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Run rounds & turns

An encounter is the fight you’re running: everyone in it, the initiative order, and which round you’re on. It lives in the tracker. This page covers starting the fight, moving through turns, fixing the order, and ending it.

Setting the order

Section titled “Setting the order”

Add everyone before the fight starts (see Getting started). Until you begin, players and foes sit in separate groups so you can see both sides. Then:

  1. Click Begin, the ▶ at the top of the tracker. The Roll initiative box opens.
  2. Check the creatures’ rolls. OpenFray has already rolled and filled them in.
  3. Type what each player rolled, or leave a player blank and OpenFray rolls for them.
  4. Click the ⚠ beside a name to mark that character surprised. What surprise does depends on your campaign’s surprise rule.
  5. Click Start combat. You’re in round 1, at the top of the list.

How hard the fight looks

Section titled “How hard the fight looks”

While you’re filling the board, the left of the footer rates the fight in front of you: Trivial, Easy, Medium, Hard, or Deadly, with the experience points it adds up to. It changes every time you add or remove someone, so you can drop in one more foe and watch it move.

The difficulty readout in the footer, outlined in red, with arrows to the Deadly badge and the 3,375 XP total.

The rating is an estimate, built from four rules:

  • Your players set the bar. OpenFray doesn’t know anyone’s level. It works it out from their hit points, and from Constitution when the character has it recorded. Give a saved character its ability scores and the estimate gets closer.
  • A crowd counts extra. Six foes are harder than one foe worth the same experience, so the total is scaled up for a crowd, and again for a party of one or two.
  • A quick add is guessed at. Something you invented on the spot carries no experience value, so OpenFray sizes it up from its hit points and armor class. It’s a rough figure.
  • The dead don’t count. Foes left on the board from the last fight are ignored.

Once the fight starts, the clocks take that spot. The rating is kept and shown again in the end-of-fight summary.

Rounds and turns

Section titled “Rounds and turns”

The creature whose turn it is glows in the tracker, and its stat block fills the middle of the screen. The buttons beside the round number move the fight along.

The top of the tracker during a fight, with the round number, the two turn buttons, and the pause and stop buttons outlined in red and labeled.

  • Next turn (›) moves to the next creature; at the end of the list it starts the next round.
  • Previous turn (‹) steps back one turn.
  • Pause holds the fight while the session stops for a break or a talk. The turn marker disappears so nobody is “up”, and the clocks stop counting. Press it again to carry on where you left off.
  • Stop ends the fight. Everyone stays on the board with their hit points, effects, and conditions intact; the round counter resets and Begin comes back. Nothing is lost, so stopping by mistake is safe.

What Next turn does

Section titled “What Next turn does”

Clicking Next turn does more than move the marker. Each time, OpenFray:

  • counts down effects that last a set number of rounds, and removes the ones that run out;
  • gives the creature back its reaction, and refreshes its legendary actions;
  • clears effects that last “until my next turn” as their owner starts to act;
  • counts down concentration and drops it when it runs out;
  • makes a creature’s saves to shake off an effect at the right moment in its turn;
  • rolls to see whether a used-up recharge ability is available again, like a dragon’s breath.

OpenFray follows whose turn it is by the creature itself, so adding, removing, or dragging creatures around never loses the turn.

The clocks

Section titled “The clocks”

Two clocks run in the footer while you fight: Real, the time you’ve actually spent (pauses don’t count), and In-game, six seconds per round. Use the in-game clock to tell a player how long a timed spell has left.

The footer clocks during a fight, with Real elapsed time beside the In-game clock at 0.

Rearranging the order

Section titled “Rearranging the order”

The order needs a change when someone holds their action, or when you typed a number wrong. Once the fight is running, every living row shows a drag handle: the six small dots on the far left of the row, before the initiative number.

A tracker row during a fight, with the six-dot drag handle on its left outlined in red.

Drag that handle up or down to move the combatant. Its initiative changes to fit its new spot, and nobody else’s number moves. Combatants that are down or dead stay in the list, grayed out and skipped, so the order holds steady if they come back.

Ending the fight

Section titled “Ending the fight”

When the last foe is defeated, OpenFray asks once whether the fight is over.

The “Every foe is down” alert asking whether to end combat, with Keep fighting and End combat buttons.

  • Click Keep fighting to keep the fight active, for a second wave of foes or a player still rolling death saves.
  • Click End combat to stop the fight and see its summary: the outcome, experience, timings, and standout hits. See End the fight.

Where to next

Section titled “Where to next”