Mounted tanks, long range spells and my partys stupid archer.

[alsih2o]

Oh, and the battlemat.

We use large pads of gridded paper for combat. They are approximately 3 feet long and have 1" squares.

The problem is, this is only about 180 feet. Throw in a couple of mounted good guys, an archer who can shoot FAR and a spell slinging druid and all of the sudden this is too small.

What is your solution?

 

[Cor Azer]

Intermediate maps? Have an overhead view of the land, without using any sort of minis on it. Laminate it, and use quick pen strokes and the like to indicate various character positions. Of course, since laminating every map could get expensive, just buy a clear sheet of plastic or some such to lay over you overhead maps.

Then you can have "zoomed in" (ie, regular style) maps for important locations on the large map.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

What is your solution?

I tore up the carpet and have a tiled floor with 1" squares all through the house. Sure, it cost several thousand bucks, but it's all for the game, right?

... or ...

On the edge of the battlemap, have your soon-to-be-archered-and-druided bad guy. Place a d20 next to the bad guy. The number on the d20 is how many more squares he is off in a given direction.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

When it comes up, we just change the scale to 1"=10'. When the groups close the distance enough that it matters (eg reach or AoOs come into play), the scale reverts.

 

[Gothic_Demon]

Change the scale on the map for long-range combats, say 10' or even 20' for each 1" square. Then, change it back (or scale it back) as the combats get closer. If, for example, you have three characters charge in and one stay at 200', then just remove that character from the battlemat and keep up with the group that requires exact measurements. (Oh, and have some bad guys sneak up around and catch the archer/wizard on their own. They'll regret that tactic soon enough!)

 

[Len]

Put the two groups of minis at opposite ends of the table and say "there's an extra 100 feet in the middle".

 

[AuraSeer]

When people are really spread out we change the map scale to 1" = 10'. Only once or twice have we ever gone larger than that. I think the biggest we ever used was to have one square equal one Move action, for simplicity's sake when we were all scattered over a couple acres of ground. (High-altitude airship disasters are not good for keeping the party togeter.)

If most of the party is together except for one person, we use a normal scale and just leave his figure off the map. We keep notes on how far off the edge he is, in case he needs healing or has to rejoin the party.

One time we had a very strange long-range battle between two adventuring parties. Our PCs were basically in a group, maybe 20' away from each other; the other party was similarly arrayed; but there were a couple hundred feet of empty space in between. We accomodated that by dividing the map in half, putting one force on either side of the line, and ignoring all the intervening space.

 

[Cergorach]

Use 10mm miniatures instead of the standard 30mm, one inch becomes 15 feet and suddenly you have all the room you need. Use the default scale when characters come within 30 feet with each other...

 

[painandgreed]

I use the standard desktop pad of graph paper at 5 squares per inch and make each square 5'. Don't use minis but just draw in people and monsters in pencil and then erase and redraw when they move.