D&D 4E 4e requires a battlemat, and I'm okay with it

[Nebulous]

Can anybody recommend a brand of battlemat that is nice to work with? My only experience was with some kind of wet-erase mat that was of poor quality: lots of streaking, not so good at erasing. Suggestions for battlemat brand or online store would be appreciated!

I can't recommend a specific battlemap, but what has worked for me for many years is just get a regular old vinyl one, and get a sheet of thin plastic cut at Home Dept that fits the size and shape. This way you can scribble all over it, no staining, and even slide paper maps under the plastic and write on top of those without ruining them. I've used dozens of Fat Dragon maps this way, and homemade maps too. I just like drawing on it with fat colored magic markers.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It is, I believe, exceptionally inaccurate to say that 4e requires a battlemat.

In fact, there is a thread on the subject here.

I mean, if you want to, good for you, but while 4e might love you for it, it won't hate you if you don't want to.

Hehe, that thread proves you can't play 4E RAW/"au naturel" without a battlemat. Indeed, it specifically describes a work-around and significant play-style changes involved that allow some tactical play without a battlemat.

Personally, I'd rather y'know, work on convincing my players that battlemats are not for losers (which is probably not impossible, though convincing them that diagonal movement costs 1 is a good rule might be) than messing around with the rules and largely abandoning minions.

I kinda with Stalker0. I'm just about ok with 4E requiring a battlemat. I just think people, particularly WotC, need to be "up front" about it. It's the denial and silly prancing around that drives me bonkers.

 

[Voss]

Having tried it out, I agree that a battlemat is rather necessary. You'd have to gut a lot of abilities to function without, on both monsters and players.

On the up side, hexes do work without severely gimping folks. You have to finesse the definitions of push and pull slightly, but it isn't hard. It actually helps the PCs a bit since the game isn't quite so focused on adventurers vs. 1 big critter.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Having tried it out, I agree that a battlemat is rather necessary. You'd have to gut a lot of abilities to function without, on both monsters and players.

On the up side, hexes do work without severely gimping folks. You have to finesse the definitions of push and pull slightly, but it isn't hard. It actually helps the PCs a bit since the game isn't quite so focused on adventurers vs. 1 big critter.

Hexes seem like they may be the best solution to square fireballs and ridiculous diagonal movement.

 

[Jarrod]

We use one based off a dry-erase board.

You can get fake "dry-erase" paneling at Home Depot/Lowes/Menards - it's shiny white, about 1/8" thick, and 4x8 in size. Take a steel rule and score the white side - the cuts will collect dry erase dust and turn black.

We made one in hexes (and didn't _that_ take a long time) and will be doing one in squares for 4e.

 

[entrerix]

some people think 3x required a mat, and my group not only played matless, but we even played a game that went from level 1-9 that had only two combats, the rest of the experience was gained through exploration, diplomacy, and political manueverings(sp?). mats MIGHT make combat EASIER, but for my group they are far, far from being a requirement, and I now think that matless play will be just as possible in 4th

 

[I'm A Banana]

I kinda with Stalker0. I'm just about ok with 4E requiring a battlemat. I just think people, particularly WotC, need to be "up front" about it. It's the denial and silly prancing around that drives me bonkers.

Not a bad point, I just know that if they came out and said "You now need a battlemat for D&D!", I'd stop trying to find ways around it, and just not play D&D.

 

[Greatwyrm]

There was a lot of this when 3e came out, too. I was resistant at first. Once I ran a couple games with a battle map and tokens for characters, I couldn't believe I'd done it "the hard way" for so long.

 

[Doug McCrae]

some people think 3x required a mat, and my group not only played matless, but we even played a game that went from level 1-9 that had only two combats

Yeah, well that's the easy way out. No one would think you need a battlemat if you don't have any combat.

We have about 4-6 fights per (long) session in our 3e games and we never use a battle mat and seldom a player-visible map at all. I've run fights against dozens of foes without a map. We rely on the DM to make calls about AoOs, flanking and so forth.

4e looks like it will be harder to do this because there's more movement and a lot of powers that move foes and allies around. So the 'mental map' will be more wrong.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

We use one based off a dry-erase board.

You can get fake "dry-erase" paneling at Home Depot/Lowes/Menards - it's shiny white, about 1/8" thick, and 4x8 in size. Take a steel rule and score the white side - the cuts will collect dry erase dust and turn black.

We made one in hexes (and didn't _that_ take a long time) and will be doing one in squares for 4e.

We have used one of these for over a decade. We didn't mark off the squares and hexes we just used 1" on a ruler to equal 1 hex (or square).

The great thing about these thing (waterproof bathroom paneling) is that they are dirt cheap compared to office supply store dry erase. We got our 4x8 (and cut it into 3 4x2.5 pieces) for about 15 bucks.

All of the terrain is just quick sketched in with dry erase, and we use coins for the characters and monsters. Gives us the tactial combat, but no investment in minis. Those pennies can be kobolds one week, orcs another, and agents in the superhero game the next.