D&D General Suggestions for good physical D&D battlemats?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

We use the old D&D dungeon tiles that came in a box. I think it was 4e days, but they might still be on sale in varied types of dungeon temple and sewers. I have been using grid paper and making some of the set pieces lately, but the tiles are good for joining the set places with halls or small rooms and such.

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Those are really good, but you need to set aside a lot of space for them, IMO, since you probably want more than one set of each to get enough passages, stairs, etc., unless you tear down and rebuild rooms every time the party moves between areas.

 

[el-remmen]

We use the old D&D dungeon tiles that came in a box. I think it was 4e days, but they might still be on sale in varied types of dungeon temple and sewers. I have been using grid paper and making some of the set pieces lately, but the tiles are good for joining the set places with halls or small rooms and such.

This reminds me that I am a big fan of mixing and matching approaches. I will use tiles from that kind of set with a wet erase mat and maybe a piece of scatter terrain.

 

[darjr]

I used to use TOPS easel pads of one inch gridded paper. I have a ton of drawn maps rolled up in the basement. I’d draw Dyson Logos style maps on them with a sharpie.

I don’t do it anymore but might again. If you do rener that the sharpie goes thru the paper so draw on top of scrap or something uuu don’t mind marking up.

Google it but here is an example at uline.

Two pads of 50 sheets each for $59, can be found cheaper elsewhere I think.

Paper Pad S-12209 - ULINE

3-hole punched. Hangs on Flip Chart Bar holder pegs. 50 sheets. Use with Standard and Heavy Duty Easels. Flip Chart Bar required with Standard Easel. ULINE offers over 45,000 boxes, plastic poly bags, mailing tubes, warehouse supplies and bubble wrap for your storage, packaging, or shipping...

www.uline.com

 

[AlViking]

I have two - one is an Evergame battle mat. I like it because it's a hardboard mat that folds up for easy storage in my backpack. It also cleans easily. You do have to be careful when folding it up, you can stress it and eventually break it if you fold the wrong direction. On the other hand I don't have to worry about the corners curling and it cleans up better than wet erase mats.

The other option is a large mat that I custom-made. I created a hex grid (I'm a weirdo I prefer hexes to squares) using Graph Paper Generators. I then sent it to a print shop to print and got a really large laminated mat in a scale that works better for minis - I went with 1.25 inch hexes instead of 1 inch hexes because it fits minis better. We've used it for several years and it doesn't quite as clean as it used to, but it still works well.

The last option I use to pre-draw things or use an existing map, print them out and then laminate them. For me I still just put them on my mat, but it's handy now and then I have something complex. Of course that limits me to 8.5x11 sized map pieces because of my printer.

 

[Clint_L]

I have battlemats from Wizkids, Dwarven Forge, Mats By Mars, Paizo, Books of Battlemats, cardboard terrain tiles (they did another release for 5e), and Chessex.

A basic Chessex mat is a classic, and you can get them in hexagonal or square grids, and in a variety of colours. And then you draw whatever you need on them. Basic, but tried and true. They are roll-up.

Paizo mats are gorgeous but because they are fold-out, they have seems and are hard to lay totally flat, if that is an issue (like if you are using miniatures. As mentioned, putting a sheet of clear plastic or plexiglass on top works wonders.

The Wizkids mats are for terrain and are made of neoprene, like a mouse pad, so you can't draw on them. But they are gorgeous! They are roll-up.

Mats by Mars are the best, IMO. They are high quality vinyl, with a wide range of options and sizes. They work great with terrain and you can draw on them with dry erase. They are roll-up, but the weight of the vinyl allows them to flatten out quite well. Edit: also, they will make a bespoke mat just for you if you provide the image.

The 5e versions of the terrain tiles were released with a city, dungeon, and wilderness set (I have all three). They require more work but allow for a lot of options and reuse. As mentioned, you'll likely want more than one set of each terrain type.

The Dwarven Forge mats are beautiful, and designed to work with terrain. The are roll-up, but thin, so easier to flatten. They do the most realistic water wats, IMO. DF also offer terrain trays, which are metal trays covered with a terrain-styled fabric (so lava, cavern, ice, etc.). They are designed specifically for magnetized terrain, but I have used them as battlemats for small builds and they are fantastic because you can pre-prepare them and lift them to and from the table. But expensive!

I think the various Loke "Books of Battlemaps" are a fantastic option. I have several that I use for "away" games. They come in various sizes and offer a lot of different terrain types, plus extra 2d terrain features that you can add to a map. They are on Amazon.

But there are lots of other options - Monster Fight Club, Gale Force 9 come immediately to mind for making quality mats designed to work with scatter terrain.

TLDR: If had to recommend just two, they would be Mats By Mars and Loke's The Gigantic Book of Battlemaps.

 

[General_Tangent]

I have a clear vinyl mat with a grid printed on it which enables me to turn any regular mat into a gridded mat.

I think it might have been made by Chessex as well but I can't remember.

 

[Distracted DM]

There are a fantastic suggestions here. I'm just adding my own experience, where I collected a whole bunch of dungeon tiles, 3d terrain, Pathfinder maps, and what have you, but I always go back to the wet-erase Chessex mats. I like the large ones, personally. With an online VTT, 99% of the time I use maps I got via Patreons etc. and can use them for inspiration or as outlines for what's there in the game... but in-person, I just want to draw the environment with my own poorly skilled hands and tell the players what that brown blob is, and whether there are piranha in that blue wavy thing that I say is a river, and that that grey series of squares is a gate

 

[Voadam]

For predone featured ones like the flipmats amazon keeps recommending me the Loke battle mats some of you mentioned but also the Arknights map packs. Anyone have any experience with the latter? 8 double sided 11x17(?) themed maps for smaller map use or you can join them together like giant tiles with common edge or entry/exit points.

 

[Gorck]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0FZDCXMT2?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title is the one I recently purchased and it worked fine in the one session I’ve used it in so far. It has a tan mat into which you slip one of two plastic sheets (one with squares and one with hexes). It also allows you to slide a preprinted map between the mat and the plastic grid. I bought the 2’ x 3’ one, but it comes in other sizes too.

 

[Scott Christian]

I just bought Roll & Play Press's Map Library - Battle Maps. It was cheap (comparatively), and full of great maps. They are not the kind that bend when you fold them out. They are paper with thin gloss. So, they fold nicely but lay out perfectly. There are a bunch of biomes, and there are interesting little details in each.

One drawback, they are not large. They are small for battlemaps.

The big blank maps with tabletop terrain work well too, as they are highly variable. Of course, Paizzo's battle maps are solid. Dwarven Forge (and replicas) are fantastic, but only if you like to build. I use them as a special treat or for really important scenes. Lastly, there are programs like Inkarnate (which is incredible and awesome and wonderful - seriously, I cannot say enough good things about it) that allow you to build your map exactly to your specifications. And then all you need to do is send it to Kinkos or wherever and have it printed.

Lots of options. Way more than there used to be. Happy map hunting.