After two weeks of intermittent work, and the solving of several interesting technical problems, we just finished the beta version of the chat initiative tracker – for Pathfinder campaigns only at this moment.
The initiative tracker can be activated via the Chat Tools as shown here:
The initiative tracker starts out in the ‘Rolling’ phase, which means that combat has not yet started, but that rolled initiative checks are automatically added to the init listing without impacting the current round or turn. The player who activated the initiative tracker can also add initiative tokens without having to roll — this makes it easy to add NPCs or several mooks:
Once everyone is in the init list, the ‘Begin’ button will start the first round. Each initiative token will be called out in turn in the chat, and a ‘current’ and ‘next’ marker will be shown with the token that has the turn, and the token that’s up next:
By hitting the ‘End turn’ button, or by adding the special marker (&next) to your post you can pass the turn to the next player in line. The initiative tracker keeps track of who is up next, and what round of combat your are in right now.
At any point in time, the player that activated the initiative tracker can click on any token to update its initiative or remove it completely:
Any player can activate the initiative tracker — usually it is the game master, but they can hand off the intiative handling to another player. While it is active any player can take over the initiative tracker, so it is always possible to hand it off later in the combat.
Note that the initiative tracker is a beta version. This means that it is not as polished as we want it to be eventually — we plan on keeping this beta version active for about two months, to gather feedback and to see how we can improve upon it in a way that supports how it is actually used.
As always, we have this week’s changelog with a detailed list of changes. If you have any feedback, feature ideas, or just want to have a chat with us, we’d love it if you open a thread in our community forum!