Wednesday, June 23, 2010

DnD: Sailing Vessel Battlemap


This is a pseudo-Dungeon Tile battlemap I made for my campaign on Google Wave since the Dungeon Tiles Mapper I normally use didn't have any good ship tiles.  It's too big to print out at 1:1 scale, but works quite nicely for the Fighty plug-in. It should work for GameTable or MapTools, as well.

Here are the environment rules I'm subjecting my PC's to this encounter:

Terrain
  • The grate over the opening is difficult terrain (-1 movement per square)
  • Crates, barrels and sacks provide cover to those behind them but do not block ranged attacks; they are not stable enough to stand on
  • PC's and NPC's can be pushed over the side of the boat; DC 15 Acrobatics allows the PC to grab the railing before going completely over; PC grants combat advantage while in such a position
Movement
Whenever a PC moves, roll either an Acrobatics or Endurance check (DC 10) to account for the ship's movement; Success: the PC's are unaffected and can move and attack normally; Fail: PC feels queasy and/or loses his balance, moving at half speed and has a -2 penalty to hit for that turn.

If there is demand/interest, I may do more of these - though I'm not sure what sort of things people need (inns? more ships? lava-based environments?)

9 comments:

  1. Since you asked, I could really use a battle map with a decent period appropriate bridge over a chasm. But my photochop skills are lacking.

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  2. I'll see what I can do. It would help if you could provide any or all of the following details:
    >How big should the map be (in 5' squares)?
    >What is the land on either side of the chasm like (grass, dirt, sand, rocks, etc)?
    >Can you see the bottom of the chasm?
    >If so, what's down there?
    >Who made the bridge and what did they make it out of? How long ago (generally speaking)?

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  3. To answer your questions:

    1) total map size, 30x20
    2) Underground cavern, rocky with brittle edges, stalagmites, fungus and lichens abound.
    3-4) a distant, fast moving river, with a natural 'island' in the center splitting the water. I'd say if visible, it would be very dimly so.
    5) Dwarves, cut stone, an empire ago. (It should be in disrepair but serviceable.)

    Alternatively, I was also thinking that it could have been repaired with giant fungi stalks in strategic places as if they were lumber.

    Basically, Really old dwarfish stone bridge in a cavern over a river and 'repaired' by myconids.

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  4. And thank you! Anything you can come up with would be awesome!

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  5. 30 x 20 is pretty big. How big is the bridge itself supposed to be?

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  6. The bridge itself should be about 6x12 or so, with the chasm being about 8 to 10 squares across. The reason I said 20x30 is that there's going to be a fairly large scale battle in the area so I was hoping to incorporate the bridge into the tactics. Considering you're doing this for a thanks, lop off as much of the map as you want to. I should be able to 'replicate' enough of it to make it work with my skills.

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  7. What's the "fighty" plugin? It points to a google wave that I'm not a participant of....

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  8. @Richard
    Check out the developers' blog post:
    http://www.savevsgeek.com/fighty/

    Here is an earlier combat wave in which I used it (now public):
    http://www.savevsgeek.com/fighty/

    Scroll down until you see the map.

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  9. Wow, that's really cool! You are inspiring me to make my own tiles.

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