⚔️ Ben's Encounter Tracker

A lightweight, blazing-fast, pure frontend web application designed for Dungeon Masters running high-stakes tabletop RPG combat. It handles initiative order with active turn management, tracks monster hit points with instant math modifiers, and saves a persistent library of creatures right inside your browser's native memory.

No servers, no databases, no complex setup. Just open the HTML file and play.

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🚀 Quick Start

1. Download the code: Save the dm_tracker.html file to your local computer. Everything (including the styling engine) is bundled inside that one file, so it needs no internet connection.
2. Launch: Double-click the file to open it in any modern web browser (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari).
3. Play: Bookmark it for immediate access behind your DM screen.

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🛠️ Key Features

1. Active Turn & Round Manager

• Next / Previous Cycling: Use the Next ▶ and ◀ Previous buttons — or the ← / → arrow keys — to cycle through characters seamlessly. The tracker automatically loops cleanly from the bottom of the order back to the top (and vice versa). (Arrow keys are ignored while your cursor is in a text field, so they never clash with typing.)
• Round Counter ⏱️: Clicking Sort 🎲 kicks off Round 1, shown as a badge next to the Initiative Order heading. Every time the turn loops from the bottom of the order back to the top it ticks up (and ◀ Previous rewinds it back down, never below 1).
• Visual Turn Frame: The combatant whose turn it is instantly highlights with an amber glow, a pulsing ACTIVE banner, and a ⚔️ icon so you can see who is acting at a glance.
• Smart Death Skipping 🤖: When a monster hits 0 HP or lower, the turn tracker will automatically skip past them during turn cycles, ensuring you only pause on combatants who are actually conscious.

2. Streamlined Encounter Entry

• Instant Re-focus: Pressing Enter to add a combatant automatically snaps your typing cursor straight back into the Name field, allowing you to queue up a whole group of enemies entirely from your keyboard.
• Auto-Select Fields: Clicking into any Initiative score or HP field instantly highlights the entire value, allowing you to overwrite or modify text without wasting time hitting backspace.
• Auto-Numbering Duplicates: Adding multiple identical monsters (e.g., clicking your "Goblin" template 4 times) automatically decorates them as Goblin #1, Goblin #2, etc. Numbers stay unique even after you remove one from the middle of the group.
• Editable Rows: Rename any combatant, or adjust a monster's Max HP, right in the initiative row at any time — just click the field and type. Blank names revert to the previous value.
• Initiative: Roll or Enter: New combatants join the order unrolled, flagged with a dashed amber box in the Init column so you can see at a glance who still needs an initiative. A dedicated Roll column shows a pulsing 🎲 next to an up/down modifier spinner: dial in a +/- modifier and click the dice to have the app roll a d20, or just type a value you rolled at the table yourself into the Init box. Either way, once a value is set the dice and spinner disappear.

3. Integrated Collapsible Bestiary

• Accordion View: The Library / Bestiary module stays neatly collapsed by default to keep your screen tidy, unfolding with a single click when you need to spawn reinforcements.
• One-Click Spawning: Click any profile card inside your library to instantly drop that character or creature into the active initiative order with their default stats.
• Local Storage Save: Creatures added to your library are committed to HTML5 localStorage. They will stay right there safely even if you close your laptop.
• Encounter Auto-Save: The active initiative order (combatants, current HP, initiative, whose turn it is, and the round number) is also saved to localStorage after every change, so an accidental page refresh mid-combat won't wipe your fight. (Note: localStorage is cleared if you clear your browser cache/site data.)

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⌨️ Shortcuts & Math Engine

• In the Active Initiative List:
  • Click an HP box, type -Value (e.g., -22) or +Value (e.g., +10), then press Enter or click away to let the engine calculate damage/healing dynamically.
  • Type a flat number (e.g., 45) and press Enter (or click away) to completely overwrite their current HP state.
  • Clicking Sort 🎲 will arrange combatants from highest initiative to lowest and automatically lock the active turn to the top of the round. Any combatants you haven't rolled yet sink to the bottom until their initiative is set.
  • Tie-breaking: When two combatants share an initiative, player characters are listed above monsters, and tied monsters are separated automatically by a hidden roll-off. Tied player characters can be reordered by hand with the ▲/▼ arrows in the Actions column (they appear only on tied PC rows, after sorting) — handy when your players reroll to settle a tie. The chosen order is remembered and survives re-sorting.
• In the Bestiary Creator:
  • Leaving Max HP at 0 automatically registers a profile as a Player Character (🛡️). Setting it above 0 registers them as a Monster (😈).

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🔒 Security & Privacy

• 100% Offline: This application doesn't collect analytics, communicate with cloud data silos, or make external API requests. Your campaign notes and character names remain strictly private to your computer.