I don't blame you. Some of those Villain and Environment decks can be a real nightmare! Fortunately, we're usually pretty good about remembering HP totals, so it's not too often that we have to use that method!
Me, too. When EE was coming out and Christopher told me that I'd have to use the tokens when introducting the game to people, instead of dice, I was really dreading it. Now, though, I find the HP tokens faster than using dice. Maybe if I'd used dice as much as I've used tokens I would have learned exactly what rotations were necessary to get from each face of a 10-sider to each other face, but instead of I've learned how to do all of the common subtractions for HP readily, like when doing 22 minus 4, ignore the 2, just grab a 10 or five and replace it with a five and one or just a one.
I would guess that holograms > dials > tokens > dice > pencil & paper > memory > stonecarving. Not everyone can afford the dials, so the fact that the game comes with tokens is convenient.
One trick I've developed during solo play is that every hero gets a 10 and two 5's. Then I set that stack apart from the 1's (and additional 5 for crazy people like Haka) so I know at a glance that hero has at least 20. then I tend to keep the 1's in stacks of 3 or something else easily countable.
Villains are the hard ones, all those tokens, I stop trying to keep track of the exact number which can be trouble when I start letting a villain heal over their hp limit
I've been growing increasingly frustrated with the tokens as my game count exceeds 100; it's certainly better removing HP than adding damage as I did in my early games, but sometimes it can be hard for me, with characters that heal a lot, to constantly make and unmake change or tell when I'm at the cap. If I ever get prosperous again, I might well invest in spinnable trackers or something; they are definitely starting to seem like a valuable enhancement. And lots of other Spiffworld stuff might help me...whenever I can afford to go to a print shop.
There's a pretty nice Android app called Sentinel Commander that I've been using for solo games. You can keep track of all the targets in play, and sort them by hp. It's problematic during group games, 'cause only I can see the hp, but for solo games it works great.
I prefer the 10 sided dice method over using the tokens, because you can see at a glance what HP everything is at rather than having to ask everyone, or start shuffling tokens about while counting them. It is a bit of a faff rotating the dice though (and d10s are surprising expensive just to use them as token alternatives, unless you order them online). I've recently started using the sentinels sidekick ipad app for my solo games and it's really good, but I haven't had the chance to try it in a group game (it'll probably work well with my mother because she has the same app and could connect to my games with me, but I don't know how easy for everyone to see the single screen)
I sort health out at the beginning in token counts that allow all possible health combos (at least 4 ones, and 1 five) and then keep them right by the hero when they lose health, so I can see the health remaining and lost, and never have to get tokens from the token pile for heroes or the villain character card.
EDIT: I got this from someone here on the forums saying they did it that way.
I use the checkerboard mat for the main heroes and villains, and dail indicators from Spiff for mooks, golems, minions, etc. What I like about the system is that it is very east to, for instance, who is the third highest hit point target. Card stock and elbow grease.
Depends on what kind of dice they're using. Tokens I think are easy as long as people don't stack them(!), which I recently discovered some people have the habit of doing.
Anyway, I don't like using dice as counters because I'm clumsy and absent minded, so I'm likely to knock them or reroll them.
The people I play with do tend to stack tokens when they have a pile of them, hence my not being able to count them easily. The dice we use are all white with big black numbers so you can see from the other side of the table who's on what HP. I've not had too many problems with dice being knocked myself but could see it being a problem if your playing in cramped quarters.
I've found the tokens quite easy to use. I just tend to use high-denomination tokens when possible (don't want a mountain of 1s) and stack like denominations; so if there's a 5 on top of a stack, everything below it is a 5. Between these two, it's usually pretty easy to tell HP at a glance and it's bump-proof.
For targets that heal a lot, you can start with their max HP on the card in denominations that allow for all values without needing change (a 12-HP target would have a 5 and seven 1s). When they take damage, move the corresponding HP off the card, but keep it nearby instead of throwing it back into the general pool. This makes it easy to heal them the right amount without going over their max HP.
We stack, but keep the numbers seperate, so 1s are stacked only with 1s. It makes it pretty easy to tell what is happenning.
In my experience, there are not enough 1s to go around on a typically cluttered battlefield if you ever use more than four of them on one target. If you're fighting Spite or are in an almost target-less Environment, you can get away with a little largesse, but otherwise, against a large army of Citizens and Dinosaurs, you run out.
My general standard for tracking HP with tokens is the following:
1. Heroes: A '10', two '5', and however many '1' as their remaining HP. Might give Haka or Legacy an extra '5' instead to save ones.
2. Villains: They get 10 '1', and a bunch of '5' and '10', with Omnitron and the high HP ones using some '25' tokens. When a villain loses HP I shift their loses to a separate pile near them for easy tracking of villain healing. And as they lose the '1's I occassionally exchange 5 '1's back to their main stack for a '5'; a couple of '5' for a '10', etc. etc.
3. Everyone else. They get initial tokens from the remaining pool, usually all '1's or a '5' and then '1's. The Heroes will be donating a bunch of '1' chits to the pool early on in most cases.
From there it's pretty easy to look at hero token stacks to see who is above/below 20, above/below 15, etc.
Anyone with 28 or higher HP gets 2 10's, 1 5 (Haka gets 2) and then at least 4 1's (28 hp have one sitting off their card waiting) Lower than 28 get 1 10, 2 5's, and 1's to make up the difference
Villains get 25's if there is at least 25 hp after the 25 to make change with, then just like heroes. (then 1 10, 2 5's, 5 1's to make the small number 25, then add the biggest you can to make up extra HP.
I just use dice and save messing around with a million little pieces of cardboard all over the place ;).
I use color coded dice, white for hero characters, red for villain character, black d6s for other targets. I got sets of d10s of different colors for The Ennead and other high HP targets like Gloomweaver's Relics. The Sentinels get their own set, color coded for each of them. All dice are solid color dice, except for the transparent ones I use for Shu. I have 2 cases with the same dice in each so that we can split into 2 games if needed.
I use these Iris cases to seperate my tokens/dice.
http://www.irisusainc.com/p-816-llb-8.aspx
Got my stuff sorted into 8 of these.
Start/End tokens
Damage tokens
Effect tokens (immune to fire, can't draw cards, etc.)
HP tokens
d6s
d10s (x2)
small villain character cards
Makes it very quick and easy to set up and put away.
I also use one of these for my Oversized Villain cards.
http://www.irisusainc.com/p-493-kp-pc.aspx
Dice, urgh. They get bumped and you spend half your time turning the dice over and over trying to find the seven. Far fiddler than tokens, IMO.
My players prefer HP tracker cards with transparent counters to cover the appropriate number(s).
And those never get bumped, unlike dice? (The hunting for numbers across dice faces issue is still valid, unless you use spindown dice.)