Making my own battlemat...

[MerakSpielman]

I'm making my own battlemat out of a sheet of plexiglass. It's only 25"x15" (it was free, and I'm too lazy to go and actually buy a larger one), so I was contimplating making the size of the squares smaller than 1" in order to increase the playing space I have available. Currently, it's 375 squares and can represent a room 125'x75'. If I change the size of the squares to .75", then I have a 33x20 grid, 660 squares, and can represent a room 165'x100'.

Most player mini's seem to still be able to fit in the squares, and I generally use dice for the monsters, so is there any real drawback to doing this?

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

I'....so is there any real drawback to doing this?

It's not tiled. See here: http://www.bc-products.net

I don't know if you were silling to spend any more money, but these things are a godsend.

But no, I don't see a problem with going with something slightly smaller than 1". I wouldn't go lower than 3/4" though. You wouldn't be able to use a ruler without a calculator, but if you just use the squares, you're gold.

Just my 2 coppers.

 

[Sam]

Most player mini's seem to still be able to fit in the squares, and I generally use dice for the monsters, so is there any real drawback to doing this?

The D&D minis are made for use on 1" square battlemats/tile grids. As they become more popular, your players may start to use them. Or you may start using the monsters (which are cool). The larger monsters (5x10 or 10x10) have appropriate size bases too. A 3/4" scale would throw that off totally.

I've been really tempted to buy those interlocking dry-erase tiles.

 

[Bleys]

Should work just fine. And a nice advantage that using the plexiglass has is that you can put together a map of your own, put it under the plexiglass and have an instant "gridded" (is that a word? ) room for use in your game whenever you please

 

[MerakSpielman]

*SIGH*
I went through all this trouble to get hooked up with the art department at my work to score a free bit of scrap plexiglass, I spend a great deal of time scoring an exact .75" grid onto it. Finally, it is complete and looks workable.

Then I go upstairs in our new building to the "junk nobody wants or cares about" room and find myself a 26"x36" chunk of 1/4" thick perfectly clear, durable plastic. It is so utterly perfect compared to the flimsy plexiglass thing I made. The 1" squares I scored on it look sharp and great, and I didn't mess up like I did on the other one. In short, I spent a lot of time and effort on a mediocre battlemat, and then a perfect battlemat requireing a fraction of the time and effort falls on my lap.

Again, *SIGH*.

 

[BSF]

*SIGH*
I went through all this trouble to get hooked up with the art department at my work to score a free bit of scrap plexiglass, I spend a great deal of time scoring an exact .75" grid onto it. Finally, it is complete and looks workable.

Then I go upstairs in our new building to the "junk nobody wants or cares about" room and find myself a 26"x36" chunk of 1/4" thick perfectly clear, durable plastic. It is so utterly perfect compared to the flimsy plexiglass thing I made. The 1" squares I scored on it look sharp and great, and I didn't mess up like I did on the other one. In short, I spent a lot of time and effort on a mediocre battlemat, and then a perfect battlemat requireing a fraction of the time and effort falls on my lap.

Again, *SIGH*.

*laugh* You know what Merak, there are times when I read your posts and I have to look around to see if you work at the same place I do. 'Course, we don't have a new building, so you probably don't.

Still, it is scary sometimes.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Where do you work? I'm at Ktech. We just moved to a brand-spankin' new building on Eubank right next to the Base entrance.

 

[BSF]

Summit Electric. We are miles apart.