Random Findings: Condition Cards

Somehow I have missed this. The best D&D 4e Condition available on the internet have been updated a while ago: Weems updated condition cards.

I have printed a set for each of my players and encourage them to put the cards on a little plastic bases in front of them whenever their character is effected by a condition. We use bottle necks for conditions as well, but I do prefer using the bottle necks for the bloodied condition and monsters only. Thus reducing the colors of bottle necks needed and keeping things less confusing.

Download: Location Tracking Cards

In addition to tracking NPC with the help of cards I wanted to have reminders for locations my group visited. The cards I made are generic enough to be used for all the different kinds of locations such as cities, shops, taverns, temples and so on. A pdf version with 9 cards per page can be downloaded here. Again special thanks to Jovana Gaspar for sharing the font A Lolita Scorned and Max F. Williams for the texture Minas Tirith.

Here is a sample, how I use the cards:

The concept is similar to the NPC tracking cards. The cards are only meant as a reminder. In the upper right part of the cards are two places for symbols or shortcuts. I intended the first space for an identifier specifying where the described location can be found at and the second to define the shortcut used on other cards to reference this location. The first shortcut of the sample is 'SF' which stands for the Shadowfell, the plane Whaleburg is located in. And the second shortcut 'WB' stands for Whaleburg. If I would make a card for a shop in Whaleburg I would use 'WB' as the primary identification.

The sample NPC card I have posted previously, has 'WB' as a location identifier to indicate that the NPC can be found in Whaleburg.

Download: NPC Tracking Cards

Because I was not able to find any NPC tracking cards that satisfied my needs I made some on my own. A pdf version with 9 cards per page can be downloaded here. Special thanks to Jovana Gaspar for sharing the font A Lolita Scorned and Max F. Williams for the texture Nargothrond.

Here is a sample, how I use the cards.


The tracking cards are not meant to contain very much details about a NPC but are rather intended as a reminder of what made the person stick out of the crowed. I also wanted a quick way to get an overview which person belongs to a certain location or a faction. I therefore added two spaces at the upper right portion of the card to hold a symbol or one or two characters as a identifier. In the given sample I used 'WB' for the city of Whaleburg which my players did explore a while ago and 'BC' for the Bloodgore clan.
The identification is also on the Location and Faction cards I have made and which I might upload another time.

Speed-up Combat: Diceless-Minions

Essence: Each minion nearly takes up as much time to resolve during a round as a 'full' monster but without really influencing the outcome of the encounter. Let minions hit automatically to speed up combat and adjust the fixed damage amount by the attack modifier to uphold tactical depth.

Details: To be honest I do not like minions in D&D 4E. The idea behind minions is good but I find the execution of the concept lacking. In every encounter involving minions I played in they were no fun. They either got discarded before doing anything meaningful or they were ignored by the players because they did not see any real threat in them.

Due to the low damage output (at least of the minions from the MM1) some people on the web proposed that minions should spend their standard action on aid another for brutes or such.

But I had enough encounters were the minions did not have the opportunity to help 'full' monsters. And doing aid another for other minion does not really make sense. So I normally keep attacking with minion. And minions tend to come in big numbers. As a result whenever minions are involved you roll many attack rolls for a minimum of damage which drags down the speed of combat.

Therefore let minions hit automatically and adjust the fixed damage amount by the attack modifier. So if a character has cover the damage of the minion is reduced by 2 and if the minion has combat advantage increase the damage by 2. And if you do not mind it to be a bit more complicated, think about letting minions do the fixed amount damage + attack modifier per tier ( 1* attack modifier for heroic, 2 * attack modifier for paragon and 3 * attack modifier for epic tier).

The modification of the fixed amount of damage reintroduces the tactical depth which is lost due to the automatic hit. Without it characters seeking cover before minions or minions attempting to flank characters would not make any sense.

If you compare this concept of a 'diceless' minion to the 'traditional' minion the difference really concerning the amount of time resolving a minions turn is a die roll and, if your game is anything like mine, a following GM's question such as: 'Do I hit you with a 19 vs. AC?'. Not much broken down to one minion but, as already stated before, minions tend to come in larger groups.

The automatic hit makes the minions more powerful. But since the damage output of minions is rather low to begin with I think the balance is not pushed to far and the little bit extra damage lets players think twice before ignoring the next group of minions.

With this approach I am even thinking about a minions only encounter, a thing I have dismissed until now.