Having trouble remembering character abilities

This one is going to be a bit different from my normal posts. Also, I’m not sure if this is the right place to post this. Either way, please bear with me.

I’ve been in a homebrew campaign with friends through an old game shop for about a year now. I’ve only really been playing DnD for two, despite creating a free class back earlier than that out of curiosity. We meet every other Sunday.

Last Sunday, my character didn’t just fail at stuff: I did. For the umpteenth time I forgot my Ancestral Guardian Barbarian abilities to make my friends harder to hit and to resist damage if they are. Because of this, are only Cleric went down followed by me. Fortunately, we survived, but I’m worried and even remorseful that I did so bad at forgetting abilities, weapon masteries, and Savage Attacker. I know it’s just a game, but players get really attached to their characters, myself included.

This isn’t meant to be Puddle’s Pity Party. I’m curious if you all have any tips or tricks to remember your character’s abilities like the ones I am having trouble with.

One thing I've done sometimes is to make a spreadsheet with a row for basically every thing the character can do, and columns to categorize it by what broad category of purpose it has (do damage, heal people, buff people, etc.) and by what I need to use to do it (action, bonus action, spell slot, etc.) so that I can filter it quickly when I need to decide what to do. This was sort of inspired by how the UI in Baldur's Gate 3 works.

For things that are super important to remember in the moment, I'll also just put a sticky note on the table in front of me yelling at myself to do it. This most recently happened when I was playing a 5.5e character with weapon masteries for the first time and I kept forgetting that they existed, so I wrote "WEAPON MASTERY" on a post-it and stuck it on the tray I roll my dice in, and I stopped forgetting about it.

Worth a shot. Need an actual dice tray first. Have dice, need dice tray. Or I can just remember the spreadsheet printout idea. Either way, that does help. Thank you.

Any other ideas are welcome too.

We don't play online, but in addition to the character sheet, my players also use the DDB app as a general reminder for the traits/features/feats and spells their characters have. So while they are waiting for their turn, they sometimes check the descriptions and info in the app to think about what to do next.

But I guess it's not a huge piece of advice :(

Practice and repetition probably matter too.

But... don't feel bad about that, adventurer! :) a lot of rules to rememember...

One thing I do (and you can see how many campaigns I'm in on my signature, with only a couple of them being regular weekly games) is take a couple minutes before the session starts to go over my character sheet and remind myself of the character's different features, abilities, prepared spells etc.

Especially for a more complicated build like my artificer/monk one, or just a class I haven't played much, it's helpful to review everything they can do and try to have those things top of mind if they come up during the game

There's also a Notes tab on the DDB sheet that you can use to jot down reminders -- for example, who my artificer/monk has in their Cartographer 'network' to get the 1d4 Initiative bonus and provide spots I can teleport to

Hey? i’ll take whatever I can get TarodNet! Thank you.

Artificer/Monk? Wow. Anyway, the notepad could actually help! Thank you too, AntonSirius!

You're not the only one, it happen to others to often forget PC features, esepcially at higher level when you get many and you play every other week or months.

A good trick is to read your character sheet and spells regularly during sessions, and prior to your turn when it's coming up, to check it and establish your next course of action.

Also if you don't mind help from other's remindering you, don't hesitate to tell other players to remind you of a feature or ability you can use, especially Reactions.

The more heads the better.

Quote from Actionsparda>>

Hey? i’ll take whatever I can get TarodNet! Thank you.

 Thanks, mate :')))

Greetings Actionsparda,

Our group also can only meet every-other week (Saturdays) because our DM got a new job and now works every-other Saturday.

Anyway, I went on a Vacation with my wife, and missed a session (my Son-in-Law played my character), so when I came back, it had been a month since we played.
Like AntonSirius said, I took a good 15 minutes to re-read through my character sheet and all of my abilities, then read through all of the magic items I have equipped so I could remember all of the charges that were left and each items use.
This really helped me, not only get back into my character, but also remember all of the options that were available to me.

Re-reading your Character sheet can be very helpful!

Cheers :)

Thank you everyone for your help and kind words.

Perhaps I will make my party more aware of the issues I am having. They have helped me in the past, so I don’t think that should be a problem.

Not to get too deep, but DnD seemed like something I could be good at. Now I’m not so sure. Obviously you get better with time, but still…

Anyway, should I wait to say something at the next game, or should I share my request on our discord?

Quote from Actionsparda >>

 

Anyway, should I wait to say something at the next game, or should I share my request on our discord?

You obviously know them better than I do, but if it were me with any of my groups, I'd bring it up now to give everyone a chance to think about it prior to the next session. They might have other advice that would help as well.

Quote from wagnarokkr >>

Quote from Actionsparda >>

 

Anyway, should I wait to say something at the next game, or should I share my request on our discord?

You obviously know them better than I do, but if it were me with any of my groups, I'd bring it up now to give everyone a chance to think about it prior to the next session. They might have other advice that would help as well.

 That makes sense. I’ll do that. Thank you.

Quote from Actionsparda >>

Not to get too deep, but DnD seemed like something I could be good at

"Getting good" at DnD means having fun, and helping everyone else at the table have fun

There are plenty of ways to do that which don't involve having the mechanical strengths of your character down cold

I create a cheat sheet I keep up while I'm playing. If it is at the table, I draw columns on a piece of notebook paper for Action/Bonus Action/Reactions and then list exactly my choices in clear bullet points. If online, I do this in excel. For extras my character has like advantage on stuff or I'm lucky, I list them at the bottom under the columns with big bullet points.

Quote from AntonSirius >>

Quote from Actionsparda >>

Not to get too deep, but DnD seemed like something I could be good at

 

"Getting good" at DnD means having fun, and helping everyone else at the table have fun

There are plenty of ways to do that which don't involve having the mechanical strengths of your character down cold

 To an extent, yes. Heck, I’d argue everyone else was having fun during the potential wipe (even when the Cleric rolled a 1 on his death save (second time it’s happened to someone in our campaign)). The thing is though I wasn’t enjoying us loosing. I realize it’s suppose to be a part of the game, but if it’s avoidable based on something I’m not doing the odds are off. Just saying.

Maybe I need to get a proper notebook to take notes in SamEiJoe. So far all I have is a little notepad.