The 5 keys to a great D&D battle map
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- čas přidán 30. 05. 2024
- If your Dungeons and Dragons combat map has these five things, it will take your D&D battles to the next level.
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I spent 8 years in the military (Security Forces & Infantry) and profoundly appreciate the ability to exploit choke points, natural hazards, cover/concealment, elevation, obscurement like fog or roaring water to enhance stealth, etc… I have used rooftops, sewers, furniture, stock tanks, dead mounts, bridges/tightropes, triggered avalanches… Anyway, combat can be far more interesting than simply lining up like the Redcoats and trading volleys of fire.
Consider creative ways to control a battlefield with fire, water, or wind. Can you drop a tree to create partial cover for your ranged attackers? What about using Mold Earth to establish a mound to fire from behind. Are there heavy wooden tables to tip and hide behind to avoid incoming bolts and arrows? Can you shove enemies off of a ledge or balcony? Can a caster create a Fog Cloud to conceal your repositioning? What about mundane options like a unit building a large smoky fire for the same purpose?
I’ll stop there, but basically just get creative and exploit the environment. Manipulate it if needed. Even on an open field, a crossbow wielder could use their adventuring pack and dropping prone for some cover. There are always opportunities. You just need to spot them, or create them.
A dynamic map that tells a story truly elevates combat. Keep up the great work, mate! Like a party fighting a dragon, you're killing it!
Thank you mate, always appreciate that support!
Elevation is so easy to forget but adds so much to encounters!
It also validates feats, spells and character abilities which allow for more vertical movement that people not used to verticality in their maps might not have given a second thought.
But that ability or spell that would have granted you a climbing speed suddenly sounds real nice when you have to spend two rounds doing nothing but running to get at the archers in the ramparts, all the while getting pelted with arrows.
Environment REALLY matters in D&D. The closest my party has ever come to a TPK involved the party of 7 characters, at around 8th level, being trapped in a small subterranean shrine with a Dire Troll and an Annis Hag.
The hag ambushed them on the first turn, grappled the cleric and crushed her into unconsciousness, then piked her on one of the iron hooks around her chamber like she was playing dead by daylight. On initiative 20 the next turn, she schlorped through the walls with her lair action and let the Dire Troll out of its cage in the floor.
The party now had this gigantic multi armed mincing machine right in their midst, with nowhere to run to get out of range of its attacks. A failed Athletics check to break the locked portcullis wasted a turn from the barbarian. The healer was failing death saves on a hook. The frantic party focused all their fire on the troll, locking it down with Entangle and Slow, but that just meant nobody was watching when the hag schlorped out of the walls again on turn 4, granny-hugged the fighter to 0 and piked her on a hook.
They only survived because the Dire Troll wasted a turn flubbing a roll to break Entangle, and the wizard nailed it with a critical Firebolt the turn before it would have regained its Frenzy attack (unaffected by Slow) and wiped the entire party in one move.
The party had easily defeated the hag and a large horde of ogres and goblins before in a straight siege fight where they controlled the battlefield, so they went in cocky. This time, she was ready for them, and nearly TPK'd with only two monsters.
In an open field, though, the party would have comfortably surrounded and whittled them down. Environment. Matters.
I'd like to amplify the Cover section because it's also useful for teaching new players. Sure, a melee warrior will rush towards an enemy in cover. What does a ranged combatant do? Well, in the real world they take cover themselves, then poke their heads out and wait for their opponent to poke their head out. That's what you do in D&D as well: Move into cover, then Ready a ranged attack. D&D feels like an artificial, I-Go-You-Go affair until players learn to make use of their reactions to act out of initiative order -- then it feels a lot more real. Also, they're more mentally prepared for when they fail a Perception check and stumble into readied goblin archery.
Great points! I’m always looking for good ways to keep my battle maps dynamic and interesting.
I’ve often shared the story of the first campaign I ran where a low level party dominated a fight against multiple necromancers, a lich, and a horde of modified zombies. One of the key features they had was a choke point. The fight was happening in a castle’s banquet hall, which was on an above ground floor. All the bad guys were streaming into the entrance from a spiral staircase. Our hexblade warlock immediately positioned herself at the top of the staircase and cast darkness on herself (she had the devil’s sight invocation).
All the necromancers had “animate dead” prepped to bring back up any fallen zombies ahead of them, but they all had to drop that spell in order to use dimension door to get into the banquet hall.
This is ultimately why I've committed to using Dungeon Blocks tiling system; I looked into a lot of other types of physical terrain but I don't just want to pretty up a flat map, I want the three dimensionality to matter tactically to the battles, because doing 3d terrain is an INVESTMENT.
I have tried to do multi level, complex battlefields with my flat maps and to an extent it's worked, but I have a large party and some will always end up further from the map than others, where it's much harder for them to see what's going on. I'm hoping the elevated terrain will help with that.
The dynamic map thing is why I struggle to use pre-fab maps with any notable features, and have since decided to just sketch the maps directly into my VTT of choice, or use objects for any cool things that are laying around. It's just the only real way I can make a dynamic map that works for my games, and whatever crazy idea my Players come up with next.
Once again, great content. It inspires me to make some fun little barriers and stuff. And elevated elements.
It’s a little different but I’m making the world map for a homebrew campaign and these tips carry over so well! Always spot on with the advice, mate!
I've been loving your video's man, thanks for such great content, keep up the amazing work
Thank you very much, mate, glad you're finding the videos useful! I'll keep 'em coming 💪
I’m still a very new dm so haven’t done a lot of maps yet but I’m keen to try out a forest battle map with difficult terrain and a bunch of trees and stuff for cover
Great video as always, TA.
Thanks so much.👍 💯
Thank you for another great video good sir!
I've been working on this exact aspect of the game. A timely piece of advice.
Amazing video!
Thanks for this helpful video Malcolm! I notices my players tend to hesitate to interact with objects during combat. I placed a lot of objects to cover/hide/climb/push/burn etc. but they rarely use it during combat. Seems like they hesitate to use an action for it or just too focused on the enemies itself. Any tips to encourage them? Secondly, I also noticed if the battle maps is too big, they only use 10% of the map, so I think smaller maps tend to be less intimidating. I really love the ideas with the rewards,I will try it out, thanks so much as always 🙏🏻
Great points as usual! Thanks for the video. Any further advice on how to prepare dynamic battlemaps for playing in person? Using various "base plates" seems a bit too much to prepare. Maybe changing the props on the background to 2D printable heroes props? 🤔
Honestly, a whiteboard that you can draw onto is probably one of the most powerful and flexible tools you'll ever have.
Some very good advice, designing a combat has a low skill floor and a high skill ceiling - and with how long each fight takes, its really important to take time to design it in interesting ways!
Absolutely! And the thing I find amazing is how a good map can make pretty standard enemies feel interesting. Bandits on a road? No problem. Bandits in a well-fortified camp? A challenging combat encounter!
@@TalesArcane always a big fan of the "rope bridge over a pit in a cave, where kobolds are up on a ledge behind some cover parallel to the bridges, making you seriously regret trying to cross the wobbly bridge"