For action points I found a company called campaign coins which do fantasy style metal coins in different shapes, sizes, metals and denominations. It really keeps the flavour going and my players love them. Of course if you get enough of them you can hand out physical treasure too. On top of that Paizo have just started selling them on their site.

We’ve also found foam (available in any craft store, pre-cut and sheets) to be very useful. They come in many sizes/shapes/colors or you can cut out your own. You can also write/erase on them with water based markers. Each player has a specific color (matches ring color) so we know who did the effect We use the tiny triangles to mark area effects (one at each corner), hearts for healing surges and circles for actions points. We currently put squares under the monsters to mark affects on them. But this method needs improvement because sometimes a monster may have 4 or more squares under it and it becomes difficult to move.

I would like to see how the DM screen/initiative system works. I have been using index cards that I mark on with a wipe away marker. It can get troublesome when I have 8 players and another 7-10 monsters.

I’m starting up a new campaign shortly and things like this should help to keep the game running smoothly. I usually have a pretty bare set-up, but the rings and pipe cleaners will be great to help newer players visualize effects and prevent us from forgetting status effects.

Keep the tips coming!