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Tracking Monsters Health (and possibly ability recharge times)

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TwentyPercent
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Joined: 12/25/2012

Hey Fellow Forum Folks

I have a question for you all about the fantasy-style RPG board game I'm designing. The prototype is built and I've started playtesting, but I'm seeing that it's a lot of work to keep track of monster health, especially when there are a lot of monsters (especially like 3+... can easily be up to 8 monsters). Currently, I don't have a method in place, but have only done it ad hoc during the playtesting process, via dice, but it's gotten cumbersome with so many dice and monsters (many times it's just one or two monsters).

My question is, what would be a good way to have players keep track of monster health, and possibly ability recharge time? Would it be easier to have creature tokens numbered, and then an "Encounter Sheet" that has rows of: Monster #, Monster Health, Ability Recharge time? And then as the combat is executed, players would keep track with that sheet (it would probably be the size of an index card). Would there be another way that may be more fluid?

To give you an idea of the monsters, they range in health from 4 to 16.

Thanks for your input,
20%

abdantas
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Joined: 11/13/2012
You could divide all the

You could divide all the attack and health levels by a common numeral to bring ti all down consistently and make it less cumbersome.

cameronc5
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Joined: 02/05/2013
Have you thought about the

Have you thought about the click mechanic? Games like Hero Clix and Mage Knight use it in order to maintain monster health.

It's basically a dial at the base of the figure that you rotate for health lost or gained.

cameronc5
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Joined: 02/05/2013
Or you can use dials on the

Or you can use dials on the side of the board.

TwentyPercent
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Joined: 12/25/2012
cameronc5 wrote:Have you

cameronc5 wrote:
Have you thought about the click mechanic? Games like Hero Clix and Mage Knight use it in order to maintain monster health.

It's basically a dial at the base of the figure that you rotate for health lost or gained.

That is one way of doing it, but depending on the number of players and monsters, you may need up to 16 or so creature tokens with that dial. The player characters may have up to 30 health and the monsters up to 16. I feel like that could cost a lot to have that many figures with the click mechanic on them.

I could do a dial for each monster, but that would take up way too much space, especially if there are 10 monsters. I think a smaller, index-sized sheet of paper with a small table to keep track of health would be easier.

abdantas wrote:
You could divide all the attack and health levels by a common numeral to bring ti all down consistently and make it less cumbersome.

Currently there are odd numbers for health, so that wouldn't be possible to just divide them. Another possibility is to redesign it so there is less health and less damage, but this would require another look at balancing attacks and spells for damage against creature/player health. It's not out of the question, but I'd prefer to find a better system of managing it.

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