If you visit any Dungeons and Dragons forum, you’ve probably heard of monster cards and power cards, perhaps even magic item cards.  Today I’d like to introduce the Dungeons and Dragons Encounter Card.

 

This is a handy little device that keeps me from forgetting a key component of an encounter.  Have you ever forgotten some bit of treasure?  Remember a trap only after the second player should have activated it?  Left out a monster?  Scramble to count out minis for your set up?  The encounter card is designed to help avoid those little slip ups.

 

The encounter card is very simple.  In fact, the term card is used pretty loosely here since I don’t always bother to print it on a 3×5″ card, often I just print them all on a page and then paperclip it to the monster stat cards for that encounter.

 

Here is the information I usually put on them.

 

• A list of the monsters that will be involved.
• The total XP award for the encounter.  (If I know ahead of time how many players will be there I may divide it out to an individual award as well).
• The total treasure award, including items for the encounter.  I always write the GP value of any items in this section.

 

See, pretty simple.  I then paperclip that card together with the monster cards for the encounter as well as any magic item cards for that encounter.

 

The beauty of the encounter card is that if the PC’s go off in a totally different direction than expected and I have to ditch the dungeon I prepared I don’t have to worry about upsetting the delicate balance of treasure and XP.  If they are slated to battle 2 orcs, and an ogre, well by golly there will be 2 orcs and an ogre, complete with treasure waiting for them wherever they happen to go.

 

I’ll get more into how to adjust the story later, but once you try it a time or two, you’ll see just how much flexibility this little tool can add to your campaign.

 

You can find a list of the Keep on the Shadowfell encounters (spoilers) which has the information that would be included on an encounter card.  I have also included a 3×5″ encounter card (Microsoft Word Format) that you can download and customize.

 

All downloads are available on the download page.

 

Thanks, and enjoy the game.

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