OSE Monster Index Card Templates

This would be a pretty strange encounter.

I have been doing D&D prep almost exclusively using index cards for the past few months. In that time I’ve honed the format of my monster cards down to a specific template. I designed the template to be usable for both groups of monsters, or single monsters. I am often running hordes of similar creatures with a couple of unique ‘bosses’ and these templates serve that purpose well.

First, the template tries to make all the most important information for combat front and center. The examples I have here show ascending AC as examples. I include the rolled number appearing to represent the amount of creatures that actually appear. The card also includes little multi-use check boxes. You can use these for marking off dead monsters, tracking HP, spells used, rounds of duration, etc. Finally the template leaves the bottom half of the card (and the back) blank for all your notes. I’ll often put role playing notes, treasure, special attacks, or whatever else is relevant to the game in the remaining space.

One notable exclusions on this template is the saving throws. Maybe I’m playing the game wrong, but specific saving throws for monsters rarely come up for me. I also don’t put treasure type because I tend to roll treasure during prep, and write that down on a separate card.

These monster card templates are now available over in the Shop for free! Enjoy!

If you don’t want to go through the Squarespace shop (and kindly lend me your email address which I won’t ever use unless I release some new stuff like this), you can download the pdf from Google Docs HERE