How many chessex mats would you pick up to give yourself more than enough surface to use during any possible game session you would run?
and also, how many of which size? 1 megamat and 2 battlemats? more? less?
im just getting into the game (slowly) and may have an opportunity to pick up a number of these mats in either size, and am thinking about picking up enough to run anything i might do in the future including some of the larger sandbox type games (Slumbering Tsar, Rappan Athuk) in case those might change the variables a bit. what would be really nice to have on hand, without really over doing it.
just trying to think ahead and take advantage of some cash ill have soon. im undecided if i would want to use them for everything, or just for dungeons where i would draw them out as the PCs progress. i have regular paper with 1" squares i could use for towns and stuff, but im not sure if i want to keep it all on battlemats or use both. advice is appreciated.
so how many of which size should i see about picking up?
thanks in advance
I have one 4 by about 5 megamat, and then a lot of different flipmats. I just got the pirate ship and the ships cabins maps. I am a big fan of paizos flipmats,and some of the ones from wotc are decent.
If you have a big enough table, 1 mondo mat is enough for just about anything.
I have 1 mega mat and 1 battle mat.
Personally, I have one battlemat, and 5 of the smallest size (one isn't mine, the others I got factory second at dragoncon over the years). Im still planning on picking up a factory second megamat this year.
For running AP's, I would recommend at least one of each size, at least. There are a lot of large maps throughout, for instance, in Wake of the Watcher. I had to join up three of mine to be able to fit the last dungeon on the table.
Personally, I have one battlemat, and 5 of the smallest size (one isn't mine, the others I got factory second at dragoncon over the years). Im still planning on picking up a factory second megamat this year.
For running AP's, I would recommend at least one of each size, at least. There are a lot of large maps throughout, for instance, in Wake of the Watcher. I had to join up three of mine to be able to fit the last dungeon on the table.
This is along the lines of my thinking. im new to this, and am pretty sure i want to use the chessex mats. Ive been looking through the AP's as well as Slumbering Tsar and Rappan Athuk. So i am thinking that i may want to pick up enough to very comfortably run all this stuff. I just wanted to hear from anyone with more experience with these, if they wish they had more of them, or if they never used more than X amount during an AP or whatever.
id like to pick up as many as i would ever need, but without buying more then ill ever need. so if there is only one time i ever used like 8 maps, then id look into buying 8 maps. but i would like to not buy 15 and only ever use 8 (im not suggesting i can buy 15, its just an example :-)
thanks for your input
The correct answer is,"as many as you can get".
One blank map will do, size is less important if your encounters are indoors or in enclosed wilderness (a hollow, old growth forest etc.).
So what do you think? 1 mondomat, 1 megamat and 2 battlemats?
maybe 2 megamats and 4 battlemats?
4 megamats?
what do you think would be the most versatile setup. a configuration that would cover all the bases, a setup that would allow you to run anything without worry or complications?
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The real question is how much room do you have on your table?
Realistically, you only need enough to cover that, and then possibly some of the flipmats that specifically match scenarios in the adventure you are going to run. There will probably be some encounters that you can't fit onto your table, especially outdoor ones. Don't worry too much - if it's at that size, you can normally just extrapolate the bits at the edge.
If you're doing a big dungeon, split it up and rearrange the rooms. not only will this generally allow you to fit more on, but will also mean that your players can't peek at the stuff to come.
The real question is how much room do you have on your table?
Realistically, you only need enough to cover that, and then possibly some of the flipmats that specifically match scenarios in the adventure you are going to run. There will probably be some encounters that you can't fit onto your table, especially outdoor ones. Don't worry too much - if it's at that size, you can normally just extrapolate the bits at the edge.
If you're doing a big dungeon, split it up and rearrange the rooms. not only will this generally allow you to fit more on, but will also mean that your players can't peek at the stuff to come.
That seems like a really good idea about splitting up the dungeons so the PCs cant see whats coming. i was wondering how i could draw something beforehand and still keep the PCs in the dark about how to get anywhere.
thanks for the info
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I have two battlemats and one megamat; the first two are good for small sized dungeons and most encounters. The latter works pretty much for just about any dungeon and other situation.
Battlemats are easily substituted by a Flip-Mat Basic which works just as well, and it's more easily moved around.
I'd recommend going for one large mat (megamat or mondomat) and two or three smaller ones (two battlemat and one flip-mat work fine).
how about scale? are you guys taking the 10ft per square maps and when drawing it, basically just doubling its size so the the PCs have their 5ft squares? or do you keep the scale the same as the map in the AP and just use the battle mats for combat, in which you would recreate their current location in a 5ft per square space.
havent done any maps yet where i had 10ft squares yet, just the 5ft. Im new :-)
I ask because i would think that if im going to basically double the size of the dungeons (meaning original maps have 10ft squares, and i want to use 5ft squares on the mat) then i would think that im going to need a lot of space to draw some of the much bigger dungeons out, which i will definitely want to get into at some point. correct me where im wrong, i just lack the experience and am wondering what to expect.
say the PCs are keeping track of their path around some huge dungeon, and i cant erase any areas they have already visited, wouldnt i eventually run out of space on a large dungeon with a 5ft square scale?
thanks for the input everyone, sorry about these quirky questions, its just that these are the questions that pop up in my head as i consider this purchase.
For very large dungeons, I split the dungeon up. I have 2 22"x25" and 2 32"x47" maps and I've filled all four up on several occasions. It really helps to have two huge and two small maps.
I almost always do something I call "crushing" where I take the map and push it together. Like if you have two rooms separated by a hallway that makes it impossible to put on the map, I will crush the hallway between the two rooms. Often I just eyeball caves and things like that, too, and make things smaller if I think it will work.
To keep PCs in the dark, I once drew all of Castle Scarwall, which is roughly a billion rooms with a courtyard so large it and the stables barely fit on the 32"x47" map alone, by cutting each "segment" of the map up into individual sections of graph paper and then just rearranging rooms as the PCs went. It helped preserve the idea that the Castle was huge-- the PCs had a "fog of war" that let them only run against the walls if they got near, since if they wandered back to the center they'd wander off of the maps touching the walls-- and it worked out extremely nicely to have it all rendered that way. It took me about twenty hours of work. I was unemployed. Don't judge me. (You can buy that paper in large sheets at Staples and OfficeMax; they're for business presentations and stuff).
You can also, if the map is small enough, just take printer paper and cover the map and then if the PCs move on, uncover it.
how about scale? are you guys taking the 10ft per square maps and when drawing it, basically just doubling its size so the the PCs have their 5ft squares?
Doubling it up. I've taken 1sq=10ft maps and just drew them as 1sq=5ft maps (Wake of the Watcher's final dungeon, for example, is mentioned above and I did this with that) and it just worked. Almost every map needs to be crushed if it's of a big location, so they get crushed and stretched to fit the maps at my whim.
Having the PCs use the map on the inside of the AP may as well defeat the sense of exploration for some players, which kills the mood. They can see the entire dungeon, they know what rooms terminate where... it's important to keep the PCs thinking "I don't know if the dungeon will end!" until they can see the end. You want them to know the dungeon is ending when it's ending, but you don't want them to know it is before it is... if that makes sense? This is so they can pile on their big spells versus the final opponents and have suitably flashy encounters.
im leaning towards 3 megamats and 4 battlemats. the mondomat is just to damn big.
if you could get the mats for free, how many of each would you pick up for your games?
what would be your ideal setup be if you could only own the chessex mats?
take into consideration you want the ability to run the biggest dungeons.
I only use the one large Gamemastery one (VERY EASY to clean quickly as opposed to the Chessex one), plus on Amazon they are super cheap, so when they are worn out I buy another.
I am a professional artist, I just draw as needed very fast, and mainly just for needed encounters and tactical use. Of course my group has been playing since the late 70's so we know what visual we need.
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Honestly, if you need to draw something larger than a megamat (and keep it around for a while), you'd better go another way, such as a roll of Gaming Paper.
That is, unless you usually go adventuring into supersized dungeons/large areas that need detail.
For the occasional large map that defies the megamat size, you can always split it into two or more battlemats/flip-mats.