DM Tools - Fiery Dragon - Counter Collection

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I'm a big fan of props at the game table. Even before 3e, I'd been using everything from pennies, to Lego, to metal minis to better illustrate all the details in a combat. With the arrival of 3e (or more accurately the Combat & Tactics Option book from 2e), representing combat on a grid "playing field" became crucial to account for many of the special moves and attacks of opportunity now available in the rules.

While I love minis, I'm not a very good or fast painter, and I can't always find the mini I need for a particular encounter. Also, I'm not always playing at my home so I need to pack up "supplies" for the game.

Thankfully I found Fiery Dragon's Counter Collection. It's available on CD or as an electronic download and presents almost every D&D creature you need in the form of a flat counter. The counters are also properly sized for the space the appropriate creature takes up and have a blank space for writing a number (for nameless minions, hordes, or tribes) or a name (for PCs or BBEGs). The file is PDF, so it works easily on PC or Mac and each page contains a variety of different creatures. Just print out the appropriate pages on a light cardstock, cut and use.

Overall this is a great product... the only downsides are
a) with the flat counters, you don't get a full sense of the volume of space one creature will take up verses another (unlike minis which give you the 3-D perspective of each creature).

b) sometimes (rarely) you want more numbers of a certain creature than appear on a single sheet.

Creatures you typically encounter in large numbers (goblins, kobolds, orcs, and some undead) always appear more than once on a sheet, but if you need three Ettins, you'll need three pages and end up with a bunch of Formians you may never need. It's a minor quibble and has not diminished my whole hearted recommendation of this product.

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