I was able to try this out with my gaming group over the weekend and I'd first like to say how great of an App this has turned out to be (and very reasonably priced).
It greatly speeds up combat and cuts back on combat book-keeping and GM prep time. I'm one of those people who likes to stat out monsters on index cards before games so there is no need to reference things in combat and I don't really need to do that now with this App.
Things I really like about this App:
- Easy and fast to set up battles. If you do this ahead of time for story-battles you can jump right into the action.
- Everything about the creature is right at your fingertips. It even links to rules for skills/feats/abilities/etc as they show up in descriptions.
- Tracks HP and initiative for all combatants. No need for extra paper to jot down remaining HP.
- Built-in dice roller for all of the common rolls a creature would need to make (attacks, saves, initiative, CMB, skills, etc).
- You can select which monster attacks count towards the additive total damage from an attack string. This is great if a monster attacks more than one PC with its multiple attacks. The color used to show an attack as "selected" is fairly close in shade to the non-selected color, though, and can be hard to see at times.
Things I think could use some improvement:
- The dice roller doesn't help with creature special abilities. For example, a dragon's breath weapon damage will be listed, but there is no way to roll it. Easy enough to roll on your own, but it would be a nice addition.
- There is no way to modify anything (temporary or otherwise) about the combatants. Ways to add direct boosts or penalties (+1 Atk for example) would be nice to account for spells cast on creatures or players.
- No way to add common status effects (such as the ones at the back of the handbook). Tying in with the above suggestion, user-customized status effects could be available to account for any special spells, afflictions, etc that the GM may need for their campaign. This could cut back on needing to input each spell effect (from every book) that a GM or player would apply to a combatant.
- A way to track the round number would be nice. If status effects are ever implemented, this would be a good way to keep track of their durations.
- I'm not sure if its permitted, but adding some of the GameMastery Guide pre-generated NPCs to the monster selection would be great for combats against NPC-type foes that you'd typically encounter in urban settings, pirate campaigns, etc.
Overall, this is the best Pathfinder combat tracking tool I've ever used so far, short of making huge and time consuming custom excel files. I was using it from my iPod Touch, but I bet it would be even nicer with an iPad. The "open feeling" of not having your face behind a laptop really helps socially engage the players more and I think this App is a nice compromise between minimal obstruction and maximum GM-aiding potential. I plan to use it in my future games as well. With future updates, I think this App has HUGE potential for GMs.
I bet you could even modify it to make a simpler Player version that keeps track of HP/status/rolls as it does for monsters (assuming a user-customization option is added). I'm sure my players would appreciate being able to see descriptions of abilities right from their virtual-sheets.
Thanks for making such a great App!