Dear DMs on these forums. I know dndbeyond is working on incorporating encounters in prewritten campaigns, but I am thinking of switching my prep.
I have been using a third party program to use on my iPad mini for encounters. Running Dungeon of the Mad Mage with the Companion from DMsguild and it adds a lot. I got a new laptop and was thinking about switching to DnDbeyonds encounterbuilder. Have any of you fine DMs run a prewritten campaign through the encounterbuilder yet?
I would think it's easier to have onenote, dndbeyond and Spotify open on my laptop and having the physical book behind my dmscreen, but how easy is it to make encounters on the fly with it?
i personally just add all the monsters to each encounter ahead of time - so i can easily reference stats and abilities when they get to that point...and just track HP on a notepad.
on the fly - if its not elaborate (and then it probably wouldn't be 'on the fly'), I don't think i'd bother...i'd just look up the monster or two in separate tabs.
that's just me though.
also, just fyi, this is the 'Dungeon Master's Guild' forum, which relates to a 3rd party site called Dmsguild.com. The 'Dungeon Master's Only' forum gets much more activity than this one.
Check out AboveVTT. Its built entirely on the DDB api. Your purchased adventures (maps, tokens, NPCs, etc) along with character sheets, will be at your fingertips. You can use the encounter manager in conjunction. Super easy to learn for the DM and players.
It takes all of 1 minute to build an encounter through encounter builder, it also saves in case there is a crash, you can auto-roll initiative for monsters and party as well if you want to save time. Paper books don't allow you to search, they are slower, much slower.
What Portential said. I haven't touched a paper book in almost a year. I print out a few key NPCs/creatures as needed, or put a map up on the wall for reference. Everything else is on a screen.
I use encounter builder as I prep each segment of the story while I'm populating the map with monster tokens, fog and other details. So as the party decides where they want to go and an encounter is triggered, i just have to unfog the map and click on the corresponding encounter. I can do 90% of my rolls from the online stat blocks. I use AboveVTT combat tracker for initiative and hitpoints.
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Dear DMs on these forums. I know dndbeyond is working on incorporating encounters in prewritten campaigns, but I am thinking of switching my prep.
I have been using a third party program to use on my iPad mini for encounters. Running Dungeon of the Mad Mage with the Companion from DMsguild and it adds a lot. I got a new laptop and was thinking about switching to DnDbeyonds encounterbuilder. Have any of you fine DMs run a prewritten campaign through the encounterbuilder yet?
I would think it's easier to have onenote, dndbeyond and Spotify open on my laptop and having the physical book behind my dmscreen, but how easy is it to make encounters on the fly with it?
i personally just add all the monsters to each encounter ahead of time - so i can easily reference stats and abilities when they get to that point...and just track HP on a notepad.
on the fly - if its not elaborate (and then it probably wouldn't be 'on the fly'), I don't think i'd bother...i'd just look up the monster or two in separate tabs.
that's just me though.
also, just fyi, this is the 'Dungeon Master's Guild' forum, which relates to a 3rd party site called Dmsguild.com. The 'Dungeon Master's Only' forum gets much more activity than this one.
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
A rather comprehensive list of free WotC D&D resources
Deck of Decks
Ah, makes sense. Thanks for the headsup!! (and the response)
Check out AboveVTT. Its built entirely on the DDB api. Your purchased adventures (maps, tokens, NPCs, etc) along with character sheets, will be at your fingertips. You can use the encounter manager in conjunction. Super easy to learn for the DM and players.
It takes all of 1 minute to build an encounter through encounter builder, it also saves in case there is a crash, you can auto-roll initiative for monsters and party as well if you want to save time. Paper books don't allow you to search, they are slower, much slower.
What Portential said. I haven't touched a paper book in almost a year. I print out a few key NPCs/creatures as needed, or put a map up on the wall for reference. Everything else is on a screen.
I use encounter builder as I prep each segment of the story while I'm populating the map with monster tokens, fog and other details. So as the party decides where they want to go and an encounter is triggered, i just have to unfog the map and click on the corresponding encounter. I can do 90% of my rolls from the online stat blocks. I use AboveVTT combat tracker for initiative and hitpoints.