Alea Magnets - I'm finally happy!

[Obryn]

I've had a big set of Alea Tools magnets for a very, very long time. With 4e, I've been using them non-stop, in every single session. They work for marks, ongoing damage, curses, buffs, and all sorts of other conditions. In short, they dramatically streamline combat. I love them.

I also hated them. They're magnets, after all, and either pushed or pulled each other whenever they got closer than about 1" apart. Also, removing one would often pull adjoining magnets with it. Some combats, it felt like we spent more time rearranging the magnets than fighting. It was a pain in the butt, and I was looking for alternatives.

Well, a tip on this forum came just in time. I went ahead and ordered some Neo(dymium, I presume) Conversion Kits from Alea... They were pretty cheap ($5 for 25, with inexpensive shipping), and I got 2 kits.

They arrived yesterday, less than a week from when I ordered them. They're pretty simple - just a collection of 25 rubber washers and 25 tiny cylindrical magnets. Basically, the washers just hold the tiny magnets in place... Since the magnets are now considerably smaller than the plastic casing, they should hardly interact at all side-to-side.

It took me about an hour - maybe a little more - to pry open all 50 magnets and replace them. I used an eyeglasses screwdriver on my pocket Leatherman for the job rather than the suggested razor blade, and apart from some tiny blemishes on the tokens, it went really well.

And... I'm finally happy with them. They still push or pull a tiny bit, but can comfortably sit right next to one another. They're a tad weaker, vertically - I can no longer carry a stack of them with one hand - but IMHO they never needed to be as powerful as they were.

My only problem is that I was dumb and didn't order enough. (I was at work ordering, they were at home, I figured I had about 48, not about 72...) But, I ordered 25 more today, along with some of the stick-on 1" discs.

So yeah... if you have the Alea magnets, and have a love/hate relationship with them like I did - or, even more, if you gave up on them because of their side-by-side interactions - the Neo conversion kits are a great deal. The process isn't hard, and my magnets are about 20x more useful for under $20.

-O

 

[wedgeski]

Hmm. I happened to check this out today and the conversions kits looked good, and surprisingly cheap. I'll definitely be ordering (although that'll make my total expenditure on these tokens shockingly high).

 

[The Little Raven]

I'll definitely be ordering (although that'll make my total expenditure on these tokens shockingly high).

Same here. I spent about $25 on a few small sheets of galvanized steel in order to overcome the horizontal interaction of the magnets, which is a little less than it'll cost me (without shipping) to convert all 130 of my magnets over.

 

[Obryn]

Hmm. I happened to check this out today and the conversions kits looked good, and surprisingly cheap. I'll definitely be ordering (although that'll make my total expenditure on these tokens shockingly high).

I was lucky enough to get a DM's kit in exchange for a few Edhellen swords a few years back when I was working the Gamer Olympics at Gen Con.

-O

 

[Forge]

I love these things too and solved any problems by buying a sheet of thin steel at a home improvement store that was 2x3 feet for about $7 and placing it under my battle map.

I also bought a magna-mat at gen con which is a battlemat that magnets are atractted too. Worked great except cleaning it proved to be a problem.

 

[Mistwell]

I found these so cool at GenCon that I kept going back to their booth to play with them.

 

[mac1504]

I held off on picking up Alea Tool's markers for this reason and also because they didn't have 2" markers.

Nice to hear earlier this week that they fixed the problems with the magnets, and I was surprised to find that they now had 2" markers as well.

I ordered a DM's kit with a few sets of the 2" markers as an early Christmas gift for myself.