Post/Author/DateTime	Post
nowiwantmydmg 01-28-08, 12:49 PM	Basically wondering what others use to help make combats run smoothly. I'd like something reusable preferably, but have been thinking of adopting an easel pad with the 1" grid lines.
Seeker95 01-28-08, 12:56 PM	The fold-up paper grids that came with half a dozen or so products have worked fine for me for the past 6-1/2 years.
Seflore 01-28-08, 12:57 PM	I just use an erasable mat that has a one inch grid on it and it works excellently. It keeps everything nice and organized and when you want to get rid of a building you just wipe it off with a paper towel.
Centor 01-28-08, 01:12 PM	I've been experimenting with this recently and have tried a few things so far. Just a whiteboard with a grid works well; the issue is that if you don’t put the grid on with a perment marker you wipe away your grid when you clean it. Also the size of the board can be a pain when you need a larger area or moving from one room to another. Then I printed our some maps that were made by WotC from the website, they worked ok but were a pain to get to the right size and usually to large fro a single sheet of paper, which made tape and cutting necessary for the lines to match up and to get rid of the margins. This is nice looking especially if you are using a pre-made campaign but is time consuming and not flexible. Lastly, and what I'm currently using are the Dungeon tiles product that WotC having been putting out for a little while now. They look great are very durable and easy to change on the fly and lay out. It makes dungeon building pretty fun. They work surprisingly well. I first thought that these would be only good for going outside of my printed maps and only in buildings. However, I've started just using these and they simply work. The only issue I have is finding the right piece when I need it, probably just need a better organization method than a plastic zip lock bag. You might have a hard time finding the first set of them too which is where most of the basic stuff is, I got the last set from my local store and they had to ship it in from another location. However, It all comes down to what you are comfortable with, and any method seems to have an amount of set up and clean up involved. Just try a few different ways of handling it until you find something that works for you. :cool: GG
RobbyPants 01-28-08, 01:36 PM	Just a whiteboard with a grid works well; the issue is that if you don’t put the grid on with a perment marker you wipe away your grid when you clean it. Also the size of the board can be a pain when you need a larger area or moving from one room to another. This is what I've been using for the past five years or so. It has what was handy at the time. I put some felt on the back so it wouldn't mark up any tables I use. Even with a permanent marker grid, I find the dry erase markers tend to eat away at the grid, so every few months I have to redraw the grid. It's also pretty cumbersome. If you're planning on traveling much, get one that folds or rolls up.
Ariakus 01-28-08, 01:53 PM	I use the standard 3'x5' erasable battlemat with a dry erase marker to draw the rooms and such. It has the 1" square grid on one side and 1" hex grid on the other. Works just fine, a damp paper towel wipes everything perfectly clean.
WotC_Huscarl 01-28-08, 02:14 PM	I love the WotC Dungeon Tiles. I'm a total dungeon tiles goob with a collection of just about every type ever printed, and the WotC tiles are the best by far. So buy some and put money in my pocket. I also love pre-printed maps such as those in Fantastic Locations and the D&D Miniatures game. AND I use those 1-inch gridded easel pads as mentioned above. I prefer them to erasable battle mats because I can a) prepare them ahead so they look really nice and b) keep them for re-use over and over. A battle mat is good for off-the-cuff encounters, but because the map is drawn quickly, it looks ... drawn quickly. Nothing you can do with an erasable mat can't be done with easel sheets, but the reverse is not true. The only downside to easel paper is that, because the pad eventually gets used up, it's a more expensive option. Steve
Seeker95 01-28-08, 02:35 PM	Has anyone used a whiteboard and just scored the board with one inch squares? When you erase the whole board, the scores would collect the dry erase "dust" but that doesn't seem like it would be a bad thing. Every now and then you'll just need to do a "full cleaning" to eliminate the over-buildup. But surely that takes much less time than re-lining marker.
Zarith 01-28-08, 02:54 PM	I have used a coulpe of different things, including the vinal "wet erase" mats, which I like, but the wet part can be a pain. I am currently using dungeon tiles (mostly home made, specific to my campaign). I had a cheap dry erase mat made recently, went to a home/office store, bought 3 peices of poster board with a 1" grid ($3) then had them laminate them (another $3). For $6 I have 3 22"x28" dry erase mats.
sheadunne 01-28-08, 03:53 PM	I built a 3x6 table (was suppose to be 4x8 but had a smaller space) and then gridded it and layed two pieces of plexiglass down on top of it. Works with dry erase markers very well. Good also for keeping track of HP or effects. Just write on the table.
Krusk 01-28-08, 05:02 PM	I use the vinyl battle map. It was a factory defect so it was quite cheap compared to how expensive most are. It is also giant like 3ft X 5ft. The defect was that the squares go all the way to the edges, not most of the way. It is also double sided hexes and squares, so that I can switch between as i feel like. I find underground hexes work better, and above squares. Hexes work better for unhewn caves, and squares for buildings and fences and such. As for being wet erase and a problem, we just keep a roll of paper towls near by, and someone is usually drinking some form of hot tea. Splash that on there, and wipe everything right off. problem solved.
lulzapalooza 01-28-08, 05:12 PM	I just use graph paper. Works great!
PenderGrass 01-28-08, 05:30 PM	I have eliminated the grid from my game and it works a lot better. Gone are the days of working inside a box and acting like it is a chess game. Gone are the days of square fireballs. Gone are the headaches of stupid lines on every battleground. Do yourself and your group a favor and just drop the squares: Embrace the circle. :dragon: *****
Centor 01-28-08, 05:47 PM	I have eliminated the grid from my game and it works a lot better. Gone are the days of working inside a box and acting like it is a chess game. Gone are the days of square fireballs. Gone are the headaches of stupid lines on every battleground. Do yourself and your group a favor and just drop the squares: Embrace the circle. :dragon: ***** Ok, this may be a stupid question, which I know means that I should just shut up and stop typing, but are you serious? How do you use circles? Or more probably how do you manage combat with not grid or way of locating a character. I ran ONE session with out a map cause I thought that the dungeon tiles wouldn’t work and I didn’t have a print out. Anyway, it was a nightmare! There were two Stone Dragons and 4 Gargoyles flying around, the PCs were all over the place and I never knew who should get hit with breath weapons or if the Gargoyles could actually strafe. We didn’t finish the fight and so combat stopped in the middle once we were back the next week we couldn’t remember where we left off (where everyone was or where the enemies were). So if you have a better way I'd love to hear it, save the set up time and keeping up with where that little peice I wanted went! Thanks!
Sendthas 01-28-08, 05:52 PM	In my games we first tried to just print off a bunch of papers with 1" squares and tape them together. Later we laminated them so we could use dry erase markers on them. We botched that and so i spent a good $20 and bought a 3ft x 3ft dry erase board and cut lines into it with a square ruler and a box cutter. www.rpgshop.com (RPG Shop) sells some pretty nice ones but its cheaper to make your own. EDIT: Also, do not try to sharpie on the grid. I spent a full hour doing this and when the dry erase went over it, it took it right off. i was ******...
Jaxgaret 01-28-08, 06:40 PM	I have eliminated the grid from my game and it works a lot better. Gone are the days of working inside a box and acting like it is a chess game. Gone are the days of square fireballs. Gone are the headaches of stupid lines on every battleground. Do yourself and your group a favor and just drop the squares: Embrace the circle. :dragon: ***** Do you mean that you use the hex grid, or no grid whatsoever?
Mock26 01-28-08, 09:54 PM	I prefer a small dry erase board and a dry erase marker to roughly sketch out room shapes. We (Me the DM and my players) then just visualize where everything is. When we do use miniatures (which is rarely) 99% of the time it is a sheet of newspaper and a sharpie marker where I sketch out the room and just wing it from there and use a ruler for distances and such.
Artector 01-28-08, 10:48 PM	Posterboard with 1-inch squares drawn in pencil in combination with dungeon tiles my friend got me. I'm planning on printing some hex-grid out and gluing that to the other side. I'd like to draw a new one and get it laminated with the hex on the back, but I don't know how much it'd run me.
CastTiltowait 01-29-08, 12:56 AM	Like others, I use a 3x5 battlemat, drawing on it with wet-erase pens. I also will use battlemaps from places like the dunjinni forums (http://dundjinni.com/forums/forum_topics.asp?FID=6) or http://rpgmapshare.com/ I'll print them out and mount them to foamboard. If you do a search for words like "forest" you can find generic battlemats that can be used for many random encounters. They've also got the advantage of being free except for the cost of printing and materials. If you're willing to spend a little bit of money (less than $20 plus whatever it costs to print stuff on your printer and some glue) and some time, you can make some incredible 3D terrain. Take a look at WorldWorksGames. http://www.worldworksgames.com/store/ They sell themed collections of .pdf files that you can print out, then cut and glue together to make impressive looking buildings, dungeons, etc. The nice thing about it is after you've invested some time building it, you can reuse the parts over and over. Since you can print out as many copies of whatever you want, you could build a castle that filled your house if you wanted (while cool, it'll probably **** off your significant others). For example, here's a pic from a user from the worldworks forum http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg189/wwg2062/castleworks%20ultimate/CWUBuild005.jpg This shot shows the roof pulled off a couple of the buildings so people could continue the battle inside http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg189/wwg2062/castleworks%20ultimate/CWUBuild006.jpg This is a shot from a dungeon I threw together pretty quickly (I didn't realize my wife had run down the ink cartridge before I'd already printed out a number of walls, that's why some of them are so blue). This is using their older "Dungeonworks Classic" http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u99/pershadow/IMG_0326.jpg And, it's all just cardstock paper (the stuff they make business cards out of) so even though it can last years, if someone breaks it, no big deal, I can just print out another one.
Jaxgaret 01-29-08, 01:15 AM	@ CastTiltowait's post: http://www.mikedownscenter.org/upload/images/Win%20button.jpg Oh, and I use the typical wet erase dual-sided hex/square megamat.
CryoSilver 01-29-08, 01:26 AM	That'd get pricey pretty quick; ink's not cheap... Before we switched to electronic format, our group used a large sheet of paper printed with a 1" grid, and covered with a sheet of clear Lexan. Buildings were represented with pieces of construction paper with a grid drawn in in pen. The Lexan made the grid nearly invincible, as well as drink/snack proof.
PenderGrass 01-29-08, 02:13 AM	Do you mean that you use the hex grid, or no grid whatsoever? No grid whatsoever. Dump it. Makes life far more simple and believable. After all, can you really imagine a world where you can only move on a grid? It's called chess. Or checkers. Or monopoly. This is Dungeons & Dragons. Dungeons and freaking Dragons isn't monopoly. When characters are moving like tiny game pieces and not characters - remember those guys that the player has 100% control of? - well, you aren't playing D&D anymore. Not in my opinion. Dump the square. Let a radius be a radius. Free the movement. :dragon: *****
CryoSilver 01-29-08, 02:15 AM	Dumping the grid complicates threat ranges, as my group discovered. How far into a threatened area do you have to be in order to provoke AoOs? And how is distance measured along curves? Those are the two big questions that need to be addressed for gridless play.
Jaxgaret 01-29-08, 04:07 AM	No grid whatsoever. Dump it. Makes life far more simple and believable. After all, can you really imagine a world where you can only move on a grid? It's called chess. Or checkers. Or monopoly. This is Dungeons & Dragons. Dungeons and freaking Dragons isn't monopoly. When characters are moving like tiny game pieces and not characters - remember those guys that the player has 100% control of? - well, you aren't playing D&D anymore. Not in my opinion. Dump the square. Let a radius be a radius. Free the movement. :dragon: ***** You do know that hexes/squares are approximations of 5' spaces, right? The character is moving around within the hex/square during the six seconds of their round; the grid system is IMO a better representation of what's going on than a simulationist non-grid system. I personally prefer hexes, because they seem much more fluid to me than squares.
BlooCat 01-29-08, 05:03 AM	I made my own erasable battle map thing by drawing the large grid on sheets of smaller grid paper from a pad (5 small squares a side to a large one), then I stuck that clear sticky book covering on them, and finally taped them all together XD. It works well enough.
CastTiltowait 01-29-08, 09:46 AM	That'd get pricey pretty quick; ink's not cheap... That, depending on your printer, etc. could be pretty true. With approximately one to one and a half color cartridges and most of a black cartridge, I've made: 20 or so 8x10 forest/field type battlemats a 2 story tower with battlements enough castle wall for a small (~18x24) keep a ruined two story town hall (Rhest, from the Red Hand of Doom) about 8 6x6 (or 5x8) buildings with roofs 6 assorted smaller village buildings a ton of "props" (desks, chairs, weapon racks, torture racks, chests, etc) enough dungeon walls for a complete small dungeon (or enough to build a "scrolling" huge dungeon:D ) With what I've got now, I can quickly put together a bunch of different scenarios with little effort. WorldWorksGames keeps coming out with new stuff that is soooo tempting, but theoretically, I could now sit on my *bleep* and just use what I have for most situations, especially when combined with my battlemat. The really nice thing about the 3D stuff is when you go up or down levels, it makes everything just simpler in terms of sight lines and having PC's understand where everything is in relation to everything else. Oh, just to give you an idea of one of the "tempting" new sets, Cathedrae Noctis: http://worldworksgames.com/store/products/cn/cn2.jpg
Krusk 01-29-08, 03:17 PM	WOW. I would love to play in a game with those giant gridded castles. too bad none of my group has the time to put this together, or the money to buy them. If a game shop near me would consider setting these up and either running sessions using them with the owner as DM, or renting them out to people playing in the shop. I would consider paying money to play. -hint hint Die Monster Games-
CastTiltowait 01-29-08, 03:40 PM	One guy I know spent the $17 to buy the castle file, then printed out the maybe 30-40 sheets he needed to build a keep (depending on printer and cost of ink, maybe 3-25 cents a page (or less at work:D ) so maybe another $10 at most). Instead of spending a number of hours himself cutting everything out, etc. he brought the sheets to a game and made the players spend maybe 30 min cutting and doing some gluing and got his stuff put together pretty quickly. I've thought about doing that myself sometimes, although to make sure the glue has enough time to dry all the way, I typically glue something while I'm watching TV one night and let it dry over night while I work on something else (watching TV, etc.). It means it can take a week or two for me to put together several buildings, but I'm only spending a small amount of time each night.
Ariakus 01-29-08, 04:18 PM	I guess you'd have to trust your players aren't metagamers and realizes the "fog of war" since you physically can see all rooms and what's basically in them, but the characters would not see that.
PenderGrass 01-29-08, 04:53 PM	You do know that hexes/squares are approximations of 5' spaces, right? The character is moving around within the hex/square during the six seconds of their round; the grid system is IMO a better representation of what's going on than a simulationist non-grid system. I personally prefer hexes, because they seem much more fluid to me than squares. The problem with that thinking is that it isn’t a representation of anything other than a square. On a battlegrid you move from one square to another. You always have to be in a square. Without a battlegrid, you move however you want. And as far as threat zones are concerned, that is what tape measures are for. So, I see the advantages of dumping the squares as being: 1. DMs can design battle areas and be totally unconcerned with how to lay a square pattern over it. Want an outdoor battlefield? Get a sheet of green felt, add some train model trees, rocks and a blue construction paper creek and voila! instant battle area. 2. Players can move their characters on a battlefield with no concern about whether they are landing in a square or not. In other words, their imaginations aren’t impacted by only being able to move in a square grid. 3. Unlike square movement where “the first square costs this much and the next costs this much...blah blah blah...” diagonal movement is as simple as a quick measurement away. 4. When a fireball goes off, it is a BALL OF FIRE, not a cheap, pixelated left-over explosion from Missile Command circa 1979. 5. The players and DM get to play with little lasers to check Line-Of-Sights and Line-Of-Effects. And that is just to name a few advantages of dumping the grid. :dragon: *****
CryoSilver 01-29-08, 04:57 PM	Pendergrass, my group dumped the grid shortly after moving to a CAD based battle area, and while it is more fun, it is actually much more work to keep track of, if you want to get really technical about threat ranges and such (which we do, we really do). Distance is measured in lines, arcs, curves, semicricles, splines, etc, and it can get time consuming.
WotC_Huscarl 01-29-08, 05:16 PM	The problem with that thinking is that it isn’t a representation of anything other than a square. On a battlegrid you move from one square to another. You always have to be in a square. Without a battlegrid, you move however you want. That's overly constrained thinking, too. I use battle grids regularly but never require figures to be 'in' any particular square. The grid is an easy way to check distances and nothing more. It's not a chessboard. You can stand wherever you want. Steve
HARLEYDUDE 01-29-08, 05:16 PM	We have about 5 -36" x 24" sheets of tagboard with 1" squares drawn on them. we then laminated them. we use a dry erase marker to set up whatever area we need. When the DM draws large areas in advance he uses sheets of blank paper to cover them up so we cant see. works great and cheap. HD
WotC_Huscarl 01-29-08, 05:25 PM	I'll add that I use gridless playmats a lot too -- green or brown felt, usually. In those cases, we use popsicle sticks to measure movement. Steve
Jaxgaret 01-29-08, 07:25 PM	The problem with that thinking is that it isn’t a representation of anything other than a square. On a battlegrid you move from one square to another. You always have to be in a square. Without a battlegrid, you move however you want. And as far as threat zones are concerned, that is what tape measures are for. So, I see the advantages of dumping the squares as being: 1. DMs can design battle areas and be totally unconcerned with how to lay a square pattern over it. Want an outdoor battlefield? Get a sheet of green felt, add some train model trees, rocks and a blue construction paper creek and voila! instant battle area. 2. Players can move their characters on a battlefield with no concern about whether they are landing in a square or not. In other words, their imaginations aren’t impacted by only being able to move in a square grid. 3. Unlike square movement where “the first square costs this much and the next costs this much...blah blah blah...” diagonal movement is as simple as a quick measurement away. 4. When a fireball goes off, it is a BALL OF FIRE, not a cheap, pixelated left-over explosion from Missile Command circa 1979. 5. The players and DM get to play with little lasers to check Line-Of-Sights and Line-Of-Effects. And that is just to name a few advantages of dumping the grid. :dragon: ***** As I stated, I prefer hexes to squares, which negates about 90% of your complaints. Non-grid representation is a bit more free and fluid, but for me it comes at the expense of more expenditure of time and too much hovering over the board to calculate distances.
PenderGrass 01-29-08, 07:51 PM	As I stated, I prefer hexes to squares, which negates about 90% of your complaints. I don't agree. Why? Because: "Non-grid representation is a bit more free and fluid...." ...but for me it comes at the expense of more expenditure of time and too much hovering over the board to calculate distances. I actually spend less time without a grid of squares (or hexes, which I used readily throughout my AD&D years) then I do with them. How far is it? Tape measure... 50 feet - zip! Can I shoot a ray at him? Laser light.... Go Ahead - zap! Really, simple as pie. Now, if you are micrometer-using mechanical engineer, well you might have a point. Me, I prefer to measure quick and get on with it. To me, it beats counting squares (or hexes) and it lets the players see a battlefield without wondering "is that square counted as a tree or a swamp?" The player doesn't wonder this because the tree is where it is. And for those that have problems figuring out a fireball, it is a simple matter of looking at a radius, measure from the center to the edge of radius, is the target within that? great, he gets torched. :dragon: *****
Jaxgaret 01-29-08, 08:05 PM	I don't agree. Why? Because: "Non-grid representation is a bit more free and fluid...." That's the other 10%. I actually spend less time without a grid of squares (or hexes, which I used readily throughout my AD&D years) then I do with them. How far is it? Tape measure... 50 feet - zip! Hovering over the board with a tape measure. Can I shoot a ray at him? Laser light.... Go Ahead - zap! Cool idea, and just as easily utilized with a grid format. Really, simple as pie. Mmm simple pie. Now, if you are micrometer-using mechanical engineer, well you might have a point. Me, I prefer to measure quick and get on with it. I'm not, but others may be, and damned if I'll let them slow my game down. To me, it beats counting squares (or hexes) and it lets the players see a battlefield without wondering "is that square counted as a tree or a swamp?" The player doesn't wonder this because the tree is where it is. Counting hexes is quick and easy. The latter point is a good one, and is part of the freedom benefit of playing without a grid. And for those that have problems figuring out a fireball, it is a simple matter of looking at a radius, measure from the center to the edge of radius, is the target within that? great, he gets torched. It is even more quick and easy to figure this out with hexes. Just count outward from the target hex. There's no dealing with "is he fully in the radius, partially in it, does he have a toe in the radius?"
PenderGrass 01-29-08, 08:08 PM	That's the other 10%. This is where we differ. To me "free" is 90% and "fluid" is only 10%. Unless, you ate something bad, then, likely, fluid will be 90% of your day. :dragon: *****
Ariakus 01-30-08, 08:33 AM	Seems to me every instance PenderGrass and Jaxgaret bring up can be done just as easily both ways. I've been playing D&D for a long time, and never used a grid until about a year and half to two years ago, so I know how to play both ways. IMHO, the grid system is easier and takes guess work out, and counting squares vs measuring, I measure for a living and find counting 5 squares much faster than pulling a tape :) Templates take no time, where as re-measurement takes a lot more time, hence the "re" in re-measurement because face it...you are pulling the tape every time you are doing anything that requires movement or spells...templates that are setup as square or hex grids are already pre-measured for your convenience. Try comparing the efficiency of "pre" vs "re". What you're talking about with Fluidity can happen with grids just as easy, especially if you have good spatial judgment in your vision. If you can't visualize a BALL OF FIRE on a grid, you probably can't visualize it at all, that's not pixelization, that's lack of imagination. And that can be fixed with a homemade template of the correct diameter ball of fire with craft items from WalMart that can really aid in visualization, as a matter of fact I may do that for my games I use a grid on :) Also, moving diagonally happens quite easy when you know the rules of movement and can do simple math. Try putting trees, stumps, bushes, rocks, etc on a square or hex grid...you will find they sit quite well and things still work. I also find mini's don't stand well on felt, they fall over a lot easier unless you buy or make the wider bases, which wouldn't fit on a grid anyway and wouldn't work with 5' rule in 3.5e. The grid is there as an aid, otherwise there would be no market for it, obviously it helps or no one would be using it....and by my last count of posters on this thread, the is only one who opposes its use...me, I can play either way... EDIT: Go here (http://forums.gleemax.com/leaving.php?destination=http://community.livejournal.com/dm_on_a_dime/840.html) to see how plants can fit into a grid, this was from another poster on Building a custom D&D table.
pres_man 01-30-08, 02:46 PM	This is what I currently use. http://community.livejournal.com/dm_on_a_dime/840.html You can even see a little paper hut I made using the free stuff from here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fpm/archive (I'm too cheap to print it in color.)
celloshane 01-30-08, 06:12 PM	I went to my local office supply store and they were able to make me a 24"X36" laminated grid for roughly $9. They normally use the sheets to make monthly planners, but the grid was just as easy for them. Dry erase markers work great on it, but I haven't had it for very long so I can't reliably say how long it will last. I would expect if you take good care of it (not letting marker lines sit on it for weeks) then it would hold up very well.
nowiwantmydmg 02-01-08, 02:19 AM	I just wanted to thank everyone for the tips. I found a pre-gridded sheet of cardstock at a local office store and had them laminate it for me, cost about $12 total.