Keeping track of buffs?

I'm DM-ing a D&D 4E game and wondering if there is a better way of keeping track of various buffs like +2 to AC until end of next turn or anything else I might need to keep track of. I try to keep it in my head and on paper but I have 6 players running 2 characters each and have a hard time of it. They also like to "accidentally" forget when buffs expire. Would I be able to make a macro that triggers editable text when it's someones turn? I'm a mentor with PowerCards, Status Reminder, and various other scripts and custom character sheets. I can use the default roll template maybe for this but I don't know how to make it trigger (or I trigger it) when their turn is up. Anyone have a tip?

You can add custom events to the initiative tracker; so when the Wizard casts Mirror Image you can add a custom item just after them on the initiative tracker with a formula of -1 and an initiative count of 10. As you loop through it'll automatically subtract 1 each round until the counter hits 0. You can't do this with a macro but I imagine there's probably an API for that.

I just use the Status Icons. If something lasts a minute or more, it's normally safe to assume it'll last for most of the encounter (I have a turn tracker, so we use that in those cases). If it lasts only a few turns however, if instead of clicking on a status icon you put the mouse over an icon a press a number (1-9), it'll have a number below it. Then I just keep substracting every turn until it's gone.

How might you add custom events to the tracker? That's kinda what I was looking for...

Ah ok, a little wiki checking and I got it. It just might work. Thanks for the tips!

A few possibilities: 1) To add a custom item to the tracker, click the gear icon in the tracker and use the "Add Custom Item" fields at the bottom (set round calculation to "-1", then set the count to the duration you want in the tracker entry). 2) I wrote an initiative tracker , which keeps track of round counts and status effects with round-based durations. Select one or more tokens and enter "!status add <duration> <icon> <description>" (you can get a list of icon names with "!status icons"). This will put a status icon on the token(s) in question and track the duration for you. When the duration is 9 or less, it will count down with the number overlays. By default, an announcement will be made in chat when it expires. Use "!status list" to list the descriptions of all the status effects on a selected token. 3) I have a new cron script, which lets you schedule commands (including plain chat) to execute at some point in the future. You can do something like "!cron --rounds 10 Stop lying dude, we all know your buff expires this turn" to get an expiration announcement in ten rounds. If you want to get fancy, you can do things like: !cron --interval 1 The acid burns for [[1d6]] damage [Output: "Added initiative-based job with ID 42"] !cron --rounds 10 "!cron --remove 42" The second command will remove the recurring (first) command after ten rounds.

Nice! Testing it out now, thanks man!