Whether your party is seeking out a sinister magical artifact or attempting to stop a dastardly jewel heist, no Game Master wants to spend time drawing every taxidermic beast and reconstructed sarcophagus. Fortunately, with Paizo's latest Pathfinder Flip-Mat, you don't have to! This line of gaming maps provides ready-to-use fantasy set pieces for the busy Game Master. Full of beautiful details ranging from a portrait gallery to a curator's workshop, this double-sided map makes the perfect setting for any foray into the dusty display cases and hallowed halls of history!
Don't waste your time sketching when you could be playing. With Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Museum, you'll be prepared next time your players are ready to tackle a museum's secrets!
I've played or GM'd on the Museum flip-mat a surprising number of times in PFS and SFS. It's been the Blakros Museum in Absalom, the Museum of Natural Philosophy and History in Azir, a garden outside a tavern in Axis, a manor house, and at least one or two other things--Paizo scenario writers really like this flip-mat! But I have to admit, it's a really handsome and well-designed mat. Although a double-sided map, it cleverly contains three floors of exhibits, paintings, statues, a curator's workshop, an outdoor garden (complete with benches and a fountain!), latrines, a lecture hall, a cool room of taxidermied animals and monsters, and more. The interior rooms are diverse and well-detailed, with plenty of room for all sorts of encounters; but I appreciate there's just enough exterior to handle encounters breaking in (or spilling out) of the museum. The gridlines are clear but not distracting, and it of course features Paizo's patented formula of allowing pretty much any sort of marker to work. This is a flip-mat you're bound to get a *lot* of use out of in organised play, or in any urban-focused homebrew game. The only tiny caveat I'll mention is that the layout of the museum isn't 100% consistent with that of the Blakros Museum in some early PFS scenarios, so you may need to make some adjustments. With that detail to one side, this is a sure-fire winner.
Excellent addition to the flip-mat pantheon, but there are errors.
I love these flip-mats that go into large urban establishments - especially if the establishment is something other than a tavern, and something that would be found in a city. This flip-mat is also audacious and unique in that it covers a three-story building on two sides. I can see myself using this quite frequently, and not just for a museum. It can easily be used for any fancy-schmancy location where the characters have to meet with a dignitary or wealthy NPC. There is also ample opportunities for collateral damage on this map.
However, as stated below, if you run the map as written, the stairs do not make sense. This is because the black lines denoting walls would keep the various staircases isolated from each other, so that you have several staircases that just hang in mid-air and go in random direction, But, looking at it closely, it seems to be a post-production error, as those black lines are not part of the artwork of the map. If you simply remove those black lines and just assume that the staircases connect together, then it makes sense, You would have a main grand split staircase form the first floor to the second floor for most patrons, and then a skinny, steep, and winding staircase for employees and servants over in the corner.
The map is supposed to be 3 floors of the same building, but the different floors don't fit together. On the second floor there are two big staircases that probably are supposed to be connected to the platform on the ground floor, but in that case there would be a railing in the way.
The artist probably forgot his own architecture, because there is no hint of stairs on the side of the map with the ground floor.
Also usually the upper end of the staircases is highlighted - which would make the platform more sensible - but then the staircases would lead up to nothing which doesn't make sense either.
I don't really know what the gray areas are supposed to be, probably secret areas, but their setup is very random and silly.
Otherwise the museum looks quite nice, but it has a little bit of everything which makes it a strange museum, although that could help to use the map in different situations.
I liked the idea behind the map, but the execution is terrible.
Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber
Fixed your link. I agree, I think that's the way it's supposed to go. Way I'll use it. A grand stairway has to go from the 1st floor to the 2nd, not the 2nd to the 3rd.
Austan Gavynus wrote:
Forgive me if this is explained already, or assumed, but I think the first floor sample map is upside down as posted (and labeled with the Pathfinder logo) here. If flipped 180`, the first floor short staircase (5'x20') and raised platform line up directly under the visible roof on the second floor map. I'd assume the double stairs "double back" over the first floor. So, to get from the first to the second floor, walk up the 5' flight of stairs, take a left or right, and another left or right and step up to the second floor. It would be nice if they were "drawn in" on the first floor, though.
Fixed your link. I agree, I think that's the way it's supposed to go. Way I'll use it. A grand stairway has to go from the 1st floor to the 2nd, not the 2nd to the 3rd.
Thanks. Sorry; got busy and haven't been on the boards in a while, but wanted to make sure I said "thank you."
I'll be ready to run some classic Blakros scenarios with this! Order's on the way!!!
FYI this doesn't fit the 0-2 season maps.
Thanks for the heads up! I'm running Voice in the Void this weekend, so I'm using map packs for the lower levels of Blakros. We'll save the flip mat for when the players get to the newer seasons.
For anyone that's curious, I built the basement level from the crypt mausoleum for the entrance which leads to two dungeon rooms. For the scriptorium and storerooms, I used the city apothecary, the warehouse temple and the hidden library dungeon site.
Spoiler:
The final chamber was put together from Dungeon corridors for an entrance leading to cave chambers, another dungeon room and then the spider temple to cap it off.
Finally, a building with restrooms! So many tavern, fort, castle, prison, and other building maps with no restrooms. It's nice to see they had the cartographer put them in this one.
+1 for the creation of a "bigger" flip-mat for the original layout, plus perhaps the basement area beneath. Recommend checking the PFS reports of Mists of Mwangi, Voice in the Void, and Penumbral Accords to see how frequently they would be used.
