Can any fellow DM's help me with online combat?

[chillwindhaven69]

i am currently starting up an online play by post game and i was wondering how i could run combats. i really want my players to see the situation their characters are in and have a clear vision of everything so that their are no rules issues based on 5-foot squares on such like.

does anybody have any mapping programs that i may find handy or anything similar?

any help would be appreciated

 

[masque]

One DM I played with for a really long time just used a graphics program (he used Paintshop, but practically any will do). He had a standard sized grid and legend with a transparent background, and drew a rough of what was around (trees, cliffs, water, that sort of thing), and pasted the grid over. The PCs and monsters were represented by blocks of color; frex, my PC was purple, the paladin was red, the monk was orange, and the rogues were blue and green.

It sounds much more complicated than it is, but most of the task is in setup. Unfortunately, that's about all the advice I have for you.

 

[Falcon]

Check out this online program. We used it several times in our campaign when we had to break in the middle of a battle, and continued it online.

http://www.irony.com/java/mmee/#Load

 

[Southern Oracle]

For complicated battles, we use the following battlegrids over at the WotC site. It reduces the description of combat to, "move from A3 to J11," but at least everyone can see where they are in relation to one another.

Hydragon's Battlegrids

 

[Gunslinger]

Falcon, your link isn't working.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I just use Photoshop...

Example.

-Hyp.

 

[Falcon]

See if this works:

http://www.irony.com/java/mmee/

 

[fba827]

If you are not graphically oriented, using a spreadhseet program works just fine too!
Been using it in some games (from both player and DM perspective) for some time without problem.

If you have a spreadsheet program (Excel, etc). just change the cell sizes to look a little more square. Using letters to represent characters and enemies, etc.

Each square represents 5 ft. Can draw in walls, etc. for building/structures.

And, if you do use Excel, there are a couple Excel viewers that can be downloaded for free. So, even if your players do not have Excel, they should be able to use one of the viewers to let them still see the map. (I'm sure other spreadsheet programs may have a viewer program as well, i'm just not personally familiar with it)

-- of course, if you are graphically oriented, then a graphic program, like paint shop pro, etc. can't be beat since you can get even more detailed for terrain, etc...