Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 2732305" data-attributes="member: 3146">Mike, since you're following this thread apparently, I'd like to chime in with two observations. First, I second the observation about detailed, preprinted battlemaps making for more interesting combats. The last game I ran, I went to the trouble of modifying some Heroquest tiles I found online to create a bridge over a gorge with a river at the bottom of it. A chimera attacked a herd of cows as the crossed the bridge, stampeding them over the PCs. Since the PCs were heros and there was a wicked beast, they decided to take the fight to the Chimera. That's where it got interesting. The bridge I had drawn out had stone rails along the side of the bridge. So, one player whose character has a lot of balance has her jump onto the rails and balance on them as she runs up the bridge to the wyvern. She is hit, knocked off the bridge, lands in the water, climbs and climbs up the other side as the half orc monk approaches from the front. The both make it onto the bridge at roughly the same time and realize that the only way to flank the hovering wyvern is for them to be balancing on opposite rails of the bridge. So they do that. How much more cinematic can you get? However, if I didn't have a detailed map that showed the thick stone railings of the bridge, I don't think it would have happened.In theatre they have a saying: if there's a gun on the matlepiece in act 1, it will go off before act 5. In D&D, there's something of a corrolary, if there's a railing/barrel/pit on the battlemap, someone will jump on top of it, be bullrushed into it, etc. If the battlemap is not at detailed, it's less likely that those cinematic moments will happen.So, I really like the idea of preprinted battlemaps.That brings me to the second part though: From what I've seen on the wizard's website, etc, however, I don't think too much of THESE preprinted battlemaps. The simple top-down, no perspective approach (thick black lines of walls and black areas for pits, etc) really seems uninteresting compared to, for instance, 0one games' 3d-modelled perspective battlemaps. I like the idea, but I want it to look like 0-one games' dwarf temple, boat landing, or inn. Now that I'm used to 3-d perspective and lighting effects, I don't want to go back.</blockquote>

Verification