Improved Initiative Tips: Spellcasting and Ability Tracking
Added 2023-01-10 04:36:41 +0000 UTCHello GMs,
Happy New Year! I hope you enjoyed a pleasant holiday season. I have been focusing on my mental health and spending time with my family recently.
Spellcasting and Daily Ability "Bean Counters"
Improved Initiative can track spellcasting, daily ability usage, and more. The way to configure this isn't obvious but the feature is powerful. I've included some screenshots and details.
You can add a numeric tracker to any Combatant with the Update Persistent Notes Command. You can enable this Command on the Commands tab in the Settings pane. The [current/max] syntax will show a bean counter for numbers under 10 or a numeric input for higher numbers.
Any time you add a Combatant from a StatBlock, the app will attempt to automatically populate the Persistent Notes with spellcasting or limited actions. For spellcasting, it looks for a trait called "Spellcasting" and "1st level: (x)" for applicable spell levels. For limited actions, it looks for text like "1/day" in the action name. See the gif demonstrations for examples.
OGL 1.1
You may have seen discourse about the proposed OGL 1.1 for One D&D. As currently proposed, the limitations of this license are hugely problematic, and would make apps like Improved Initiative impossible for the upcoming D&D version. If this is a problem, I encourage you to share your feedback with Wizards of the Coast.
While I'd love to support the next iteration of D&D, this approach to the OGL is pushing me more towards building a generic combat tracker for my next project. A generic tracker (Paragon Combat Tracker maybe) would be configurable for various RPGs that rely on initiative tracking. It's still percolating in my brain but it might be a fun project for this year.
Other updates
I've been quietly pushing quality-of-life updates for Paragon Campaign Dashboard here and there. Individual dashboards now have their own URL, and you can export all of your PCD data for safekeeping. Card search has also been improved. If you haven't tried it recently, I'd love if you took another look and let me know if you like it.
Thanks everyone! Happy GMing!
Comments
I now see the reactions mechanic with the arrow in the combat tracker, but the "x/rest" seems like it would be useful. Thanks!
Dan Dymek
2025-05-24 19:33:12 +0000 UTCIs the tag "1/day" the only tag supported? I'd really like to have it support "1/rest" as well and even "1/round" for use with reactions if possible, as it doesn't seem to parse any syntax beyond "1/day". Thanks! :)
Dan Dymek
2025-05-24 16:51:42 +0000 UTCLooking forward to the possibility of an open tracker. Currently moving all my games over to Pathfinder 2e and I'm struggling to find a combat tracker that works nearly as well as yours.
RockNLoad
2023-01-23 00:11:28 +0000 UTCI second this, ride or die bby. Evan all the way
Adam McKinney
2023-01-13 06:48:01 +0000 UTCIt's a shame so many of my third-party tools are being forced to do things like this. I want to keep supporting you no matter what system I end up havnig to play! So long as I can display the monster stats in some way on the page, I'll be happy :)
Pyromstr
2023-01-12 09:50:40 +0000 UTCThe concept of an open tracker on paragon would be awesome. I'm starting to make the switch to pathfinder for most of my games and I'm also starting to run a few games in the fate system as well. A tracker that could handle multiple ACs, to hits and saves in a generic way would go a long way for me.
Adam McKinney
2023-01-11 16:13:15 +0000 UTCFor my purposes II and PCD are doing wonders
Robert Foxgrover
2023-01-10 13:06:10 +0000 UTCI have no intent on migrating to one DnD. I'll just pull what mechanics I like from it downstream.
Robert Foxgrover
2023-01-10 13:05:53 +0000 UTCImproved Initiative is incredible and the thought of having to go back to running combat without it would be a big reason for me to stick with 5E - and this is just one resource of countless that will be affected. Hopefully WotC will see some sense in response to the feedback.
Matt
2023-01-10 10:52:10 +0000 UTC
