Improved Initiative Tips: Tracking Spells and Limited Actions
Added 2025-01-29 06:58:29 +0000 UTCHello DMs,
In Improved Initiative, you can track the Spellcasting slots, as well as uses of Daily and Recharge actions, for each combatant. I've gotten a few questions recently about how this works, especially with respect to Characters vs. Creatures.
These trackers are controlled in the Notes section for each Combatant. You'll notice that you can add custom trackers for anything you like with the simple [x/y] format.
When you add a Creature Stat Block to an encounter, it will create a new Combatant with their Notes pre-populated with relevant trackers. This will work if any of their Actions have "(x/day)" or "(Recharge x)" in their name. It will also work for any Traits titled "Spellcasting" or "Innate Spellcasting". This is in line with the standard for 5e Stat Blocks, but let me know if there are other patterns that you think this feature should look for.
When you add a Character to an encounter, it won't update their Notes. However, once you have added trackers to a Character's Notes, they will persist along with the character, so you'll only need to do this once.
I'll think about ways to make this feature more intuitive and discoverable. Let me know if you found this useful, I'd love to post other Tips articles for lesser known features. Feel free to suggest topics that you'd like a deep dive into.
As always, thanks for your support. Happy DMing!
Comments
If I add this to my characters/players, is there a way to have it on the toolbar as well, so kind of like tracking reactions? I am curious to see if I could utilize this much like reactions but track things like how many Bardic Inspirations the bard has, how many charges used on their Staff of Healing etc.
Jake Reindl
2025-03-14 11:52:53 +0000 UTCI really like this feature. It would be nice to have an intuitive way to track a bunch of different once/day spells that a lot of higher level monsters have these days. Also, this is not such a big deal, but I've recently run a few monsters with more than one Reaction, or even the Reactive ability that pops up sometimes on higher CR monsters - it would be nice to have a way to track an NPC that has more then one reaction.
Shawn Colacchio
2025-01-31 02:01:50 +0000 UTCThis is a nice clear tutorial on how to do this. Love it.
Steve Leahy
2025-01-30 04:23:03 +0000 UTCOh man!! I didn't know that! Amazing
Matt
2025-01-29 17:12:10 +0000 UTCNice idea, I'll look into it.
Evan Bailey
2025-01-29 17:10:26 +0000 UTCTake a look at the 'Duplicate Combatant' command that you can enable in the Combatant Commands section. I bet the Quick Add and Duplicate Combatant commands are two that would benefit from a Tips article.
Evan Bailey
2025-01-29 17:10:08 +0000 UTCI'm not planning for this to work on Characters. I don't think it makes sense for the app to change the Notes field every time you add a Character to the Encounter, since Notes are persistent for Characters. As mentioned, you'll only need to do this once manually for Characters.
Evan Bailey
2025-01-29 17:08:17 +0000 UTCThis is working for creatures but not on players, is it possible to work on players too?
John Boudouris
2025-01-29 16:08:59 +0000 UTCAs one of those people who asked you about this, I really do appreciate this video series here. Loving the program!!!
PeteyDiesel
2025-01-29 13:14:31 +0000 UTCThis ain't related to this exact feature but something that I run into all the time. I use quick combants quite often to add in creatures from other sources that aren't in the library. It would be really great if I could create 1 of them say "Goblin" and then press a button to duplicate and auto name the subsequent ones like "Goblin 2" "goblin 3" Sometimes adding 5 creatures grinds my session to a halt while I type a bunch of stuff in
Matt
2025-01-29 12:34:41 +0000 UTCIs there any way to quickly roll for the recharge feature? I know I can roll the d6 from the sidebar, but it would be cool to be able to just click on the (5-6) like we do for other rolls.
Wedjat Ecou SRL (RO36777360)
2025-01-29 09:33:45 +0000 UTC
