Steps for Running a Battle

A great way to learn to use DM Genie is with the in-program Tutorials . You can also follow these steps.

Create PCs

•  First, create the PCs and enter their data into DM Genie. This is described in New Creature Screen and the Classes Frame . Put the PCs in the “PC's Party” group.

If you haven't created the monsters ahead of time

•  Optionally, create a group that will hold the enemies for this battle, for example “Goblins in Tower”. If it is a quick battle, like a random encounter, you can add enemies directly to the “Current Encounter” group. See Group Manager .
•  Create a set of monsters or enemies. This is described in the New Creature Screen .

Prepare the combat

•  You must put both the PCs and the monsters in the same group. The easiest way to do this is to select the group of monsters, and click “Prepare Combat”. This will put all the PCs and all the monsters of that group into the “Current Encounter” group. (Note: You can run a battle from any group, for example by putting the PCs in the same group as the monsters, but it is best to use only “Current Encounter” because this keeps PCs and monsters separated except during battle). The Prepare Combat button also rolls initiative for all combatants.
•  Another way to prepare the combat would be to use the Group Manager to move the PCs and the monsters they will be fighting into the Current Encounter group

Start the combat

• You can use the Roll Window to roll or enter initiative values. Select “Initiative” in the Roll List. Click “Make Roll” to open the Roll Window .
•  If the PCs have rolled their own initiative, then select the checkboxes to display only the friends. Click on “Manually” to open the manual entry window. For each PC, call out their name, type in the roll or total initiative that the player gives you, and press enter.
•  Click Done to apply the initiative.
•  Click “Start Combat” to start the combat. This sets all rounds to 1. You can also set friends or enemies as "surprised", which will have them start only in round 2. Also, you can specify whether friends and/or enemies start out flat-footed (normally all combatants are flat-footed at the beginning of combat).
• At this point, it is a good idea to sort the list by initiative, by clicking on the Init column header (or right-click and select Sort by Play Order).

Each creature's turn

• A green arrow in the Order column points to the creature whose turn it is to act.
• If the creature is a PC, ask the player what his or her character does. You can use the references in the Skills Frame , the Spells Frame , the Psionics Frame or the Feats Frame to decide what DC to apply to a skill or what the effect of a spell or power will be. You can enter damage to a creature hit by right clicking on the target in the Creature List and entering the appropriate amount. You can apply conditions resulting from the PC's action with the Condition Setter
•  If the creature is a monster or NPC, you can use the various frames described above to select an appropriate action. If you make an attack, the Combat Log reports what AC is hit. You can then inform the player who was attacked whether or not his character was hit. The player will adjust his hit points on his character sheet appropriately, and you may adjust them in the program as well, if you wish to keep track of the players' statistics as well.

Going to the next creature

•  The “Done with '...'” button signals the end of the turn of the currently selected character. You can click the button or press Ctrl+D. The green arrow in the Order column now points to the next creature in the play order.
•  There is no effect if you click Done With for a character who should not act yet - his turn will still come up normally. You can make a character skip one or more turns by clicking in its Rd (round) column entry, and typing in a higher round number. For instance, if a character will be away for 10 rounds, starting round 12, type in "22". The character will not come up for 10 rounds.
•  The expiration of conditions from spells, etc. is checked before each creature acts. Expiration is reported in the combat log if that option is set in the Options Dialog .

On each new round

•  A creature that is dying will automatically lose a hit point, unless it stabilizes (10% chance)
•  Creatures in the current group are saved. See Automatic File Saving .

Delaying and Readying

•  To have a character start a delay or ready, select the Actions Frame and click Delay or Ready. You can also right-click the creature and select Start Delay or Start Ready.
•  When a character is delaying or readying a D or R appears in the Order column of the Creature List. The creature remains at its spot in the play order until the delay is stopped.
•  When a delaying character comes up, the Done With button becomes the Continue Delay – click it and you will move on to the next character.

Ending a Delay/Ready

•  When a player declares "I'm ending my delay/ready!", select him and use the End Delay or the End Ready buttons (or right-click and choose the End Delay/Ready menu) to stop his delay or ready.
•  The character is moved to the spot just before the creature who's turn it is to act.
•  For Delayers: you should End Delay after clicking Done With on the current character. 
•  For Readiers: you should End Ready before performing the action that triggered the ready and before clicking Done With. 
•  The character's init is also changed to match the initiative of the creature who triggered the delay/ready. A line in the combat log gives you the PC's new initiative and indicated before/after which character they now are placed.
• Delaying example: Alice declares a delay at initiative 22. She waits until Bob's turn on initiative 14 and declares she wants to end her delay. She will act after Bob, so first you have Bob complete his actions for his turn. Before you have clicked "Done With" for Bob, you select End Delay for Alice. You then click "Done With" on Bob, and Alice's turn comes up. From now on, Alice's turn is just after Bob, and her initiative is 14.
• Readying example: It's Alice's turn on initiative 16. Alice declares that she readies an attack "if Bob casts a spell". When Bob's turn comes (on initiative 7), he says that he will cast a spell. Before doing so, select Alice, click End Ready, and run her turn. Alice's initiative becomes 7, same as Bob, but she will act just before him from now on.

Manually Changing Play Order

• When the creatures are sorted by initiative, you can change their order by simply clicking, dragging and dropping one creature onto another - it will then act just before that creature; its initative will be adjusted to match.
• You can also manually edit a creature's initiative, which is then resorted to end up at its right place in the play order.
• If required, you can manually specify which creature's turn it is. Right-click on the creature and select It is this creature's turn. The current round and initiative are changed to match - if used improperly this may cause you to run through the same round twice. Clicking Done With afterwards acts normally.
• Behind the scenes: when delaying or dragging characters around makes 2 PCs have the same initiative, you will see that their play order is still preserved. This is done by setting their initiative to a slightly higher number. For example, if Alice acts before Bob, but both are at initiative 16, the program will actually use 16.01 as Alice's initiative, preserving its position in the play order. Condition expirations will also use this fractional value - meaning that spell expiration can occur correctly between several PCs with all the same initiative value.

Adding New Combatants and Init

•  If you create a new monster and add it to Current Encounter, it will automatically start playing the next round. For example, if you are in round 5 and an Orc comes in (is created), he will act on his initiative (which is rolled automatically) on round 6.
•  Moving creatures into Current Encounter works similarly, except that the group manager has a textbox where you can specify which round the new combatants enter (which should never be earlier than the current round!).

Ending the Combat

•  When the combat is finished you can award XP to the PCs. Use the Battle->Encounter Difficulty/XP menu or press Ctrl+F3.
•  Afterwards, you can use the Battle->End Combat menu to clean up. You can select to clear all conditions for everyone, reset their hit points to full, and remove or permanently delete all the enemies in Current Encounter.
•  You can also use the Battle->Rest All menus to restore HP through natural healing, and restore memorized spells, etc.