entry in the Combat Tracker right next to the Init field. It will allow you to keep track of the percent activity used beyond the current round so for 2 rounds of prep and 1 round to cast a spell, I have my PCs put 275 in that field. Then when the turn is done it will reduce it by 100 so it just helps with keeping track of things that use more than 100 percent activity.

If you want to know what percent of activity an action takes, then there is a cheat sheet in the Arms Law module called Quick Combat Reference. Click the link and you will see a link to Table 03-03: Activity Percentage.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Thanks and Happy Holidays,
Dakadin

[JohnD]

It's a good idea for everyone, GM included, to drag that sheet Dakadin mentioned into a handy quickslot because you'll be referring to it often.

[alloowishus]

Ok thanks. I think a dedicated button for spell preparation would be useful, otherwise it's hard to keep track exactly what the percentage means if it is over 100%.

[JohnD]

Ok thanks. I think a dedicated button for spell preparation would be useful, otherwise it's hard to keep track exactly what the percentage means if it is over 100%.

As a GM, one relies somewhat on the player remembering what they said they wanted to do last round, or the round before, that led to a percentage of > 100% in the counter.

However, I do believe Dakadin is looking long term at making the spell casting a bit more robust.

[Dakadin]

I use 275 for prepping since a class III spell takes 3 rounds. 2 rounds of prep at 90% and 1 round to cast at 75%. I let the PCs use the remaining 10% from the prep rounds and just include it in the total. This allows me to quickly see when a PC is prepping a spell or going to be casting because if the activity % ends in 75 I know that they were prepping and I will usually announce that they've been prepping when it is their turn. If they are casting a Class II spell which only requires one round of prep then I let them do that after the next round and just clear out the Act % field so I can keep track of things. My players don't do many multi-round activities usually except for loading and firing a bow and spell casting. The loading and firing are 110, 120 or 130 for short, composite and long bows while crossbows are 220 and 280 for light and heavy crossbows. So if the Act % ends in 0 then I know they are loading/firing and not casting.

It isn't perfect but it does keep things moving. If they do something outside of that I usually have a note in FG that I just make a notation about it there to keep things moving and help keep track of things. I drag the link for the note to the hot key bar so I can find it quickly.

I do have some plans to update the spell lists and casting. I also have some ideas on how to make the entries in the combat tracker take up less space. It just takes time which I don't have as much time to work on lately.

[Dakadin]

Hi allowishus,

One other way you could track spell prep would be to create an effect for it. It would at least remind you that it was happening. Just add it as an effect to the Effect sidebar list and you can just drag it to the appropriate entry in the combat tracker.

Dakadin