Roll for Initiative! Combat Tracking Comes to the Maps VTT

Tags author-davyd-atkins Maps

Maps is the official D&D VTT that seamlessly integrates with your digital library on D&D Beyond. Using Maps, you can easily prep encounters by adding maps and tokens from your digital D&D books, then bring your players in for all the action!

New to Maps is the ability to build and run combat encounters directly within the Maps tool. You can create encounters using the tokens on your map, roll Initiative, and track turns, all without leaving the Maps tool—no additional tabs required!

Combat Encounters in Maps

With the release of combat encounters on Maps, the virtual tabletop (VTT) has officially moved from Alpha to Beta, bringing it one step closer to an all-in-one experience for in-person and digital D&D sessions. We’ll continue to add new functionality and refine current features, so check back to see what future updates will bring.

Maps is available for Master Tier subscribers, and you can try it for free with a 30-day trial subscription. Your input is invaluable as we progress with Maps, so enjoy exploring the latest features and we encourage you to provide feedback as you play!

Build and Balance Your Encounters

The goal of Maps has always been to allow Dungeon Masters to prep less, play more. Now that you can build encounters directly within the VTT, that’s never been more true. Creating an encounter in Maps is as simple as adding your monsters' and players' tokens to the map and then clicking "Add All Tokens."

This will not only add all tokens present on the map to the Combat Encounter menu, but also sort them into party members or enemies. From there, all that's left is to roll Initiative!

A gif of Maps being used to set up a combat encounter

Planning Your Encounters

If you're running a massive dungeon crawl or multi-step encounter and don't want to add all the tokens on the map to Initiative at once, no problem!

Creatures can be added to Initiative directly from the map using the token context menu. Just select any token you wish to add and click the "Add to Encounter" button. This option can be combined with the Select tool to add multiple creatures at once, allowing you to quickly start combat when your players enter a new room and encounter their foes.

Balancing Your Encounters

At the bottom of the Combat Encounter menu, you’ll see the difficulty rating of the encounter based on the encounter balancing rules in the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide. With this, you’ll always have an idea of how challenging your encounter is going to be.

Track and Change Initiative On the Fly

Once you’re happy with your encounter, you can click the "Start Combat" button to begin Initiative. This turns the Combat Encounter menu into the Initiative Order menu, and starts a player-facing Initiative track.

The Maps VTT showing fog of war, adding tokens to combat, and flexible Initiative.

Run Encounters with Ease

The Dungeon Master’s Initiative Order menu displays all the crucial information DMs need to run combat efficiently: The names of each creature–including hidden ones–along with their AC, Hit Points, and Initiative.

The Initiative tracker also automatically updates when your players change their Hit Points on their character sheet, allowing you to keep a finger on the pulse of the encounter as it plays out.

Display Encounter Order to Your Players

When running encounters in Maps, players will be able to see the Initiative order, along with whose turn it is, on their instance of Maps. This makes it easy to strategize and stay involved in the battle, even when running complex combat encounters.

Don’t worry about the player-facing Initiative track spoiling any surprises you may have, though. Hidden creatures aren’t displayed until they’re revealed, at which point they appear on the player-facing Initiative track.

Adjust Encounters on the Fly

Encounters within Maps are also flexible; the DM can modify an encounter on the fly, either adding or removing creatures without stopping the encounter.

If you add a new creature token to the map, or a group of monsters, you can add them to the Initiative order from the token context menu.

Removing a creature from the Initiative is just as simple as adding it. The first option is to simply delete the token, removing it from both the map and Initiative order. However, if you wish to leave the token on the map–say to mark a corpse carrying an important item–you can remove it from just the Initiative order.

Take Initiative with Maps

Building and running encounters directly within Maps makes managing combat easier than ever. As one of the more complex, rules-heavy aspects of D&D, combat can now be streamlined by loading maps and tokens from your D&D Beyond library and seamlessly transforming them into dynamic encounters—allowing you to craft unforgettable battles in no time!

Dive into Maps with a Master Tier subscription and share the adventure with your players, no matter their subscription status.

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Davyd is a moderator for D&D Beyond. A Dungeon Master of over fifteen years, he enjoys Marvel movies, writing, and of course running D&D for his friends and family, including his daughter Willow (well, one day). The three of them live with their two cats Asker and Khatleesi in south of England.

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