This section builds on the combat rules in the Player’s Handbook and offers tips for keeping the game running smoothly when a fight breaks out.
Combat starts when—and only when—you say it does. Some characters have abilities that trigger on an Initiative roll; you, not the players, decide if and when Initiative is rolled. A high-level Barbarian can’t just punch their Paladin friend and roll Initiative to regain expended uses of Rage.
In any situation where a character’s actions initiate combat, you can give the acting character Advantage on their Initiative roll. For example, if a conversation with an NPC is cut short because the Sorcerer is convinced that NPC is a doppelganger and targets it with a Chromatic Orb spell, everyone rolls Initiative, and the Sorcerer does so with Advantage. If the doppelganger rolls well, it might still act before the Sorcerer’s spell goes off, reflecting the monster’s ability to anticipate the spell.
You can get to the action of combat more quickly by using Initiative scores instead of rolling. You might use Initiative scores just for characters, just for monsters, or for both.
Initiative Scores for Characters. A character’s Initiative score is typically 10 plus all modifiers to the character’s Initiative roll (including their Dexterity modifier and any special modifiers). If you want your players to use Initiative scores, have them record those scores on their character sheets, and keep your own list of those scores.
Initiative Scores for Monsters. A monster’s stat block in the Monster Manual includes its Initiative score after its Initiative bonus.
Advantage and Disadvantage. If a creature has Advantage on Initiative rolls, increase its Initiative score by 5. If it has Disadvantage on those rolls, decrease that score by 5.
The following sections describe different methods for keeping track of who goes when in combat.
You can track Initiative on a list your players can’t see using any of the following tools:
A hidden list allows you to track combatants who haven’t been revealed yet, and you can use the list as a place to record the current Hit Points of monsters, as well as other useful notes.
If you use this approach, you tell the players when it’s their characters’ turn. When you call out the character whose turn is starting, consider also mentioning who’s next, prompting that character’s player to think ahead.
You can track Initiative on a list that is visible to the players using any of the following tools:
An open list makes everyone aware of the order of play. Players know when their characters’ turns are coming up so they can plan their actions in advance. An open list also lets the players know when the monsters act in the fight, although you can hold off on adding monsters to the list until they take their first turns.
During a combat encounter, you or a player should track how much damage each monster takes. Most DMs track damage in secret so their players don’t know how many Hit Points a monster has remaining.
It helps to have a system to track damage for groups of monsters. If you aren’t using miniatures or other visual aids, one way to track your monsters is to assign them unique features. For example, imagine that you’re running an encounter with three ogres. You might attach descriptions such as “the ogre with a big scar” and “the ogre with the helmet” to help you and your players track which monster is which. Once Initiative is rolled, jot down each ogre’s Hit Points and add notes (and even a name, if you like) to differentiate each one:
Krag (ogre w/ scar): 68
Thod (ogre w/ helm): 71
Mur (ogre smeared w/ dirt): 59
If you use miniatures to represent monsters, one way to differentiate them is to give each one a unique miniature. If you use identical miniatures to represent multiple monsters, you can tag the miniatures with small stickers of different colors or stickers with different letters or numbers on them.
For example, in a combat encounter with three ogres, you could use three identical ogre miniatures tagged with stickers marked A, B, and C, respectively. To track the ogres’ Hit Points, you can sort them by letter, then subtract damage from their Hit Points as they take it. Your records might look something like this after a few rounds of combat:
Ogre A: 68 59 53 45 24 14 9 dead
Ogre B: 71 62 54 33
Ogre C: 59
Some DMs prefer to track how much damage a monster has taken, adding to that number as characters deal damage (instead of subtracting from the monster’s Hit Points). Adding is generally easier than subtracting, and you can track damage on a visible list of Initiative (such as a whiteboard) without revealing to the players how many Hit Points the monsters have. The tracking might look like this:
Ogre A: 9 15 23 44 54 59 dead
Ogre B: 9 17 38
Ogre C:
Three ogres block a narrow mountain pass.
Many rules and features in the game apply conditions to creatures. You can also apply conditions on the fly when it makes sense to do so. For example, the Poisoned condition can reflect a variety of impairments, from influenza to intoxication.
You can track monsters’ conditions wherever you track their Hit Points. Players should track any conditions affecting their characters. Character conditions can also be marked on index cards or a whiteboard.
You might also mark index cards or sticky notes with conditions and their effects or use tokens or some other tangible reminder. Then hand the cards, notes, or tokens to players when their characters have a condition. Putting a sticky note with a condition’s rules on a player’s character sheet can help that player remember the effects of the condition. You can also place tokens or colored plastic rings (the rings from soda bottle caps work well) on a creature’s miniature, helping everyone remember which creatures are affected by conditions.