What's New: Party Player View - ICE5e Blog | 5e Character Sheet Tips & Guides

Parties just stopped being a DM-only feature.

Until now, the party page in ICE5e was built for Dungeon Masters. You could manage members, track HP, run combat, and organize loot — but your players couldn't see any of it. If a player clicked into the party, they got... the DM view, minus the ability to do anything useful.

That changes today.

🛡️ Player View: Your Party, Your Perspective

When you open a party you belong to as a player, ICE5e now shows you a purpose-built player experience — not just a locked-down version of the DM screen.

What you'll see:

Your party members with their class, species, level, AC, and passive scores
HP visibility controlled by your DM (more on that below)
Quick action buttons to jump straight to your character sheet, attack rolls, or rests
Party loot in a read-only view — see what the group has collected without accidentally selling the Wand of Fireballs

What you won't see:

DM settings and party configuration
Invite controls and member management
Monster true names during combat (you see display names instead)
Combat management controls (initiative, conditions, enemy HP)

The player view isn't just "the DM view with buttons hidden." It's a clean, focused interface that shows you exactly what your character would know.

🎭 DM & Player Role Badges

It's now immediately clear what role you have in every party.

On the Parties list page, your parties are split into two sections:

DM Parties — parties you created and manage, marked with a gold DM badge
My Parties — parties you've been invited to as a player, marked with a Player badge, showing which character you're playing and who your DM is

On the party detail page, the header shows your role badge next to the party name. DMs see the full management toolbar. Players see quick actions for their character.

No more wondering "wait, am I the DM of this one?"

❤️ HP Visibility: The DM Decides

This is where it gets interesting for DMs who care about information control.

Party settings now include two HP visibility toggles:

Players Can See HP — whether players see anything about other party members' health
Show Exact Numbers — if HP is visible, whether players see exact values (67/85) or descriptors

The descriptor system gives players a sense of how their allies are doing without exact numbers:

HP Range	Descriptor
76–100%	Healthy
51–75%	Injured
26–50%	Bloodied
1–25%	Critical
0	Down

If HP visibility is turned off entirely, players just see "HP hidden" — no bars, no descriptors, nothing. Perfect for gritty campaigns where you don't magically know how hurt your allies are.

The same logic applies during combat. DMs see exact enemy HP and true names. Players see display names and the DM's chosen level of HP detail.

⚡ Player Quick Actions

When you're in a party as a player, a set of quick action buttons appears at the top of the page:

View Character Sheet — jump to your full sheet
Attack — go directly to the combat section
Short Rest — jump to rest actions
Long Rest — jump to rest actions

These are simple navigation shortcuts, but they make the party page feel like a launchpad for your session instead of a read-only dashboard.

🪙 Read-Only Loot Access

Players can now browse the party loot pool. You can see what the group has collected, who's carrying what, and what's available — but only the DM can add, distribute, or remove items.

This solves the classic problem of "what magic items does our party actually have?" without giving players the keys to the treasury.

🛠️ Under the Hood

We also shipped a batch of data quality and accuracy improvements this week:

Species speed standardized to a structured object format across all data files and consumers
Class data aligned to XPHB 2024 source of truth (Druid, Fighter, Wizard)
Class-aware ASI levels — Fighter (6, 14) and Rogue (10) now correctly show their extra ASI levels
Spell sorting options added to the Spells tab
Multiclass link added to the Level Up modal for discoverability
71 species names now tracked in the enum (up from previous count)
Source constants used throughout policy presets for type safety

Translation: more accurate character sheets, fewer edge-case bugs, and a cleaner codebase to build on.

🎉 Try It This Weekend

All of these features are live right now. To try the player view:

DMs: Create a party and invite a player (or use an existing party)

Players: Accept the invite and open the party page

DMs: Tweak HP visibility in Party Settings — try descriptors for your next session

Players: Use the quick actions to jump between your party and character sheet

If you've been managing party info in a shared Google Doc or Discord channel, this is your upgrade.

What's Next?

The party system is growing fast. Coming soon:

Real-time sync for party members during sessions (WebSocket-powered live updates)
Party-wide homebrew sharing (DMs push custom content to their players)
Player notes visible to the DM (character goals, session takeaways)
Initiative tracker for players (see turn order and your position in it)

But for now, we're celebrating the fact that parties finally work for everyone at the table — not just the person behind the screen.

Ready to play? Head to https://ice5e.com — free, always, and now built for players and DMs.

Happy rolling. 🎲