Does anyone put out battlemaps or terrain markers for 3e?

[Derulbaskul]

Two suggestions:

1. As already suggested, buy the maps from Skeleton Key Games: outstanding stuff!
2. Buy Gridsmith and make your own. This is a mapping program that it easy to use and produces high quality results. http://www.bytemountain.com/gridsmith/downloads.asp

 

[MarauderX]

I am now using Tact-Tiles, the 12"x12" interlocking grid that you can write on with dry-erase markers. It is great. Draw your stuff on it way in advance, pack it up and take it with you to your friends house. I got 12 different color markers from Staples for about $10, and use them all to depict things on different levels. Dead enemies become red once I remove the figure or counter so we can keep track, and other items of note become purp or another color. With 3 different greens forests really start to spring to life, and it only takes me about 15 minutes to fill all of my 12 tiles with the next encounters for the game. It's also great for using 4 tiles to depict a smaller encounter then use the other 8 for the large battle that session. I can hide each of them away until the characters discover what's behind the door that I purposely placed at the edge of one of the tiles; when they open it I pull up the tile that was leaning against the wall to prevent the players from seeing it.

Drawback: $$$. It's expensive for some people, and I was reluctant at first to pick them up in favor of a Chessex battlemap, but I gotta say I will never go back to a battlemap again.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

www.bc-products.net

I've got to second the mention of Tact-Tiles. I haven't touched my megamat since I got these and I don't think I ever will.

Best non-book gaming product I've ever purchased.

 

[Voadam]

Steve Jackson Games has great floorplan stuff for dungeons, caverns, a haunted house, and blank maps (called the great salf flats set). They have hexes on one side and 1 inch square grids on the other.

http://www.sjgames.com/heroes/index.html#cavernfloors

 

[Iron Sheep]

For a few dollars you can buy big pads of poster-sized 1 inch grid paper at most office supply stores. Add in some sharpies (or other markers) of various colours, and some scrap paper to soak up bleed-through and you can draw custom battle locations, or map a dungeon as the players progress through it. If you put the time and effort in, the maps can look quite good.

Not as durable as a battlemat or tact-tiles, but it has the advantage that you can tear off a sheet and save it for re-use, so you don't have to keep on re-drawing the state of play every session. I have a poster tube full of old maps which I may re-use later.

And it's cheap!

I am still sort of interested in what the original poster talks about: pre-printed geomorphs for standard locations, as that would save me some time, but I suspect I'd still be making a lot of my own custom maps.

Corran

 

[Felon]

Tact-tiles sound pretty damn cool. And I may also go with grid paper.

About Tact-tiles: do they travel well? Has anyone actually purchased the carrying case BC sells? If you stack them, do they smear badly? Can I draw on them days in advance and still expect the marks to wipe off?

 

[francisca]

Here are some nicely done freebies:

http://www.frpgames.com/atomix/cart.php?m=free_downloads

 

[Painfully]

I've used the flip chart paper to draw out things like taverns and stables. Anything that I want saved, or think I can reuse in a future session can be easily saved on chart paper without worries about staining the battlemat.

They have special, "chart markers" that won't bleed through the paper. I have an eight-marker set that has been great.

 

[SuperFlyTNT]

Pick up warhammer quest if you can find it, man that game was a blast.

 

[Tom]

Tact-tiles sound pretty damn cool. And I may also go with grid paper.

About Tact-tiles: do they travel well? Has anyone actually purchased the carrying case BC sells? If you stack them, do they smear badly? Can I draw on them days in advance and still expect the marks to wipe off?

It's basically a reclosable thick cardboard box with good plastic handle and a marker. The box has an extra space on the side to hold lots of markers. The cardboard is the heavy stuff that shouldn't tear up for a while. No frills, but it does a good job for $4.00.

All the sets come with these "foam like" spacers to keep the tiles from scratching each other while stacked, plus they do a great job keeping a drawing intact during transport. In other words, they travel great! I usually pre-draw my adventure and take it to the game site of the week and lay each tile out one at a time as the party advances. Really quick gameplay.

If you leave a drawing on for more than a day or two, the drawing is more difficult to remove. It's not the tiles themselves but the dry-erase ink. Apparently dry-erase ink has an oil like substance in it that doesn't dry out immediately, but will over time. It kind of gets hard and instead of coming off powdery, it sticks a little more to itself and the board. But a little windex (manufacturer recommended) and it comes right off no problem.