Herald Combat Tracker
Herald Combat Tracker runs your fights; initiative, HP, conditions, and damage, tracked live and shown on a screen your players can actually watch. It's built for real depth, not just a turn order list: two full rule systems, a complete bestiary, spellcasting, rests, and a damage engine that handles the math automatically, with the final call always yours.
Two Systems, Real Support
Herald Combat Tracker runs D&D 5e — both the 2014 and 2024 rules — and Pathfinder 2e Remaster. Each party picks its system when you create it, and that choice carries through everything: monster stats, conditions, damage math, initiative, all correct for the rules you're actually playing.
Build Your Party
Characters get real stats — HP, AC, level, and defenses set up once and used automatically from then on. Resistances and immunities apply the moment they're relevant; situational defenses like Rage or Uncanny Dodge work two ways, matching how they're actually used at the table: flip a persistent one on for the whole fight, or leave a reactive one off and it appears as a tap-to-apply option only when the incoming damage actually calls for it.
Every character can have a portrait, too — it shows up on their row, the initiative list, the party board, and largest as a full banner across the screen when it's their turn.
A Full Bestiary, or Bring Your Own
Herald ships with 788 creatures — a full D&D bestiary in both 2014 and 2024 stats, plus a Pathfinder Second Edition Remaster set — all built from the open SRD, with attribution right in the app. Add your own custom monsters directly in the Compendium, or import a JSON library in Herald, Open5e, or 5e-bits format. And the same portrait system from your characters works here too — attach artwork to any monster, bundled or custom.
Build the Fight & Roll Initiative
Add monsters straight from the Compendium and set a quantity — check Group if you want multiples to act as one shared roll with per-monster defeat tracking underneath it, so four goblins take one initiative slot instead of four. Quick-roll every monster at once, then enter your players' rolls as they call them out.
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Once combat's running, any combatant can step out of the normal order instead of acting immediately — Delay lets you reinsert them wherever you choose later in the round, Ready holds their action until a trigger they've named actually happens.
HP, Conditions, and the Party Board
Every combatant carries live HP and a full set of conditions — the standard list plus exhaustion for D&D, Pathfinder's larger set where several conditions carry their own number (frightened 2, clumsy 1, and so on). Apply and remove them with a click; Herald tracks and displays them, but never automates what they do — a paralyzed monster still takes its turn unless you decide otherwise.
Your players see their own party's version of all this, live: an HP bar for each character, temporary HP shown as its own overshield segment, and current conditions as small labeled pips. Monster HP never appears on their screen — DM-side only, by default.
Damage that Does the Math
Pick a damage type when you deal it, and Herald calculates the final number for you — automatically, for both systems, in their own terms. Fifth edition halves for resistance, doubles for vulnerability, zeroes out for immunity. Pathfinder subtracts a flat resistance value, adds a flat weakness value, and zeroes out for immunity too — no manual conversion between the two, ever.
Unconditional defenses like "resistance to fire" apply on their own. Conditional ones — "resistance to nonmagical bludgeoning" — show up as a tap-to-apply chip instead, since Herald never decides on its own whether a weapon was magical; that's still your call. And whatever the math comes out to, an Override field lets you type the final number directly, logged as a deliberate decision rather than a correction.
Spell Slots, In Combat and Out
Casters get a pip panel by level — tap a filled pip to spend it, an empty one to give it back — for the familiar slot-based casters. Monsters with named per-day pools, like "2/day: fireball," track separately, and a single fight can use both styles at once without conflict.
It doesn't stop when combat ends. The same pip panel is available on a character's row outside of combat too, so spending a slot to cast something during downtime or travel pulls from the exact same pool the next fight will see — the two never disagree.
Rests
Rests speak each system's own language instead of forcing one shared model onto both. A D&D short rest spends hit dice toward max HP, each roll reported as it happens; a long rest restores full HP, clears temporary HP, and returns hit dice — half in the 2014 rules, all of them in 2024. Pathfinder skips the short rest entirely, since the system doesn't have one — Treat Wounds stands in for it instead, with the Medicine check's tier and whether it crit factored into the roll. An overnight rest heals Constitution modifier times level, minimum one per level.
And it isn't a reset button. HP, conditions, and spell slots all persist on the party from one encounter to the next — a rest is how your table actually recovers between fights, the way a real campaign works, not a fresh start every time initiative rolls again.
Prepared Encounters
Planning several fights ahead of a session, or want a boss encounter ready to go before game night? Build it out — party, monsters, groups — and save it instead of starting it right away. It stays on the Encounter tab's Prepared Encounters list until you need it, and starting it drops you right back into that same setup, ready to roll initiative.
It also stays current. Starting a saved encounter uses your character sheets and bestiary as they are right now, not as they were when you saved it — so a PC who's leveled up, or a monster you've since tweaked, starts correctly. Any custom HP you'd set on a monster ahead of time is preserved exactly.
Secrecy, Your Way
Monster names can stay hidden, show as a generic alias ("Large creature"), or display fully — your call, and you can reveal one at any moment mid-fight. Monster HP stays off your players' screen by default no matter what else you change, so that secret never leaks by accident. Portraits follow the same rule: a monster's artwork only appears once you've revealed it, matching however you've set its name.
Beyond that, a full settings menu controls the rest — from whether defeated combatants stay visible to what your own DM screen shows versus what players see.
Phones & Tablets Can Join Too
Turn on Remote Displays, and a QR code and a 4-digit session code appear. Players on the same Wi-Fi scan the code or type it in, and their phone/tablet shows the same live view as your main players display screen — no app to install, no account to make. It's all happening on your own local network; nothing ever touches the internet.
Undo & Crash-Safe Resume
Misclick a damage entry? Undo reverses the last damage or heal exactly — HP, temp HP, and defeated status all restored as if it never happened. It holds the last ten entries, and its tooltip always names exactly what it's about to undo. Set HP is the one exception — it's for deliberate corrections, not misclicks, so Undo leaves it alone on purpose.
And if the app or Windows ever closes mid-fight, relaunching Herald offers a resume card that puts you back exactly where you left off — turn order, HP, conditions, all of it. A crash costs you a moment, not a combat.
Backup & Restore
Export everything — parties, characters, custom monsters, settings — into one dated zip file, anywhere you choose. Restore does the reverse: pick a backup, and Herald shows you its date and what's inside before anything is touched. Your previous data is never simply overwritten — it's kept as a timestamped safety copy alongside your current data, in case you ever want it back.
Get Herald Combat Tracker - Two ways to start
Try the free demo first: every feature above, with encounters capped at 5 combatants and the second-screen player display working, so you can see exactly how it runs before you buy.
Already know this is what your table needs? Herald Combat Tracker is one purchase — no subscription, no account, everything stays on your PC.
Get both, save on both
Run Pavilion alongside Combat Tracker, and Combat Tracker's live view becomes just another scene it can switch to — automatically, the moment you roll initiative, fading back to your scenery the second the fight ends. No remote, no clicking. Buy both together and save on the pair.