Ever since the Gamemastery Combat Pad was introduced into my gaming group the speed of encounters has gone up and the smoothness of holding, readying, and countering actions has increased ten-fold. My group loves this item and I do too! Oh and the size of it is perfect. I can fit my DM screen around it to hide my notes from the players and keep it all on the table without taking up too much space.

Everytime someone new sees this in action they say the same thing we did. "I gotta get one of those!". This thing is awesome for keeping track of combat rounds. We have a player helping the dm track initiative with it in one of our games and it's great. I don't understand why people say it's flimsy. I don't think it is and it can only get so sturdy before it would be bulky and a pain. Also we have had no problems with the magnets "barely sticking". If they stuck too much it would make it a pain to change the initiative order. In other words: Great Product!

I was very disappointed in this product. It is flimsy, small and cumbersome. I've used it a few times but never again.

I don't understand the complaints about the size... This thing is a dream come true. The magnets are just the right size to hold a N/PC name and an initiative number, are easily moveable around the tracker, and there's plenty of space to track rounds, temporary modifiers and more...

It's brilliance is its simplicity -- once we played with this tracker, we simply cannot play without it.

Also love that the general magnet surface of the tracker is dry erase friendly, allowing us to make comments directly on the board next to appropriate characters (such as poison saving throw reminders, or spell durations, etc).

It looked like it was going to fill a void in my gaming and I was real excited to check this out and get it in use. Well, the board is on fragile cardstock with just a hint of magnetic interaction, the thin magnets barely hang on to the board. The magnets are hard to grip to move around. In the process of moving the pieces it is easy to erase the marker. The magnets colors are kinda difficult to distinguish; black and blue are dark and hard to tell apart. You need a pretty fine marker to write legibly on the magnets. I think the idea is good, the actual product could be improved in many ways. It’s back to the drawing board for me.

I've got to say, there's no cons about this.

As far as size complaints go, this is perfect. If it were any bigger, it would be too bulky for easy transport.

This is a tool for the DM, not a tool for the whole table, and it's perfect!

This product helps me save loads of paper, and though it could use some extra room it is easy enough to get down all the information i need to about who is in the battle, turn order, HP of monsters, status ailments (and when they end), and random notes if needed. Plus the magnets and board are very durable, so you don't have to worry about anything falling apart.

SO WHY DID YOU GET THIS:

I wanted something to track initiative and keep it straight instead of using a piece of paper or writing it on the game mat, which tends to get messy

PROS: Wet & Dry Erase capable means I don't have to worry about what I use to write on it with and there are plenty of Magnets for NPCs, Monsters, and PCs. The product is sturdy (IMHO) and has space to write durations of spell effects, feats, etc.

CONS: I play both d20 & Palladium stuff. In my d20 games there is a lot less change of initiative, whereas in the Palladium games we roll every round. The magnets make it easy to change the order, but they are a bit small to grasp and the writing tends to get wiped off when I move them, which gets a little frustrating. I've run into the same issue as others mentioned below with size as more space to denote each round would be good.

SO WHAT DO YOU THINK?
I highly recommend it, the CONS are minor, and the PROs are huge, so yeah if I were you I'd get this, it will be a big help to your game.

...as others have said, the thing is just too small. Ultimately, I was looking for an easy way to keep track of initiative. This provides the closest that I've come across without the need for me to create a magnetic strip of my own and write LARGE NUMBERS on it.
The magnetized tags that use wet and dry erase markers are nice (and props for making them headache-free by allowing wet- and dry-), but the board is simply too tiny for the PCs and myself.

Solid idea, especially how you can shift the combatants to the right to indicate readied actions and delays...but there are a few problems. First, this thing is too small. I understand they made it fit with a standard 8.5 x 11 piece of paper, but I would have prefered bigger so everyone can clearly see it. Second, the board itself isn't durable enough; it should be thicker, perhaps with a plastic edge. As it is, I'd stick with a cheap dry-erase board from office max, or good old index cards.