1) I'd like to be able to record how an encounter went after it has been setup. What I mean by this is I may have setup a deadly encounter (or what I thought was deadly). I'd like to record how easy it was for the group (ie number of player deaths (if any), rounds of combat, etc). I'd like over time for the encounter builder to "learn" how strong my group is, so that when I ask for a deadly encounter (or whatever) it can generate something that is truly "deadly".
2) I'd like to gather long term stats on what players are doing during the encounter (assuming we ever get rolling and VTT type of play happening). Spells/Abilities used, player patterns, etc.
3) Loot associated with an encounter (both random and loot I assign to the encounter).
4) Tweaking monster strength as I build out the encounter
5) Random name generator for various humanoid types (ie named Goblins, Orcs, etc) - killing Goblin 1 is easier than killing Krud - single father of 3 goblins :P
6) Ability to convert a monster to an NPC (sometimes a nobody monster turns into a rich NPC depending on how players decide to handle the encounter).
7) Tracking limited use abilities of various monsters (ie Legendary Resistances).
Thanks!
Envaris
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A not necessarily immediate need, but a nice feature would be the ability to link an encounter to a campaign so that xp and maybe items can be auto updated.
So I use Game Master 5, exclusively for this. Building and tracking combat. So im often navigating back and forth between Beyond and GM5.
I can say, in my estimation, GM5 gets a lot “right” in how they execute it, despite the UI being kind of poor insofar as usability.
Here are the key things I love about it:
- Automatically adds the party to the encounter and knows, based on party size and level, the scaling for difficulty (shown as both XP, adjusted XP, and v easy- deadly rating). Dynamically adjusts when people and monsters are added and removed. Theres also dedicated sections for adding NPCs to your campaign too, so if theyre in combat you can add them easily (a distinction between a PC, an NPC, and a beast/monster)
- CRITICAL for me, has been the ability modify any being in an encounter. Water Elemental needs to be tougher? I can go in there, stack HP, AC, and add or remove actions and traits from other creatures in the bestiary database. (And then add that version as a copy in my homebrewed/local compendium for future use).
- The ability to save and recall/edit encounters has been clutch. “They fought 5 bandits last session, let me re-use that and replace 3 of them with Ropers.”
- The initiative capture/submission is easy. Once i click “start encounter” I just tap on each player and ask them what they rolled and enter it. Monsters auto roll. And there are options for grouping initiatives where needed.
- Quick access to a bestiary compendium is a necessity for me too. “Hmm, i dont want this to be very easy, what else can i throw in here to up the difficulty?” Add monster > filter by whatever (CR, environment, etc) > choose quantity > modify the beasts if necessary > add.
- I make a LOT of custom beasts for my homebrew, so building them, and being able to easily find and add them to encounters is of very high priority to me.
So my primary use is for BUILDING the encounter and then keeping track of initiative order.
I will say to the above, that I really only use it beyond that to monitor monster HP. If a monster has a huge stat block, its often very difficult to easily pick out what I want them to do on their turn. Also, while the ability to add conditions is available, I wont use it unless it makes a very obvious change to the UI to remind me that someone is poisoned, restrained, etc.
They also just added a KFC-Like random encounter generator which I immediately liked and used. A comprehensive wizard to establish constraints like difficulty, CR, environment before rolling it. Also the ability to “lock in” certain things that rolled and re-roll the leftovers.
It would be fun if there was an option to roll random loot for the encounter with the option to include various categories of items: Money, Mundane Items, Magic Items, Potions, etc...
I agree. Across all content that the person has access to (including home brew added to the campaign). The tables in the books do not take into account the growing list of magic items that have come through other official sources.
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Graphic Turn tracker/Round Tracker that utilizes portrits.
Status effects/HP/AC tracker.
Auto-roll initutive or enter Manually.
Monster Management
HP/status effect tracker.
Ability/spell/recharge tracker.
Quick search and Add to Encounter Feature.
Those are the basics that I would like to have for an encounter builder from D&D Beyond. Currently I'm using an app I paid for to manage combat, but it would be a bit more convient if you had one here I could use (that was intergrated into the content that I've already purchased). Your character sheet is great and saves me a lot of time! Thanks for the hard work so far, I look foward to using this encounter builder for my games.
The ability to rename monsters / hit points or stats on the fly would be fantastic.
I often have more than one named NPC in the same battle against the PC's or add class features and make one guy a "boss". So I'll tack onto the other feedback that the ability to modify the encounters is vital.
itd be amazing to have an option to collapse or expand a monsters inherent skills so that i dont have to scroll past description text in order to see what they have at their disposal during combat. Yes, i should know their tactics and strategies, but some creatures have a lot of stuff you inherently forget about!
Well if you can pick different monsters during the encounter and a sidebar that showed up with tabs "Actions, Reactions, Bonus Actions, Legendary Actions" etc the same as on the the character sheet so DMs can quickly use all the various abilities accordingly. Tracking recharges, remaining legendary action points etc would be great.
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Want to see Virtual Table Top like no other before it built within DnDBeyond.com? Upvote the feature request. It's 2nd highest voted so far:
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A few things... I hope you're all prepared to have a lot of new business following the completion of the encounter builder, because I'm sure many have been long awaiting the arrival of this feature. I can promise once this feature rolls out I'll HAVE to buy all the digital content haha!
I would advise if anyone in the development team has not already, to check out the Game Master 5 app. I feel that they have the closest product to what I'm hoping for with the DDB encounter builder, with the down side that someone painstakingly made all the data sheets that you have to import in to make it be the way it should.
My short list opinion on what GM5 does well: quick and simple selection of all monsters/creatures from the books can be added to build the encounter, ability to tap on listed attacks in the stat block to roll for hit and then damage as well as ability checks/saving throws (with modifiers added), auto roll random initiative for enemies and allows input of PCs rolled values to make a step by step flow to the battle, health tracker and change of appearance of tile when enemy reaches 0 or below HP, allows quick navigation of all enemies/pcs to check stats/roll saves etc, Treasure list that is shown at completion of battle. There are more attributes but these I think are the most important.
Things that can be improved on in GM5 in my opinion:
spell casting: fortunately this is already well done by DDB in terms of tracking slots and having info readily available, but obviously adding the random roll feature to spells that are ranged attacks is needed.
Customization: the customization of individual stats for each enemy is a little wonky, I think its important to be able to quickly roll/manipulate the stats of each individual enemy to make on the fly encounter building as streamlined and efficient as possible. Perhaps there could be a separate "on the fly" encounter builder option that would make the process super streamlined so as to reduced player down time at the table and keep the action moving forward. However, I do think it is important to be able to also fully flesh out enemies such as the case with manipulating the Boss/Big Bad. Being able to add/remove spells, possibly modify damage dice, or add legendary actions/feats to be able to fully develop a boss like enemy for story/campaign lore cohesion.
Additional add ons I'd love to see but aren't of utmost importance:
Show and Tell: It would be great to have a graphic icon that could be used to open a graphic in full screen (hoping this encounter builder makes it to tablet/mobile app) or a full screen window so that you can show your party what the creature looks like without possibly giving up stat block information. The traditional show 'em the book or printed page either does not allow for a large shareable image that the party can see at the other end of the table and/or often includes the stat block.
Small sound board: I have created and used a sound board before using a separate laptop to enhance the gaming experience and my players have certainly gotten some joy out of it. Simply adding the option to include a small basic sound board/sound options I think would be an interesting add on. For example, maybe when clicking/tapping a attack on a creature also activates a sound clip, if chosen/activated in a settings menu, such as a sword slash or kung fu punch sound. Perhaps this element can be customized and one could apply what ever sound clip they wanted to each individual sound related action. So perhaps if choosing to add sound there is a list of actions that would elicit a sound response when activated and from that list one could choose to add their own custom sound
I know it was a bit of a read, but I think we're all very excited with what is to come from this addition to DDB. Being able to incorporate the all of the content from the books into this tool makes playing and learning D&D so much more easy and fun. Thank you so much for taking on this gigantic task.
Also, remember that encounters are not just battle encounters. I would like to see options for including social encounters as well. Encounters like:
1. Tavern owners/shop owners or other merchants
2. Random social encounters with villages/towns people/travellers and so on
3. Planned encounters with important NPCs
For battle encounters, I would like to see things like:
1. The ability to select enemies from the official content or from homebrew content or UA when it is released.
2. The ability to choose the size of and composition of enemies parties
3. The ability to manage items, stats and spells and initiative directly within the encounter builder.
4. The ability to automatically create encounters for characters of specific levels and then edit those encounters to customise them to fit. (Similar to how the randomised character creation option in the character creator works)
5. The ability to create an encounter from scratch.
General things I'd like to see are
1. A timeline that advances as the players move through the session. By which I mean, you set waypoints as markers and the time line advances as each waypoint is reached. Between each waypoint there might be one or more encounters.
2. The ability to choose characters that you have created in the character builder, that you have specifically created as NPCs. Or, the ability to create NPCs within the encounter builder.
4. A place for DMs to store notes and scrips and external (and clickable) links to music, images, videos and other materials. Though it would be better if we could upload these to the character builder and turn them into digital content.
Like when a part of the session is reached that requires specific music, that music would already be uploaded and you'd just have to hit the play button.
Not entirely sure how this would work regarding copyright and stuff. Perhaps the encounter builder could include links to public domain music sources.
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I am an online author and sci-fi lover who plays table too roleplaying games in his free time. See all my character concepts at: Character Bios – Jays Blog (jaytelford.me)
Have been looking forward to an encounter builder and initiative tracker since you launched. Excited to see the alpha!
Echoing what some posters have already implied, there are OK options for encounter building out there, but a minimal combat tracker would have amazing synergy with the dndbeyond monster database. What I'd like to see in an encounter builder, in order of importance: 1 - rudimentary combat tracking: sorting by initiative (auto-roll option would be great) and a notes section. Ideally, separate sections showing AC and max HP, plus damage tracking, but for now this could be handled in the notes. Anything else would be icing on the cake, but with these minimal features I don't have to export encounters to run them. 2 - as much as possible, note fields (for the whole encounter, and each monster) that allow the use of tags for mouse-over tooltips 3 - being able to modify base HP and AC on the fly without having to create a custom monster; often the only adjustments I need 4 - quick import of player characters (ideally, by designating a current roster and having it added to each encounter dynamically) 5 - ability to organize encounters in folders or some such, e.g. by campaign - chapter - location, with the numbers and types of monsters visible at a glance. 6 - calculate XP and deadliness for encounter 7 - automatic loot generator
Currently I use Kobold Fight Club (KFC) to create a first draft of the encounter in the right CR ballpark, read up monster details on dndbeyond, then plan the encounter environment and starting positions. I preview how the encounter would run by looking at my player's default strategies. Then I modify it, starting with environment and placement, then monsters, primarily by adjusting monster numbers, then HP, sometimes AC, rarely tweaking saves or actions. I use the same approach for official encounters.
The encounter gets run in a custom Excel sheet to sort players and monsters by Initiative, showing name (I hyperlink to the dndbeyond entry), AC, max HP and current HP, plus notes sections for spells, conditions, etc. I keep the spreadsheet open next to a browser window with the monster stats and party character sheets on dndbeyond
I'd really like to see mouse-over tooltips for monsters that show more encounter-relevant information. I realized for some monsters it might be a challenge to show all available actions, but just including the default attack would mean having to click through to check to hit and damage values half as often as I do now.
I currently use Improved Initiative, and support the developer on Patreon. We also use maptools to display the table map via projector on the game table (works great). One player even joins overseas. Improved Initiatives' interface is great and well organized, it's browser based so players can get "served" their view of initiative. I would love an official "Beyond" version like Improved Initiative that includes official PNG tokens with WOC artwork for encounters. So if I buy a module I get all the digital maps and npc tokens for that adventure. I think virtual table top is the future of D&D, using it with friends at the table is great. They still use real minis too.
Wish list:
1. Digital assets - maps and NPC token PNGs pertaining to specific adventure modules (we have maps, how about tokens, virtual minis?)
2. Linked adventure module, monster and npc data from beyond to the new encounter builder.
3. Special loot, monster tactics, plot notes/reminders per encounter.
4. D&D Beyond - Virtual table top/encounter builder/encounter tracker/map assets/digital token assets all licensed with adventure packages.
The book contents are already working in the browser based beyond, lets run virtual table top and encounter management here too. Until it all comes together I'm happy piecing my games with Beyond, Improved Initiative and maptools. The open source community has filled most of my needs as a DM. Official digital resources make DMing easier to focus on the fun of the game instead of organizing details. Maybe let the user community submit "official" digital tokens with guidelines and final approval by WOC?
Here is what I want, step one bare minimum; no virtual tabletop, no rollers, no maps, just what I think is a feasible and INCREDIBLY useful next step that will later pave the way for any more ambitious undertakings. All that other stuff can come later, but the below is what I think is most needed to me and my weekly table now.
You should be able to build an encounter before it ever takes place; monsters, what kind and how much. You should be able to drop a monster in like an orc and rename it; that way you can 'name' them things like Orc 1, Orc 2, so on and so forth. You could also name an Orrc Warchief 'Bonebreaker Dorokor' for example. "One Gish, Two Gish, Red Gish, Blue Gish".
You should also be able to drop characters in from your campaign. Again, before the encounter ever starts. You should be able to make multiple encounters, dropping the same characters into all of them. But, you should also be able to easily add/drop more in before the encounter actually 'starts'; for example if I have an encounter heavy dungeon with five rooms, I might pre-make five encounters and drop the entire party in each of them. Whoops, turns out the party wizard died in room 4 and their player is now sulking on the couch and making an angry post on reddit. Well, I should be able to quickly drop the wizard from the fifth encounter before it starts.
The encounter should, at a glance, show each creature's AC, HP, and the initiative. It doesn't even have to track rounds; that would be nice but I think that comes down the line. One thing that would be INCREDIBLY useful and probably not very hard is if there is a distinctive flourish that can be put on a creature who is holding concentration or is currently suffering a condition. Something like a colorful border, or even just a token/blip.
You should absolutely be able to track a creature's HP. Dealing damage or healing to them in a way similar to the character sheet is a must, but more than that when I drop a monster in, I should be able to manipulate its health resources. A simple maximum health override would work, but what would be REALLY useful to me and, I think, many other DMs would be to include a, hopefully simple, button that says like 'MAX HP' that maximizes their HP according to their hit dice and modifier. So, say I drop a random encounter Tarrasque on my players; well, instead of having its average HP, 676 (33d20 + 330), I hit a single button and it becomes the 'maximum' 990....... better make sure it can feasibly support 4 digits in case I decide that this one has 32 CON.
Lastly, I mentioned before that the encounter should show the initiative. I wanted to stress this one for a few reasons. I don't know if I am alone, but I often roll initiative for my bad guys as a group... I take the highest initiative modifier, roll, and that's when they all go. I mostly do this just to save time at the table and make it easier on myself; those who roll higher go on one side, those who roll lower go on the other. I think sometimes, though, that this hurts my games; it would be a lot more interesting if the bad guys all went at different times. This will certainly change if DnDBeyond lets me roll initiative and put it in order ahead of time. If there is a system that will take ALL initiative modifiers into play (different modifiers other than just DEX, characters who might have advantage, etc.) then I will literally weep for joy.
That being said, I also think it should be easy to modify the initiative on the fly, and depending on certain taste. If I roll initiative and am happy with it, but think that maybe my boss rolled a little TOO low... well, maybe there is a button to roll it again; they really should have had advantage anyways. Also, you should be able to manually change their roll; sure, I used the auto roller for this encounter as a whole... but I rolled the boss separate on my desk and oh, look at that, he got a 20. Let's put that in there...
Also, while I really like the idea of having the freedom again to roll each monster's initiative separate, that might not be appropriate all the time or for all tables. Being able to 'group' certain monsters and 'tie' their initiative together would be great; say a simple selection to roll all monsters with the same initiative modifier, or all duplicate monsters together. Or, an option to just roll initiative for all monsters once and they all take that.
Anyways, that's all I really want for now. Things like a VTT and a map would be nice, but this is a start and would make my life as DM much easier.
Probably this goes without saying, but I'd like plenty of options for including text descriptions of the scenario with easily integrated tools to drop in monsters, including random and manual HP generation.
I'd like to see a multi-scale map-making feature with lots and design tools.
I would like the Encounter Builder to include a simple one-click way to randomly generate generic treasure hoards and, of course, to be able to modify the result to include special items, magic, etc.
I'd also want easily exportable encounter documents that include all the details needed to run the encounter, including the full stat. block and descriptions from the MM and other sources--something a little more extensive than the 5e Encounter Sheet. Honestly, if it could export to an Excel spreadsheet, that would work well for me. I run an old-school table-top game, and I'd love to be able to generate the encounter on DDB and export the whole thing to a file I can conveniently edit and print. I think I spend as much time copying and pasting monster details into the Encounter Sheet pdf as I do writing the scenarios. (In the old days, I kept the books at hand, but I've found its more convenient if I'm not thumbing through the books to find the details I want.)
Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
This might be a silly question but I've subscribed with the Master Tier recently and cannot seem to find where to access the Encounter Builder, is there a link we could access? Thanks in advance.
I'm not sure it has been released yet as I can't find it either.
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I am an online author and sci-fi lover who plays table too roleplaying games in his free time. See all my character concepts at: Character Bios – Jays Blog (jaytelford.me)
This might be a silly question but I've subscribed with the Master Tier recently and cannot seem to find where to access the Encounter Builder, is there a link we could access? Thanks in advance.
It's not currently live, the guys are still working on it behind the scenes but when it does go live it'll be offered to Hero and Master Tier subscribers before it goes out into the big wide world. It will still be in alpha stages at that point so don't expect a finished product when you first get access.
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Hi,
1) I'd like to be able to record how an encounter went after it has been setup. What I mean by this is I may have setup a deadly encounter (or what I thought was deadly). I'd like to record how easy it was for the group (ie number of player deaths (if any), rounds of combat, etc). I'd like over time for the encounter builder to "learn" how strong my group is, so that when I ask for a deadly encounter (or whatever) it can generate something that is truly "deadly".
2) I'd like to gather long term stats on what players are doing during the encounter (assuming we ever get rolling and VTT type of play happening). Spells/Abilities used, player patterns, etc.
3) Loot associated with an encounter (both random and loot I assign to the encounter).
4) Tweaking monster strength as I build out the encounter
5) Random name generator for various humanoid types (ie named Goblins, Orcs, etc) - killing Goblin 1 is easier than killing Krud - single father of 3 goblins :P
6) Ability to convert a monster to an NPC (sometimes a nobody monster turns into a rich NPC depending on how players decide to handle the encounter).
7) Tracking limited use abilities of various monsters (ie Legendary Resistances).
Thanks!
Envaris
Want to see Virtual Table Top like no other before it built within DnDBeyond.com? Upvote the feature request. It's 2nd highest voted so far:
https://dndbeyond.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115008597088-Virtual-Tabletop-Gameboard
NOTE: You will need to setup a zendesk account (which is not your DnDBeyond.com account, the team uses this 3rd party software). It's easy to do and your votes are needed!
A not necessarily immediate need, but a nice feature would be the ability to link an encounter to a campaign so that xp and maybe items can be auto updated.
When the encounter builder goes in alpha, could we have one preloaded to show off some of the different options.
So I use Game Master 5, exclusively for this. Building and tracking combat. So im often navigating back and forth between Beyond and GM5.
I can say, in my estimation, GM5 gets a lot “right” in how they execute it, despite the UI being kind of poor insofar as usability.
Here are the key things I love about it:
- Automatically adds the party to the encounter and knows, based on party size and level, the scaling for difficulty (shown as both XP, adjusted XP, and v easy- deadly rating). Dynamically adjusts when people and monsters are added and removed. Theres also dedicated sections for adding NPCs to your campaign too, so if theyre in combat you can add them easily (a distinction between a PC, an NPC, and a beast/monster)
- CRITICAL for me, has been the ability modify any being in an encounter. Water Elemental needs to be tougher? I can go in there, stack HP, AC, and add or remove actions and traits from other creatures in the bestiary database. (And then add that version as a copy in my homebrewed/local compendium for future use).
- The ability to save and recall/edit encounters has been clutch. “They fought 5 bandits last session, let me re-use that and replace 3 of them with Ropers.”
- The initiative capture/submission is easy. Once i click “start encounter” I just tap on each player and ask them what they rolled and enter it. Monsters auto roll. And there are options for grouping initiatives where needed.
- Quick access to a bestiary compendium is a necessity for me too. “Hmm, i dont want this to be very easy, what else can i throw in here to up the difficulty?” Add monster > filter by whatever (CR, environment, etc) > choose quantity > modify the beasts if necessary > add.
- I make a LOT of custom beasts for my homebrew, so building them, and being able to easily find and add them to encounters is of very high priority to me.
So my primary use is for BUILDING the encounter and then keeping track of initiative order.
I will say to the above, that I really only use it beyond that to monitor monster HP. If a monster has a huge stat block, its often very difficult to easily pick out what I want them to do on their turn. Also, while the ability to add conditions is available, I wont use it unless it makes a very obvious change to the UI to remind me that someone is poisoned, restrained, etc.
They also just added a KFC-Like random encounter generator which I immediately liked and used. A comprehensive wizard to establish constraints like difficulty, CR, environment before rolling it. Also the ability to “lock in” certain things that rolled and re-roll the leftovers.
It would be fun if there was an option to roll random loot for the encounter with the option to include various categories of items: Money, Mundane Items, Magic Items, Potions, etc...
I agree. Across all content that the person has access to (including home brew added to the campaign). The tables in the books do not take into account the growing list of magic items that have come through other official sources.
Want to see Virtual Table Top like no other before it built within DnDBeyond.com? Upvote the feature request. It's 2nd highest voted so far:
https://dndbeyond.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115008597088-Virtual-Tabletop-Gameboard
NOTE: You will need to setup a zendesk account (which is not your DnDBeyond.com account, the team uses this 3rd party software). It's easy to do and your votes are needed!
What I need from an Encounter Builder
Those are the basics that I would like to have for an encounter builder from D&D Beyond. Currently I'm using an app I paid for to manage combat, but it would be a bit more convient if you had one here I could use (that was intergrated into the content that I've already purchased). Your character sheet is great and saves me a lot of time! Thanks for the hard work so far, I look foward to using this encounter builder for my games.
The ability to rename monsters / hit points or stats on the fly would be fantastic.
I often have more than one named NPC in the same battle against the PC's or add class features and make one guy a "boss". So I'll tack onto the other feedback that the ability to modify the encounters is vital.
Just realized this one:
itd be amazing to have an option to collapse or expand a monsters inherent skills so that i dont have to scroll past description text in order to see what they have at their disposal during combat. Yes, i should know their tactics and strategies, but some creatures have a lot of stuff you inherently forget about!
Well if you can pick different monsters during the encounter and a sidebar that showed up with tabs "Actions, Reactions, Bonus Actions, Legendary Actions" etc the same as on the the character sheet so DMs can quickly use all the various abilities accordingly. Tracking recharges, remaining legendary action points etc would be great.
Want to see Virtual Table Top like no other before it built within DnDBeyond.com? Upvote the feature request. It's 2nd highest voted so far:
https://dndbeyond.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115008597088-Virtual-Tabletop-Gameboard
NOTE: You will need to setup a zendesk account (which is not your DnDBeyond.com account, the team uses this 3rd party software). It's easy to do and your votes are needed!
Hi,
Do you think you could give us none Hero/Master Tier people a rough idea of when this might be fully released?
Thanks.
A few things... I hope you're all prepared to have a lot of new business following the completion of the encounter builder, because I'm sure many have been long awaiting the arrival of this feature. I can promise once this feature rolls out I'll HAVE to buy all the digital content haha!
I would advise if anyone in the development team has not already, to check out the Game Master 5 app. I feel that they have the closest product to what I'm hoping for with the DDB encounter builder, with the down side that someone painstakingly made all the data sheets that you have to import in to make it be the way it should.
My short list opinion on what GM5 does well: quick and simple selection of all monsters/creatures from the books can be added to build the encounter, ability to tap on listed attacks in the stat block to roll for hit and then damage as well as ability checks/saving throws (with modifiers added), auto roll random initiative for enemies and allows input of PCs rolled values to make a step by step flow to the battle, health tracker and change of appearance of tile when enemy reaches 0 or below HP, allows quick navigation of all enemies/pcs to check stats/roll saves etc, Treasure list that is shown at completion of battle. There are more attributes but these I think are the most important.
Things that can be improved on in GM5 in my opinion:
Additional add ons I'd love to see but aren't of utmost importance:
I know it was a bit of a read, but I think we're all very excited with what is to come from this addition to DDB. Being able to incorporate the all of the content from the books into this tool makes playing and learning D&D so much more easy and fun. Thank you so much for taking on this gigantic task.
Also, remember that encounters are not just battle encounters. I would like to see options for including social encounters as well. Encounters like:
1. Tavern owners/shop owners or other merchants
2. Random social encounters with villages/towns people/travellers and so on
3. Planned encounters with important NPCs
For battle encounters, I would like to see things like:
1. The ability to select enemies from the official content or from homebrew content or UA when it is released.
2. The ability to choose the size of and composition of enemies parties
3. The ability to manage items, stats and spells and initiative directly within the encounter builder.
4. The ability to automatically create encounters for characters of specific levels and then edit those encounters to customise them to fit. (Similar to how the randomised character creation option in the character creator works)
5. The ability to create an encounter from scratch.
General things I'd like to see are
1. A timeline that advances as the players move through the session. By which I mean, you set waypoints as markers and the time line advances as each waypoint is reached. Between each waypoint there might be one or more encounters.
2. The ability to choose characters that you have created in the character builder, that you have specifically created as NPCs. Or, the ability to create NPCs within the encounter builder.
4. A place for DMs to store notes and scrips and external (and clickable) links to music, images, videos and other materials. Though it would be better if we could upload these to the character builder and turn them into digital content.
Like when a part of the session is reached that requires specific music, that music would already be uploaded and you'd just have to hit the play button.
Not entirely sure how this would work regarding copyright and stuff. Perhaps the encounter builder could include links to public domain music sources.
I am an online author and sci-fi lover who plays table too roleplaying games in his free time. See all my character concepts at: Character Bios – Jays Blog (jaytelford.me)
Have been looking forward to an encounter builder and initiative tracker since you launched. Excited to see the alpha!
Echoing what some posters have already implied, there are OK options for encounter building out there, but a minimal combat tracker would have amazing synergy with the dndbeyond monster database. What I'd like to see in an encounter builder, in order of importance:
1 - rudimentary combat tracking: sorting by initiative (auto-roll option would be great) and a notes section. Ideally, separate sections showing AC and max HP, plus damage tracking, but for now this could be handled in the notes. Anything else would be icing on the cake, but with these minimal features I don't have to export encounters to run them.
2 - as much as possible, note fields (for the whole encounter, and each monster) that allow the use of tags for mouse-over tooltips
3 - being able to modify base HP and AC on the fly without having to create a custom monster; often the only adjustments I need
4 - quick import of player characters (ideally, by designating a current roster and having it added to each encounter dynamically)
5 - ability to organize encounters in folders or some such, e.g. by campaign - chapter - location, with the numbers and types of monsters visible at a glance.
6 - calculate XP and deadliness for encounter
7 - automatic loot generator
Currently I use Kobold Fight Club (KFC) to create a first draft of the encounter in the right CR ballpark, read up monster details on dndbeyond, then plan the encounter environment and starting positions. I preview how the encounter would run by looking at my player's default strategies. Then I modify it, starting with environment and placement, then monsters, primarily by adjusting monster numbers, then HP, sometimes AC, rarely tweaking saves or actions. I use the same approach for official encounters.
The encounter gets run in a custom Excel sheet to sort players and monsters by Initiative, showing name (I hyperlink to the dndbeyond entry), AC, max HP and current HP, plus notes sections for spells, conditions, etc.
I keep the spreadsheet open next to a browser window with the monster stats and party character sheets on dndbeyond
I'd really like to see mouse-over tooltips for monsters that show more encounter-relevant information. I realized for some monsters it might be a challenge to show all available actions, but just including the default attack would mean having to click through to check to hit and damage values half as often as I do now.
I currently use Improved Initiative, and support the developer on Patreon. We also use maptools to display the table map via projector on the game table (works great). One player even joins overseas. Improved Initiatives' interface is great and well organized, it's browser based so players can get "served" their view of initiative. I would love an official "Beyond" version like Improved Initiative that includes official PNG tokens with WOC artwork for encounters. So if I buy a module I get all the digital maps and npc tokens for that adventure. I think virtual table top is the future of D&D, using it with friends at the table is great. They still use real minis too.
Wish list:
1. Digital assets - maps and NPC token PNGs pertaining to specific adventure modules (we have maps, how about tokens, virtual minis?)
2. Linked adventure module, monster and npc data from beyond to the new encounter builder.
3. Special loot, monster tactics, plot notes/reminders per encounter.
4. D&D Beyond - Virtual table top/encounter builder/encounter tracker/map assets/digital token assets all licensed with adventure packages.
The book contents are already working in the browser based beyond, lets run virtual table top and encounter management here too. Until it all comes together I'm happy piecing my games with Beyond, Improved Initiative and maptools. The open source community has filled most of my needs as a DM. Official digital resources make DMing easier to focus on the fun of the game instead of organizing details. Maybe let the user community submit "official" digital tokens with guidelines and final approval by WOC?
Here is what I want, step one bare minimum; no virtual tabletop, no rollers, no maps, just what I think is a feasible and INCREDIBLY useful next step that will later pave the way for any more ambitious undertakings. All that other stuff can come later, but the below is what I think is most needed to me and my weekly table now.
You should be able to build an encounter before it ever takes place; monsters, what kind and how much. You should be able to drop a monster in like an orc and rename it; that way you can 'name' them things like Orc 1, Orc 2, so on and so forth. You could also name an Orrc Warchief 'Bonebreaker Dorokor' for example. "One Gish, Two Gish, Red Gish, Blue Gish".
You should also be able to drop characters in from your campaign. Again, before the encounter ever starts. You should be able to make multiple encounters, dropping the same characters into all of them. But, you should also be able to easily add/drop more in before the encounter actually 'starts'; for example if I have an encounter heavy dungeon with five rooms, I might pre-make five encounters and drop the entire party in each of them. Whoops, turns out the party wizard died in room 4 and their player is now sulking on the couch and making an angry post on reddit. Well, I should be able to quickly drop the wizard from the fifth encounter before it starts.
The encounter should, at a glance, show each creature's AC, HP, and the initiative. It doesn't even have to track rounds; that would be nice but I think that comes down the line. One thing that would be INCREDIBLY useful and probably not very hard is if there is a distinctive flourish that can be put on a creature who is holding concentration or is currently suffering a condition. Something like a colorful border, or even just a token/blip.
You should absolutely be able to track a creature's HP. Dealing damage or healing to them in a way similar to the character sheet is a must, but more than that when I drop a monster in, I should be able to manipulate its health resources. A simple maximum health override would work, but what would be REALLY useful to me and, I think, many other DMs would be to include a, hopefully simple, button that says like 'MAX HP' that maximizes their HP according to their hit dice and modifier. So, say I drop a random encounter Tarrasque on my players; well, instead of having its average HP, 676 (33d20 + 330), I hit a single button and it becomes the 'maximum' 990....... better make sure it can feasibly support 4 digits in case I decide that this one has 32 CON.
Lastly, I mentioned before that the encounter should show the initiative. I wanted to stress this one for a few reasons. I don't know if I am alone, but I often roll initiative for my bad guys as a group... I take the highest initiative modifier, roll, and that's when they all go. I mostly do this just to save time at the table and make it easier on myself; those who roll higher go on one side, those who roll lower go on the other. I think sometimes, though, that this hurts my games; it would be a lot more interesting if the bad guys all went at different times. This will certainly change if DnDBeyond lets me roll initiative and put it in order ahead of time. If there is a system that will take ALL initiative modifiers into play (different modifiers other than just DEX, characters who might have advantage, etc.) then I will literally weep for joy.
That being said, I also think it should be easy to modify the initiative on the fly, and depending on certain taste. If I roll initiative and am happy with it, but think that maybe my boss rolled a little TOO low... well, maybe there is a button to roll it again; they really should have had advantage anyways. Also, you should be able to manually change their roll; sure, I used the auto roller for this encounter as a whole... but I rolled the boss separate on my desk and oh, look at that, he got a 20. Let's put that in there...
Also, while I really like the idea of having the freedom again to roll each monster's initiative separate, that might not be appropriate all the time or for all tables. Being able to 'group' certain monsters and 'tie' their initiative together would be great; say a simple selection to roll all monsters with the same initiative modifier, or all duplicate monsters together. Or, an option to just roll initiative for all monsters once and they all take that.
Anyways, that's all I really want for now. Things like a VTT and a map would be nice, but this is a start and would make my life as DM much easier.
Probably this goes without saying, but I'd like plenty of options for including text descriptions of the scenario with easily integrated tools to drop in monsters, including random and manual HP generation.
I'd like to see a multi-scale map-making feature with lots and design tools.
I would like the Encounter Builder to include a simple one-click way to randomly generate generic treasure hoards and, of course, to be able to modify the result to include special items, magic, etc.
I'd also want easily exportable encounter documents that include all the details needed to run the encounter, including the full stat. block and descriptions from the MM and other sources--something a little more extensive than the 5e Encounter Sheet. Honestly, if it could export to an Excel spreadsheet, that would work well for me. I run an old-school table-top game, and I'd love to be able to generate the encounter on DDB and export the whole thing to a file I can conveniently edit and print. I think I spend as much time copying and pasting monster details into the Encounter Sheet pdf as I do writing the scenarios. (In the old days, I kept the books at hand, but I've found its more convenient if I'm not thumbing through the books to find the details I want.)
Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
Recently returned to D&D after 20+ years.
Unapologetic.
This might be a silly question but I've subscribed with the Master Tier recently and cannot seem to find where to access the Encounter Builder, is there a link we could access? Thanks in advance.
I'm not sure it has been released yet as I can't find it either.
I am an online author and sci-fi lover who plays table too roleplaying games in his free time. See all my character concepts at: Character Bios – Jays Blog (jaytelford.me)
It's not currently live, the guys are still working on it behind the scenes but when it does go live it'll be offered to Hero and Master Tier subscribers before it goes out into the big wide world. It will still be in alpha stages at that point so don't expect a finished product when you first get access.
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