Battlemaps for the giant attack?

[Vertra]

Clarification: Book 4 part 1

Spoiler:

Back before I began running this AP I read through this section and have mixed feelings on it. It seems like it would be very fun if done correctly, but if the DM is unprepared it could end in disaster. My players are very visual and I have a hard time enforcing rules, judging distances, etc when there is no map in front of myself and the players. There are obviously no battle maps out there large enough to encompass all of Sandpoint as this fight requires. I am currently thinking about going through and making a zoomed in version of every part of the town that has an event in it during the attack, but this will take a long time and I am not sure if it will even work out as I plan. Alternatively I could just try to narrate things but then we come back to the issue of rules, fairness, and visually impaired players. What have other DMs done to make this encounter run as smoothly as possible?

[Mark_Twain007]

None of my players should read this

Spoiler:

My players is almost to the battle, we should get there this weekend or the next and here is my plan. I would do the zoomed battles as you have talked about. As is listed here by Gluttony, I plan on making it more of a battle and having a number of the people of sandpoint fight back. My plan is that the plays will come in and I will run them against one group of giants, after that they would make perception checks to see how other parts of sandpoint and people are doing, they could then choose where to go to help the battle.

For example they might see some giants attacking the two knights brewery, and some of my players who enjoy their drink might head there, or they will see Amekio standing in top of the rusty dragon fighting off a giant, and head to her. After that they could roll again, and if they had fought to help Amekio, they would see the brewery heavily damaged, and try to go save what is left of it, or see that the general store is being smashed and hear the scream of the owners daughter, which one of my players is involved with. The fights and damage to building will depend on the number of rounds they spend at each fight. Amekio could also then be sent to do something after her bar is safe, like save the lives of the store owner and his daughter, but ignore trying to save the store, or go help defend the mayor, stuff like that.

This will all then have consequences on what they can do and what Sandpoint is like after the attack.

[Matthew Bellizzi]

I scaned the sandpoint map. Then over laid a grid scaled to 30' ontop of that then I used posterazor a java app to print out a 3 x9 letter sized sheet. i then labeled t pins with all of the combatants names. I put the big map on an easel and drew on a battle mat for the actual battles. It worked very well. Just an idea I thought I'd share