Speeding up Gameplay in 4E

[Obryn]

Rather than shell out the cash for another mat, I went the cheap route and bought a 2'x3' pad of 1" graph paper from the office supply store (for, I think, $14.99). Best move ever!

I have both a battlemat and a sheet of 1" graph paper from Office Depot. Mine ran me about $20, but it's been worth every penny. I can draw encounter areas before my players get to them, and it works wonderfully.

I still have the battle mat to fall back on, but I'd say 90% of our combats have used this presentation pad over the past 4-5 months.

I own several sets of dungeon tiles, and used to be a booster, but nowadays I don't care for them much at all. It's very time-consuming to put together a proper dungeon, and once I do, they tend to move around a lot. I gave them a shot for a few games, but it was slower than drawing the map straight onto the battlemat. (Better illustrated, but much slower.) The presentation pad gives me the best of both worlds - quick and fairly well-illustrated.

-O