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I am a Paizo/Pathfinder fan from the start on.
The adventure modules and AP's as well as the supplementary materials are awesome!
But whenever I sit down with my friends to play, we come to the point where we realize that one thing is missing - battlemats. I don't mean the maps you can buy, I mean folios with 1inch scales for the APs and modules (or at least the APs). I would pay for such a thing, and such a product line would certainly be a hit with other players as well!
I don't know, if this topic has already come up somewhere here on these boards, if so, I apologise!
Now, what does the comunity think - AP specific battlemaps to let those paperminis shine even more and give the APs a further kick...
Castle Ravenloft. . . .
3D
Oh my, that was a cool map.
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Castle Ravenloft. . . .
3D
But it's still no battlemat. The maps in the Paizo products are awesome, it's just the thing, that with 3.5 you almost always need a battlemat, and if I can have the one which matches with the adventure, the happier me and my players would be.
And, I don't think, that such maps would be one-time-use things!|
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Ditch the map folios and do AP-related battlemats instead. I would give a million dollars for a Fort Rannick battlemat set, really.
That's the reason why I posted here. My players are presently at Fort Rannick. Normally I use Posterazor to do my maps from the ones in the pdfs, but the resolution is not high enough to have them look really good.
My players just told me last time, that having this as a really good looking mat would be so cool!
I just saw a dungeon creator tool on the old WotC website. Maybe check that out. I can't tell yet how it works, as I'm at work.
It only works with their tiles. Granted, their tiles are nice (nicer than the latest batch of mini's, I just saw them in person for the first time at the bookstore yesterday, BLECH!), but you have to have the tile sets to use the WoTC tool. All it does is let you put together a map ahead of time, print it out (with a list of which tiles you need) to make it easier at game time, you can have the tiles piled up behind your screen and put them out as the players explore.
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I'd be all about just a digital version where they divide the maps into say 7.5" x 10" tiles that can be printed and assembled. That's more or less what I do with the maps from the PDFs in photoshop, but obviously if they were at a higher res it'd come out nicer. I do use Stair Interpoloation to make sure it is blown up in the most natural form I can do and the maps looks pretty cool and from 5-10' away you can't even tell it's just a blown up little map ... sorry I just started rambling.
This has been discussed before and it would essentially require a double map order to the cartographer (one for the adventure and one for the battle map) - either that or the cartographer would first produce the battle map and then resize it for the adventure, but that most likely entails relabeling the map. Then there's the whole ordeal with traps and secret doors (i.e. basically a DM's map and a Player's map will have to be done for each map).
Art (including cartography) isn't cheap, probably even more so when you consider the size of some of these battle maps. It would require a lot of commercial success for such a product to be profitable and even though a lot of people here might buy it, it might still not be enough to be profitable (costs include the artwork itself, printing, shipping, taxes etc.). Then, to cover a smaller amount of sales, a higher price would have to be put on it, which in turn might turn off someone who might have bought a slightly cheaper product.
It would be cool, yes, but unfortunately it probably isn't profitable to do.
Creative Director
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I've mentioned this on other threads: while the idea of providing high-resolution battlemat scale maps of every encounter in an Adventure Path is intriguing... it's logistically not that possible.
Take Pathfinder #11, as an example. Without revealing too much about the adventure, it takes place in an immense castle; there are, essentially, four full page maps for this location, most of which are at a scale of 1 square = 10 feet, and they're SMALL squares. A battlemat scale printout of ONE LEVEL of this castle would be something like 80 square feet. All four would be 320 square feet. Printed out on a number of 8.5x11 inch sheets, and assuming that the original map only takes up 3/4 of the available space on a page, that'd still require like 300 pages to fully map out one volume of Pathfinder at this scale.
A 300 page print product would probably have a price tag to the customer of $50, perhaps more.
Printing out 300 page PDFs on a printer every month is even more expensive.
This doesn't even TOUCH the fact that we, effectively, pay our cartographers a flat rate by the page for maps. Paizo couldn't afford to do a 300 page map every month, even if we reduced the standard cartographer fee to a fraction of the normal amount.
Also, a 300 page PDF, with maps at a resolution and level of detail that wouldn't look all pixelated when printed out at a 1 inch = 5 foot scale, would be pretty dang humungous in file size, so even those who would use such a PDF product for a VTT or to project onto a table or otherwise not even touch the print button would still have these insanely huge files to manipulate, or hundreds of smaller ones.
All good reasons to not do battle-mat scale maps for every location in Pathfinder. The best we can really do at this time is to point out that if you get a PDF version of a product you can pull out the map files and use them to project onto the tabletop or whatever; they'll be pixelly and blurry, but they'll work. And if you're using a VTT, they don't NEED to be at 1 inch square per 5 feet anyway...
All that said... there are several folk here on the boards who are building battlemat scale versions of many locations anyway... hopefully some of them will post links on this thread!
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Solution:
A) make an "overall" battlemat in regular paper but plastified, so as to allow dry erase or washeables, which shows all castle levels on a larger scale (i.e. 1 square = 30 feet would be perfect).
B) for the other two battlemats, select key "fight" areas, one on each side of the two mats (four total).
C) don't do it yourself; Paizo's store is full of third party companies who could do that job for you. I don't care about resolution. Repeat: I don't care about s&&!ty resolution. I'm just too lazy to draw the darn maps for every fight, and I'm willing to pay you for that laziness.
Cheers! :)
If players wanted that in one of my campaigns I'd be making them split the bill on cost :p
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NOTE: I own several Chessex battlemats (the rubbery, soft, rollable kind) and after a few years, well, the finish wears off and whatever you draw into them can't be erased by any means known to man (including nail polish remover, gasoline, bleach, vinegar, Vim, Mr. Net, and many, many others... :P)
I think regular colour paper printed maps, with cheap plastification (which you can do at Staples) would be the way to go. On glossy plastic, almost anything can be erased...
For battlemaps the Pathfinder Terrain from WorldWorksGames should hopefully work for that case.
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For battlemaps the Pathfinder Terrain from WorldWorksGames should hopefully work for that case.
These are fantastic. You just glue the printouts on carboard, yes? the instructions speak of black, matte finish foamcore 20" x 30"... is that expensive? where can this be found? is this just for the floor or for the walls too?
Any help will be appreciated.
Cheers!
Ditch the map folios and do AP-related battlemats instead. I would give a million dollars for a Fort Rannick battlemat set, really.
I actually bought and used (am using) the Flipmap "Keep" here for Fort Rannick. It was easy to map the locations to make it useful for both the first and second floors even.
Pretty cool!
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For battlemaps the Pathfinder Terrain from WorldWorksGames should hopefully work for that case.These are fantastic. You just glue the printouts on carboard, yes? the instructions speak of black, matte finish foamcore 20" x 30"... is that expensive? where can this be found? is this just for the floor or for the walls too?
Any help will be appreciated.
Cheers!
Nope.
You pint the dungeon on heavier weight card stock. No gluing to foamcore at all.
You fold the card stock in the designated places so it stands up. Works very well.
Cost is for paper and ink. Some gluing is required to glue pages together, but no need for foamcore.
Unless they are doing something radically different from anything done before... possible.
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For the first adventure in AOW, I totally spoiled my players and did dungeon tiles of the entire complex. I could just plop down the section they were in and built the entire dungeon as they explored it. It didn't cost much to print (30 bucks IIRC for a laser output of a PDF to 90lb bond) and a little effort to cut it out. Lots of fun.
Some locations that are reused in the AP's could use battle scaled maps though. The Golden Goblin in Second Darkness is one. Galnorag put us through the meat grinder in that place and his excellent hand drawn map on a Chessex mat was getting pretty ragged by the end of the module, I can tell you! :)
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How about the APs are written specifically with the Paizo Flip Mats and / or Campaign Map Packs in mind? One or two PFS scenarios reference the map packs, and so if I have them it saves a lot of time.
This is one reason I prefer to write my own scenarios - I can write them specifically with my maps, dungeon tiles and miniatures in mind.
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Creative Director
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How about the APs are written specifically with the Paizo Flip Mats and / or Campaign Map Packs in mind? One or two PFS scenarios reference the map packs, and so if I have them it saves a lot of time.
This is one reason I prefer to write my own scenarios - I can write them specifically with my maps, dungeon tiles and miniatures in mind.
While we'll now and then use flip mats and map packs in our adventures (most recently, IIRC, in Pathfinder #21), this won't be commonplace. Again; a single volume of Pathinfder generally has about 4 pages of maps, most of which wouldn't fit on a flip mat. We don't do enough flip mats to cover that, and on top of that, the flip mats and map packs' big draw is that they're generic and not necessarily associated with a specific adventure all the time.
While we'll now and then use flip mats and map packs in our adventures (most recently, IIRC, in Pathfinder #21), this won't be commonplace. Again; a single volume of Pathinfder generally has about 4 pages of maps, most of which wouldn't fit on a flip mat. We don't do enough flip mats to cover that, and on top of that, the flip mats and map packs' big draw is that they're generic and not necessarily associated with a specific adventure all the time.
Well, now, how about adding $10 to the price of each AP and include a flip mat with each one. That's 12 extra annual flipmats sold.
Unless the extra $10 would be enough of a deal-breaker to lose too many AP sales.
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Actually, I think I have a beef to bring up about AP maps. It occurs to me that an inordinate number of encounters happen in rooms where the grid is running at an odd angle through it. It's tough enough to sketch out an encounter area without having to count out the squares at wierd angles, but this is murder to draw on a battlemap.
While we'll now and then use flip mats and map packs in our adventures (most recently, IIRC, in Pathfinder #21), this won't be commonplace. Again; a single volume of Pathinfder generally has about 4 pages of maps, most of which wouldn't fit on a flip mat. We don't do enough flip mats to cover that, and on top of that, the flip mats and map packs' big draw is that they're generic and not necessarily associated with a specific adventure all the time.Well, now, how about adding $10 to the price of each AP and include a flip mat with each one. That's 12 extra annual flipmats sold.
Unless the extra $10 would be enough of a deal-breaker to lose too many AP sales.
It likely would be, particularly for the large crowd who never actually runs the APs. But also a large problem would be that the flipmaps wouldn't cover everything in a module, and perhaps not even all of a single location. There might be no location suitable for "flipmapping", or too many to choose from.
(Also I would imagine there is a difference in the production cycle time for flipmaps and the AP volumes - they would have to get further ahead in one or the other to have both ready at the same time, possibly from different suppliers).
Why not simply release the maps for free in higher resolution (300 DPI) in a download section. WoC have begin to do this (one Map for the player and one map for the DM) and it's pretty easy to use tools to print them (posterazor) or use them on screen or with a projector with something like maptools.
I've mentioned this on other threads: while the idea of providing high-resolution battlemat scale maps of every encounter in an Adventure Path is intriguing... it's logistically not that possible.
Take Pathfinder #11, as an example. Without revealing too much about the adventure, it takes place in an immense castle; there are, essentially, four full page maps for this location, most of which are at a scale of 1 square = 10 feet, and they're SMALL squares. A battlemat scale printout of ONE LEVEL of this castle would be something like 80 square feet. All four would be 320 square feet. Printed out on a number of 8.5x11 inch sheets, and assuming that the original map only takes up 3/4 of the available space on a page, that'd still require like 300 pages to fully map out one volume of Pathfinder at this scale.
A 300 page print product would probably have a price tag to the customer of $50, perhaps more.
Printing out 300 page PDFs on a printer every month is even more expensive.
This doesn't even TOUCH the fact that we, effectively, pay our cartographers a flat rate by the page for maps. Paizo couldn't afford to do a 300 page map every month, even if we reduced the standard cartographer fee to a fraction of the normal amount.
Also, a 300 page PDF, with maps at a resolution and level of detail that wouldn't look all pixelated when printed out at a 1 inch = 5 foot scale, would be pretty dang humungous in file size, so even those who would use such a PDF product for a VTT or to project onto a table or otherwise not even touch the print button would still have these insanely huge files to manipulate, or hundreds of smaller ones.
All good reasons to not do battle-mat scale maps for every location in Pathfinder. The best we can really do at this time is to point out that if you get a PDF version of a product you can pull out the map files and use them to project onto the tabletop or whatever; they'll be pixelly and blurry, but they'll work. And if you're using a VTT, they don't NEED to be at 1 inch square...
Forget print!
No offense, James, but your thinking seems stuck in the print world. It's your bread and butter; I get it. But the recurring threads on this subject are customers telling you that high quality digital maps have significant value to them. Sure, the way the work is comissioned and paid for may need to change in a digital world, but as I've said before, *someone* is going to get this right sooner or later...why not Paizo?
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While we'll now and then use flip mats and map packs in our adventures (most recently, IIRC, in Pathfinder #21), this won't be commonplace. Again; a single volume of Pathinfder generally has about 4 pages of maps, most of which wouldn't fit on a flip mat. We don't do enough flip mats to cover that, and on top of that, the flip mats and map packs' big draw is that they're generic and not necessarily associated with a specific adventure all the time.Well, now, how about adding $10 to the price of each AP and include a flip mat with each one. That's 12 extra annual flipmats sold.
Unless the extra $10 would be enough of a deal-breaker to lose too many AP sales.
Would deal-break me...barely hanging on through this economic kerfuffle!
Why not simply release the maps for free in higher resolution (300 DPI) in a download section. WoC have begin to do this (one Map for the player and one map for the DM) and it's pretty easy to use tools to print them (posterazor) or use them on screen or with a projector with something like maptools.
As Paizo has stated several times, the maps you see are the maps they get. They don't order them larger. And in most of the PDFs, you can copy the map without the GM info for your players if you want it.
Edit:
And in response to several other folks ... not all of us are into doing our gaming with computers. I know I'm not. I just make my maps for the players the old fashioned way, by hand, on graph paper, to the scale I want. Is it more work? Yup. Would it be nice to have a larger map I could just lay out and use? Sure. Do I believe the folks at Paizo when they tell me that they would have to pay more to make such maps for us, thereby increasing my cost? Yup, I do, because I've looked at printing costs off and on over the years, and used to work in a game store many years ago and know the cost of the books the stores get.
The flipmats are interesting, but would I really be willing to buy them just to run my AP? Nope. That would be a one use cost that would be more than my budget for gaming could regularly allow.
There's another thread for those of you who are asking for virtual maps, where one of Paizo's regular cartographers is making the tools so you can do exactly what you want, make the maps for your VTT, etc. [Check it out here at Maps and Pathfinder
Please, give the Paizo folks a bit of a break :) They are only so many bodies, putting out a TON of great stuff, and admitting when there are things beyond their means, desires and skills to currently do. Constantly haranguing them to change to do something else is not the way to make 'em change. They have their reasons, they've explained them over and over again ... believe 'em :)
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Why not simply release the maps for free in higher resolution (300 DPI) in a download section. WoC have begin to do this (one Map for the player and one map for the DM) and it's pretty easy to use tools to print them (posterazor) or use them on screen or with a projector with something like maptools.
I would be happy with Webhancements to the APs, like the old dungeon days, blank maps would save me so much time, and I know you have those maps layered, so all you have to do is turn off the text...while I have to spend an hour on each map hiding stuff...Now I do that for my players, but it would be a lot nicer having them already done. (Or add them as a bonus to us subscribers in the PDFs, but charge $2.50 for non-subscribers) *winks and taps nose knowingly*
Forget print!
No offense, James, but your thinking seems stuck in the print world. It's your bread and butter; I get it. The recurring threads on this subject are people telling you that high quality digital maps have significant value. Sure, the way the work is comissioned and paid for may need to change, but as I've said before, *someone* is going to get this right sooner or later...Why not Paizo?
Well, actually it would seem that many of the people who are requesting this were the ones with thinking stuck in the print world, as that was the thing being asked for. It would seem that a significant amount of the vocal support for larger maps are those who want them for Battlemats, and if they are too expensive to print out then they lose a chunk of the people who are funding this idea.
Why not simply release the maps for free in higher resolution (300 DPI) in a download section. WoC have begin to do this (one Map for the player and one map for the DM) and it's pretty easy to use tools to print them (posterazor) or use them on screen or with a projector with something like maptools.As Paizo has stated several times, the maps you see are the maps they get. They don't order them larger. And in most of the PDFs, you can copy the map without the GM info for your players if you want it.
I don't know much about cartography; does it require a lot more work on the cartographer's behalf to create a map in 300 dpi instead of a lower resolution?
Forget print!
No offense, James, but your thinking seems stuck in the print world. It's your bread and butter; I get it. But the recurring threads on this subject are customers telling you that high quality digital maps have significant value to them. Sure, the way the work is comissioned and paid for may need to change in a digital world, but as I've said before, *someone* is going to get this right sooner or later...why not Paizo?
I wholly agree with you, but in the interest of fairness I don't think Paizo is wrong for taking their current approach.
It would be a huge mistake for the company to plunge into digital only material recklessly. There needs to be a viable revenue scheme first. Paizo rests on it's quality, and I would hate to see that compromised.
The first steps in support of VTTs are being taken. Foremost, check out this thread. If you want Paizo to jump in with full VTT support, put your money where your mouth is and support this first digital offering. I am sure that more products will follow suit, since like you I am sure that this is the future of RP gaming.
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It didn't cost much to print (30 bucks IIRC for a laser output of a PDF to 90lb bond) and a little effort to cut it out. Lots of fun.
What is this 90lb bond you speak of... we shall talk further tonight! :)
BTW Xuttah, I'm playing the Legacy of Fire AP two Fridays a month with the ex-Path Society gang (Path Society at HK has disbanded due to real life reasons of several gamers; now some of us are playing the LoF AP (we're about 4 players)
I would LOVE to DM our current Second Darkness group through the LoF AP, and build that nifty 3D dungeon for it (with your help if you want), but we already have two campaigns on Tuesdays, so it's already pretty full... which is why I haven't approached you guys on this yet, as I don't know how far Chris' campaign will take us (previous talks I had with him said maybe up to level 16... loved Tolbin, love my current druid, but I can't say I'll stay to see the end of that campaign, as I have a burning desire to try as many APs as I can).
Thankfully I scored with a "secondary gaming group" on Fridays for LoF, so I'm covered for that one. However, if *you* would like to try LoF... maybe you could work your diplomacy roll with the others? I don't want to be the one suggesting we stop Chris' campaign, as I am experiencing LoF already; however do know that I would be *willing* to DM it for you guys when Chris' campaign is over. If I do get to run it for you guys, I'm planning to try a new fast-paced approach (4 game sessions per AP Chapter max, so an AP book every two months), as we cannot keep up with the AP releases at our current gaming pace and frequency of one game every two weeks.
Forget print!
No offense, James, but your thinking seems stuck in the print world. It's your bread and butter; I get it. But the recurring threads on this subject are customers telling you that high quality digital maps have significant value to them. Sure, the way the work is comissioned and paid for may need to change in a digital world, but as I've said before, *someone* is going to get this right sooner or later...why not Paizo?
I wholly agree with you, but in the interest of fairness I don't think Paizo is wrong for taking their current approach.
It would be a huge mistake for the company to plunge into digital only material recklessly. There needs to be a viable revenue scheme first. Paizo rests on it's quality, and I would hate to see that compromised.
The first steps in support of VTTs are being taken. Foremost, check out this thread. If you want Paizo to jump in with full VTT support, put your money where your mouth is and support this first digital offering. I am sure that more products will follow suit, since like you I am sure that this is the future of RP gaming.
I'm all for putting my money where my mouth is, and I had lost track of that thread. It appears from a brief look that the product spawned of this discussion is not yet available, correct?