Multi level battle tiles
Dear all,
I have been playing around a bit with CC3 (and CD / DD) the last few weeks. It sure took me back... I had a copy a long time ago, just called CC so probably nr 1... Producing very Tolkienian maps in HPGL ready for my fathers home made A2 plotter...
A lot has changed since then, and not just in CC. I used to scribble my dungeon maps on a piece of paper. A few pencil strokes and some descriptive words was enough to transfer the spark of creativity to my players. Nowadays I mostly play using skype and Maptool and I find that I need a lot more visual detail to get my players to creatively interact with their environment. Hence the renewed acquaintance with CC.
I've started to make battle tiles that have a certain environmental potential for storytelling and adding more than one level helps to achieve this. I'd like to share a few of them and ask you what you think.
This is the first one I made. It took me a long time and I made quite a few beginners mistakes. The most annoying one being that I didn't put the connecting nodes of the layers of the river chasm on snap point so there is no easy way to make a few waterway tiles to add to this one should the players decide to go for a swim.
I deliberately removed the grid from the river so that I can decide how wide the gap is when playing.
I have been playing around a bit with CC3 (and CD / DD) the last few weeks. It sure took me back... I had a copy a long time ago, just called CC so probably nr 1... Producing very Tolkienian maps in HPGL ready for my fathers home made A2 plotter...
A lot has changed since then, and not just in CC. I used to scribble my dungeon maps on a piece of paper. A few pencil strokes and some descriptive words was enough to transfer the spark of creativity to my players. Nowadays I mostly play using skype and Maptool and I find that I need a lot more visual detail to get my players to creatively interact with their environment. Hence the renewed acquaintance with CC.
I've started to make battle tiles that have a certain environmental potential for storytelling and adding more than one level helps to achieve this. I'd like to share a few of them and ask you what you think.
This is the first one I made. It took me a long time and I made quite a few beginners mistakes. The most annoying one being that I didn't put the connecting nodes of the layers of the river chasm on snap point so there is no easy way to make a few waterway tiles to add to this one should the players decide to go for a swim.
I deliberately removed the grid from the river so that I can decide how wide the gap is when playing.
Comments
But there is a big problem with this one. For the feel of depth and perspective I made the lowest ladder smaller that the highest ladder... All good and well but the grid at the bottom is the same size as the one on top... It needs to be for the tile to work with tokens/miniatures and for the connections with other tiles but it looks wrong.
It solves the problem with the grid but I'm not so sure it's worth it...
Where did you get the running river texture?
Just a small thing: your broken bridge is really cool but the stacking of sheets with bevel effects generates the lighter, marring, triangles.
To avoid this, one solution is to create intermediate sheets between the textured (and beveled) ones with solid fill copies of the textured elements. Something like
Lower bridge
Mid bridge, solid
Mid bridge
Upper bridge, solid
Upper bridge
I hope I'm clear...
Your players are lucky!
I noticed the nasty little things... Good to hear there is a way to get rid of them!
I found a tonne of good textures on a maptool forum. I don't know which is which any more but the water texture is called "RealWater1bLg_dgw" and a quick google search suggests it can be foud at http://www.imarvintpa.com/Mapping/Tiles/Water/.
Thanks for sharing!
The first is an obvious addition based on the corner above
And the second, a trap door entrance to the lower level. I'm not happy about that one.
From the context it is clear what is going on but the visual illusion does not work for me. Any advice on how to get the tunnel to connect to the trap door?