Which option we use for our battle maps can drastically change the type of D&D 4e game we run. The options range everywhere from simple to complex, light enough to carry in a poster tube to heavy enough to require a U-Haul, as cheap as a Starbucks coffee to as expensive as a car. Today we will compare and contrast the most popular options for your D&D 4e battle maps.
Wet Erase Mats
Designed by a few different companies and running about $20, the wet-erase battle mat has been a staple in tabletop RPG games for years. Given the number of them I’ve seen at conventions, they would also appear to be the most popular. They offer a flatter surface than the fold-up dry-erase mats described below but require the use of wet-erase pens. Any other marker will permanently stain the mat. Also, if you leave even the wet-erase marker on too long, it can stain the mat. This mat, along with the dry-erase mat and the poster-sized 1″ graph paper offers the most flexibility, greatest portability, but the least immersion of all of the options. All in all, I feel the laminated dry-erase mat is the better way to go.
Durability: Good
Price: Excellent
Flexibility: Excellent
Immersion: Poor
Portability: Excellent
Published Maps
For the past few years Wizards of the Coast has published large poster-sized battle maps with pre-printed and full color encounter layouts. These maps work very well as long as that layout is exactly what you wanted. For custom games, they can be reused again and again. The generic grave-yard, King’s Road, and evil temple maps included with the Keep on the Shadowfell adventure can be a staple in many games. These offer poor flexibility compared to the maps you draw yourselves and moderate pricing considering you need a lot of them to be useful. They are very portable, however, and offer a greater immersion than hand-drawn maps. The thin paper is prone to tears, however, giving them poor durability. Paizo also produces laminated pre-drawn “Flip-mats” for $12 that offer some excellent layouts in a portable, inexpensive, and durable format.
Durability: Poor (Excellent for the Paizo maps)
Price: Excellent
Flexibility: Poor
Immersion: Excellent
Portability: Excellent
Dry Erase Mats
Paizo also publishes high quality, durable, flexible, and cost-effective laminated mats that accept wet or dry erase markers. These are the best option for custom drawing your own maps. They are easy to carry around and cost about $12. I recommend these more than the wet-erase mats and the 1″ grid paper options. Like those options, this product sacrifices immersion for flexibility. For the DM on a budget, this is your absolute best option.
Durability: Excellent
Price: Excellent
Flexibility: Excellent
Immersion: Poor
Portability: Excellent
Grid paper
Available at Staples for about $30 for 100 sheets, these large white gridded sheets give you a lot of flexibility and decent portability if you stick them in poster tubes or roll them up. For sand-box games where you need a lot of maps on-hand at any given game, these are a great option. They will speed things up quite a bit since you don’t have to draw your layouts out at the game itself. They are very poor for recyclability. Once you’ve used a map, you’re likely to just throw it out. Except in very specific situations, I recommend almost all the other options first.
Durability: Poor
Price: Fair
Flexibility: Excellent
Immersion: Poor
Portability: Good
Dungeon Tiles
Wizards started publishing $10 sets of D&D Dungeon Tiles a couple of years ago and now there is quite a collection of them available. They lack the flexibility of the hand-drawn tools, making it difficult to set up a layout from published adventures that don’t specifically use dungeon tiles. For those that do, however, the tiles offer much greater immersion than hand-drawn options. They also offer greater flexibility than published maps. The price can get expensive since you need about two copies of each set to really use them and sets come out about four times a year. I think Dungeon Tiles work very well in tandem with other options. When you have the option to use them, you should, but keep a dry-erase mat handy. Read my tips for using D&D Dungeon Tiles to use these even more effectively.
Durability: Excellent
Price: Good
Flexibility: Good
Immersion: Excellent
Portability: Good
Dwarven Forge
This is where the scale breaks down. It is nearly impossible to justify the cost of Dwarven Forge except to say that it is the best, most immersive dungeon map accessory you can buy. I’ve always felt a pang of regret when I order a Dwarven Forge set – each set can cost 10 to 12 times more than a set of D&D Dungeon Tiles or a flip-mat. Every time I put them out, however, the regret leaves. These are the best dungeon accessories available. The cost isn’t the only disadvantage, however. They are not very portable and offer limited flexibility when compared to pre-drawn maps. There are many other options available for battle maps, but Dwarven Forge sets are, by far, the coolest. I will warn you, however. There is a reason they refer to the Dwarven Forge hobby as “the addiction”. You cannot stop with only one set. You’ll have a dozen sets before you know it and realize you’ve got a D&D accessory that costs as much and weighs as much as your first car.
Durability: Excellent
Price: Poor
Flexibility: Good
Immersion: Excellent
Portability: Poor
Final Thoughts
Overall it is easy to eliminate many of the options above and focus on three. For the greatest flexibility, portability, and cost, choose the Paizo dry-erase laminated battle mat. For more immersion in traditional dungeon environments, choose D&D Dungeon Tiles and use them right. For the ultimate in extravagance, splurge and start sending your paychecks for Dwarven Forge sets. Your wife will forgive you…eventually.
Like this article? Please consider using these links to purchase flip mats or dungeon tiles or use this link to purchase anything from Amazon.com.
sweet post. I would have however liked to have seen a rating on setup time, this could be a major deciding factor. I would also probably rate the Grid paper to be cheap, unless i did my math wrong its 30 cents an encounter.
Excellent topic today and well done!
That’s a good question about setup time, Mike.
If we just look at the three I recommend: laminated battle map, dungeon tiles, and dwarven forge, all of them should be prepped before the game. I don’t recommend setting up dungeon tiles during a game, it simply takes too long.
With an erasable map, you can draw a quick room but it will lack detail if you can’t do it beforehand.
For tricks in setting up dungeon tiles before a game, check out my article on effective use of dungeon tiles:
http://slyflourish.com/dd-dungeon-tile-tips/
The new line of Battlegraph boards are very intriguing. One set is about as expensive as the wet-erase mat, but covers a smaller area. However, these are even more flexible than either type of mat and areas could be pre-drawn and laid out as discovered.
http://www.battlegraph.com
@Granger44: I never had a chance to try the Battlegraph boards so I didn’t add them to this review. They do look interesting, though a little bulkier than an erasable mat. I actually have two erasable mats which makes it a bit easier to pre-draw and pull it out during the game.
Don’t the option of just using your imagination for that pure “in your head” old school role-playing experience. Put away your miniatures and describe the action using narrative flow and dramatic descriptions. It’s free, highly portable and works brilliantly for all but the most complex tactical battles – and even those are achievable with a little practise and an experienced group of role-players.
Durability: Good
Price: Excellent
Flexibility: Excellent
Immersion: Excellent
Portability: Excellent
Greywulf – for 4th edition combat, this just plain doesn’t work. Plus there’s nothing that says you can’t still narrate, be dramatic, and keep that great ‘old-school’ energy even when pushing minis around.
One thing that my group has used a couple of times now (born out of necessity – one of our players lives on the opposite coast, and he’s now running his own campaign) is an online option, specifically MapTool. Our DM has downloaded a ton of free resources from various websites (tokens, terrain, etc.) and he’s been able to put together some really cool maps that look good and are easy to interact with. Of course, this is only a truly ideal option if you have a nice big screen. I’ve got a Mac Mini hooked up to my HDTV, so it’s easy for us all to sit on my couch and pass the mouse around to move our minis, make attacks, etc. Now that all of our players are fairly comfortable using it (there is definitely a learning curve), it’s something I’d even consider using if all the participants were in the same room.
@Todd Does work too! – I didn’t think it would, I’ll admit, but now I’m a convert. Battlemapless, no-minis 4e D&D is FUN. And I agree, using a battlemat can be just as fun and dramatic – I didn’t say it wasn’t, just that not using a battlemat at all is an easily forgotten option
Another vote for Battlegraph. I haven’t used them specifically, as I’m lucky enough to have a set of Tact-Tiles, but the jigsaw puzzle whiteboards are excellent.
However, the laminated mat also looks like a great option. I had the wet erase one and wasn’t exactly ecstatic about it, but the option of dry erase would be very nice. Maybe I’ll pick one up to compare with my Tact-Tiles.
One option that wasn’t said and I think it’s very nice is use the tiles/terrain from Worldworks Games: they produce the best paper terrain out there, with amazing quality and not very difficult to build.
http://www.worldworksgames.com/
It’s a pitty they don’t do more publicity of themselves, they are a very nice bunch of people.
@Vicente: WorldWorks stuff is great, but more expensive than the competition (e.g., Fat Dragon Games).
@Greywulf: I love my minis and my tiles and my battlemats and my props and all that cool stuff! To take them away from me, you’ll have to pry them away from my cold, dead hands!
@Mike (author): You seem to have skipped over 2D download-and-print terrain tiles and battlemaps, such as those from SkeletonKey Games, Fat Dragon, and so on.
On the whole, I’m a huge fan of WotC’s Dungeon Tiles, and use them quite frequently. Paizo Flip-Mats and Map Packs come in a close second for me. Dwarven Forge stuff is gorgeous but too expensive for me.
Oh, and if you’re trying to recreate a specific map using WotC’s Dungeon Tiles, but don’t know which set holds a particular tile, use my Dungeon Tile Index to find out.
http://www.familiar-ground.com/dd-stuff/dd-downloads/
Really simplistic maps. I recall some times in college when the one guy with the battlemap is gone for the weekend and people want to play a game at 10pm. That was basically the inspiration for the maps in the link. Cheap, printable throwaway maps.
I prefer wet-erase battlemaps myself, since most of my D&D game time these days are at game stores and conventions.
Interesting article.
I’ve recently picked up a tandem of the Paizo dry-erase maps and so far am finding them much to my own liking.
Some of my players swear by the dungeon tiles – and I’ve certainly got quite a few of them that I own – but I find my mind seems literally wired to using the ‘draw it as you see it’ maps instead.
Given how much terrain and “battle terrain” can influence a dramatic encounter or combat in this new ruleset, increasingly props are becoming a more important feature of the game.
On the completely impractical side of things, I remember some hard-core gamers who mounted a projector above their game table and hooked it up to a laptop. Of course, they had to deal with the shadows caused by hands, but I think that would be a pretty immersive and flexible setup.
I also secretly imagine the days down the road when Microsoft Surface(R) type hardware is consumer level and there is a program to assist the gameplay.
A boy can dream….
@Flankster: are you dreaming something like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QflrIK-m4Ts
(building a ReacTable is not very expensive, much less than the Surface)
@Icosahedrophilia: Worldworks it’s a little more expensive than Fat Dragon Games but the extra dollars are well worth, the quality is much better (specially in the textures).
@ Vicente: Now that’s what I’m talking about!
Looks like I found a new project.
I didn’t see the argument why the laminated dry-erase map is better. Just cause it’s easier to erase?
Does it roll up like the battlemats?
I don’t see the appeal of dry erase. My first session with my current group, we used some dry-erase surfaces. They pushed their minis across lines, partly erasing them. After a while, I had to go back and re-draw portions of the maps due to careless touching, and sleeves brushing the marks away.
The Stains on wet-erase battle mats are almost always due to leaving the lines for more than a day. I’ve had no problems with any colors leaving permenant marks on my chessex battle mat so far.
Two additional methods:
1) Hirst Arts provides a set of molds you can use to make dwarven forge like dungeons for a fraction of the cost. The flexibility in what you can make and put together is huge. A $200-$300 outlay lets you make nearly an infinite amount of blocks, but you’ll need to actually make and paint each of those blocks yourself.
2) transparent overlays. Horrible immersion, but easy to use. Take a grid map and use a transparent sheet (we use vapour barrier) to map out a portion of the dungeon. As you explore, open doors, look around corners, etc., you place the next transparency on top of the map containing the new piece of the dungeon. And you can wipe off the marker like other mats and reuse them.
For 4e, nothing compares to the magnetic maps, terrain, and condition flags of http://www.dark-platypus.com/. The only problem with their magnetic walls is that they’re too tall for 5′ hallways, but that applies equally to Dwarven Forge. I’ve spoken to the owner at Origins and GenCon, and he’s planning on releasing shorter walls. I also suggested locking mechanisms for them so that you can construct a room ahead of time, placing it on the map when you need it. BTW, they’re *much* cheaper than Dwarven Forge.
Even if you don’t want to spend the money on the walls, those magnetic chips, pipe cleaners, etc. are just no comparison for the status flags.