DnD 4e - Initiative Cards

When I was preparing the first adventure for my Spelljammer campaign I ran across the initiative cards I had previously been using, and wondered how much I actually used the information contained in them.  

Old Initiative Card:

Really, the only section I used was the name and initiative. Furthermore, I'd always have to refer back to the monster manual when attacking PCs. So all the work I put the player through, not to mention my work of transferring monster data from books to cards, I deemed unnecessary.  

I heard about a new way of tracking initiative on The Tome Show podcast, which was to take index cards and fold them in half, placing players, as well as NPC/monsters, names on each side of the folds, creating a kind of stand up sign. This way as you run your game you can easily shuffle your initiative around. I had my friend try this on one of his adventures and it worked really well. Players could tell when their turn was coming up, and people who delayed or had readied actions could easily be reintegrated into the initiative.  

During my friend's adventure, I noticed he was referring to the Monster Manual constantly. I didn't want to do that. I always prefer to move the information to sheets of paper when I run my adventure, but instead of looking through a book, I'd be looking through pages. Very little difference between the two. So I decided to combine it with the initiative card.

I went ahead and used the smallest font I could read and printed the monsters out on the DM side of the initiative card. If it was long I could always fold it underneath a few times. I also decided I could keep track of all of the monsters Hit Points right on the initiative card. 

I found another problem though. The card stock paper I had (90#) didn't hold ink very well. It would kind of flake off, especially in the folds. So I just printed it out on regular paper. It ended up cheaper and much easier to read, especially with that small font. Also, when I folded it stayed perfectly folded and standing as if it was card stock.  

Instead of placing the name of the monsters on the player's side of the initiative card I decided to put a picture of the monster on it. The players liked seeing the monster pics so much I decided to place pics of their PC's on the back of their cards as well. The player cards are the ones with names above the pictures. Here is how they turned out.  

If you give this a try let me know how it works out for you. Also, if you can improve on the process I'd love to hear your idea.