I'm playing around with electronics, and in learning components and coding behind the Arduino I am building an electronic health tracker. Before anyone says "just use paper", this is for me to learn electronics, it might not be practical but it's a fun project for me!
I will have; 3 digit display for HP 3 digit display for temp HP 8 digit display for available spell slots (we never play past level 10, 9th slot not needed) 6 LEDs to represent death saves/fails - 3 red and 3 green, press a button to light up success or fail 2 digit display to represent class feature - ie sorcery points, barbarian rages remaining, monks ki 2 or 3 odd LEDs - these represent single use features remaining like second wind, action surge, hellish rebuke etc button for short and long rest - resets values based on rest type
My question is what is the best way to reduce HP from a damage entry perspective as a user, ideally without them needing to calculate the new value. So if you have 52HP and take 27 damage, how should 27 be entered to end up with 25HP? A keypad would be quite large on a box, making the size a bit unpractical, I could have a single button that needs to be pressed 27 times to reduce HP by 1 each time pressed, or have 3 buttons that represent 10, 5 and 1. Dials are an option, or left/right button to select tens or units to adjust then up down to modify the value (requires you to work out new value to set though).
Other ideas that I've forgotten would be useful also.
You need a way to track maximum HP if you're going to track Death Saves, so you can correctly track Instant Death. This is also necessary for correctly tracking healing, which stops at your maximum.
If you want the user to track ID instead, you need your display to have a 4th slot for going negative.
Since your HP display is limited to 999, there's no need for allowing for more than 1998 damage. You can do this:
You can't do THP this way, since THP overlaps, but you can use 1 handler for damage and healing, since they're the same thing for your purposes. You'll need a 5 digit display: +/- (for healing vs damage), then the amount.
Under +/-, have a button for toggling between them.
Under the other 4, have +/- buttons, and have them overflow, so + while on 9 goes to 0, and - while on 0 goes to 9.
Have a 6th button for inflicting the healing or damage when the user is satisfied, which resets the inflicter to -0000.
You can make a similar but much simpler THP tracker, since your damage tracker will be how much THP you lose. Just remember THP has no maximum, unlike healing, and overlaps, unlike healing - if you have 8 THP and get 4, you're at 8. If you have 8 THP and get 10, you're at 10.
So I plan on hardcoding character stats into the module, so I can enter the max HP (I know it's not perfect, but like I say, it's a project for fun). I will need to update each of the variables stored for these values after a level up, that's not a problem.
For damage dealt, I intend on making all damage affect temp HP first, then when it gets to 0 the overflow goes to the standard HP and stops at 0, instant death will be monitored manually from character sheets. Although if current HP + max HP = damage dealt, then I can light up all of the death save LED's to represent instant death.
In point 2, I get what you're saying, I think I would modify it slightly but I like the +/- idea for adjusting the values. I'll still have a 3 digit display for HP and one for tmp HP, then a separate display that allows you to adjust each digit up, so press units 3 times to set it to 3, then press tens twice to set it to 2, then 2 buttons off to the side representing "Heal" and "Damage". Up to level 10, I don't know how realistic it will be to be dealt 100+ damage in a single spell/attack? For the rare occasion this may happen I think I'll have this as a 2 digit display.
Sounds like a neat project. Heh, and ironically this is the sort of request I tend to get in my day job, just from people a lot less nice and a lot less open to suggestions.
One notion that occurs to me, just from a "what would I suggest to a customer?", might be thumbwheel switches. Like these. The proper way is likely a few small ten-step encoders that let players just dial whatever their current HP is directly, but thumbwheels are just kinda satisfying to use. There's something to be said for people enjoying making use of your project, and tactile controls like dials and thumbwheels are just more fun than keypads.
I have attached an initial design of just the functionality (ignore the layout, it's horrible!!). some notes as follows:
For the ability, I intend to have a piece of card/plastic slide in with the name of the ability, ie second wind All circles are LED's All squares are buttons All of the "8" represent a digit for an LCD display
Worth noting: if you're in a Discord server, you can drag-and-drop the image in Discord, which uploads it and generates a link DDB/other sites usually accept as a web hosted image for purposes of image upload. Discord is more trustworthy to a lot of folks than image hosting sites, though this particular trick doesn't always work so be prepared to find a backup plan. Very useful for quick uploads though, as I can hopefully demonstrate with this snippet.
There's something to be said for people enjoying making use of your project, and tactile controls like dials and thumbwheels are just more fun than keypads.
Yea I really want to avoid using a keyboard to remove the feeling of "database entry" sorta thing, I did toy with the idea of a dial (the clicky type which pushes in to confirm), an arduino supports counting up in 5's if you go fast or single ones if you turn slow, but I don't have here at the moment. I was also thinking of having an SD card reader so the values are saved at the end of a session ready for the next one, and although the SD Card module itself is cheap, I can't find any small cheap SD cards themselves! Paying £4 each is a bit much for what I'm doing really on top of the other components.
I'd be happy to hear any other suggestions for things I might need, instant death wasn't one I had thought about but I have that noted to code in!
I also have an LED lightbar that goes on the front of the box, so each player can see their own HP but no one else can, but the 10 point light bar can be seen by other players to represent how beat up someone is. ie, full health they have 10 lit up (up to blue), and when really hurt, say down to 30% health, they are in the red zone (using these: 61+uDFxATuS._SL1200_.jpg (1200×1200) (amazon.co.uk) )
I know this isn't really what you're asking for, but...no plans to track hit dice?
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I could do, that does mean more buttons and another screen though to increase the size of the unit. I was only really going to add the items that change fairly often on a game session, spells, abilities and HP. My plan for hit dice is to hand physical dice that have remaining at the start of the session, currently we play on roll 20 (thanks COVID!), but when we can finally get the group in a room I want to try and keep as much dice out as possible, it will feel like a novelty!
I might even add the spell tracker as 9xD6's that are placed into holes in the unit, which will be 3D printed.
This sounds like a great idea! 10/10 would buy one
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Life is very busy unfortunately, gone from most Pbp's indefinitely. If you'd like to contact me, I am on Discord at GreatAxeblade#7595, always happy to chat :)
I have a prototype faceplate printed with the layout, a lot of the electronics are working in the background but I need to work on that code a bit. For anyone interested, here is some progress so far.
I think I will need to use an SD card module also to save the status at the end of the session. It's a bit of a bummer that I will need to hard code each one to the character, but at least it will work.
The holes are for LEDs, red will be for death fails and green for saves corresponding to the buttons, then an LED to match the feature buttons at the bottom right (2nd wind is shown there). The features and special are insertable tabs (there is a spare one below the faceplate), meaning they can have their meaning changed easily. The HP is adjusted by pressing the left yellow button for tens, right yellow button for units, then press red to take damage (it removes from temp hp first, then hp), press green to add it as a heal, or press blue to set the new temp hp value.
Hey Guys,
I'm playing around with electronics, and in learning components and coding behind the Arduino I am building an electronic health tracker. Before anyone says "just use paper", this is for me to learn electronics, it might not be practical but it's a fun project for me!
I will have;
3 digit display for HP
3 digit display for temp HP
8 digit display for available spell slots (we never play past level 10, 9th slot not needed)
6 LEDs to represent death saves/fails - 3 red and 3 green, press a button to light up success or fail
2 digit display to represent class feature - ie sorcery points, barbarian rages remaining, monks ki
2 or 3 odd LEDs - these represent single use features remaining like second wind, action surge, hellish rebuke etc
button for short and long rest - resets values based on rest type
My question is what is the best way to reduce HP from a damage entry perspective as a user, ideally without them needing to calculate the new value. So if you have 52HP and take 27 damage, how should 27 be entered to end up with 25HP? A keypad would be quite large on a box, making the size a bit unpractical, I could have a single button that needs to be pressed 27 times to reduce HP by 1 each time pressed, or have 3 buttons that represent 10, 5 and 1. Dials are an option, or left/right button to select tens or units to adjust then up down to modify the value (requires you to work out new value to set though).
Other ideas that I've forgotten would be useful also.
So I plan on hardcoding character stats into the module, so I can enter the max HP (I know it's not perfect, but like I say, it's a project for fun). I will need to update each of the variables stored for these values after a level up, that's not a problem.
For damage dealt, I intend on making all damage affect temp HP first, then when it gets to 0 the overflow goes to the standard HP and stops at 0, instant death will be monitored manually from character sheets. Although if current HP + max HP = damage dealt, then I can light up all of the death save LED's to represent instant death.
In point 2, I get what you're saying, I think I would modify it slightly but I like the +/- idea for adjusting the values. I'll still have a 3 digit display for HP and one for tmp HP, then a separate display that allows you to adjust each digit up, so press units 3 times to set it to 3, then press tens twice to set it to 2, then 2 buttons off to the side representing "Heal" and "Damage". Up to level 10, I don't know how realistic it will be to be dealt 100+ damage in a single spell/attack? For the rare occasion this may happen I think I'll have this as a 2 digit display.
I like the dial idea personally. Turn the dial to increment the number in the display until you hit the right value, then hit + or - to apply.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Sounds like a neat project. Heh, and ironically this is the sort of request I tend to get in my day job, just from people a lot less nice and a lot less open to suggestions.
One notion that occurs to me, just from a "what would I suggest to a customer?", might be thumbwheel switches. Like these. The proper way is likely a few small ten-step encoders that let players just dial whatever their current HP is directly, but thumbwheels are just kinda satisfying to use. There's something to be said for people enjoying making use of your project, and tactile controls like dials and thumbwheels are just more fun than keypads.
Please do not contact or message me.
I have attached an initial design of just the functionality (ignore the layout, it's horrible!!). some notes as follows:
For the ability, I intend to have a piece of card/plastic slide in with the name of the ability, ie second wind
All circles are LED's
All squares are buttons
All of the "8" represent a digit for an LCD display
https://imgur.com/a/OhMSy97
You will need to upload the image to a hosting site such as Imgur. Then you can copy the URL and put that into the 'Insert/edit image' dialogue
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
ok thanks, have managed to upload it now!
Worth noting: if you're in a Discord server, you can drag-and-drop the image in Discord, which uploads it and generates a link DDB/other sites usually accept as a web hosted image for purposes of image upload. Discord is more trustworthy to a lot of folks than image hosting sites, though this particular trick doesn't always work so be prepared to find a backup plan. Very useful for quick uploads though, as I can hopefully demonstrate with this snippet.
Please do not contact or message me.
Yea I really want to avoid using a keyboard to remove the feeling of "database entry" sorta thing, I did toy with the idea of a dial (the clicky type which pushes in to confirm), an arduino supports counting up in 5's if you go fast or single ones if you turn slow, but I don't have here at the moment. I was also thinking of having an SD card reader so the values are saved at the end of a session ready for the next one, and although the SD Card module itself is cheap, I can't find any small cheap SD cards themselves! Paying £4 each is a bit much for what I'm doing really on top of the other components.
I'd be happy to hear any other suggestions for things I might need, instant death wasn't one I had thought about but I have that noted to code in!
I also have an LED lightbar that goes on the front of the box, so each player can see their own HP but no one else can, but the 10 point light bar can be seen by other players to represent how beat up someone is. ie, full health they have 10 lit up (up to blue), and when really hurt, say down to 30% health, they are in the red zone (using these: 61+uDFxATuS._SL1200_.jpg (1200×1200) (amazon.co.uk) )
I know this isn't really what you're asking for, but...no plans to track hit dice?
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I could do, that does mean more buttons and another screen though to increase the size of the unit. I was only really going to add the items that change fairly often on a game session, spells, abilities and HP. My plan for hit dice is to hand physical dice that have remaining at the start of the session, currently we play on roll 20 (thanks COVID!), but when we can finally get the group in a room I want to try and keep as much dice out as possible, it will feel like a novelty!
I might even add the spell tracker as 9xD6's that are placed into holes in the unit, which will be 3D printed.
This sounds like a great idea! 10/10 would buy one
Life is very busy unfortunately, gone from most Pbp's indefinitely.
If you'd like to contact me, I am on Discord at GreatAxeblade#7595, always happy to chat :)
Homebrew races: ~Otterfolk! Play as a otter!~ Playable Dryad! (Literally just the monster sheet ported to player race)
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I have a prototype faceplate printed with the layout, a lot of the electronics are working in the background but I need to work on that code a bit. For anyone interested, here is some progress so far.
I think I will need to use an SD card module also to save the status at the end of the session. It's a bit of a bummer that I will need to hard code each one to the character, but at least it will work.
The holes are for LEDs, red will be for death fails and green for saves corresponding to the buttons, then an LED to match the feature buttons at the bottom right (2nd wind is shown there). The features and special are insertable tabs (there is a spare one below the faceplate), meaning they can have their meaning changed easily. The HP is adjusted by pressing the left yellow button for tens, right yellow button for units, then press red to take damage (it removes from temp hp first, then hp), press green to add it as a heal, or press blue to set the new temp hp value.
https://imgur.com/a/Wt5jbZu