The Combat Pad initiative tracker is the ultimate tool for managing combat in your favorite roleplaying game. It is a wet- and dry-erasable board with a steel core, so the included magnets stick right to it! It is portable—about the size of a sheet of paper—so you can take it anywhere you're gaming.
Use it to quickly and easily track turns. Write the PC's, enemies', and friendly NPC's names on the player magnets using a wet- or dry-erase marker, then place them in initiative order. Use the blue magnets for PCs, black magnets for enemies, and green magnets for NPCs. Hash marks label positions 0–35, making it easy to put the magnets in the correct initiative order. When the order changes, simply slide the magnets to their new places.
The turn indicator magnet points to whose turn it is; never accidentally skip someone again! As the round progresses, slide the turn indicator to point to the next player; it's now that player's turn. At the end of the round, the turn indicator will point to the next round magnet.
The next round magnet serves as a reminder to move the round indicator magnet. The round indicator points to the current round number, so you'll always know exactly which round it is! Write which round spells and effects expire in the notes section of the Combat Pad (e.g. "haste ends round 10"). Additionally, the notes section is a great place to record damage or anything else necessary to make combat run smoothly.
For tactical groups, delaying and readying guides make it simple to synchronize attacks—enemies beware! Slide the player magnet to the proper guide and avoid the confusion common with other initiative tracking methods.
I just got mine and I love it.
It's useful for every gaming system that has some kind of ini combat system.
This one will be one of my favourite tools as a game master.
I give it ony 4 stars, because I would like it more if the metal sheet would reach all the way to the borders (I am afraid the borders will get dog ears) and if the magnets would be a bit stronger so they don't slip off so easy.
Oh and don't throw away the frame of the magnets.
With only a little bit of work I got almost a dozen additional magnets to use for the board.
I bought the GameMastery Combat Pad at Gen Con this year on a whim thinking I would give it a go to see how it worked. 2 months later it has become an essential piece of kit for my games.
Initiative is now quicker to set up, quicker to run and more manageable for me as everything is on one A4 sized pad. It's also sturdy and wipes clean easily leaving no residue.
I bought this at one of my two FLGS and have used it in 4E D&D Encounters games. I find it very useful for quick pre-packaged games but not for home games. The magnets are useful for names and initiative and simple status marks but not more. The large space to the left allows me to track hit points individually. Thus, each monster or PC requires a separate reference card or paper to be useful. This is not terrible, as the Encounters format presents the monsters with the tactical data; but in my home campaigns, I don't print out the monsters I'm going to use - I use tabs in a web browser, even for custom monsters, and Excel to track status effects, defenses, and whatnot. Sorting by initiative is easier using Excel, though delaying a turn or part turn is easier with the magnets.
In all, this is a *very* good product and only a larger pad and larger magnets would improve it the way I use it. I won't limit it based on the way I use it, as I can probably configure my home campaigns a little better anyway.
I will just add my vote here, people before me said just what I feel. It is a great help for any GM, speeds things up nicely and looks good. The board itself is solid in making, no complaints.
Only 4 stars because I almost ripped one of the magnets in half trying to get it out of the magnet sheet, another one got a tad damaged.
As in, when I first saw this, I thought "Duh, why hasn't anyone made this before?"
I love this product, and use it in every game I run. I use the original version, which I would give 4 stars because of two minor complaints (some wasted space graphics-wise, and a little flimsiness in the board (which I solved by sticking the pad to the heavy cardboard it was packaged with)).
However, I can see that the new updated version makes better use of space, and also has a more solid sturdy construction, so both of my minor complaints have been addressed.
This product has made my combats so much more organized, and is useful in out-of-combat situations as well when notes or durations need to be tracked. I've been using this for over a year, and would hate to run a combat without it. It's that helpful.
Got this a bit ago and have used it for one game I'm in as a loaner to the GM and also in the game I run for my own personal reference. I bought the extra magnet pack and thus can use one side for one game and one side for another.
The only negatives in the current design is that, as mentioned in another review, there is an absurd amount of wasted space on the magnet cutout sheet. It could easily be printed with enough for the regular magnets, the extra magnets, and possibly even a third set of backups.
The other trouble is that while the vinyl envelope that holds the pack is reasonably made, it had shrunk due to heat and was extremely snug when I took the combat pad out and is equally troublesome to put back in, at least until it gets stretched out, and the sticky closure is eventually going to loose its stickiness. It makes an attractive display for a store shelf, but for long term storage, not quite ideal.
I have been using the combat pad since the original version and I really like the update. The thicker board is very nice and sturdy and the two-sided printing makes moving between to lengthy, note-ridden encounters easy without having to clean it up. The only issue I have is the tokens are separating. I have already lost each one of the "end of round," "turn," and "round" tokens as well as two of the "creature" tokens. In the next incarnation of this product, the tokens need to be of a higher quality. I have had to resort to purchasing an add-on kit with extra tokens. Otherwise, I am happy with this item.
I have used this for 3 games now. I also bought the extra magnet pack. All I can say is this new one is much sturdier than the old, it is double sided, it does feel like it has more space, it definitely helped me organize initiative and actions much better than I usually do with my notebook, and I am glad to have this product again! I highly recommend it!
If you get the extra magnets be very careful removing them, they do not feel like the die cut was as complete as it is on the main set, so I was worried about damaging them during removal. The main set was easy.
If I was asked to make a complaint it would be to make the magnets much tighter so more can be put on the page and cut out. A lot of those magnet sheets went to waste, and more magnets sure don't hurt.
I used this for the first time about 2 weeks ago and it really help speed up the turn order determination process and track status modifiers from round to round.
Unlike the old pad, this one is quite sturdy. This one is double sided. One side has initiative numbers printed on it and the other doesn't.
The only reason I'm giving it 4/5 is that the magnets feel a bit flimsy when trying to remove them from the sheet all the magnets come in.
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