Before I reply, just side note to anyone nice enough to keep giving me feedback: right now I'm planning for four players, and we'll likely go over characters tonight as a group. So I'll try to give an update to everyone for more feedback once I know more.
If you only have 4 PCs, you won't need as much space. I have 7, and frequently have a large battle.
That's comforting!
I did a couple with my wargaming terrain that were probably 3' by 4'
I did a full dungeon on my Chessex mat, which is 34x48. It had a dozen or so rooms and some corridors, but the PCs also brought 14 minions and an NPC. That was the entire complex on the mat tho, and 8 encounters.
See, I can understand eight encounters in that space.
Sunday's game is going to be a big set piece, with 7 (paragon) PCs, half a dozen major foes, a bunch of swarms on either side (representing townsfolk), a church, with grounds, a cemetery, and some street outside the church complex. For that I'm putting 2 easel pad sheets together, so that'll be 34x54.
Wow! Feel free to pop back in and let me know how it goes. That's a lot of space, but it sounds like a fun mass battle
IMX, all the forced movement makes bigger spaces seem smaller, because the whole space gets used. If you don't have a lot of PCs moving people you won't need nearly as much space. This is a big difference from previous editions. Frex, I've seen a fighter Tide of Iron a hole in a hobgoblin phalanx, have the hobgoblins retreat and reform the line, and have the fighter break the line again. That's one small part of the battle, but just that sequence takes up a 5x5 area.
But then again, one of our most memorable fights was in that dungeon, when the warden held a doorway against as many foes as I could throw at him. That was a 8x10 room packed with combatants and a line of foes outside the room.
Yeah, I don't mind the whole space being used up. I actually kinda prefer that, I think. If there's a lot of extra space, I don't see why it'd need to be there. I have three maps I've created so far that I'm looking at using (but I won't for sure).
The first includes a mountain crossing near a cliff, with some ice for difficult terrain, and rocks for difficult terrain or potential rock slide. It's 10 X 12 but a lot of that is rock wall or falling down the cliff. It would likely include 4 minions, 2 artillery, and 1 large-sized elite brute. I don't plan on using forced movement with the monsters, but it'll be difficult to get around them without provoking some OAs, clearing them out, or teleportation.
The second map is inside a cave, and about half of it is difficult terrain, it was a bend that someone could escape behind for full cover, it has a large fire pit in the middle, it has the stew being cooked in the fire pit, and it has spikes along the walls that corpses have been placed on. This map is about 11 X 14, with less space taken up by walls. It would likely include 4 minions, 2 artillery, and 1 elite soldier. The minions / artillery won't have forced movement, but the solider will.
The third map has a 5 X 5 ice section in the center, four ice mirrors just outside the ice at various sides, and four fires outside the ice at various corners. The room also has three spikes along the walls (in-game it's used for ritualistic killing, but a good improvised attack if you can push someone into it), and a lot of difficult terrain along the corners of the room. This room is maybe 13 X 14. I might use my first solo here, too. I think I'd want him able to teleport to an ice mirror, summon a minion from one, or make an attack come from one. Of course, the mirrors can be destroyed (the players likely will when he starts using them), but each mirror destroyed will give him another action point (up to 1 per round).
Do any of these sound like they need to be bigger? Any suggestions or tweaks?
