Neonchameleon
Legend
I use ArcKnight a lot but not because it's pricy. I DM one of my groups at a pub and can fit an entire folder full of ArcKnight standees in my backpack.
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NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Good alternatives to proper miniatures?
- Thread starter jdrakeh
- Start date
Huge advantage for sure.
aco175
Legend
I've done something similar with numbers equaling the number of hits it takes to kill the monster. If they are goblins, all with have the 1 on top and one hit will kill it. Same with 2 hit orcs and such. Generally the PCs need to be a few levels above the monster to make it work shorthand.
Voadam
Legend
I went for years with just a printer when running the Reign of Winter AP in the Pathfinder era before getting the 4e Monster Vault tokens.
I would get an image of the expected monsters/NPCs off of google searches, copy them onto a word file to fit in a 1" square and have multiple images on on one page, then cut them out to use at the table. They are 2d, lay flat, and black and white but good images of the right size, cheap, easy, and disposable. Usually 1 printout page per weekly game.
It allowed a lot of great custom images for my campaign that I would not have gotten from minis or commercial counters. American Indian centaurs of different varieties. Heat miser images for fey Summer Court agents. Etc.
I thought they looked great and they were very evocative and immersive for me and my players. They each had a mini which made instant differentiation between the PCs and NPCs/monsters easy on the mat.
I would get an image of the expected monsters/NPCs off of google searches, copy them onto a word file to fit in a 1" square and have multiple images on on one page, then cut them out to use at the table. They are 2d, lay flat, and black and white but good images of the right size, cheap, easy, and disposable. Usually 1 printout page per weekly game.
It allowed a lot of great custom images for my campaign that I would not have gotten from minis or commercial counters. American Indian centaurs of different varieties. Heat miser images for fey Summer Court agents. Etc.
I thought they looked great and they were very evocative and immersive for me and my players. They each had a mini which made instant differentiation between the PCs and NPCs/monsters easy on the mat.
General_Tangent
Adventurer
In the past I've used paper tokens like the old Counter Collection set that Fiery Dragon Press did, easy to print and readily disposable afterwards; or you could get a hole punch and do this:
