Hello Fellow Beyonders!
I'm excited to say that, today, we have updated Encounters to Beta which means that the Combat Tracker is now available for ALL users.
Now you can build and run your encounter without first having a subscription.
With this update, we've also released a few things that have been plaguing us for a while.
Auto-Update Character Stats
Characters in the combat tracker now have their status updated automatically when they change on the character sheet. This means that you, the DM, don't have to keep looking back to the character sheet to know how much damage you need to do in order to take out the character (wink wink). It also gives you other information that might be helpful in non-combat situations as well. For example, you can see a character's passive perception which will help to hide that ambush before it is sprung.
Initiative Rolls Automatically Added
With an encounter open and the initiative area visible, any initiative roll that is made by a character in the campaign will automatically be put in the initiative area so that you don't have to copy and paste it over. This will overwrite any value that is already there so if someone rolls twice it'll take the last value. You can always update if something goes wrong.
We hope these changes help make it easier for you to run your combat, beat on your characters, and have a great holiday season!
To learn more about Encounters, visit our help article.
As always, we welcome feedback. There are still a lot of things that could be better about the Encounter tool. We want to hear what's most important to you. You can either reply in the comments or go to our Encounters Feedback Portal to leave us your thoughts.
Happy Holidays!
I used encounters for the first time this weekend and loved it especially when I asked for initiatives. The big issue I had was I created all the encounters ahead of time and the players didn't get their characters added until later so my encounters didn't have any characters. So to run an encounter I had to edit it add the characters then run it so the players from my campaign would be added. Additionally, there is no way to add the characters or new monsters to an encounter.
There is a dropdown menu with an options to Restart, Edit, Duplicate, or Delete encounters. It's on the far right of the encounter in the list view or in the top right when you are viewing the encounter. It's the button with 3 dots. If you choose Edit, you can change the characters and monsters involved.
Thanks for your reply, did figure out the ellipsis to edit but I would have liked to have the characters added when I start the encounter since sometimes its not the whole party. Also once the encounter starts there is no way to add or remove monsters or characters, which would be a great feature.
I literally said the same thing…this annoys me to no end for reasons that I don’t even understand. My brain hates referring to it as goblin a b c.
I personally Love this. I started a campaign with my dad, girlfriend and my two nieces. It made tracking everything super easy since they are all first-time pc's, and this is my first time as a dm. However, I would like a End Encounter button once all the NPC's have been finished off. The button would automatically distribute the xp to the pc's and take you back to the encounter page list.
I echo and support Romlin's suggestions:
1) Adding CONDITIONS to this view would be an amazing speed boost to combat rounds.
DMs would not have to keep a separate sheet of paper for tracking CONDITIONS, and the players could note their own conditions on their sheets and they would automaticly show up here on the combat tracker.
2) Just like you can click to roll digital dice from any monster or weapon stat already in dndbeyond,
if you were able to click on an "encounter" from within a purchased adventure... that would save hours of time for everyone!
I have six characters in a campaign, but I can’t figure out how to get them into the encounter builder. I can access the encounter builder and add generic characters and I can add monsters and run the encounter, but I never see any way of adding the actual characters from the campaign. Am I missing something, or is this a subscriber feature at this point?
@Andrew Searles Do you know how long the Encounter Builder will be in development (especially in Beta) and we get the finished feature with all the wanted features? I know you probably can't tell us an exact date, but maybe a month or so?
This has now been in Beta for over two years. Any plans to finish it? Would be nice to have a conditions and/or notes block.
I absolutely love the encounter feature, i'm newish to being a DM, i've been a player for a long time though, but combat was always confusing for me. But now I go on there, its synched up with the characters sheets, it does initiative for you and allows for a better flow. Also, as a DM, it helps me plan the session. The treasure part is also something I really like but in the future I feel like it might be helpful to be able to add items to it, like a dropdown list and if you click a button it automatically gives the treasure to the players. Another issue i've had with the encounters is whenever we reduce a monster to 0 hit points it still shows in the combat tracker. Now I understand that they can be revived or brought back so what I suggest doing is when a creature (or player) is reduced to 0 hit points take them off the combat tracker but add a button at the top that says revive and then you can choose to revive creatures or players and add them back. Other than that the encounters are great and super helpful, Thank you!
Also I have a hard time keeping track of XP so I think adding an end button would be helpful and it evenly distributed XP automatically, that would help things run smoother.