| fatdawg |
I'm new to PF (after taking 30+ years off from D&D back in the day). I'm starting to get my son interested in RPG's, PF specifically, and we don't have very many other players in our area that we know of to learn from. So we are learning as we go, just he and I, starting with the Beginner's Box.
Since we are just one character and one GM, I didn't want to run him through the Beginner's Box adventure for his first experience. To introduce him to the absolute basics (GM describes a scene, PC explains what they do, GM describes consequences, we roll dice and have fun), I made up a simple linear "adventure" with three rooms, a few goblins, a trap, a secret room, and a moral dilemma at the end. It was fun, his Cleric didn't die, and he seems interested in playing and even GM'g. At the risk of breaking my arm patting myself on the back, it was a completely successful experience - except I had no idea what I was doing trying to keep track of everything (and there was not a lot to keep track of as it was - I can see how a full party in a full adventure can get complicated quick).
I just used the margins of my printed Word document to cross out HP and write in new lower values, and he did the same. But after a few misses on both sides of combat I completely lost track of what round we were in. He had used Divine Favor to give him +1 on Att/Dmg rolls, which was supposed to last a minute, which is what, 10 rounds? In the end it didn't matter, it was just a 1 on 1 low level adventure, and he slayed the goblin, but it highlighted for me that if there were more characters and/or baddies, I did not have a good system in place for how to keep track of initiative order, who's turn it was, what spell(s) or attacks they used, how long the effect(s) are supposed to last, monster HP as the attacks keep coming, XP to award at the end, treasure amounts along the way, the list goes on.
Is there a sheet / cheat sheet / system that people use to keep track of everything? I'm still in the "do we really want to play this game" stage, so I'm trying to keep costs low. This stuff might be in the full GM Guide, but I'm opposed to spending more money until I know we are ready to go there, which is why I haven't spent the coin on it yet. I've seen a lot of guides on character creation, builds for different classes, etc, but not as much on "here's an easy form to fill out / system to keep track of what's going on."
Any help greatly appreciated...