[RPG] How to track persistent area effects with TotM

combatdnd-5egm-techniquestheatre-of-the-mind

My group is trying theater of the mind (TotM) battles instead of using a mat with miniatures. A challenge we're having is when someone casts a spell like entangle, which affects a location. On a map, it's easy to draw the entangle area, but I find it tough to track with TotM, especially in larger battles (think 4 PCs and 7 monsters in various spots).

With TotM, how can the DM track and remember everything going on, especially on the battlefield? I've been using a small map sketch behind the DM screen for my reference but am wondering if there's a better way.

Best Answer

In general, the larger the fight, and the more tactical you wish to allow your players to be, the more helpful a battle map will be.

But, here are some suggestions that I and another DM friend of mine have used in the past, when Theater of the Mind made more sense.

  1. Make a small DM map.

    It doesn't have to be to scale, and it doesn't have to be perfect, but if you sketch out a rough schematic of the fight for your use, you will find it much easier to keep track of things. Then you can add things like entangle to this schematic.

    Bonus points for this idea because it can be done on the fly, and you don't feel any pressure to draw well, or have the map be fancy, because you are the only one who will ever see it. You can use X's for the bad guys, and O's for the good guys (with the first letter of their name inside the O so you know who's who).

  2. Group your enemies.

    Keep your monsters in 2-3 member squads, and have each squad have the same initiative, attack bonus, AC, ST's, HP, etc... This way, you have fewer monster locations to keep track of. This basically makes them act like a bigger monster, who takes damage from AoE spells multiple times, and reduces the # of attacks they have at regular intervals (as one of the creatures within the squad dies).

    Be warned: this makes the combat more swingy than having each monster go on their own initiative. If all of your monsters go at the same time, or small groups go togeather, they will do lots of damage at once. If they manage to go before the players, they may do more damage than they normally would, as the PCs may have been able to take out one of them before they went.

    On the flip side, if they go after the players, the PCs may get to do more damage, and kill more of them than would have happened if you had them all go on different initiatives.

    Not a huge deal, but something to keep in mind.

  3. have your players announce intentions rather than actions.

    Since players have less information in TotM than they do a battlemap, you are highly encouraged (here and elsewhere), to track intentions along with the spell used, rather than just actions. If your players want to block monsters A-C from closing in on their squishy party members, and they want to used entangle to do that, then have them say "I cast entangle to block monsters A-D from moving towards PC's X and Y", rather than saying "I cast entangle in front of monsters A-D". This way, you don't have to remember the location of the spell, only that Monsters A-D can't approach PCs X and Y without making the necessary saving throws, taking damage, etc...

    This will reduce the amount you have to remember, and make it easier to keep track of the fight.

My personal suggestion is the DM map, but that is because I enjoy tactical combat as a player. So as a DM, I tend to feed that to my players. I run my games with facing rules, lots of cover, flanking, lots of AoE/control spells, etc... But then again, I'm the type of DM who is going to gravitate towards a battlemap for anything more than a 3v3 skirmish.

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